Newbie Ideas

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Mackey
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Newbie Ideas

Post by Mackey »

Starting a thread for ideas for newbie island, early game, and new players in general.

Incorporate Cass's Tower into early game for newbies

Bill's rat problem - should give useful pots at early game, like yellow or red or blue?

Start with scrolls of unweld. Found darkweave gi legs on newbie island, equipped, cursed.

Newbie island "archetypes" of player classes to offer info on classes. Maybe three from Cam Keep, Iron fist recruiter, etc. Explain /trimskills (and trimstats for NG)

"You are poisoned!" message, similar to "you've been cleaved and are bleeding like a virgin on prom night" or whatever the message is

Message explaining/reminding about LOTL when starting
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Re: Newbie Ideas

Post by dirtyking »

"You are poisoned!" message could be in green &

"you've been cleaved and are bleeding could be red like starving message
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Keighn
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Re: Newbie Ideas

Post by Keighn »

Blood splattering off you as you're bleeding. A visual effect.
Poison glow or spots around you to visual show poison.
Zzzzzzzz for sleep.
Flies buzzing for disease.... Etc.

Newb isle should cover more aspects of the game including buying/selling and crafting.
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Re: Newbie Ideas

Post by eggmceye »

Keighn wrote:Newb isle should cover more aspects of the game including buying/selling and crafting.
Buy/sell: there are already pointers when you approach the merchants

Crafting: No doubt I have thought about this but came to the conclusion that newbie is was already too long - hence gobbo (who gets you started in cooking) resides in the jail. However more could be taught about crafting in other tricky ways: there should be a quest to go and inscript/tinker something.
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Re: Newbie Ideas

Post by eggmceye »

Keighn wrote:Blood splattering off you as you're bleeding. A visual effect.
Poison glow or spots around you to visual show poison.
that sorta stuff requires a 'particle engine' which is something I could get into one day
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Re: Newbie Ideas

Post by dirtyking »

eggmceye wrote:
Keighn wrote:Blood splattering off you as you're bleeding. A visual effect.
Poison glow or spots around you to visual show poison.
that sorta stuff requires a 'particle engine' which is something I could get into one day
for a start could we just get the "You are bleeeding" going in red? like you are starving?
shouldn't be that hard to make the words come in red right? like one line of code?
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Re: Newbie Ideas

Post by eggmceye »

how's that?
bleed.PNG
the thing with poisoned is that your health bar goes green both above yr head and top right, and you usually get the message, tho except when walking into a swamp which I will change

LOTL: it is kindof a pro-mode and newbies shouldn't be confused by it, so if anything update the manual to make sure it is documented properly

cass tower: I wonder if it would be easiest just to add one more nord-guard quest (after zanzibar?) to "go and kill a phantom" in cass's tower? (tho it's important newbies don't end up in teh gauntlet!)
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Re: Newbie Ideas

Post by Eclips »

I think it might be better to have a cassandra based NPC who takes you through one of the paths based on your class, and sends you over to the portals at the end for an additional quest.
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Re: Newbie Ideas

Post by LordMortiferus »

eggmceye wrote:that sorta stuff requires a 'particle engine' which is something I could get into one day
I thought you mentioned a particle engine being in process some time ago. Anyway, something like that would be awesome. Would be nice to have an option to choose between gory red and rainbow coloured particles - depending on personal preferences and mood.
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Re: Newbie Ideas

Post by 1[WoWz] »

eggmceye wrote:how's that?
bleed.PNG
the thing with poisoned is that your health bar goes green both above yr head and top right, and you usually get the message, tho except when walking into a swamp which I will change

LOTL: it is kindof a pro-mode and newbies shouldn't be confused by it, so if anything update the manual to make sure it is documented properly

cass tower: I wonder if it would be easiest just to add one more nord-guard quest (after zanzibar?) to "go and kill a phantom" in cass's tower? (tho it's important newbies don't end up in teh gauntlet!)
The red bleeding notification is good. A health bar change would work too but I'm not sure what would be a good color (also I'm not sure what color would be easy for colorblind people).
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Re: Newbie Ideas

Post by DrRude »

Since my 11-year old nephew has gotten into D&D, I introduced him to EUO and the original Ultima series. One of the things I noticed in both cases is that he complained about "not knowing where to go". I explained to him that he could go anywhere, explore the land and talk to NPCs to find out about quests. Even though he's a bright kid that didn't seem to help. Since he and I have played other games together (e.g. - Pirates of the Caribbean, D&D Online, etc) I did some comparisons and noticed something -- those games go out of their way to hold the noobs by the hand, guiding them through some tasks (to introduce them to basic commands) and then forces them to complete the first couple of quests.

