Ok I said something about this in another thread basically post your ideas for novice areas.... here was my example



Novice Area 1:
Ruins of Old Celest:
Mobs; Paladins, Aquamancers, Celestines.
Quest: Search for Object A and give to Person A; reward small gold reward.
Descrip: An internal struggle between the guilds in the ruins of old celest have caused strife and turmoil, leading to civil war and you can go and help one of the guilds you choose. By helping them get some coveted object and turning in the enemies of a certain org you will get gold and exp.



It doesn't have to be super in depth, just a basic outline, unless you want to be really in depth. Then by all means do so.

I am starting this because, we all know that to get more players is to get more novices excited about playing here. Giving them more than one place to build up their gold/circles would be a great way to show them more about Lusternia and its history. Thus hooking them on the game and leading our community as a whole growing enough that we can get larger areas, more archetypes and more history quicker.

Anyways, please post your suggestions. Estarra if you like some of these ideas, please let us know. It always feels good when the teacher gives a nice nod of approval to a student.

Enjoy!

That's spectre isle!



We actually aren't sparse on ideas--we have lists of area ideas! The problem is having the manpower to build the areas. There was actually a really neat lowbie area that I was looking forward to but the person building it dropped out and no one has expressed a desire to pick it up.

Just as a shout-out to our builders, both mortal and god, I really think they do a fabulous job and it is a LOT more work than people realize. Only part of it is writing rooms descriptions (which granted is one of the hardest parts), but a huge part is design and scripting quests. I can't wait for you guys to see what's in store for the future!



P.S. We can always use more ideas to add to our list! Feel free to post them here or detailed ideas on the plots board!

Here is an idea... (stolen from Zelda, twilit princess.. love that typo)

An aetherbubble for novices, only accessable via giant cannon on the top of smoke mountain.

That sounds great, how about a small area of (less dangerous) aetherspace, cut off from the main aetherspace, accessible only to novices to get to this aetherbubble, with basic one room aetherships that can be hired for gold to give novices a taste of aetherspace and the bubbles? If you don't know what aetherspace is like then your less likely to be willing to pay out for a ship of your own, but if you've had a taster and liked it then there might be more motivation to save up for your own ship?

I approve of this idea. Little aether fighter ships.

I know my Old Celest idea is Spectre Isle, just was trying to post an example outline of it.

The aetherspace one seems cool, but I don't think you got my meaning, I meant novice areas besides having to go into newton. A room off of portals that you can choose other novice areas. Going through newton can be such a pain, I mean with 30 novices in there and you need the "items" required to get to a part of newton you want to bash in, it becomes more of a turn off for some new players. Which is why I thought more non newton areas would keep novices interested.

I really like that. It also helps show the multi-planer aspect.

My only grip about newton is it has NOTHING to do with Lusternia's history and conflict. I think many novices are looking for that.

Not true! Gnomes think they are gods and thats why they gave us aethertravel because of the plight of thier fellow gnomes on the basin

It is also where the gear on the website comes from! LIES AND SLANDER!!!!

Oh, Gnomes and there illusions of grandeur

Actually, I think that more than additional newbie areas we need additional newbie features. A new player in Lusternia right now can do two things: He can bash and roleplay (If he has the opportunity to, which isn't common - Newbies need sometimes to be eased into roleplay). Compare that to, say, Puzzle Pirates, which has at least four different things newbies can do right at the start, or to more roleplay-intensive environments where new players always get involved in roleplay and thus have quite a few things to do right at the start.

I actually disagree.

Newbies (as in, completely new) don't want to be inundated and overwhelmed with things to do. The majority of the newbies I've trained basically want to learn their skills, and get started hunting/questing. Other, more complicated features are things they need to be eased into. I doubt most true newbies would enjoy things like traveling into aetherspace or other activities too early on. I would put those sort of things somewhere a little bit later, but before real midbies (say around the level 20+ range).

The problem is, the game puts off anyone who doesn't like the repetitiveness of bashing... The only aspect of Lusternia most newbies see is bashing - Bash bash bash. If they don't enjoy it, they'll just quit. The first hour or so of gameplay should let them take a look at all Lusternia has to offer, and the first 24 hours of gameplay should offer them enough options to keep them interested.

puzzle pirates?

A strangly addictive game involving cartoon pirates and erm puzzles...Look for me on there as 'Kestral'

Anyways I actually like the novice areas in Lusternia. When I tried Imperian afetr playing Lusternia I was lost and confused, no-one helping me out apart from, go to the black pines. It took me 3 or 4 hours just to get my glaive!

