"The War" and New Players

[terr281]

Suggestion: Allow new players (with, obviously, characters below level X) have something to do in the game to help "the War."

Whether these are courier quests from cities to npc "holdout" camps: (npc gives the low level character a long term invisibility and an "important item" that must get to the front lines asap)

Mobs in a "training encampment" of the enemy that new "good guy trainees" (players) are sent to deal with to hinder the growth of the invading army.

Quests to get "an artifact" from a city that has already been taken over by the enemy before the enemy finds it.

Quests to work with "a former enemy" (example: BB gnolls perhaps) to protect both of your homes. (As particular zones are taken over, dungeons are repopulated with the same npcs...whom are dubious/apprehensive instead of threatingly/worse since they'll accept all help to defend their home.)

...

A friend just called and described the current situation on the game, and my first thought was:

"This is just like on Live with events: I can't participate."

On Live it was due to all events being tied to "evil" doing something, and evil always meant the dark elves. (I played a dark elven cleric. Thus, couldn't ruin faction.)

Here, it is a situation of: "wait until you are high level and have decent equipment, then you can help." But, if zones get cutoff (especially for extended periods), how is one to achieve the requirements to participate?

 

[wolfwalkerEci]

Basically during times like this, and this is a crazy one as I have never personally seen 5 zones attacked at once, Go xp wherever you can find a safe zone. Or do as I do and go log out in the most obscure spot you can think of and wait it out. For me it helps that I blew up my computer today and really dont like playing on my laptop.

 

[Waldoff]

New characters can be evacuated from war zones with petition to other cities that will take them in.

 

[terr281]

The creation of the characters isn't my point, but it is good to know that.

The same friend (got off phone a few minutes ago) is currently logged into the game and is wanting to play/help. But, there is nothing for him to do. (All characters are in the 15-35 range.)

Further, with all players that have level 65 characters participating in the war, not enough "mid level" characters exist for a group to be created. (If you can get to a safe zone with the correct level of mobs in it anyway.)

The answer of "play a soloable class/2 box required" shouldn't apply here, since the storyline of the game is "the return" to the old homelands to reconquer/protect it. All characters would be taught from level 1 to do what they can to help their city, race, and general Dalayian population in whatever way possible.

Therefore, my suggestions stand. This is a similar situation to what permanetly existed in Dark Ages of Camelot: Catacombs expansion with the Kobold race. They were constantly fighting against an enemy, and they had "forward npc camps" that new char.'s delivered items to as quests. At higher levels, you protected these camps from being slaughtered. (IE: What the level 65 players of SoD are currently doing.)

The "War" script is already in place for spawning the mobs, them advancing, etc. Why not simply add "forward npc camps" in the affected zones? Spawn "Supply Master X" in the closest player city. The npc gives a delivery quest. (The farther the camp is from the city, the higher level the quest in tiers...just like the tmaps.)

Example:

Newport Base city
Centaur Hills, Surefall Glade zone: 1-10
West Badlands, most central guard tower in zone: 11-20
North Badlands/South Badlands zone, guarded bridge: 21-30
(never been to zone in SoD) South Badlands, <Live> Centaur Village: 31-40
South Badlands, <Live> Aviak Tree: 41-50
Lake Starfall, <Live> Water Goblin Docks, 51-60
<You participate in the defense/counter attack at 61-65>

A member of the Newport caster's guild would be present, casting invisibility (or invisibility to undead from cleric guild) for the run. (And, as the character would be warned, don't talk to or engage anything on the way...it is urgent. <You break invis.>)

Since, as wolfwalker just stated, "we" either hope to find other players not on their mains...or we wait for everyone else to finish what they are doing....defending us.

 

[terr281]

And, now for the "not nice" portion of the post:

The same friend just called again...

He, along with all "newbies" have been told to evacuate Newport "since they are only creating lag"...and this is the general opinion of the players in the zone.

And, after some fomelo'ing of the anonymous/rp characters in the zone, it just so happens that people are putting the lower leveled guild alts into the raid groups in order to get them the "no drop" items that the npcs drop. (And, not allowing new players into the raids...since they can't help since the npcs are for high levels.)

This post may get me forum banned/cutoff, but the sandbox rules of SoD are the sandbox rules, and I understand that ahead of time of this post. (And as such, accept the consequences.)

It seems the general opinion of the SoD playerbase is "you must be 65 minimum to do anything." How are people (especially non-casters) to get there without help?

a. All spots for money are camped for high level people to buy charms.
b. Vendor based economy, thus no proliferation of "low quality" magic items to the community.
c. Tradeskillers, once they are grandmasters, don't bother making the lower level items for resell since they "take too much time to do based upon the potential profit."

