Stinger's Bog...

D

Dreakon

Dalayan Beginner
Now I had this discussion in-game and people seemed utterly against it and they suggested I make the suggestion here instead. Now hear me out...

I know we don't want to make this server "hand holding" like WoW (as the people in-game very assertively informed I was trying to do), but as it stands Stinger's Bog is a fairly unfriendly newbie zone. Perhaps it's meant to be that way... but my biggest concern with the area is the number of red KOS creatures roaming around literally seconds past the Grobb entrance.

I'm not saying get rid of them, as they add to the dynamic of the zone and I think the zone itself is fine, but I'm curious if it would be difficult to give new players a little stretch of land in Stinger's Bog where they aren't mauled by possibly 1 or more red creatures while they're just innocently trying to get to a high enough level to finally leave. Seeing as I know nothing of working with the game, this may sound stupidly simplistic, but perhaps some kind of barrier that keeps the red and yellow zombies and fungi things just a skooch back and away from the first island or two outside of Grobb?

Of course, it's not a big deal whatsoever and if it's impossible to do or if it messes with the lore or with the developers plans then toss this suggestion right out as most players will suck it up and be more cautious in the future (not that it matters if they get snuck up on though). But doing something like this may lead to less frustration amongst players starting for the first time and possibly more people giving the game a fair shot when starting a more "evil" character... as a general consensus seems to be that Stinger's Bog is by far the worst newbie starting area.

And it's just a suggestion, so please don't flame me too horribly. I carry no clout in this community yet, so my terrible ideas will normally go unnoticed. ;)
 
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Man I wouldnt get so down on yourself about a suggestion.
I think that any new player that has an outside view on how weird or hard something might be to start from ground 0 holds merit.
Sounds like a good idea for people starting there honestly.
But a few months back i do recall having to run around from those red zombies when i first started ;p
 
I've got several friends and friends-of-friends that started playing during the account drive, and they all hate Stinger's Bog (and Tipt, but that's not that point). I moved them all to Newport so they could play together happily, but Stinger's Bog just sapped the will to play for all my friends starting there. The annoyance of the water maknig it slow to catch up to roamers, the high level KoS wanderers, and the general lack of anyone else there, it's just no fun to play there.
 
I started in stingers on Ren/Gripp and it was a PITA. Later on, I made another duo to level with a friend up to Ren/Gripp's level and got to start in Newport. WORLD of fuggin difference.

Sure, you can say "hey just go to Newport", but it doesnt solve the problem. Some random n00b that want to be an Iksar, Troll, etc isnt going to know this. Furthermore, you have to go through stingers, then Greenmist to get to Oggok for MoP. This can be a PITA at low lvl. You might die quite a few times.

The real solution is to revamp stingers and make it moar n00b friendly. In a related note, REMOVE or REDUCE the EXP debt and Death Fatigue for lvl 10 and below.
 
Tbh I always thought sadri was the most overtly unfriendly newbie zone. However that could be due to a bad experience where the crusher literally popped on top of my head when desif was level 14.

Yeaaaah

Suggestion seems reasonable though. But grobb has always been the odd one out. People even start out kos there, something that I'm fairly certain happens nowhere else. Also it's not handholding to want people to actually continue to play the game rather than being roflstomped right out of the starting gate by things they would have no conceivable chance against and quitting shortly thereafter. What are we talking in specifics here, since you just mentioned red names? How high red?
 
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Strange. Started Tyrsell there without knowing better and it seemed like EQ to me. Got him to level 8 or 9 there before I moved to newport. Didn't realize how much harder it was then everything else until then. In that regard I love stingers. It's a throw back to how hard the old newbie zones really were.

Given how its solid quests for most classes and all, it would seem to me an obvious warning about it being 'hard mode' when you pick a race/class from there might be in order. So new players can at least make an informed decision about it.
 
I actually have been thinking about giving people a choice of two cities to pick from at creation. Except barbarians because they belong in Halas.

Stingers is considered the ballsy newbie area. It is much more dangerous but it also has a zem thats much higher (if I remember correctly) and the quests give more exp. I would not be against making the *immediate* area around grob a bit less intense though.
 
