Tilla, Wyrden Sting says, "What are collegium quests?" You sense the presence of the Fates around Tilla.
A nice solution to the problem Although I have to admit I'm not too crazy about that line. Perhaps something about near-inaudible whispers instead? "You sense the presence" just seems so cliche... but I dunno.
Just went through the tour again, and noticed a few things:
The tour doesn't point out picking things up. Perhaps a prompt to pick up corpses when you kill something would be in order?
It mentions sipping when you get the vials, but perhaps a bit of repetition when your health/mana/ego first drops below 75% might be good?
There is something odd with attacking the shadow. The first time I went through the tour, I kicked it to death in four or five kicks, I think. This time, I decided to Nature Curse instead; I used KILL SHADOW about 10-15 times without it dying, and then I switched to NATURE CURSE SHADOW, and it died within three hits, I think.
You currently learn skills from Atropos when you've been through the Newton quest. Perhaps move learning to Lachesis, so you'll have it before Newton?
Also regarding learning, perhaps a hint to ask on CGT for future suggestions on what to learn?
Right now, the prompt for using the rift is SKILLS, AB PLANAR and IR. I think it'd be better for it to be SKILLS, AB PLANAR, AB PLANAR RIFT and then being told to look to see what's in your rift. That way they learn how to find out how to use skills through the AB system.
Right afterwards, they're told to outr a bit of earwort and eat it, which gives truehealing and... deafness. Next time they log in, they'll be deaf and might not notice it. Might be better to switch to Merbloom, which gives insomnia without any nasty side effects (odds are the newbie will log out and back in before needing to sleep. Otherwise, they'll just fall asleep eventually anyway).
When the guides talk about collegium quests, they include PATH WALK <collegium> even if the newbie isn't in the home org. Perhaps either have that part only show if you're actually in the org, or add a note "If you are within <org>, you can also use PATH WALK <collegium>".
Atropos says she'll teach you about pathfinding, but Lachesis already taught you that, plus it's been mentioned a lot during the tour. Repetition is key, of course, but I think Atropos could skip the "I'll teach you" part, and just point out there's a landmark at the ruins.
And... that's what I found. Well, aside from the fact that you can TOURGIFT the newbie you took through the tour, but that's a perk rather than anything else
It would be nice to get a prompt when Atropos's (or indeed any of their) required tasks change - e.g. as you go through doing collegium tasks and it changes from do a task to become a sophmore/junior and so forth.
Right afterwards, they're told to outr a bit of earwort and eat it, which gives truehealing and... deafness. Next time they log in, they'll be deaf and might not notice it. Might be better to switch to Merbloom, which gives insomnia without any nasty side effects (odds are the newbie will log out and back in before needing to sleep. Otherwise, they'll just fall asleep eventually anyway).
I read through a lot of the posts on this, seems like you have improved it quite a bit, but here's my thoughts anyway...you paid for them
The tutorial tells you to walk or teleport to the collegium
and greet Regent Muneer, it took me a moment to find him. When you use the link to say I have come for
my history lesson, it is said in all capitals, and it shouldn't be. After completing the Magnagoran history
lessons, there wasn't an active link for “say I am here for my history
lesson/have completed my history lesson.” After completing the quest, it
indicates in a hint to type COLLEGE to see which quests I still need to
complete but clicking the word COLLEGE pulls up COLLEGE SHOW and COLLEGE
STATUS, rather than showing the status. Receiving
a letter with things lost upon logging out was neat.
There was no instruction on learning skills. This should be
added.
Having been through the Portal of Fate many times it saddens
me that the youth will miss the epic clacking of the wheel. In addition, I
think the Fates following the character around greatly takes away from the
magic of the Portal of Fate. If it were me, I wouldn't have the Fates following you at all. How much sense does that make, anyway?
If it were me, I wouldn't have the Fates following you at all. How much sense does that make, anyway?
I actually kind of agree with this. The Fates are behind the Portal, where they've been for eons, safe from the affairs of us Mortals (I'm assuming.) and Gods of varied divinity. Would it be possible to code a separate 'guide' for each org? So, like, you'd start in the Hall of the Fates, get past the race, gender, age, and guild selection, then get passed off to an imp/cherub/(bound )sprite/firespirit/infosphere Mk. 3-90 who takes over from there until the very, VERY last step, which will still have one of the Fates whisper to you about the ruins, then do the whole "your fate is as yet unwritten" spiel, possibly with clack clack clacking wheels.
5
EveriineWise Old Swordsbird / BrontaurIndianapolis, IN, USA
I don't like the Guides being present, as it is evidence that the whole intro is mixed, and not, as the disclaimer says, linear. My own experience with it (in my first post) showed that. I'd much prefer it if it was linear, given that it's an introduction. Talk with the Guides in the Portal of Fate and do everything they need you to do. Go to the Collegium, do all those quests. Go to Newton and explore for the first time. Boom boom boom, in order, nice and simple.
