my little visit to noobisle

[aylwyne]

I think the isolation of the newbie islands in this game hurts the new player experience. If you're going to check out a mmorpg and you create your character only to see about 10 people you can even talk to, that probably turns a lot of people away. The newbie islands just feel way too desolate right now.

I submitted a few suggestions that might help this with the in-game suggestion tool.

First, I think one very simple thing would be to have the region chat from the new player island be combined with the region chat for the low level region in each land. That way, players on the island could ask for advice and pointers from more experienced players and also see the chatter that occurs on the region chat and not feel like they're so isolated. I suppose it could also be done as a separate "New Player" chat channel that people on the mainland had access to. Whatever the means, I think allowing new players to communicate easily with experienced players is important.

Another idea would be to allow players under a certain level to freely travel from the mainland to the island and back. Some careful thought would have to be given to prevent people abusing the system (flooding newbie island with their crafted goods, etc.) but I don't think these things are too hard to account for. Perhaps once you hit level 30 or 40 in a skill, you would lose the ability to travel back and forth.

Along those same lines, allowing experienced players some level of access to the newbie island might be good. There'd have to be restrictions such as they couldn't use their combat skills or something. But at least they'd be able to make an appearance to chat with new players "in person" and give them some advice and pointers.

I think some relatively minor changes such as these could make a huge difference in the initial new player experience with Ryzom.

[calel]

Hiya Homins


After reading through the topic and seen my ingame name being mentioned so many times, I couldn' t do less than drop in on the conversation. Thanks all for the praise, but it is really not needed: I just did what felt to be the right thing to do on noobisle and I had fun doing it. I actually had so much fun there watching over newer players that I couldn' t make myself leave the place; it was really hard for me to leave in the end, not knowing if someone would continue explaining the skill system, the stanzas, how to look for resources, how to craft simple items.... But I wasn' t the only one who did that; many who passed by with an alt, or focus beta players who rejoined the game explained the finer things of playing SoR too. Some of them even thaught me things I had never heard of, never even dared to dream of. Thanks for all those who stayed there with me, who made that experience unforgetable for me.

Now, for all the things being mentioned here earlier I have to agree there are some things missing or a bit neglected when welcoming a new player to the world of Atys. The manual could indeed use an overhaul; more explanation on the stanzas would be certainly needed since most problems I encountered on noobisle where stanza questions. More information on choosing starting packages for character creation would be a plus too; I' ve had so many players telling me they wanted to craft or forage but had not chosen the right package. Fight costs no sp to start compared to the other skills but it isn' t mentioned on the character creation screen. When I then had to tell those players(who had risen quite a few levels for newbie standards at least) what the cost would be for acquiring those skills, they almost gave up on the game. It' s hard starting a new char if you' ve progressed a bit and don' t have 50 sp spare. Certainly if you are on trial and need as much time as possible to explore all possibilities.

One other thing that lacks imho was the possibility to not be able to choose a shard when having a trial account. Personally, no problem for me, since I' m multilingual; but French, Spanish or German trial users without a knack at other languages were not having a blast most of the time. (ok, maybe a bit generalised, sry) They almost never said anything on region chat except 'Help dead', 'you team', 'you money' , .... And this is ofcourse not their fault.
So being able to choose your shard for future (free) trial offers would be a serious plus.

These are the two major problems imho that can possibly ruin new player experiences and make a lot of possible paying customers turn to other games.


Now; there' s one more thing I wanted to share with you. It' s an idea I came up with during my stay on noobisle and I actually already ticketed it. I was thinking of a sort ot 'Tutor' system: the possibility to have an alt on the trainee islands and to take newer players into a form of aprenticeship (where he explains all about stanzas, skills, how to craft/forage, .....) This could also add a nice rp value when players arrive on mainland and if they can tell people there under which Tutor they recived aprenticeship. (sort of rp-fame) I haven' t thought this whole thing through yet but it has possibilities to both affect the 'staying of people after the trial' and Neun' s boredom thread and thus creating more interaction and socializing imho. Anyway, it' s just an idea.

Cheers

[akm72]

...one very simple thing would be to have the region chat from the new player island be combined with the region chat for the low level region in each land.

Or alternatively to link all the newbie island region chats together.

[archerke]

stanzas idd are a big problem in the beginnin i remmember bein a young melee fighter did use but standard fight. i always saw the "purple bar" full. so stam i dont need stam untill i saw me 1st weeny kepee kewl i'll take that one down ... ehr not

i started without the foragin skill but with the craft skil (ow boy) well took me some time to figure that one out HELP i cant craft i remember that sentence

1st i had to figure out how to get mats => foragin
2nd i had the problem i couldnt dig my craft mats there was but 1 player 2 days later who could tell me that one

2nd problem (now i'm talkin about my 1st ever account) oh ye baby i chose to lvl my craftin skill so i needed it to 20 to go to mainland (remember askin the trainers)

DOH didnt had the craft skill in my 3 thingies i chose so i had to (didnt know better) make a new account stayin away from craftin as far as possible

[glipe]

I love helping new players! I try to stay in character and help them out like that. I don't spoon feed them, I show them safe routes, good hunting grounds and the right kind of monsters to test their metal on! Harvesting I show them some good spots that I know, safe routes to get to them and a little help with the stanzas. Everything else I leave up to them, though I will normally make sure I leave them with a stout shield and a good sword. And I keep an eye on them, hanging around the area making sure they don't get crazy and attack a scary gingo! I felt bad recently because someone I helped got killed when I was afk and I didn't get to rez them.

I'm gonna put together a little guide that I've been working on for a while now. It's not a leveling guide or some definitive material database. It's just some little pointers for Matis folk who are wondering what to do and where to go. I'm tired of people dying right outside the gates to Yrkanis because some of the local fauna followed them home!

[hans1976]

I'm gonna put together a little guide that I've been working on for a while now. It's not a leveling guide or some definitive material database. It's just some little pointers for Matis folk who are wondering what to do and where to go. I'm tired of people dying right outside the gates to Yrkanis because some of the local fauna followed them home!

Id love to be an editor for that. Send me some sort of message when it is done, I have the pm system on the forusm on too

[archerke]

problem is 99% of new players dont read forums they just jump on the game and i might add if u log in at around 2*clock in the afternoon on noob isle well u cant find anyone there. think thats a real glitch in ur motivation if u dont see anyone around

[hans1976]

it *is* clear it si a training island, no?