Starting Town selection

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Konrad Knox
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Starting Town selection

Post by Konrad Knox »

An idea to help the diversity of players and avoid everyone gathering in trollsbane.

1. Start newbies on a tiny island with an NPC that asks: which town would you like to start in?
Say Troll's Bane for the forest town
Say Varshikar for the desert town
Say Greenbriar for halfling town
Say Tol Vanima for elven town

2. Put in newbie guide NPCs similar to the library gnome in the other locations.


this idea will results in having people have a wider range of outlooks. When you treat Varshikar as a hometown base - you can roleplay a varshikari in a richer and more fulfilling way
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Sundo Raca
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Post by Sundo Raca »

I really like this idea, although it would take a while untill any effects would probably be seen ^

At the moment i think we need at least another 10 or 20 active players before we can use the other towns properly. Right now leaving trollsbane probably means missing the action (and rp)
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Julius
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Post by Julius »

The idea is alright.. but I think that Trolls Bane should be the main start up point for any n00bie. If a n00bie were to start the game, not read the boards, and choose Varshikar he probably would get lost, find no rp, find no help, and then quit the game. I think thats one of the contributing factors on why new members and character start out in Trolls Bane. However, if you were to institute a law that states that all accounts with 2 months of experience can choose a starting town, I think that would work best.
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Rincewind
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Post by Rincewind »

its difficult to become a citzen of Varshikar for example, but its a nice "quest", and makes the game more funny.
If you start in this twon you will kill this quests.

better start in the harbor, (after newbee island?) so you can decide by you own wich one is your next way.

greetings Rincewind.
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Avalyon el'Hattarr
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Post by Avalyon el'Hattarr »

a newby in the harbor will only quit the game, not finding anything to do, or anyone to speak to.
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Rincewind
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Post by Rincewind »

start direct in the harbor for experience players

or

start on newbee island (coming soon) and then travel to the harbor.

==>> more realistic
Last edited by Rincewind on Thu Apr 24, 2008 10:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Konrad Knox
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Post by Konrad Knox »

Varshikar actually has every single convenience TrollsBane has, same for Greenbriar.

Shops, carpentry, smithy, farmland, glass melting oven, cooking, baking oven, plenty of rivers to fish in, and cow rentals.

All thats lacking is a newbie guide npc and some library books about races, which arent very used anyway.

If more players started in Varshikar, there would naturally be more people to interact with in Varshikar. Duuuuh.
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Rincewind
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Post by Rincewind »

for starting in varshikar you have to have a childhood there.. and thats inpossible.
because nobody seen you ever.

The most char. should arrived on the Island, wehn starting his adventure.

=> more realistic.
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Konrad Knox
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Post by Konrad Knox »

Ummm... born to a passingby caravan and requested citizenship? Crash landed on a ship into shores of varshikar. im not talking official citizenship, i only mean residency. Trollsbane is full of noobs who arent citizens, just residents.
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Rincewind
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Post by Rincewind »

there a lot of invidual storrys but gnerell, its common to start at a harbor.

how much robinson crouse's are there in the real?
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Konrad Knox
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Post by Konrad Knox »

realism is really not essential in how newbies start their RP. The economical and demographical destribution is more important in the development of long term realism. When you have two full fledged patriotic communities meet - native Varshikari and native Baners.
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Rincewind
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Post by Rincewind »

newbee island comming soon and so this wouldn't be a proplem.
also you can instruct the players a little bit, wich way they could go in the first time.

it would be normal to arrive first in the city nearest the harbor.
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pharse
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Post by pharse »

It came up the idea that on Noobia the newbie can choose to which town he wants to be teleported, with the information given about race specifics and current players online at that spot.
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Nitram
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Post by Nitram »

The newbies started formerly at the harbour. Nearly all didn't play the game longer then 15min since they did not find anyone or anything.
So forget this harbour part.
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Konrad Knox
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Post by Konrad Knox »

yeah, harbour currently is very disfunctional. And it will be disfunctional unless you add a cool graphic of a really big ship with tons of pretty sails. That will give people more feel that it's an actual harbor. Due to graphics, it's not 100% obvious that it's a harbor.