Everiine is a man, and is very manly. This MAN before you is so manly you might as well just gender bend right now, cause he's the manliest man that you ever did see. His manly shape has spurned many women and girlyer men to boughs of fainting. He stands before you in a manly manerific typical man-like outfit which is covered in his manly motto: "I am a man!"
Daraius said: You gotta risk it for the biscuit.
Pony power all the way, yo. The more Brontaurs the better.
I think the requirement to do five of the college tasks could be problematic. Planar tasks are always difficult - I know that the point of it is having new players interact, but it doesn't (in my experience) work like that most of the time. Instead, there's often a novice asking for help followed by silence. Granted, I tend to play at off-peak hours, but still. Power task tends to largely be the same problem. Glomdoring's is easy, but Magnagora's? I can complete it as a level 8, but I wouldn't tell any newb to try before the 15th at the earliest.
Heh, a minor typo in the hint for the "What are collegium quests?" question for Atropos of the Shears.
This is for Glomdoring, naturally:
[HINT]: You can TELEPORT COLLEGIUM or PATH WALK CELESTCOLLEGE to travel to the Shadowmaze. Start off by greeting Grutina Oakvine to see where to go next.
I agree with maybe leaving the Fates out of it a little bit, except for a few encouraging beginning words before you head out. One of the things that make the Fates such interesting characters is that they're so incredibly mysterious and removed from the rest of the world.
I've run through this again, and I just wanted to say that I definitely like all the adjustments made to give more direction and make it clearer what needs to be accomplished before the guides poof on you.
As for whether or not the fates should be the ones giving the tour, I don't think that them only being visible to newbies, and giving you a few hints, does much to remove the mystery of the fates, anymore than them dropping off newbies at the city nexus, or kicking people out of newton does currently. It would be pretty easy to believe that they're just some sort of projection anyway, after all, it's not like there's really six lachesises.
But I also wouldn't be opposed to having it be unique to each city/commune.
The problem I see with them being unique to each city/commune is the general feel of the cities/communes. For instance, I wouldn't expect a cherub of Celest and an imp of Magnagora to act in similar ways, so why would they do so while they guide the newbie and not at any other time? If they changed the fates to org-specific things, they'd either have to go against at least some orgs general attitude, or have to write six different intros.
That being said, I'm rather neutral on the whole "Should the fates lead the newbie" thing. I certainly wouldn't oppose three new neutral NPCs being introduced as newbie helpers and having them guide the newbies along.
I don't believe we'll change how the Fates follow you. We've already invested too much into how the tour functions and I don't believe it's that illogical.
As for org guides, the idea has always been that AFTER the newbie guides (Fates) that we might have an org guide appear to give tasks to players (up to level 100) so that players would always have some goal. However, that would probably be a ways away if we do it.
I'm not reading everything everyone else said, but-
You shouldn't have to say the entire "communicate with my city or nature commune" thing. If it's a city that should be sufficient, if it's a commune the word commune should be sufficient.
You need to complete the following tasks to advance in the Fates of Lusternia quest:
[6] How do I communicate with my city or nature commune?
Also the entire defeating the shadow thing is confusing and I seem to get stuck there. I get to the part where it talks about defeating the shadow and the shadow never shows up. I can't even complete the tutorial.
Edit: I'm an idiot - I was using Mudlet. Although it'd be nice to have it work on other clients I suppose new players will primarily be using the default client.
Okay, if you pathwalk to Newton Caverns you lose Lachesis and can't call/dismiss her etc, I had to walk back and find her every time to complete things.
I'm on the same step with Lachesis with the shadow, still stuck. I waited 5 mins and it never appeared.
(all I want is my 10 bound credits at this point...)
And I was never able to complete it before it went live.
It's a bit hazy now but I just recalled that I learned my guild skills before one of the shadow fights, and then got very confused because only kicks seemed to kill it, and not my actual bashing attack. I might be totally wrong though? Also, I feel like the shadow might have somehow appeared while I was in the middle of killing something else, which was also confusing.
There's gotta be a better way to get novices communicating than to require them to say "I recently stepped out of the Portal of Fate" on CT. It just seems... really awkward.
It's not required, no, but there's a big shiny link in the base client that says exactly that. Really, it might be better served routed to CGT than CT, but that's a minor gripe, really.
2
EveriineWise Old Swordsbird / BrontaurIndianapolis, IN, USA
Just ran through the intro again (thank you to the experienced player who offered to help me with my tasks!).