I seem to remember difficulty messages on Live, with pretty much all race/class combos in Grobb being "HIGHLY DIFFICULT" or something close to that. A similar message here would be helpful to new players.

And please don't go crazy and make Stinger's Bog a newbie zone for wusses, I for one have always liked the extra challenge of the zone. After all, it's home to Trolls and Iksar, and it's a SWAMP in the friggin buttcrack of NOWHERE, of course it's gonna be hard. If it wasn't, everyone and their brother would have an iksar monk or warrior.
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Zubum
 
The Commonlands circa 1999-2k would have made some people absolutely cry IRL. You can't hide in the Inns to avoid the griffs!

Personally I like Stonger's the way it is. The roaming undead and larger mushrooms are easily avoided if you have any situational awareness. Newport newb zone also has similar lvl wolves roaming it's area that are red con and KOS to most lvl 1-2's as well.

Grobb Grobb Grobb Grobb~!~!
 
Shouki said:
Newport newb zone also has similar lvl wolves roaming it's area that are red con and KOS to most lvl 1-2's as well.
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The wolves are not KOS, they 'glare at you threateningly'. It's essentially the same thing, but I've find myself getting lucky and attacked less often against them, maybe the aggro range is smaller that way? I dunno, it's somewhat of a irrelevant point but a difference nonetheless.

The wolves are probably roughly level 3 as thats about the time they start becoming even or yellow to me. Whereas the adult fungus things and zombies of the Bog must be a bit higher then that because they were still red to my level 3.

At some point, the inclusion of KOS level 6's and the sort where newly created characters hunt goes beyond creating a challanging environment and it can turn into a hopeless situation when 3 or 4 of those mobs are running around seconds outside of Grobb. I just log out at that point and hope it's a little more reasonable the next time I get a chance to play. I'm perfectly capable of avoiding them, mind you. Getting jumped while i'm fighting something else is annoying though, and I play in 3rd person yet I still can't always see them coming.

This is of course assuming you're talking about the Newport newbie area (past the gates) and not Centaur Hills?

Man I wouldnt get so down on yourself about a suggestion.
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Well, I made this same suggestion in-game (perhaps in a more persnickity fashion as I was annoyed at the time) and several people decided to take a few low jabs at my expense... suggesting I just wanted my hand held (like WoW), if I don't like it I should leave, that kind of stuff.

I just wanted to make it perfectly clear it's nothing more than a suggestion. ;)



EDIT: And please don't think I'm suggesting we make Stinger's Bog drastically easier. If it stayed the same, I wouldn't be any less discouraged starting in Grobb (I know how to get to Newport easily ;))... but I personally don't see the benefit to having multiple KOS level 5+ mobs mingling with the level 1 and 2 mobs seconds out of Grobb. Any lessons learned by newbies getting jumped by them while fighting a mosquito will most likely be negated by the fact it can be pretty annoying.
 
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Well, Oggok seems like a much easier starting area then Stinger's Bog. I DID enjoy the difficult level myself, but it took a long time to get to where I was comfortable in that zone.

Maybe a simple dialoge with a guard stating something along the lines of:

D1 'How can anyone survive such a harsh environment?'

Guard says, 'Weakling baby get crush by teeny snake, boo hoo. You go Oggok daycare where other weakling go pretend be strong.'
 
This is probably too late to really help, but I thought the key to Stinger's as a level 1 was standing on the jetty of land that has the lean-to and sales troll. Then pulling to your group/duo/self standing there. Running like hell if you got too many friends.
 
Newbie here, with a voice of dissent.

I spent most of the weekend in the Bog. I splashed around, I died a great number of times, and I gleefully punched frogs in their filthy froggy faces. I killed their young, I robbed their guards, I ate their fish.

This is all after giving up on a character that started in Newport. Horrible place. 30 minutes trying to find a way out of the city (including one death inside the guild hall), 5 minutes wandering the big flat empty plain hunting down a white-con snake, and 20 seconds for a gnoll to sneak up and bushwack me. Why isn't there a street or pathway or something leading to the city gates? Why is the main path out of the city tucked around an alley behind someone's house?

