The Newbie Experience

[Tolveor]

I like the idea of an actual adventurer clan for newbies rather than a newbie helper clan. Maybe even tie that in with the Clive questline. With issuing lanterns etc. I try to answer alot of basic questions on chat, but if im not fast enough someone always beats me to it. So people want to help for sure. Unsure if its worth making an actual helper clan.

If i were to write a set of quests for newbies i would probably consider some sort of courier quests, and probably with coins as reward.

[Ragyn]

I don't know if it could be possible but to add adventurer quest that gives exp/levels. Maybe something along the lines of the stablehand in EF is looking for a bloodstock stallion, get him one and that gives a level if you are between 1-15.

Other than that I can only echo Weir

[Eol]

I don't think this will be well received, but I would consider adding 1 physical point to the prerolled stats.

My personal experience interacting with new players is that a lot of people just decide that they have to have the best, the most amazing, the most perfect stats or they cannot play the game. So they login and spend sometimes days trying to get perfect stats. Some of them do eventually get great stats only to realize this mud isn't for them and quit without ever really exploring or playing. They spend their entire playtime hitting kill sapling.

I don't know if you can break these players of what I kind of feel is a form of insanity, but adding 1 more to the prerolled isn't going to break the game. It closes the gap just a little bit.

I say all this noting - I think the pre-rolled stats were a wonderful edition. I played this game for days with stats significantly less than any of the current pre-rolled.
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A few of the new players I interacted with were dead-set on playing male channelers. I kind of want to write a Wiki article entitled "Why Starting Wotmud as a Male Channeler is a Bad Idea".

[Atlan]

I agree, +1 to prerolled stats.

Let them play MCs! They will feel like Rand Al'thor for a little while, then the hook sets!

[Barabbas]

Recommendation: have lvl 1's start "listen all", color complete (think that already happens, its new since my hiatus) ch spam 1 and echo. Tutorials for 1.xxx 2.xxx , ch mood, aliases (like hold lantern/remove lantern, ch mood etc).

There are enough newbie helpers that a clan isn't necessary, and I say that as an original member of the previous newbie helper clan, Mael something something.

As a survivability aid, could also give newbie staves and swords a bit of parry so they don't auto die to thieves and stags

[Rig]

Issueable herons for newbs.

[Treach]

I always have trouble with Caem rogue practice... Is there anyway to find Caem pracs without relying on chat?

[Roadeur]

To be honest the thing about pracs is a good shout.

Just move all pracs to the Caemy park? Centralise them, make it easier, make it quicker.

[Raeza]

I know the only reason I started playing and got hooked was living in the world of WoT, I was so excited to be in Caemlyn (I think removing the eye completely is a great idea) and I attacked the first Child of Light I saw, a mob which promptly killed me. Anything we can do to make newbies really feel like they are a part of, and exploring, the wheel of time world would be immense.

I would emphasize Atlan's point. The thing that draws me to this game is that it takes place in the WoT world that I like being part of in some way. If it were identical but all of the WoT components were stripped out, then I would probably play a different game to be honest.

My guess is that most new players would come from two sources. One group will be people introduced to the game through current players. These players probably need less help because there is already someone to help them get started (and they have that connection to encourage them to stick with the game).

The other is people who come across the game just because they are big fans of WoT. For this second group, I agree with Atlan than anything that can enhance the sense of adventure and immersion within the WoT world could help to hook someone on the game, and motivate them to learn more about the trickier ins and outs of the game mechanisms. While having more upfront help about the specifics of mechanisms is certainly helpful, it's only half of the battle in encouraging newbies to stay. The other half is giving them to motivation or drive to continue, to think "Wow this is so cool, I have to go explore this more."

I think it would be cool to have a tutorial quest line starting in Emond's Field and roughly tracing the movements (not the events per se, but the travel) in the first book up until Caemlyn, with little things to do in Emond's Field, Watch Hill, Taren Ferry, Baerlon, WB, 4K, and then Caemlyn. Any fan of the books will recognize that path, and I think would find it interesting to trace those footsteps through these places that they recognize. (I remember when I first started playing how excited I was to travel from Caemlyn all the way to Baerlon and down to Two Rivers -- which seemed like a massive distance as a newbie -- remembering what happened in the story in these places.) The tutorial could give them information about all of the main commands/syntax along the way, help them level up to around, say, level 15, and learn how to prac. Then it would drop them off in Caemlyn, the center of the world (perhaps with some ideas for how to proceed from there ... like consider going down to Tear or up to Tar Valon to see the White Tower, or so on.)

Another thing that could be helpful for complete mud newbies (again, assuming people who are fans of the books, but new to muds) would be more explicit instruction on what to type in to do things from the beginning. I recently tried to introduce someone to the game, but upon character creation one is barraged with a massive spam of text explaining the CoL, followed by notes to look at a bunch of things, and then the narrator spamming a bunch of instructions. The person was like "omg how am I supposed to read all that?". Then, I told him to look at the sign to get some help. So, he typed "look at the sign" and got an error. So, I said "No, you need to type literally LOOK SIGN and nothing else." Long story short, this continued for several instances (LOOK IN BARREL, not LOOK IN THE BARREL or LOOK BARREL; WEAR ALL, not WEAR EQUIPMENT) and so on. After about 5 minutes, he said "How am I supposed to know any of this??" and was done playing.

I'm not sure if it's possible, but it could be helpful if newbies could be asked upon character creation if they want the tutorial, Y/N? If they choose yes, the guardian tells them ONE THING at a time in very explicit terms. The next thing would not come until they have completed the previous so that they are not spammed with information. E.g.:

Guardian tells you: Hello, I am the Guardian. I will help you learn how to play. First of all, type TELL GUARDIAN KIT.

tell guardian kit

Guardian tells you: Good! Now I have given you equipment. Now, type WEAR ALL. This will cause you to wear all equipment that you can wear.

wear all

Guardian tells you: Great! Now you are wearing your equipment. Type EQUIPMENT (or EQ for short) to see what you are wearing.

.... and so on.

Last thought: It would be helpful if someone created an updated version of this video tutorial (without the Eye of the World assuming it is removed and without the map and extra buttons and such), and if there was a prominent link to it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X8qXXwvlIU

I think it could be really helpful for new players to actually see someone doing what they should be doing.

[Tolveor]

To be honest the thing about pracs is a good shout.

Just move all pracs to the Caemy park? Centralise them, make it easier, make it quicker.

Personally i think that would remove the cool thing about them. Knocking on a secret trap-door in a tavern? Hell yeah.

Warrior, maybe. But its also just something right about going into caemlyn inner city and palace ground to seek out an officer and make him teach you about weapons. Instead maybe have a hidden clue or something somewhere. make the beggar whisper to newbies (maybe for a bribe) how to find the thiefprac. Something like that.