But the newbie island sounds good.
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Amras Telemnar
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Post by Amras Telemnar »

I like this idea with the Town selecting, very nice idea Konrad Knox ;-)
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Post by Indril Linwelin »

If we want more players to use more of the cities having different starting positions is one way to go. I know when I started playing it took months before I even knew -where- Tol Vanima was, despite knowing it was an elven city, if I could have started a character there it would have been something I would have done even as a beginning player (newbie if you will) because playing an elf it would make sense to begin or at the very least know where the elven island is. Same goes for halflings, or dwarves, or even humans who may have a more "dessert" or "nomad" feel to them. Perhaps if this were implemented a small disclaimer such as "For very new players it is recommended that you begin in Trolls Bane to allow for a richer beginning role play environment." could help to keep the length of their first log in stay longer. I would throw the harbor idea completely out the window however because in my opinion as a starting location it is very remote, and has the lowest chance of running into any other players. On any given day you could probably sit at the harbor for hours and not see another player at all, not the best place for a new player to start.
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Post by Daelyn »

Nitram wrote:The newbies started formerly at the harbour. Nearly all didn't play the game longer then 15min since they did not find anyone or anything.
So forget this harbour part.
QFT

Its not the noobs we want to go to these cities, its active players. If we send the new players to a place where there are no active players, they will just leave. The old players wont follow the newbies, but the newbies will follow the old players. I think this suggestion would just result in newbies running around on a deserted place not understanding anything. You want more cities; get more players. Til then dont spread out the players we already have til its absolutely impossible to find rp.
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Konrad Knox
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Post by Konrad Knox »

Dudes, noobs arent complete idiots. How did we manage to stick around without NPCs in the old days? I mean, if you open up Varshikar to noobs, they will meet other noobs and try to make ingame contacts. They wont be isolated, they dont even know how to follow old players, because they're new! They dont know who old players are! The logic is not perspective. Imagine this, youre a noob, and you ported to Varshikar, where you meet 2-5 other people, some trying to figure things out, some talking to guide NPCs (who GMs should put in Varshikar!), some already figured stuff out. You talk to those people, occasionally you see an oldie too.
Old players will follow wherever RP is. If the new fresh blood flows to Varshikar - old players will be motivated to go there for RP too.

There can be independant RP going on in different cities. We don't all have to be together in one town. Communities can evolve on their own from different origins. The only Trollsbane noob guide is the library gnome, and really how many of you used it? I didnt use it.
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Post by Juniper Onyx »

The Gnome??

Wow! I never knew that guy actually said anything! Hehe.

There's another Human by the Hospital I believe is a Guide.

However, I don't think guides are going to help much unless they emote" This man appears to be a guide". You can't really tell the difference between Merchants, Quest NPC's or Guides.

If we expect Newbies to use Guides, we should make it "VERY" easy to recognize them.

I also don't see why we don't have a guide in every town like the teleporters. Put them next to the Teleporters even! I am sure some newbies have started in Bane, wandered out the gate, and arrived in another town without much to do, and lost too!

Proposal:
Instead of selecting a start town, how about we just give newbies a free teleport from Newbia to one of the four teleporters we already have? Then they can talk to the guide as they step off.
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Rincewind
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Post by Rincewind »

i never found out waht i have to say to this guide-mans..
so they couldnt help me.
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Post by ThisGuy »

I never got the gnome to say anything, and the human by the hospital doesn't really help that much(if you find him). Its a lot better to have a person around to show someone around town, give information, or explain some basic. I like the idea of someone being able to start in different towns, but if you start a new character it only takes a few moments to walk or teleport to the town you wish to be.

If a new player started in a place like Greenbriar(a place I've visited a few times and only once saw another player) they would quickly lose interest and possibly quit. New players are started with money, is it really that much of a problem to use 30 coppers to teleport?
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Daelyn
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Post by Daelyn »

Konrad Knox wrote:Dudes, noobs arent complete idiots. How did we manage to stick around without NPCs in the old days? I mean, if you open up Varshikar to noobs, they will meet other noobs and try to make ingame contacts. They wont be isolated, they dont even know how to follow old players, because they're new! They dont know who old players are! The logic is not perspective. Imagine this, youre a noob, and you ported to Varshikar, where you meet 2-5 other people, some trying to figure things out, some talking to guide NPCs (who GMs should put in Varshikar!), some already figured stuff out. You talk to those people, occasionally you see an oldie too.
Old players will follow wherever RP is. If the new fresh blood flows to Varshikar - old players will be motivated to go there for RP too.

There can be independant RP going on in different cities. We don't all have to be together in one town. Communities can evolve on their own from different origins. The only Trollsbane noob guide is the library gnome, and really how many of you used it? I didnt use it.
They wont meet ANYONE! We dont have enough noobs to fill all these towns. They will just end up spawning in Vasrhikar, go around looking for someone for 15 min, and then log out never to return as they dont find anyone.
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Post by Llama »

ThisGuy wrote:I never got the gnome to say anything, and the human by the hospital doesn't really help that much(if you find him).
That person should be in the middle of the library.

NITRAM ARE YOU GOING TO MOVE HIM PLEASE? Poor thing has been there for 1 month 25 days.
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Rincewind
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Post by Rincewind »

Normally is Trolls Bane the only city wehre Cahrs are around the clock. The others just at eavning.
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