But, off work now...thus can go home and login to be told, like my friend, to logoff so high level characters can have fun.

 

[Minerios]

It seems the general opinion of the SoD playerbase is "you must be 65 minimum to do anything." How are people (especially non-casters) to get there without help?

Define "without help". There are constantly groups forming at every level range. Calls of "XX level LFG!" and "group looking for more level XX-YY!" pop up all the time in ooc. And I've been in tons of groups where people passed on loot because their main character could buy better. Money and gear aplenty.

a. All spots for money are camped for high level people to buy charms.

There are a few perma-camped spots, true. Luckily enough, there are also tons of spots where money is decent that aren't perma-farmed. I hear this argument all the time, and I'm starting to believe it means "hill giants are camped".

b. Vendor based economy, thus no proliferation of "low quality" magic items to the community.

It's a good thing then the game is designed so that you can level all the way to 65 without ever buying anything from another player. I know. I did. I've never been denied a group/booted from a group because my equipment was sub-par.

c. Tradeskillers, once they are grandmasters, don't bother making the lower level items for resell since they "take too much time to do based upon the potential profit."

Take up tradeskilling then.

Seriously, you started with a valid point that comes up every once in a while on the forums regarding the War and lower level players, but now things are getting silly.

 

[kibeth]

The war is meant to be an inconvenience on the server as a whole. That the low levels have nothing to do in it is kind of intended.

 

[terr281]

So, the intent is for only part of the SoD community to be able to participate in the true major storyline of the game?

Understood.

 

[kibeth]

Do the main quest if your a low level, it teaches you the story line. What MMO has even let low level chars take part in the major storyline? Just because the war isnt confined to a raid zone doesnt mean it isnt intended to be done by raiders.

And the loot rules are if you help you can get a chance at loot. Just keep yourself alive, watch whats going on, and enjoy the show. If you die, welcome to longer death fatigue, and try again.

 

[Chakekik]

He, along with all "newbies" have been told to evacuate Newport "since they are only creating lag"...and this is the general opinion of the players in the zone.

We asked the 12 or so sub 50 people in the zone to go to SNP to a) Decrease some of the amount of people in the zone and b) prevent them from dying. In no way did we say " hey you newbs get the hell out now".


To address the original point, I have always kind of thought of it as , you wouldn't send a 12 year old kid to war.

 

[Prospero]

This has not been suggested before to my knowledge but maybe this would help lower players to feel more involved. Would it be possible for perhaps a rather simple quest/task for lower players to do that gave a slight boost to the raid force defending or retaking a city.
Something like, the zone is being raided, and an NPC spawns in the zone that is about to come under attack. This NPC would offer a quest for lower levels to complete (maybe put a level cap on doing this quest to prevent 65s from taking this away from newbs) that can be done once per war per character. A simple collection quest or messenger quest is completed and anyone in a raid force engaging the troops gains a slight "Morale boost" that adds to their resists for each lower level that completed the war quest. Maybe that quest can even scale with level I dont know exactly how it would work. The reward could be experience and if the invasion is successfully fought off a small amount of coin is awarded as "spoils of war".

This allows the lower level chars to 1. feel like they are contributing and 2. get some benefit from the war effort.

Just a thought.

 

[ColbyWolf]

Well.. Terr281 has a point. He's a bit... harshly phrased with his point, but he has a point....

The thing about being an old player is you forget about what it's like to be new. Take the SOD installation instructions on the wiki: They were horribly written. They had several levels of red pen, white out, sharpie, erasier marks, postit notes, etc layed ontop of it. I watched several diferent peopel and myself read the instructions and do a multitude of incorrect things in the name of trying to get the game installed. It took me about an hour to sit down and wipe away the layers of mud--so to speak-- to find the horrifically simple installation method under it all... and rewrite the instructions.

Older players forget the joy that accompanies making your first plat. They forget that at one point, they didn't know that item X could be sold to other players for profit. There's no excuse, old players say, for a new player being poor! They can sell bone chips and bat blood, bat fur and wolf blood... But... not everyone knows that, when they start playing.

The war is meant to be an inconvenience on the server as a whole. That the low levels have nothing to do in it is kind of intended.

Point.. but, to connect to what I said jsut above....

Old player log in nd finds the server at war. He sighs reluctantly, because he was going to play his semi-twinked lowbie in blackburrow, but that zone has been taken. So he logs into his level 65, and rallies to the cause, ousts the vile villians, and then can log into his lowbie, and continue on with his group to smite the foul invaders. he gains (assumably) money with which he can continue to twink his lowbie, or if nothing else, xp with which he can better aquire money. If nothing else, he can without a problem, find something to do with his evening that involves 'the game'....

