Area design or something...

[Snafu]

Buying qp i do not think will ever be an option...and I even frown upon players who buy experience if they want to level...it's never worth the cost of buying...of course thats my opinion

/Snafu

[Dain]

hey, it was just an idea. i did not say it's good or that it should be implemented.
but it is possible that from stupid ideas to come out good things. and how come none comented on reintroducing qp requirment?

[Vehement]

I think the subject of reintroducing a QP requirement has been flogged (scourged with terrible fury, no less) to the point of death, and then some more. I'm sure I remember an admin (Brom, probably) saying it would never ever come back because of the cheating it encouraged.

I did wish (a while ago; I can't say I really care now) that the gc requirement for paragon had been kept, though, but this subject has also been discussed a wee bit in the past.

[Kherec]

No, Questpoints will never again be required for normal play ... and most likely the guilds who use it will slowly lose that, over the years as well.

[Dain]

hmmm.
maybe qp should be used for other purposes. so people might want to quest more. ok if you are really lame at this probably you can always ask for help and of course there are others who really enjoy questiong.

[Morild]

Even if I am a not a very good quester I find it amusing to try and solve the quests. Well as long as they are not to hard anyway I hope wizards will continue to make quests, but ofcourse if players stop solving them... it would not be as fun to make them... and I am afraid that might happen if the qp requirements were totally removed from the game. .. but then again.. I might be all wrong

[Yavathol]

I, also, remember Brom citing the cheating as a reason to never bring back the qp requirements.  As for finding a use for qp beyond that? I have never been that much of a questor, I started Nanny thinking I would enjoy that aspect but discovered that I was wrong.  I think I tried to do some early on when there were bugs or other players taking required items.  I got bored and spent time just exploring and solving puzzles instead.

Since then I have started to quest some again, but mainly because I have found some quests do some useful things.  Most questers already are aware of the advantages to solving the secret police quest already, and plenty of other quests have popped up that have little 'bonuses' given for solving them.  It seems to me that this is the way to encourage people to do larger quests, a reward other than qps.

Of course, some quests are just fun and are worth creating new characters just to do the quests again.

Just my thoughts on the matter...

[Olaftheblue]

maximus:
Creating more newbie areas is a good idea, but... Does it work? My impression is that newbies have problems finding the newbie areas which already exists, and that newbies feel too unexperienced to walk around in the mud. I mean... Here's an example. The Abyss. How many newbies have been there? The first floor, and also the new oracle cellar, is fantastic for newbies. Still, it's not too often frequented, is it?

I don't think the main problem is that newbies are lazy and too afraid to take risks. I think their main problem is that they don't know what to do. I mean... Why isn't there a newbie line? Why isn't there an own club for people who like to help newbies, where people could sign up for "helping newbie duty" and be noticed every time a person under a certain level logs on, eventually who's helped that person before? Why aren't there more NPCs like e.g. the tourist information guide, showing you around and telling you what to do? Although I agree there can never be too many newbie areas, I also think they're relatively useless unless newbies find them, and thus the main priority in that field would be making more things to encourage the newbies to explore, so that they find the newbie areas which already exists.

Here's two ideas I just thought of.

1. What about adding a rack in the tourist information office, holding a list of ALL newbie areas and a clue on how to find it? Sometimes it's more interesting to find things on your own, but many newbie areas are in so distant location no newbie will ever find it. (how many people below level 10 has ever seen Mthead's newbie area?)

2. What about making a magical amulet which can only be worn by players below a certain level, which makes it impossible for monsters of a high level to attack you when wearing it? (and for you to attack them, of course) That way, it would feel safer to walk around as you would know instakilling megamonsters couldn't take you.

Only thoughts. Encouraging newbies to find the newbie areas already existing is in my opinion more important than making new areas. Otherwise, only the newbie areas close to the login point is explored anyway.

You mention mixing newbie friendly monsters with tough monsters in an area is a bad thing. Sorry, I disagree. Plus, one of the main rules of creating areas for Nanny is to make balanced areas. A normal forest would have birds and bees and rabbits even if it lived a troll in it. I think that an area (except for newbie areas) should have a little bit for everybody. Also, most areas, especially the ones with a good theme and a few puzzles or quests, have terribly many KINDS of monsters. In my opinion, it would be wrong if the nice farmer helping you, his labrador, the rabbit in a cage behind his farm and the nasty troll king trying to take over the world would have the same level.

I also must add: Newbies aren't stupid. Newbies, especially the ones understanding English, are careful on what they kill and not. If they enter a room and see a gigantic troll or a minotaur something like that, they won't attack it, as they understand just from looking at him that it would rip their guts out. And if he's instakilling, you still in most cases have a chance to wimpy out as fast as your feet can carry you. People know what to attack and not to attack. Not only because of size, but we also for certain reasons stay away from certain creatures. Here's a confession: NONE of my characters have EVER tried to kill a scorpion. That is because I know from real life that scorpions have lethal poison in their tails - even though most scorpions in the game most likely doesn't. People often get the time to think that this is a bad monster to challenge.

