Just out of curiosity, what are your opinions of the newbie experience in Lusternia? Is the Lachesis introduction satisfactory? Are the Newton areas big enough with enough quests to keep newbies occupied? Is there enough support from guides? How does the guild system work for a newbie?

I'm especially interested in those of you who have never had experience with another Iron Realms game. Is it overwhelming being a newbie or is their enough support and things to do to keep you going and interested?

I found it fantastic, personally (I have had very little experience with other IRE games). It was very clear and led you through it step by step.

One beef I did have with it was that I didn't figure out how to do the bloody gnome/fink quest until way too late. Maybe that could be made a little more obvious for those of us with less MUD experience?

You mean the widgets and chains? Early on, I was thinking about giving "hints" throughout the newbie area, like when you pick up a widget: ": Maybe Cranky would like to know what a widget is?" But I thought it'd be too spammy or condescending to players. Hmmm, maybe I should rethink?

I always felt the newbie area was to small, and difficult to gain levels in compared to the other realms. But then again, back when I was a newbie, there was 150 newbies on at a time, all rushing the Newton caverns like crazy.

Compared to Achaea's newbie areas, Lusternia is a paradise...

Too small???

(Newbie areas, from caverns to top of smoke mountain, comprise about 375 rooms, 200+ mobiles, 30+ quests.)

Maybe you could have an option in the newbie intro where they say just how much of a newbie they are, and if they pick total newbie, they see the hints?

wow, I missed -a lot- as a newbie.

The honours quest thing; 'Saviour of the .....". That should be made a tad more obvious.

Having been playing a newbie knight recently, I've noticed that chains and widgets seem to decay muuuuch too quickly. I've had that problem with previous characters but it's much worse as a knight because it takes so long to kill anything, and not all of them drop chains/widgets, so by the time you kill enough and find your way back to the mob who wants them, at least one of them's usually gone and it's really really really frustating.

Other than that it's by far the best newbie area in an IRE game IMHO... I like Imperian's newbie intro better but it's a completely different style so that's just a matter of opinion I think.

Well... yea, when you have 150 people crowding and pillaging the newbie areas on the very first day the realm opened, it does seem VERY small. It's not small anymore

I think that IRE MUDs in general have the *best* newbie introduction systems than other MUDs.

Though i played other IRE games before, the newbie stuff here is pretty good.

I'll have a look at this. Unfortunately there are a lot of quests that don't reset the decay time when something is given at the moment, I'm trying to fix those as they get reported.

I loved them. After making a new character recently, I really found Newton actually enjoyable, taking a little more time to look around and stuff. The opening rush will have given many people an unjustifiable bad opinion of the caverns.

I loved being a newbie in Lusternia, I've played imperian and achaea, but by far lusternia takes them all. Not to mention there is no giant essay quizes just to get outta novicehood. Anyways after going slightly off topic..The newbie area in Lusternia is amazing, it really gives you a hint at how quests are going to be, and its not just those lame "Kill this, bring it to me, rinse repeat" like Achaea. Also its size is good for helping newer players learn basic geography.

The newbie area's great. Was a challenge figuring out the quests, and the quest endings are way funny and entertaining.

Certain guilds *cough* should work on their willingness to drop something and help newbies though, in general. In particular, when there's an event going on, newbies in several guilds can forget about getting help / getting questions answered from their guildmates. Hard to answer questions when you're getting killed, and after you pray and come back to life, you forget the question was ever asked.

Or maybe I was just spoilt by all the lovely attention the Arcanists in Achaea (and the Serpentlords, to a lesser extent) gave to the novices.

I think Newton newbie area is like, 5 times bigger than in achaea or wherever, I definately enjoyed my time there.

I'd love to someday see a grown-up area similar to Newton on prime, just like Newton brimming with exciting quests, fun mobs to bash and an in-depth story. Even not being a newbie anymore, Newton's still my favorite area .

Only thing that bugged me was having tons of true newbies telling me how hard it was for them to get a hold of decent elixirs, especially after Bob's stuff got halved in sips. They never played any IRE game, so they try to quest, but the "veteran" newbies are much faster with that, so the true newbies barely get enough gold to pay for those measly potions, let alone leave Newton with any gold in their pack.

Maybe have HINTSON and HINTSOFF.

Have the first hint when out of Portals to be

: To turn of Hints from hereonin, type HINTSOFF.

Then have random hints while it biggieland like

: Make sure you PROBE first before attacking.

and then when in Newton:

: Maybe these Shroomies will make a great ingredient.

The Guides had a habit of going AFK when I was a newbie...