New player logs in. New player has NO IDEA what's going on. new players probably dies at some point because--well, he logged out in newport! Newport is suposed to be safe! or because he ran into centaur hills to level. or he gated into greater fay where he was bound. Or similar. He spends some time asking peopel what's going on. Maybe he gets a stright answer, maybe he doesn't. it still takes some time.. and in the end, he's basically told (if what Terr's friend told him is accurate) that there's nothing he can do to help an that he should just log off and stop causing lag for the other people. So, he logs out and ... ... watches TV. Plays xbox. Reads a book. Who knows. but, it's not SoD. It's not what he planned. he could, perhaps, find a way to a zone where he could level. he could petition to get to a safe zone (Though I wouldn't have known that if I hadn't read this thread) and potentially resume leveling... but... that requires that a player know what sort of optiosn he has available to him and how he can get there. Plus, there's the matter that most players who have 60+'s are not on their alts, but are on their mains instead... providing less people to group with..

So... The old/"high level"character is mildly inconvenienced. The new/lowbie character is very inconvenienced, and frustrated.. Especialyl if his adventures get him told to "go away" that he "can't help", that he's "causing lag", and/or have him dying repeatedly as he attempts to traverse unknown territory to get to 'safe' places.

I may be new here, but... I know that servers like this NEED new players to survive. So...

yes, this inconveniences people... but it mostly bothers the new people. And the new people are just told "go away" when they try to get involved.

I think Terr's ideas about finding a way for lowbies to help is a good idea. Be it through a series of 'messenger' quests "take this crate of supplies to this friendly outpost" or "take this missive to the front lines." Or "Go to this level-appropriate zone and kill this level-appropriate 'messenger', and bring the dropped message back." ... it could even be a nice little lowbie quest chain (Deliver these supplies, take this bundle of letters (wills, 'dear wife..', etc) back to where you started, go kill a messenger, bring back his message, take this message to the front, asap! help us! Go kill a few of these level-appropriate back guys who are going to try and come up from behind us and flank us..) that rewards you with some sort of spiffy armor or jewlery or something.

Or, do like WoW and let lowbies 'collect' supplies for the front lines... only instead of crap like peacebloom and mage weave, turn in items like short swords, or armor... give them a bit of coin and a spec of XP.. that sort of stuff. "supplies"... They'd still have to Find their way to the areas where these quests are doable , but it'd give them a goal to achieve.

What MMO has even let low level chars take part in the major storyline?

Dark age of camelot had battlegrounds. You defended a keep/towers against a number of enemies of the realm. Your realm's ownership of these keeps gave your realm benefit.

World of Warcraft had battlegrounds. Your participation in the fights gave you faction and currency with which to buy better gear.

Warhammer, as I recall, has a situation very similar to DAoC.

SWG allows anyone to participate in the great space battle or remain neutral as you so chose.

So on and so forth.

...maybe we shoudn't be sending 12 year olds ( or 8 year olds... as 12 was pretty near 'adult' in this sort of era...) to war... they certaintly can run and bring water to the soliders.

Pkin1 - I like that!

 

[terr281]

I could go through a long list of games (Colby did several) that involve low level players in the "major storyline" outside of the "major storyline quest." But, since they have already done so, no point to.
----------------
Historically, ...

a. 12 year old males would already be well on their way to being apprenticed to a knight as a squire
b. The average human died in their 30s.
c. Women were married and going to have their first child very soon.
d. <More modern> Several nations still use "children" to fight their wars, and some "developed" nations did so as recently as 40 years ago.
e. ...
--------------------
As for tradeskilling, my group of friends and I have had to go into tradeskilling to get equipment. (Further, luckily, one of us works a shift other than 8-5, so he can be online when the few items that sell for a low amount of platinum can be picked up for just one bid above vendor.) During primetime, prices are 2 to 3 times as much.

Further, we have all made classes that allow us to get money easier instead of what we would like to play. (Focusing on what we want to play comes after they can be equipped enough to do so.)