This time around, the correct path was much clearer. I was able to follow things and do them in the correct order, with no sudden surprises like a Fate sister disappearing before I was ready or a shadow appearing out of nowhere. And how to attack the shadow is made clear this time.
Three things that need to be fixed: for Hallifax novices, when it comes time to learn a few lessons in Planar, they are told to TELEPORT NEXUS and LEARN 15 PLANAR FROM KRAIYE. Except Kraiye is at the collegium entrance, and Fraesic is the tutor at the nexus. They either need to TELEPORT COLLEGIUM or LEARN 15 PLANAR FROM FRAESIC.
Also, a typo: When I grab the tome and read it, and I look at at Atropos, I read this: "Looking up, you see Atropos of the Shears gives you a knowing wink"--it should be giving or give.
Finally, the "secret" room is no secret--aside from receiving a hint when you are standing outside the ruins, the room appears openly on the map.
All in all, while the improvements have made the intro much smoother and less confusing, I'm still not a big fan. I picked a Hallifax novice since I knew how all the collegium quests worked and I knew how to do everything quickly in the intro, but it still took me 45 minutes without doing the Power or Planes tasks, the two hardest. This is way, way too long for an intro.
The collegium tasks weren't designed to be a part of the intro, and they feel like they were tacked on to the intro in lieu of other meaningful tasks (because, well, they were). A new quest was added to Newton to serve as an intro quest--the intro should have created new collegium-like tasks that are simpler and more straightforward. Newbies have their hands held all the way through the first half of the intro, but then you hit the colleigum and BAM, you have to rely on the mercies of those writing CGHELP scrolls--which you would never find if you didn't know they existed already, because you aren't told about them. Or about the CGT channel. I agree that requiring newbies to speak on CT is dumb--having them speak on CGT would be much more beneficial, as well as letting them know about CGT scrolls.
Also, the new client is EXTREMELY laggy. Pathwalking through Hallifax, the client would freeze for 3-6 seconds at a time as the maps changed. Even moving up a floor in the collegium took 1-2 seconds of lag to get through. That was horribly frustrating, and while I love the look of the new cllient, with performance like that on my quite-powerful PC, I'll stick to MUSHclient. Which is a shame, since the intro I'm told doesn't work on any other client.
Everiine is a man, and is very manly. This MAN before you is so manly you might as well just gender bend right now, cause he's the manliest man that you ever did see. His manly shape has spurned many women and girlyer men to boughs of fainting. He stands before you in a manly manerific typical man-like outfit which is covered in his manly motto: "I am a man!"
Daraius said: You gotta risk it for the biscuit.
Pony power all the way, yo. The more Brontaurs the better.
Fixed the Hallifax collegium booboo. It should now say LEARN 15 PLANAR FROM FRAESIC.
I think it's fine for the intro to require 4 collegium tasks, even if it takes a long time. You're in the game live and can do other things if you want--the point is giving newbie goals for as long as possible because a huge issue is when a newbie looks around and says "What do I do now?" (i.e., what is my goal).
I'm concerned about the lag. Unfortunately, we have no control over the html client (it's IRE run) but I'll definitely pass on this information. BTW, MUSHclient or any client should be fine in the intro--it just won't have the mxp links (though the key words should be highlighted).
0
EveriineWise Old Swordsbird / BrontaurIndianapolis, IN, USA
Ah, good--I thought I'd read earlier in the thread that, when it was first launched, the intro didn't work in other clients.
Everiine is a man, and is very manly. This MAN before you is so manly you might as well just gender bend right now, cause he's the manliest man that you ever did see. His manly shape has spurned many women and girlyer men to boughs of fainting. He stands before you in a manly manerific typical man-like outfit which is covered in his manly motto: "I am a man!"
Daraius said: You gotta risk it for the biscuit.
Pony power all the way, yo. The more Brontaurs the better.
I've approached IRE and been asked at what point do players get lag (because they aren't seeing any lag).
Can anyone help shed some light on that?
0
EveriineWise Old Swordsbird / BrontaurIndianapolis, IN, USA
For me, the troubles in testing were in Hallifax. Any time a new map had to be loaded, such as moving up or down levels, everything froze until the new map loaded--even if it appeared to be only a few rooms. I didn't seem to have any trouble when I was travelling through Newton or on roads, just in the city itself, and most noticeably during map changes.
Everiine is a man, and is very manly. This MAN before you is so manly you might as well just gender bend right now, cause he's the manliest man that you ever did see. His manly shape has spurned many women and girlyer men to boughs of fainting. He stands before you in a manly manerific typical man-like outfit which is covered in his manly motto: "I am a man!"
Daraius said: You gotta risk it for the biscuit.
Pony power all the way, yo. The more Brontaurs the better.
