Training

Been a topic of discussion for awhile now. I was thinking, for now at least, why not bring back the random boosts from training. It would, at the very least, speed up the process a little bit until a better system is created.

amen..... OHMMMMMMM

wait im not playing?

At this point in the game, I almost feel like it takes away from it. I understand spending time on your character and making it so you don't have a bunch of alts, but the hours I spend spamming spells I could be RPing.

I've always been puzzled by this actually. It's almost like the game is in two parts. (Sorry about wall of text)

First, you start ranking - moving around the same few areas over and over, not really learning much about how the game works. Hell, on Lene, I didn't even know I was supposed to join a feeder clan until AFTER I'd pinnacled, let alone discovered herbs. Then, you have training which takes freaking forever of non-interaction grinding to even start to be competitive.

All of this grinding points to developing a character for long-term building, where every action you do slowly makes yourself more powerful - the classic RPG/MMO model.

Then, soon as that's finished - BAM. You're getting jumped by people you never met, and every fight you lose means you're naked and any work you put into your character since finishing training/your last death is completely gone poof. Suddenly you're in a fps/deathmatch game model.

Don't get me wrong, I'm fully for pvp deaths having negative consequences - it's part of the reason I started looking for a MUD again in the first place.

I also understand why the grinding is in place - adding such a large time investment to a character makes it more likely a player will keep playing it and

adds more meaning to their interactions. It also hopefully cuts down on the number of chars they can hop around on.

This is also a pretty predominant reason why new players don't stick around though, imo. The ranking and training part of the game does not prepare you for pvp at all. Hell, I've played and developed for DIKU derivs for over half a decade, and made a conscious effort to explore and research as much as possible - and still learned maybe 20% of what I learned at pinnacle, because:

• People in my level range actually had time to do something other than rank and could show me around

• I could more or less take care of myself and not die in one hit when I stepped off the beaten path.

• I wasn't so busy grinding ranking and especially training in every spare second I could try to actually learn about my char.

I mean, we already have cabal skills you have to earn with tasks and warefare and dedication to your group - what if that was expanded on, while training/ranking effort was reduced greatly? Pinnacle would have more to achieve, meaning more interaction, more pvp with a point to it...

and any new players would actually have more incentive to fool around with various classes they don't initially like, and be more willing to learn through combat experience and dying than when it takes 60-70 more hours to start over.

To give an example of what it's like for a newbie coming to play with you guys:

120 hours logged

70 hours ranking + training

10 hours just straight training

2-3 hours RP

1 hour PVP

35+ hours equipping/exploring to learn how to re-equip myself

While I understand this experience is vastly different for veterans, 4 out of 120 hours of RP/PVP when what I came for (as advertised) was RP/PVP... that's not a learning curve, that's a smack in the face

@Lene

My purpose here is not to bash you. Roleplay is supposed to happen even while hunting. RP can happen even while doing plain training, are you alone or not. Roleplay is perhaps most rewarding during PVP - if it's point is to accomplish something, rather than just mouthing off. RP can be easily done while exploring and learning the areas.

Let's say that you're a newbie who runs to big bad *** hunting agro mob, and succeed to flee, yet are lost in this new area. If the character yells something along the line "Please dont kill me, I meant no harm!", a possible resolution to this could be imm taking over the mob, moving it back to it's original position and yelling back something like "And stay away!"

If mob interacts with me, I somewhat always react back - if I'm not focused on something. (Exception being those mobs that always do the exact same thing when you walk in, or say something, etc)

For me, from 120h of logged in means 120h roleplaying. Roleplay is not only interacting with other players in a specific manner.

Ah

I'm one of those people who couldn't stand oblivion for more than an hour because of hating RPvE, so I guess I should have clarified 2-3 hours RP interaction with players outside of "These storm giants surely doth warrant a mighty beating!"

Your way sounds very enjoyable though

Actually, I have to disagree with F-3000 on this.

Coming back to FL from another rp/pk mud, I can not help but to feel a bit disheartened. Back when I used to play, there would be maybe 10 people in my group range and just now there was seven people in total online. Interaction with other players is what makes roleplaying an interesting, complex, and rewarding experience. FL's only player organizations are the cabals and their support clans, yet you very rarely see more than maybe two or three people from the same organization around. It could be that I'm just not used to the new FL yet, but it does feel a bit stifling.

Likewise, the PK system feels like a poorly constructed pyramid scheme. There should be a wide base of people that I can fight with at my level of skill, as well as a decent number of people that I could go out with and get some equipment back if I died. At the level above me, there should be fewer, more dangerous people, and at the top the most competitive and renowned fighters. This is how I remember it.

In reality, there's maybe 3-5 people online at level 50 during the times I've been online, and from what I've read, there's not enough top fighters that go after each other, so instead the newer players spend most of their time trying to get their equipment back. I guess the Moderate tier helps with this, but I can not bring myself to play a character that will not be able to enjoy all the equipment in the game (no matter how slim the chance of that actually happening).

There's just no city/house/guild/clan affiliations where old people teach new people the ropes. Cabals partly fulfill this purpose, but only if there's actually other people in your cabal online at the same time. And only if you got into the cabal in the first place.