2 box you say? What about those of us that don't like to 2 box? (We have a group of 4 independent players, 2 of us shouldn't be forced to 2 box to make a complete group simply to play.)
---------------------
Further, you mention doing the MQ. This is quite easy at the lower levels for classes that can invis/invis to undead and are played by or have friends that know the old Live zone connection system. If you are a melee character without these enhancements, you should expect to be killed quite a bit in the process of trying to do the MQ at low levels. (So, how is the MQ going to allow those without these spells/skills to learn the SL of the game?)
-----------------------
When I looged into the game, I was indeed told that the War was going on and that "the loot" belonged to those that actually killed the mobs. Taking the loot would be ninja looting and punishable since is against the rules. So, no helping for fear of getting jailed/banned.
-----------------------
Every statement made by a person is said to express their viewpoint, and as such there are many players on SoD that do not fall into the category/believe as I try to make out for the "overall across the entire game" population. But, as Colby stated, in real life and in forum discussion, I state an opinion directly using the facts that prove the point.

Others prove their point with counter facts, doing the same thing with more/less tact in a different "way of expression."

On these forums, at this point I have taken up "the flag" of the newbie population to express our viewpoint on issues with SoD. I just hope administration listens to this viewpoint, just like they do the viewpoint of the older population.

 

[lynnettell]

Obviously the low levels have never visited Valley of Erimal (on the way to FR, etc., not the part that you have to be keyed to get into). There are already rewards for low levels turning in weapons, etc., from the war.

"The Loot" was for people actively killing nameds. Trash loot = part of that questline.

 

[iaeolan]

Children analogy is flawed. It's assumed that starting at level 1 a person is in adulthood and levels thereafter are reflections of lessons learned from experience, not age. Sending an inexperienced soldier into battle alone is a sure way to die in both life and SoD, but frankly why are we drawing similarities between real life and SoD in the first place?


There is something low levels can do and this is collect weapons from fallen enemies to turn in for cash which they can use to progress. It's not feasible to make an entire event around the levels 1-50 to cater to this population because the population itself is so unresponsive, temporary, and spans such a large gap of ability. Making some sort of combat event for this population would require a number (probably 5) events in order to represent to ability of the population fairly and this cuts the amount of people per event to nearly squat.
Some days its hard enough to find a decent amount (~15) of people around 65 to go and recover or defend a zone, so imagine trying to find this equivalent in people in the 20-30 range. A combat event is simply not imaginable.

 

[terr281]

That's why the ideas I presented were not ONLY combat events. Deliveries, "acquire ground drop item from a taken over zone," etc. are soloable by all IF the correct spells are provided by npc casters.

Further, if I understand the way the War works,...

a. Script activates, and the "start zone" begins to fill with mobs as "the invasion begins"
b. If the invasion isn't stopped, it spills into the next zone, repeat the process.

Does the enemy not have "scouts" that would go to nearby zones to acquire information for the next phase of the invasion? The scouts could be lower level (25ish) and marked as "adepts" (in regard to maximum engagement levels...lets say max engage level 35) to allow lower level characters to "hinder" the invasion...but not stop it. Edit: Due to the population issues, a scout would be "2-3 player group" killable...and they would be single spawn "camps."

Maybe, if all the scouts are killed, the invasion into the adjoining zone takes 50% longer since the enemy waits to send his entire force...not knowing what is ahead.

 

[Boehm]

And, now for the "not nice" portion of the post:

Couple of thoughts from a newbie 65 nec;

1) Lag - The lag in NNP was a bad as faentharc on a good day last night. Your friend should really have mentioned that.

2) Drops - No cash drops, but weapons for turn ins do and your welcome to them as was mentioned above. The loot that drops from the very few loot pinatas is no drop and can last through tier 6 in some instances. Considering the number of players in zone, the chance of winning is like lotto.

And the level is considered 55 and up, I'm not sure that's a hard rule for rolling but raid groups are run by players and who they chose to include is up to them.
Anyway, a GM was present for every distribution I saw and I was in 3 groups in three separate areas, though a complete unknown.

3) Adepts - This is a great system which drops some really nice loot for the level.
And yes you may have to forgo some xp or grind some aas to get it all.

The simple map system also is another way to get leveling gear easily and it pays for itself. Waldo and the other gms/devs aren't talking nonsense when they say this.

4) Camps - cash camps are also heavily camped by level appropriate groups as well. Most want to do the easy ones that don't have wall bug and y-axis pull issues. This is part of the game.

5) Loot sales - If you need cheap stuff and don't want to compete with others in auc, you should be checking the merchants in athica, newport, and other spots on a regular basis. Most loot is vendored and available til day change for a small markup. Some merchants actually don't clear on change. Think of it as bargain hunting.

6) Leveling - Is pretty easy and most are happy to pick up anyone to fill a xp group at a level appropriate dungeon. I think we had a naked 65 troll in a raid last night in CoD. Looked like everyone had fun.