Comments
And... that's what I found. Well, aside from the fact that you can TOURGIFT the newbie you took through the tour, but that's a perk rather than anything else
I read through a lot of the posts on this, seems like you have improved it quite a bit, but here's my thoughts anyway...you paid for them
The tutorial tells you to walk or teleport to the collegium and greet Regent Muneer, it took me a moment to find him. When you use the link to say I have come for my history lesson, it is said in all capitals, and it shouldn't be. After completing the Magnagoran history lessons, there wasn't an active link for “say I am here for my history lesson/have completed my history lesson.” After completing the quest, it indicates in a hint to type COLLEGE to see which quests I still need to complete but clicking the word COLLEGE pulls up COLLEGE SHOW and COLLEGE STATUS, rather than showing the status. Receiving a letter with things lost upon logging out was neat.
There was no instruction on learning skills. This should be added.
Having been through the Portal of Fate many times it saddens me that the youth will miss the epic clacking of the wheel. In addition, I think the Fates following the character around greatly takes away from the magic of the Portal of Fate. If it were me, I wouldn't have the Fates following you at all. How much sense does that make, anyway?
As for whether or not the fates should be the ones giving the tour, I don't think that them only being visible to newbies, and giving you a few hints, does much to remove the mystery of the fates, anymore than them dropping off newbies at the city nexus, or kicking people out of newton does currently. It would be pretty easy to believe that they're just some sort of projection anyway, after all, it's not like there's really six lachesises.
But I also wouldn't be opposed to having it be unique to each city/commune.
That being said, I'm rather neutral on the whole "Should the fates lead the newbie" thing. I certainly wouldn't oppose three new neutral NPCs being introduced as newbie helpers and having them guide the newbies along.
As for org guides, the idea has always been that AFTER the newbie guides (Fates) that we might have an org guide appear to give tasks to players (up to level 100) so that players would always have some goal. However, that would probably be a ways away if we do it.
Estarra the Eternal says, "Give Shevat the floor please."
This time around, the correct path was much clearer. I was able to follow things and do them in the correct order, with no sudden surprises like a Fate sister disappearing before I was ready or a shadow appearing out of nowhere. And how to attack the shadow is made clear this time.
Three things that need to be fixed: for Hallifax novices, when it comes time to learn a few lessons in Planar, they are told to TELEPORT NEXUS and LEARN 15 PLANAR FROM KRAIYE. Except Kraiye is at the collegium entrance, and Fraesic is the tutor at the nexus. They either need to TELEPORT COLLEGIUM or LEARN 15 PLANAR FROM FRAESIC.
Also, a typo: When I grab the tome and read it, and I look at at Atropos, I read this: "Looking up, you see Atropos of the Shears gives you a knowing wink"--it should be giving or give.
Finally, the "secret" room is no secret--aside from receiving a hint when you are standing outside the ruins, the room appears openly on the map.
All in all, while the improvements have made the intro much smoother and less confusing, I'm still not a big fan. I picked a Hallifax novice since I knew how all the collegium quests worked and I knew how to do everything quickly in the intro, but it still took me 45 minutes without doing the Power or Planes tasks, the two hardest. This is way, way too long for an intro.
The collegium tasks weren't designed to be a part of the intro, and they feel like they were tacked on to the intro in lieu of other meaningful tasks (because, well, they were). A new quest was added to Newton to serve as an intro quest--the intro should have created new collegium-like tasks that are simpler and more straightforward. Newbies have their hands held all the way through the first half of the intro, but then you hit the colleigum and BAM, you have to rely on the mercies of those writing CGHELP scrolls--which you would never find if you didn't know they existed already, because you aren't told about them. Or about the CGT channel. I agree that requiring newbies to speak on CT is dumb--having them speak on CGT would be much more beneficial, as well as letting them know about CGT scrolls.
Also, the new client is EXTREMELY laggy. Pathwalking through Hallifax, the client would freeze for 3-6 seconds at a time as the maps changed. Even moving up a floor in the collegium took 1-2 seconds of lag to get through. That was horribly frustrating, and while I love the look of the new cllient, with performance like that on my quite-powerful PC, I'll stick to MUSHclient. Which is a shame, since the intro I'm told doesn't work on any other client.
I think it's fine for the intro to require 4 collegium tasks, even if it takes a long time. You're in the game live and can do other things if you want--the point is giving newbie goals for as long as possible because a huge issue is when a newbie looks around and says "What do I do now?" (i.e., what is my goal).
I'm concerned about the lag. Unfortunately, we have no control over the html client (it's IRE run) but I'll definitely pass on this information. BTW, MUSHclient or any client should be fine in the intro--it just won't have the mxp links (though the key words should be highlighted).
Can anyone help shed some light on that?