All that aside, I sort of like how training works. It's one of the things I can do while waiting for someone in my group range to log on so I can level up.

EDIT:

As far as Immortal interaction goes, it's all very awesome. Still, I firmly believe that player interaction should make up the bulk of your character's roleplay, whether when hunting, fighting, or just working to achieve your character's goals. Good roleplay always want me to come back for more, especially if there's continuity in it. It doesn't always have to go the way I want, often the most interesting situations are unexpected and force me to think outside the box, but a random mob yelling 'Stay out!' won't really substantiate my character's beliefs, goals, or dreams in any way. This is not to say that a random yell or tell or interaction of any sort is unwelcomed, it's just not usually something to build your roleplay on.

Yeah, some kind of tier system to restrict pk would be nice, but let's face it, there are maybe three or four of us who aren't amazingly experienced at this point =P

I actually have been lucky enough to meet many people who were willing to show me around and help me learn though - even as a drow thief. The only exceptions so far turned out to be all the same player, so I can't say that's really that huge a problem if you're spending time making friends.

I certainly encourage and welcome any player to both RP and ask questions of me in all my characters. Understandably, it can be difficult at times to phrase questions about game mechanics, but try and remember, both the prayer forum and newbie help sections are both great ways to accomplish this.

I think the real issue for us, and this is especially true for anyone returning from days when our numbers were much greater, is having more people online. There are a significant portion of people that are more interested in graphic games, then text-based games, unfortunately quite a few of my friends are of that pool.

To combat this issue, I think both the staff and players can do things to help aid in player retention.

Players: Of late, at least in my experience, players have been less of the mental process "he/she is my hated enemy, I need to take every possession they have to both hinder them, and make them weaker" or whatever rationale we decide to put upon that notion. If I am Ruthless, and the person I fight is Ruthless, I still will make sure if I take something, they get something in return, thus they are not naked and quickly able to get back into the thick of things.

Staff: You guys have done a tremendous job, in my opinion. As long as we can find ways to advertise ourselves, get people interested in the game, heck, I would even go so far as to go to forums of games you like, and post in an appropriate section a little info about this game. Obviously it cannot be a direct advertisement, but a player of said game making such a recommendation would be much more acceptable. Also, I think we should both expand on the initial quest line, and create addition quest lines. Make the different areas and items more drawn into a natural flow of the game. Granted, I understand this would be a huge undertaking, but doing it in small sections would be fantastic. Heck, I do have building experience and would be willing to share some ideas.

@Lene;Vinter: As a new player/returning player, did you complete the quest line from Rheydin? If so, did you find it entertaining and hoping for more?

The quests were great.

Problem was, help newbie directed me to following the advice in help tour/2/3... which is what I'd imagine most people familiar with muds would do.

However, this led me to

a) wandering around looking for raiders and goblin village that don't exist anymore for over 2 hours

getting killed in decobru because of a "secret village for levelling in miruvhor"

c) running around everwylde looking for "famers" to rank on

d) not doing the guild quest lines until level 20-something

This also meant that yes, I didn't actually discover mounts until about 15 hours into the game, so I had to sleep about every 40 seconds of play since I was also looking for areas that didn't exist.

The good-align tour3 is much more informative and not entirely misleading like the evil-align one is, but could still mention the whole quest/guildmaster thing to help remind newbies to go there, because you learn FAR more from those than from help tour.

As for more quests, the XP return isn't really worth the time, even from the guild quests. They do a good job of showing you where to solo rank, and by the time you need to know anything more, you need a group to go with you anyways. Although, one quest line directing you to find an appropriate feeder clan would help miles. Random people asking you to give them 30,000 gold, along with no help files for the individual clan names, doesn't really help out newbies at all.

Lene, a lot of things ingame are intentionally made vauge, so that a new player will look for an interaction with other players and ask for help.

No helpfile can give you the information a veteran player can. No helpfile can help the way a veteran can.

Of course, that does not mean that our helpfiles are perfect. Quite the contrary actually. There is work to be done, and there is A LOT of it.

But as a new player one should seek the guidance of the more experienced. That is how I learned, that is how all of us learned.

I first learned the game from grouping with people and following them, asking where they got equipment, and being shown how to get to places. It's hard when you log on and there's no one for you to group with. It's even harder when you stay on for an hour or longer, and no other person has shown up (or is non-responsive, or training, or busy with something else).

If I could just take 200 people and put them in FL, I would be so happy.

I first learned the game from grouping with people and following them, asking where they got equipment, and being shown how to get to places. It's hard when you log on and there's no one for you to group with. It's even harder when you stay on for an hour or longer, and no other person has shown up (or is non-responsive, or training, or busy with something else).

If I could just take 200 people and put them in FL, I would be so happy.

I would pay to have 200 people on fl!

@Foxx: While I agree, it did help for us with the mystique, watching all these people run around and learning from them. However, if there are not that many people on, it just makes the game that much harder to get into/figure out, and then people log off and say forget it.

I think a change is needed to make the game more newbie friendly, but not so that everything is revealed, but enough to keep them wanting to find out more. I think some lower level group quests might really spice things up.