7) 65 - About two weeks into 65 you will realize it is not the end, it's the beginning. I realized it this last weekend. (Massive props to the GM who designed the event fights in ToA btw and thank you to the guild that kept my sorry ass alive. Some, no combine) I'm a bit overwhelmed.

8) War - You shouldn't claim to speak for other players. Seeing red text scroll by in NBL while camping bandits. Seeing a white mob come running towards me , thinking "wuh?" and being one shot and respawning at the guard tower. That was awesome and having a zone change levels like that outside of my experience, making me want to be 65 even more. I saw it as a privilege I would be allowed once I paid that due.

9) Newbie war quest - draw up a draft storyline and post it here. If it's compelling, it might get implemented. Though I prefer the Ikisith expansion first, if forced to choose.

I really have no idea why you think you might be banned for bringing this up.

velliety 65 Blackscale Legion

 

[ColbyWolf]

Obviously the low levels have never visited Valley of Erimal (on the way to FR, etc., not the part that you have to be keyed to get into). There are already rewards for low levels turning in weapons, etc., from the war.[/wuote]

Obviously! and there was no indication of this anywhere where a newbie might find out about this, unless they were in the know.

Children analogy is flawed. It's assumed that starting at level 1 a person is in adulthood and levels thereafter are reflections of lessons learned from experience, not age. Sending an inexperienced soldier into battle alone is a sure way to die in both life and SoD, but frankly why are we drawing similarities between real life and SoD in the first place?

True... on both counts.. however... classically, the troops DON'T actually matter. Look at things like 'the draft'... people getting minimal amounts of training before being sent off into battle... infact, every soldier is, at one point, inexperienced. There's ALWAYS a 'first battle'. For some it's the last battle, but... generally, generals are too busy running a war then to make sure every baby soldier has a 'big buddy' to hold his hand.

*shrugs*

Anyway, no, it's probably not feasable to make tons of little events for lower level characters, but surely SOMETHING can be done. To return to the prior analogy: Kids in a war zone will be tasked to deliver things, to give water to the soldiers, to talk with people... They may be hidden away when the first shot is fired and hidden away in safety... but... in a war... in a battle... every hand that can be doing something NEEDS to be doing something. Even if it's just knitting socks for the troops. *shrugs*

Maybe we can sit down and come up with some storylineques ideas spelled out exactly so that others may or may not impliment them... the problem is, I don't know what is or isn't easy implimented in the game.I know it's easy to get caught up in 'cool effects' that jsut are not plausible.

For example., I have no idea if it's possible for the emulator to spawn mob X when a player holding object y comes within 500 units of point z.... etc. but we'll see.

 

[iaeolan]

True... on both counts.. however... classically, the troops DON'T actually matter. Look at things like 'the draft'... people getting minimal amounts of training before being sent off into battle... infact, every soldier is, at one point, inexperienced. There's ALWAYS a 'first battle'. For some it's the last battle, but... generally, generals are too busy running a war then to make sure every baby soldier has a 'big buddy' to hold his hand.

Once again flawed. Conscription with little training is a product of gunpowder and the little training required to point and shoot. Rag-tag militias before the advent of gunpowder were just that, rag-tag that amounted to buffer fodder for real soldiers.



And THERE IS something for lower levels to do as already stated!
The problem lies in the fact that lower levels can not relieve themselves of the nasty ol' war by themselves! No matter what tasks are scripted for lower levels there will still be those whom claim there is not enough they can do and they feel slighted. The only way this will be satisfied is to either allow some way for lower level players to fight off the war or for comparable xp and loot rewards be granted via the war. Both of these are not happening for the reason already stated that the war is meant to be an inconvenience for everyone on the server.

 

[iaeolan]

While it constituted a complaint about locking people out of zones, I'll refer to a previous thread where I and many others discussed this already:

Starfall connects to a 65 zone, so it's not exclusively a 30-40 inconvenience. And honestly, if the mobs were 30-40 then they would be cleared by a solo 65 in an hour. If the mobs were made adept, who the heck would kill them ever? They would be an even greater inconvenience to the level range.

This is such a moot detriment to this, the zone is overtaken for like a day and you can't finish a quest which you do twice EVER and the xp for that level can be supplemented 2 zones over. I guess every event has to cater to every possible player which may be adversely affected by it's implementation.

The zone has been occupied all of two days. While we do plan to have a way for lower-level players to participate, it won't happen for a while, and lower-level players are never ever gonna be able to lbierate zones.

To be blunt: It's war. Shit happens in war. We couldn't have a server-wide continent-wide war without interfering in the day-to-day operation of some zones. This is not only necessary, it's intended.

Notice this was made almost a year and a half ago