I think the newbie areas are great, and I love the novice system.. just twenty-four play hours to graduate.. it's good stuff! I've played bunches of other muds before, including all the other IRE muds, and this is the best one I've fiddled with yet, for sure. One poblem for me though, as a knight, is that unless someone GIVES me a sword, I can't kill anything.. not even rats. And now that I have swords, I still can't kill a black rat before it runs. I do know though, that any other archtype finds it much, much easier as a newbie.. which is ok, since knights are predominately equipment based. But perhaps a quest for a decent or average-ish shortsword would be helpful. Like, do a quest for the gnome knights and be awarded "A gnomish shortsword". That would be SUPER helpful to knight novices.

Overall : 10 out of 10.

haha how about this for an issue with the newbie areas.

I have done the gnomish honours quest and now im trying to do the other.

However its taking me so long to work out the sequence of events that im almost level 20. Which will render me incapable of doing the quest.

Im actually considering making an alt just to work out that quest so I can have both newbie quests on my honours list.

How do I empty a pouch of spice onto some fish!! (rhetorical, I know if someone answered the thread would probably get nuked)

Well, I'll have this to say.

When I first created Merloch, it was the very first hour that Lusternia hit open beta. Every newbie area was so crowded, you could do nothing. (Understandable, given it was a complete new place).

I never really experienced much of the novice system or anything, since at the time all the guilds had no leadership.

So! In light of this, and this discussion's coercing, I went and made a newbie in a random guild to experience how it felt to actually have Lusternia experienced in part, how it was intended.

I found the bashing, and quests quite easy. (Though, I admit, I do have IRE background so maybe for a -total- newbie it wouldn't be).

I made 13,000 gold as a newbie, without rats or weevils, before hitting level 21.

I didn't die once.

While the areas were great, the guild I chose was a little on the 'do it yourself' side. While often asked if I needed any help, no one actually taught me anything. It was all explained in a helpfile (though I can't say I'd know what to do if I was a total newbie).

Not a poor experience on the guild side, just not as great as the newbie areas I'd found.

My learning experience in the Moondancers wasn't that great. I can't remember who taught me, cause they weren't really paying much attention to me and so didn't create much of an impression. The only time he spoke to me was when I'd ask a question and sometimes I'd have to ask more than once before I got a reply and I got tired of that so I stopped asking eventually. I didn't know what most of my abilities did for the longest time. The system is much better now, I think.

Whenever I get to teach a novice, which isn't often because whenever I'm around and one needs teaching the Novice Sphere Undersecs jump em (as they should, of course) and I don't get a chance. I do try to explain a bit about each ability if the AB file is too amiguous and have the novice try them out right then so they can see how it works, if possible. Can't do it with all the abilities, of course, but I hit as many as I can. Just cause that's how I wish I'd been taught, ya know.

I love the Newton Caverns, they're really awesome. I can't comment on the honours quests because the only one I'm close to figuring out (with an alt) is the gnome one... But I'm horrid at quests. I've always been bad at them, so I'm not a good judge of that. The only complaint I can come up with is that there is almost too much to do. You can level up to 21 really quickly without having explored the entire thing if you aren't careful. Not that that is a bad thing! Better too much to do than not enough!

The widgets/chains do re-pop too soon though, and a lot of people don't seem to realize how many you have to have and what to do after you give them to the people who want them to actually go through the portal. That might be why a lot of people never make it to Lolliprin...they give up on trying the portals because they don't realize they have to turn the crank or pull the lever. They just expect it to be open cause they gave Cranky or Finko their Widgets or Chains. I think it even says to do so in the third message, but there's two messages to hear after handing over the widgets/chains and such a long pause between them that I can easily imagine some people walking out before they get to that part.

best noviehood EVER!

no insane amount of requirements to so ( so no room for power hungry elitists)

and i thourghly enjoyed just bashign and questing here alot more

Well, currently I am still a novice in Lusternia but I definitely enjoyed this novice area a lot more than the other IRE games. The only problem that I've been running into while bashing and questing is some of the little newbies with grace of innocence will wait for you to weaken a mob, then kill it and take the corpse, then run away. Other than that, everything is superb. You guys are doing a great job. Keep up the good work.

I've put in a few newbie hints. Please let me know how they are and if there's suggestions for more hints, please post!

How I wish I was a newbie so I could check those hints now. I think I'll revive my plan of making a Mugwump Paladin, named Glenn.

Actually, we've got that damage thing more or less fixed. Iron banded clubs can be made cheaply enough that thanks to a few very generous forgers, we give them (and other starting equipment) to all our novices now. They can do quite respectably with them, certainly well enough for them to work their way to their first sword or flail or what-have-you.

*renames a random Paladin sec Cyrus*

I was there recently. Is hard to get used to when you're used to Geomancer / Moondancer kind of damage though. Am spoilt, what can I say? Thanks for all the help and equipment. Gave it back, but not telling. Shhh.

Heh, yeah, I remember being annoyed at Moondancer damage, 'cause Aquamancer damage was even higher when I was Shiri.

Summer, The Moondancer's instructions concerning the guild house are not vague, they are descriptive and realistic and have been noted that way for a reason. Giving out directions such as N, NE, NW etc, will always be considered poor role play, and such directions were frowned upon by the Divine in our very first months of the Basin.

Those directions are so annoying. I had a moondancer alt that someone was trying to 'give hints" to the way. She totally had me in the wrong place and people were getting mad because I was getting mad at the stupid rule that I JUST joined and had to find the guildhall.

And then I suicided that person.

*enters lever*

I'm realizing something slowly.


The newbie areas are great, as I said..


But what about, after newbie?


There's a lot of quest stuff, but is there aqeduate 'just after' stuff until you're able to hunt planes?

I played a warrior char recently and, as Merloch said, the newbie time was great. After that it just blew, though. No planar traval for you, warrior class, and no decent spots to bash. I just did rats until I could hit planes.

Without some credits on that character to get sewers and basic planes, there's no way I would get him past level 25 or so. Commodity quests are amazingly boring and repetitive - and rockeaters aren't a pushover at level 22, when they are even around.

I'm well aware of the reason why it was noted down in that way. The divine however, are not the ones who are having problems and getting very frustrated trying to find the guildhall. I wasn't new to IRE muds and it was still hard going and I still got lost. Imagine someone who's entirely new. Or if it had been another mud and they gave me instructions like: go through the tunnel till you reach a stand of trees. Me: Tunnel? Where? *gets very losts* *quits*

While we're on the topic, might want to consider adding instructions for using GNT, Newbie and PORTALS to the GHELP SEEKERS file.

Note to estarra:

The new hints in newton and lolliprin etc are pretty good. I can imagine they would help newbies really well.

However after getting the gloves the hint spells hottest wrongly

Hottest now spelled right! Thanks!