To achieve the equivalent in EUO it would require pairing an NPC to a new player that has arrived from newbie island. The NPC would guide the player to Nord, instruct him to talk to Harold or Stirling and essentially hold his hand through one or two of those beginner quests. After those beginner quests are done the NPC goes on its merry way, hopefully leaving the player comfortable enough to explore the world on his own.
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Re: Newbie Ideas

Post by eggmceye »

yeh in marketing speak that is called onboarding ... I'm not sure how far I want to go with it though ... like I had the popups but thought they were intrusive so converted them to the lime lines of text (that are easily missed)

you know fancier games like dwarf fort and most roguelikes have no inbuilt tutes, and I'm not sure if I even like them - but the fact there is a newbie island actually suggests I feel it is somewhat necessary ....
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Re: Newbie Ideas

Post by DrRude »

eggmceye wrote:yeh in marketing speak that is called onboarding ... I'm not sure how far I want to go with it though ... like I had the popups but thought they were intrusive so converted them to the lime lines of text (that are easily missed)

you know fancier games like dwarf fort and most roguelikes have no inbuilt tutes, and I'm not sure if I even like them - but the fact there is a newbie island actually suggests I feel it is somewhat necessary ....
Oh, you're preaching to the choir with that. Not to bring age into the picture but the reality is that we're from a completely different gaming generation. "Onboarding" for us was the fact that we took the time to create a character and play for more than 10 minutes. The onboarding in those "modern" 3D MMORPGs felt a bit intrusive to me. When I get into a virtual world I'm that guy who will say "Hey, what's that over there" and will go wander over there to check it out. I didn't like being forced to go through exercises and newbie boot camp.

The example I saw in my nephew is that he represents the mindset of most millennials -- they've been onboarded and coddled to death. It's their expected norm. They don't know how to appreciate freedom of choice from the minute they leave newbie island. It kinda reminds me of how there's a whole generation of elderly Internet users that don't know how to go directly to a website. When they "go to the Internet" (i.e. - pull up their web browser), their default page is usually set to something like Google, MSN, or Yahoo. They type the web address in the search, it comes up on a results page and then they click on it from there. Extra unnecessary steps? Yes. But if you take out those extra steps by setting their default browser page to blank they might just sit there not knowing what else to do... or claim that the Internet is down.
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Re: Newbie Ideas

Post by Keighn »

Ah, that's what it's called "on boarding" No wonder people in aion looked at me weird for being in places you couldn't normally get to in the beginning or wandering around picking tubers in my underwear, or ah... Nvm LordToadstool was a perve.

So millennialials are like empty robot sheep.


Bidi bidi baaaa baaaa baaaa hey buck where I go?
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Re: Newbie Ideas

Post by DrRude »

Keighn wrote:<snip>
So millennialials are like empty robot sheep.

Bidi bidi baaaa baaaa baaaa hey buck where I go?
Y'know, Keighn might be onto something with this.

What if there was an option to turn on additional onboarding after newbie island? Gazoo, that super bored NPC that is available to assist players below level 5 that are still trying to find their way around. Think of this as
  • a modified version of the Mistletoe Succubus (except with a typical character avatar),
  • follows the noob around, including into dungeons,
  • has the ability to help the noob in a fight,
  • has useful hints and tips to help noobs get past the early woes (e.g. - mentions the need for a raft and fishing pole, get swamp boots, use your bank, etc),
  • has canned responses to lead noobs to the next Nord guard quest.
After the player passes level 5 (or whatever the maximum), Gazoo is no longer available; he rides off into the sunset. And if the player doesn't want the training wheels, Gazoo can be dismissed at any time with some slash command.
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Keighn
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Re: Newbie Ideas

Post by Keighn »

Yabba-dabba-doo I summon the Great Gazoo!

Murmur from hell gate London reminds me a bit of this. And if you want an ancient reference to one download a c64 emulator and go to gamebase64 then get The Standing Stone from electronic arts. Sir Lancelot is there to "maybe" help you if things get rough. He disappears I think once you get down to dungeon level 3.

I'm not against helping the clueless and I'm definitely not against sexy succubi bouncing around.
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Re: Newbie Ideas

Post by dirtyking »

DrRude wrote:Since my 11-year old nephew has gotten into D&D, I introduced him to EUO and the original Ultima series. One of the things I noticed in both cases is that he complained about "not knowing where to go". I explained to him that he could go anywhere, explore the land and talk to NPCs to find out about quests. Even though he's a bright kid that didn't seem to help. Since he and I have played other games together (e.g. - Pirates of the Caribbean, D&D Online, etc) I did some comparisons and noticed something -- those games go out of their way to hold the noobs by the hand, guiding them through some tasks (to introduce them to basic commands) and then forces them to complete the first couple of quests.

To achieve the equivalent in EUO it would require pairing an NPC to a new player that has arrived from newbie island. The NPC would guide the player to Nord, instruct him to talk to Harold or Stirling and essentially hold his hand through one or two of those beginner quests. After those beginner quests are done the NPC goes on its merry way, hopefully leaving the player comfortable enough to explore the world on his own.

i had a idea for a npc that would lead you threw blood moore wallking along all silly like n saying things here n there, aka tank so you dont die maybe it could cost a addy COIN or crystal coin, like he brags about how he can beat the QUEEN single handedly n you tell him to PROVE it , n he says PAY me idk good idea could not tank too LAUGHING OUT LOUD LIKE A MORON
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Re: Newbie Ideas

Post by Keighn »

That's a good point. NPCS with dynamic personalities and karma influence. A braggart would be funny. So would a horny hooker, a stool pigeon, a rich prude, a snob, a jokester, etc.

Buying brew and getting respect. Having nocs love or hate you would be neat.
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