Back to the bog: I don't think I died due to anything but my own carelessness. Most of those deaths were learning experiences. I saw some zombies wandering around and avoided them. I saw some huge mushroom guys and avoided them too. They never got too close to Grobb, and the guards seem to actually help kill things if you get close to them (unlike the old days, when guards would stand by, laugh as you died, then kill the monster afterwards). If you're outside the guards area, then you're in danger, and should be on the look out. If you wanted to make it a little easier, maybe a delivery quest or something in grobb to get some throwing daggers would help. (they're expensive, but pulling things back to a safer place is hugely beneficial in the bog)

Waldoff said:
I actually have been thinking about giving people a choice of two cities to pick from at creation.
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Is there any chance of putting some kind of notice as to where you'll start in character creation? It kind of sucks going through creation, naming, and the dream only to find out you start in some crazy place nowhere near the buddy you're trying to play with. Make a gnome, it says welcome to underhill, then you wind up in the sewers. The sewers! Even worse than topside, secret walls, traps, red mobs around narrow corners. Give me the bog any day.
 
Great post! Also Stinger's has the highest Zone EXP Mod of any newbie zone.. I think it and Steamfont are at 15% right now which more than compensates for any difficulty discrepancy.

Remember centaur hills is NEGATIVE ten percent ok just throwing that out there.

Also, while wallowing thru water is awful at level 1, getting swimming points while levelling up is pretty neat.
 
... is the water deep enough to get swimming skillups in Stinger's Bog? I can't say I've ever managed that feat.

Other than that, yeah, the Zone Experience Modifier (ZEM) was increased not too long ago to help compensate.
 
real question here, does the ZEM really make up for the ridiculous exp gained from newbie turnins in newport? 1,000 exp per pair of ratman hoods which are like 75% drop rate on ratlings (what), 500 exp per pair of beetle pincers, 500 exp per pair of sewer rat tails (also high drop rate)

maybe newbie quest drops in newport should be nerfed, and this would definitely affect me as I still try to bust out a hardcore level 1 once in a while
 
I am comfortable with ncat being a good exp place as well.

BUT I mean.. more quests are always good!
 
snorre said:
Waldoff said:
I actually have been thinking about giving people a choice of two cities to pick from at creation.
Click to expand...
Is there any chance of putting some kind of notice as to where you'll start in character creation? It kind of sucks going through creation, naming, and the dream only to find out you start in some crazy place nowhere near the buddy you're trying to play with.
Click to expand...

We have what, 10 starting cities? And nowhere near enough newbies and alts to fill them. I think Waldo's idea of letting people make an informed decision (obviously combined with telling you where you will be starting out) is a good move as it would let friends plan things out to start together, and could potentially get more people to stick around longer in some of the cooler newbie/low level zones.

Yeah you could do NNP>CH>BB, or Mistwoods>SI/Warrens and your path would be well traveled. But why not start, you and your friends, in MCoT and move into Runnyeye instead? Why not burn through the Bog and move into Mielech? Why not run through the jungle and move towards Yaralith? These newbie areas are challenging, but with a group they are some of the coolest places to burn xp IMO, and I think helping people choose to be there would get more groups of people together at the lowest of levels to explore this fun content.

I'm sure editing the creation screens that show the map of starting places and the deities and stuff is a problem, if it was easy it would have been done 5+ years ago. But to toss in some text at creation that says something like "As an Iksar Necromancer, you may embark on your adventure from either Newport Sewers (Easy) or Grobb (Challenging)," and add in a dialogue option to The Last to select where you would like to begin might be fairly painless a task.

Of course, it seems painless to me because I have spent 30 years learning nothing of how much work it takes to work with an eleven year old game, so it's probably harder than I know. :D
 
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/shrug,

I have noticed here lately some newbs complaining loudly how hard it is here. EMU players are especially hard hit in this manner. If I were Dev For A Day, I would put a No-Kill-Items-Turn-In quest in all of the starting cities where a player could level to 65 in a couple days of average play time with no sweat. But do the quest past about lvl 12 or so and your Name Suddenly Turns HOT PINK! It will stay that way until you get ALL Of Your Skills up to snuff too.

By the way, Yes I Am Serious!
 
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