However, I find increasing challenges to be exciting. One example is the Abyss, where the monsters get stronger the further down you go. Another example is the trolls in Bixby's forest, even though that's not a newbie challenge. A small troll, guarding the way to a bigger troll, guarding the way to a bigger troll, guarding the way to three large trolls... THAT kind of challenge I must say I like. And I miss that in the most-known newbie areas.

You mention that rabbits are too unexciting to be an adventure. OK, could be. But you're forgetting one vital fact: A rabbit is OBVIOUSLY something you know you're strong enough to kill. A troll or orc is something many lowlevel players would run away from before even TRYING to kill, because they know them to be strong. That's it. I think most newbies have the guts to kill rabbits, birds, insects, rats, chickens and other small creatures, while they leave the larger ones for when they get a little bigger.

Of course, an amusing newbie area to make would be "The Scary Monster Kindergarten"... :-)

As for quests, I agree. More newbie quests. Also, perhaps there should be made lists showing which quests are suitable for lowlevels. Personally I stayed away from "Year of Banshee" for a long time because I assumed "a quest with that many points can't be suited for a newbie like me". There's more than a hundred quests, and a newbie won't read the entire Book of Quests right away. Making it easier to see what quests are suited for newbies would make more newbies do them.

Some quests HAS TO be in several areas. I mean... In the Prince Violent quest, that's the entire point of it. It wouldn't be any fun if Violent was standing in front of Padrone's castle. You have to go looking for him.

Besides... Exploring is a vital part of playing this game, and we should do everything we can to encourage newbies to explore as well. What about e.g... say... a quest which starts somewhere near the login point, where you have an easy task to solve, and then the person helping you would tell you something like "thanks you very much - for the next clue, you should go see my brother, he's running a shop in Loreley's area" or something like that. That would be... almost like Year of Banshee, but instead of being transported automatically from puzzle to puzzle, you would have to maybe look it up in Tourist Information and finding it yourself. That way, one wouldn't force the players to search the entire mud, but one would still encourage them to explore different areas. Just a thought.

"Find a carrot and eat it" quests are rare, but the ones which are almost like that are either meant for the players who just logged in (finding the tourist information, buying the Book of Quests...) or in my opinion kind of amusing (Tootolah, fishing expedition...). And again: I guess the reason there's so few scary newbie quests is that scary quests scare newbies away.



Kherec:
I think, and hope, that you're underestimating the players when saying nobody solves more than ten quests. I've solved more than thirty, and I know there's many like me. In no-QP-req-guilds. But perhaps we just don't think too much of the quests? A new idea from me would be: What if there was an echo to all players logged on every time someone solved a more than a few points quest? That way, we would talk more about the quests, we would become aware of the quests, and if I see someone I know is not much stronger than me solving a quest, I will at least read the quest's description and consider doing it. Right now, it's a kind of mess knowing which quests are suited for who. Hm... Could an idea be adding a wise person in the town area who could examine you and give you a good tip on a quest you should solve, based on your level, your guild and which quests you've already solved, eventually on other things?



Dain:
Personally I wouldn't mind a QP requirement, but adding that now would be saying "OK, we know that you hate to quest, therefor we FORCE YOU to do it! In your face! Haha!" And that is not very encouraging. That would make you feel more like leaving than questing. In my opinion. A better thing to do would be to do things to encourage people to quest more, instead of forcing them to it.

[maximus]

Perhaps I should explain myself a bit. Maximus is quite a new char. I have another one, and I have played nanny for about 10 months now. Almost every day or at least every other day. So, I kind of feel it to be a bit extreme to refer to me as just born yesterday, or something like that. Besides, I think the name newbie is used a bit loosely to. It feels as if you have to have been on nanny for ages to be allowed to call yourself a "normal" non newbie player.
   One shouldn't have to become a paragon for it to happen, cause that's putting the newbie limit a bit high. Besides, calling someone like me a newbie would be missleading. I meen, I'm far away from the level where I can't find green or don't know how to give a tell. It has happened that 15+ chars asked me for directions, and belive it or not, even a few paragons got my help after they got lost or needed directions. So, by that I also want to say that I can totally understand kherec when he sayes some people "zoom into paragon level".
   It's ok to call me a newbie though, even if I'm concidering to stop calling myself that, even though it might piss some people off. But It would be cool to refer to those really really new players as something else, like lowbie. That's a wonderfull word I read on a board in Nanny, and I think it would be a perfect word for that. That would also be good for the really really new since people would then take it more easy with them. Cause now you can't really tell how much people allready know when you help them. They might as well have a paragon char but still call themselfs newbies, and that has really happened when talking to a person in nanny.
   