Lustrnia is nice as it is simpler, and you can kill the finks and gnomes without fear of being slaughtered left right and centre, which is what happend to me in Imperian

Ooo! I loved Puzzle Pirates during Alphatesting! I haven't played it since, however. Can you give examples of the four types of things newbies can do? It doesn't often help us to hear "On Such-and-such newbies have 1289378 options," because most of the Admin (myself included, in this case) won't be familiar with the context of your quote.

Regarding the disconnect between Newton and the major Lusternian conflicts, we are aware this is the case. We've discussed this before, and the problem that continually arises in admin discussions is that if newbies are thrust into the Taint/Light/Wyrd/Moonhippie conflict, they will likely be enemied, attacked and killed by opposing organizations (which would be legitimately within their role and interest to do!). It's fine to say that newbies should get a feel for this conflict, but how would we prevent it from turning into a "grief the newbies" situation? I don't think we can simply rely on the good-will of the playerbase to prevent this from happening, because while I don't doubt that our players are capable of such, it is illogical and against their self-interest to do so (save from a meta-gaming viewpoint). If anyone has ideas, please share them!

Hmm a newbie arena for those of level 15 to 19? Since they are close to losing grace of innocence, have a special area coded that allows only people with grace of innocence to fight in it with objectives and plot behind it. something simple like having a npc explain to the newbies (different npcs for different orgs) why is there war, and request them to go to attack the opposing stronghold and get flags/items and return them for gold/xp/karma? Considering early fighting consists nothing more than swings, jabs, cosmicfires, nature curse, blast .... it should be fairly easy but yet bloody enough. Also loss for them will be minimised. Also make it an option to opt out of this if they dislike fighting. Could include various puzzles and quests too.

Just played puzzle pirates.

As a newbie you are given 4 missions, sailing, carpentry, bilging, and swordfighting. After you complete those 4 missions, only then do you find out there are about 10 things you can actually do in the game and 20 if you wish to pay.

A few ideas:

1) Increase the rate of spawning in Newton Caverns. If the area is heavy with newbies, and the first "wave" of gnomes and finks is destroyed: let a second wave enter a given area! Such as "A shout erupts from the tunnels leading to the fink caverns, as finks charge through the tunnels." Then a third wave, if necessary. This will help all the newbies get access to good bashing, but not cause the problem of "repop" relating to not getting back to the gnome. Face it: newbies want money for corpses!

2) Definitely stress the honours quests! Trying to solve these is great fun for any newbie, and the payoff is infinitely worthwhile. All guilds should stress fighting for at least one of the factions in Newton. It's infinitely more sophisticated than similar newbie areas in other IRE games, and I'm astonished more guilds don't exploit this for newbie training.

3) Maybe add a free Influencing lesson into the intro? Influencing is definitely one of Lusternia's better aspects, and maybe some newbies will be attracted to the idea of begging for gold. Make the Newton mobs able to be influenced by a few rounds of Begging only.

4) In exchange for getting along in the Honours quest (eg. finishing the Catapult, etc.) the finks/gnomes will give newbies small Power Orbs (bear with me here) that they can place in their Nexus for more power! One hell of a way to feel like you're benefitting your city. Can anyone think of ways this can be expanded on?

It is difficult to make a broad spectrum assumption like this and have it be accurate. Some novices may enjoy having one small place to go and bash. However, I am always more likely to return to a game when I'm given multiple things to do straight off. Give me a real taste of the game, let me explore more than one small section of the world, give me quests, creatures to fight and atmosphere. If you can show me that your game has more to it than "kill " I am probably going to stick around.

A good general rule is this: err on the side of caution. If you open up an array of things for novices to do it does not mean that they are forced to do them. For those that really want to ride the bleeding edge of the game, they will have much more fun when you give them more options. Those that don't will always have newton.

Newton was just right for me, by the time I was done exploring the place and figuring out the quests I was almost level 21. If there were another newbie area for me to learn about the Taint/Wyrd/Light/Serenwhatever I wouldn't have had time to explore it. And I didn't think it was overcrowded, it's split into four areas so the other novices in there ended up divided between those areas too. Newton Caverns is always the most crowded one but I was all alone in the others many times.

Maybe the newbie areas will need an expansion some day, but right now I think they're fine.