That whole scenario just screams to me that this is a player who lacks knowledge. Their notion that they have to have an eaxe for statting, or even a gold axe really, is a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself. And people giving newbies eaxes or i&g swords (which incidentally, have the best parry of any "common" 2h lblade in the game, I believe, and that makes them great for solo xping. For statting I prefer high damage weapons), while it doesn't help anything much, it doesn't really hurt either. Because what's really holding that player back is their lack of knowledge, not just about how much damage/ob/weight/etc. weapons have, but about horse loads and eq loads , and xp locations, and smob rooms, and door names, and on and on and on. And while they may say they're upset that they can't get their favorite weapon back easily, (and really, what would it hurt to make eaxes or silver banded mallets or even herons easy enough to acquire that a lvl 20 can find a reliable way to get one?) that's merely representative of the overall problems they're experiencing. It's the issue they have the easiest time pointing to and articulating.Elysia wrote:That's what I'm saying. A level 3 in abs and burnished isn't going to make much of a difference. The e-axe will, compared to a newbie kit weapon, but he's not getting that back easily when he dies. Meanwhile, the gold axe is actually equal in damage and has higher ob than the e-axe. The only difference is the weight, which comes into play when bashing, which doesn't happen at levels 1-3. Unless you want to bash disengage, but then landing less bashes, not more, is key. In fact, as a statter being dismounted, in abs which takes ob, with an e-axe that has less ob than the gold axe, the statter might actually be at a disadvantage. However, they now believe they need an e-axe or better in order to play the game.Thrasymachus wrote:Spoiling them involves leading them around to XP and smobs and pk and setting them up in a kit or with scalps they couldn't get for themselves. Because then when they inevitably lose it, they won't be able to get it back.
Their real problem is that they don't know, anything really, and more than that, to channel old Donald Rumsfeld, they don't know what they don't know. It's not that there's an actual roadblock to progression in gear or levels or clanning or pking or smobbing, it's that there's a perceived one, because the knowledge required to dispel that perception takes years to acquire in-game, is scattered hither and yon across the most ancient old blogs that can still be found on google, and is often interspersed with outright misinformation that are mostly erroneous guesses made by players nearly as ignorant as they are. Acquiring some of that knowledge on one's own is part of the fun of the game. But when it takes months of playing and researching just to become competent enough to know how incompetent one really is, that's too much. There's enough cool easter eggs to find in this game that the difference between weapons, or gear pieces, or horse mvs, or anything else that's directly relevant to basic playability doesn't need to be among them.
To be fair, I really don't think this lack of knowledge suffered by newish and more casual players is a problem that the imms should try to tackle. You guys have too much on your plates as it is, and you do a great job with it, as far as I'm concerned. More than that, I think you guys really are remarkably responsive to the playerbase at implementing things they suggest, and explaining why some things they suggest aren't doable at the moment. Most, if not all of this knowledge that new and casual players need already exists out there in various forms and various places. Thuvia's doing a lot of good work with the wiki, and I refer to that constantly myself.
But I still reckon that what's really needed is a good, wotmud-dedicated client, that's got all the information a player needs clearly displayed at a glance, from important locations on a map, including doors and smobs, to what gear is being worn and what contributions each piece makes to the overall character's stats. And not to mention all the macros and aliases they'll need to be able to efficiently move around and do things. And not only would something like that make a big difference in overcoming the knowledge gap, but it makes it super easy to have just one place to go and one thing to download to be able to get into the game or get back into the game and have a good foundation from which to begin building the skills and relationships they need to really have fun.