When It comes to quests I can tell Dain that I most certainly am not, or was not, one of those newbies that didn't like quests. It's just that I found them to difficult. Because in the beginning when I hardly even knew that Nanny contained several areas made by different wizzes, then it could be a big problem just finding the quests. I solved the first ones, Keep Nanny Tidy, find book of quests and those quite fast, but then I can say that I had a big paus from questing untill some time when I got to level 10. And belive me, it was an long paus, cause I spent most of the time exploring (my favorite thing to do in nanny) instead of solving quests, mostly because I had bad experiences by just trying to pick out a quest from the questbook randomly. Among the lower chapters offcourse, but still.       So, because of this, and because most replyes on my post agreed at least on the point that it would be fun with more easy quests, I ask the wizzes, if they read this. To please make some more easy quests if you are up for quest making that is.
   Ok, I can understand that wizzes find, like Morild wrote, more fun to do heard quests. But if making easy quests, then you might end up making several of those instead of making one big, and if more wizzez did that, it would be easier to stumble upon a quest while exploring, since the amount will be bigger, and solving that kind of a quest is way more fun then picking out one from the questbook. Isn't it?.
   Buying qp? Hmm, totally against that to, sorry Dain. It seems as if I'm totally against everything you wrote. But there is at least one thing that I totally agree with you on, and I really like that you brought that up, And that is about writing and posting stuff, even if people might think it's stupid or whatever. Cause like you said, even stuff that aren't so good or well thought trough, can end up doing something good. Maybe it get's someone else to think about the stuff and come up with something better. Besides, sometimes people don't take stuff so seriously, or don't think stuff through. They just write stuff cause they feel like it. I know I do. And then it's not fun if someone tells you how stupid you are or whatever. Hey, does everyone have to be politically and by all other meens correct all the time to avoid sarcastic remarks or something. Eh, not saying it happened on this forum. But it happened to me when I posted with my other char in Nanny.


P.S. Was written before Olaftheblues post   . But I'll get back to your note next time Olaf  

[Snafu]

Now maybe an idea for qp..would be for qp for Paragon...then again...maybe not. I don't like the idea of paying for Paragon. It is only a means to see who can get the most money or who can give the player money. No go. Do not pass go...do not collect paragon level. Um. No. I don't think so.

As for listing of newbie areas...I believe in the newbie booklet, which I immediately ripped up upon making a new char (and for some reason am now unable to until level 5, even though I am obviously not a newbie...I believe you should be able to rip it up upon login). Anywho...in the booklet, I believe it mentions the ability to 'help newbie_areas' and it would give a list of some of them. NICE IDEA. Use it!

As for the idea of amulet preventing you from getting into scrapes...I can see for and against. For, meaning you won't get killed a few steps from Green because you see the wrong monster... Against...hey! We all died at one time or another...its a fact of life on Nanny and even if you die as a newbie. You live and learn. Whatever does not kill me makes me stronger? Um...well....I'm not dead! I can pray and come back! Riiiiiight. That's why it's called fantasy. Death is a fact of life and in the case of some guilds, a WAY of life.

Gratz to Olaftheblue for successfully spamming the board...or is it really spam? Isn't spam useless...well his note wasn't worthless...so I would call his note...hmm...'time consuming'...Muahahahaha

/Snafu

[Smudge]

On the subject of newbie areas, I did find one (Ulrik's, maybe?  I don't quite remember) a little while ago that walked one through the basic commands - "exa, wear, wield, remove, kill, etc."  The room descriptions gave clear directions on what to do, and though it wasn't the most exciting area, I could see how it would be helpful to a newbie, especially if he/she is so eager to get started and a bit too impatient to read the booklet.

I admit that I was one of those beginners who thought I could start playing right away - I had, after all, watched someone else play the game, and it didn't seem that difficult.  Stupid stupid me   Although I don't like dying, I agree with Snafu in that dying is a part of Nannylife, and a great deal can be learned from it.  If you never die, you're either incredibly lucky, or very cautious.  Sometimes taking those risks opens up new opportunities to explore areas.

Getting back on topic, I didn't find Ulrik's Newbie Area until I was quite big as a character, and had to use a newly created newbie to investigate further.  It was probably due to the fact that it was on the Isle of Lost Empires, and finding one's way to Middle Earth and then taking the sturdy little 'Turtle' boat might be a bit difficult (and time consuming) for a completely new player.

/Smudge

[Kherec]

The newbie booklet does indeed have a list of exact dirs to newbie areas (well, those that the wizards in question contacted the admins to get it added, and those that are reasonably close to green).

No offense to Soulfly's abyss ... but really, you can't expect a newbie to run half across the world to get there. That's not newbie friendly, no matter how good the area might be.

And about questing ...

There are a handful of quests with permanent rewards, but I wouldn't go glorifying the quest-rewards because most of the rewards you can get are time-limited or even login-limited. I quest for a few reasons myself, namely -- For fun, for the challenge and to get all my xp spendable (which is very nice for some of my chars).

I also have an interest in recoded quests, to see what changed in them, to solve a quest again that I haven't solved in 3-4 years. Sadly sometimes you encounter quests that have the original hints and tips for getting solved, but major parts of the quest have been recoded or even removed. That is a sad thing, but most quests are still in pretty good shape despite recodes (some even better).

[Dain]

i agree with Kherec here. when a quest is recoded most of the times things go wrong.
and it's very frustrating for the solver.

[Kherec]

I said 'sometimes' not 'most of the time' ... just wanted to point that out.