I think some lower level group quests might really spice things up.

I think not. If there is a group at first place, then there is no problem. The problem arises when there are not enough people to form a group.

I think a change is needed to make the game more newbie friendly, but not so that everything is revealed, but enough to keep them wanting to find out more.

I think a change is needed too, but I don't know exactly what.

First there is the problem of making the game more newbie friendly, then there is the problem of spoon feeding and losing interest. How do you solve the one without going into the other?

Lene, a lot of things ingame are intentionally made vauge, so that a new player will look for an interaction with other players and ask for help.

No helpfile can give you the information a veteran player can. No helpfile can help the way a veteran can.

Of course, that does not mean that our helpfiles are perfect. Quite the contrary actually. There is work to be done, and there is A LOT of it.

But as a new player one should seek the guidance of the more experienced. That is how I learned, that is how all of us learned.

There's a difference between vague and 100% wrong =P Have you looked at help tour2?

Unless you're talking about my point about feeder clans, in which case, yes I know that they're intentionally vague. I'm saying that being pointed into a feeder clan by the game would help newbies MEET vets who actually have a reason to answer stuff, and you're saying that no they should ask a vet to find out about it?

I understand Foxx's point (correct me if I am wrong), but this is one game where you cannot just google in the name and find a walkthrough, or cheat codes for. Every bit of knowledge is either obtained by learning from someone who has done it before, or figuring it out for yourself. I think those are awesome things, and many of our vets and staff do not want to take that away from the vets who have worked hard to learn all those little gems, but we also need to be able to foster an environment where others are encouraged to do the same, and maybe even offer them a little guidance to initially get started. I have at least ten-twenty different notepad files with information I have gathered in my time here. While yes, it may be a bit frustrating to learn that all that hard work I put it may eventually be made easier, but I think in the end it would help new players transition to both:

A playing a Mud, and B learning and becoming apart of our world. There is a tremendous amount of story, history, and roleplay to be had for those curious, but if when they log on, and the numbers are low, and no one around to answer a question, the rate of interest begins to drop.

I think the reason why you are not seeing new players join or stay is because the learning curve is too high. To be competitive you need to know the mechanics of all the classes, memorize with world map and areas, and know what gear to get and where it is.

This may not be big deal if there was an even mix of new, average, and veteran players but the majority of the player base here have been playing for years.

Maybe a compromise of revealing some gear details like location and properties would solve this issue?

Just about every popular game has a wealth of online information. FL does not. The odd thing is that nothing stops players from pm-ing each other on the forum and then discussing the nature of any "secret" of the game.

One of the best features of FL is the Enforced RP, I truly agree that OOC in game is ruinous. I also think that every great game has an OOC following, more than just a forum moderated by the same people who run the game. To really compete I think you need full disclosure.

A MUD with lots of players needs lots of staff, with lots of staff the game is more alive. Then there is constant change, heck you could even have a couple IMMs whose sole job it is to add new quests and secret rooms to the existing areas. Through player RP comes world change and then it becomes a player struggle to keep up with the growth, if the game is always one step ahead then it doesn't matter if the players share all the secrets in and out of game.

From a new persons perspective it must sometimes suck to be playing king of the hill with 30 vets, on an icy dangerous hill that takes so many hours to climb.

Instead of saying "FL needs a larger player base to make all the changes we want worthwhile" why not try treating the game like hundreds play it already. Hire more staff, get more people who can code and who want to, start making changes every day. Open a section on the forum for players to post maps of areas, stats of eq, even tips for navigating areas and beating big bosses. I think FL could also benefit from Celerity's advanced paths idea for each class, and my idea for creating a small unique perk for each race/class combo. Maybe it's time to shake things up, if you build it they will come style.

My 2 cents.

edit: Oh yah I almost forgot, for the love of all things holy, please decrease the amount of time it takes to train.

Every bit of knowledge is either obtained by learning from someone who has done it before' date=' or figuring it out for yourself. I think those are awesome things, and many of our vets and staff do not want to take that away from the vets who have worked hard to learn all those little gems, but we also need to be able to foster an environment where others are encouraged to do the same, and maybe even offer them a little guidance to initially get started.[/quote']

's pretty much the crux of it.

I can imagine it must have been amazing however many years ago when everyone was roughly the same experience, and anything you learned might be stuff nobody else knew.

You can't take away the fact that despite this game having severe restrictions on no OOC knowledge, every single player is relying on it to gear and fight. With everything hidden, you're not going to have access to a fraction of the knowledge someone who's played 2000 hours across characters in 100 hours, although you're damn well expected to fight against em.

...and all this is happening while you're very conscious of the fact that every day your character is one step closer to permanent death, and another hundred hours before going back to learning what everyone else already knows. And that last bit is really the point, isn't it?

Anyways, that's my last thoughts on the matter. Almost everyone's been great, supportive, and informative to a point that I can imagine never existed in the old days when newbies weren't scarce.

Despite that, maintaining artificial barriers to prevent sharing knowledge openly is effectively a status quo to prevent new players from catching up to old players.

And if that's the kind of thing you really enjoy as the bottom in that little relationship, I have some lovely timeshares you might be intersted in.