On Personal Investment

[AmonGwareth]

Warrior, Mage, Cleric and Scout already have class-specific quest lines to level 10 on New Trismus. And then the larger grouping of classes have class-specific in T2 (Sources of Power for mage schools, Holy Symbols for healer schools, Battlefields for Warrior schools).

[Guaran]

Warrior, Mage, Cleric and Scout already have class-specific quest lines to level 10 on New Trismus. And then the larger grouping of classes have class-specific in T2 (Sources of Power for mage schools, Holy Symbols for healer schools, Battlefields for Warrior schools).

Thanks. That explains why my healer alt has a few t2 quests that went disabled and I wasn't sure why.

What are your thoughts about some additional quests for say warrior, mage, healer/cleric, monk, and maybe druid as well? Say a questline which starts after the level 10 quests are done, which threads along to level 30. with say a new section of the quest opening up every 5 levels. Sort of a mini-epic quest?

I know there are already a lot of good t2 quests.. but those skulks are tough, and the dragons in the chiconis battlefield can overwhelm a new player too. Not suggesting changing those. Just maybe some additional quests that are say about the history of the warrior or something. Something they can solo, that has a story to carry them from level 10 to level 30. and at the conclusion at level 30, they get say spirit of the monkey for monks, spirit of the warrior for warriors (+30 strength passive), Knowledge of Life for the healer/cleric (+30 life passive), Blessing of the Forest for druid (+30 nature passive). Nothing overpowering, but still nice to have. And quests that were fun to do. The npc's giving the quests should always instruct the player to come back in 5 levels for his next piece of training (or mention the level at which he should return to continue).

[LOVWYRM]

Thanks.
I know there are already a lot of good t2 quests.. but those skulks are tough, and the dragons in the chiconis battlefield can overwhelm a new player too. Not suggesting changing those.

Those are a big prob-really- but I do not want them to be changed either.
I know they discouraged some newbies. So I think your ideas are a good solution, Guaran.

[AmonGwareth]

Really the only thing holding more class-specific quests back is time-investment in developing them. Focus has been on quests/changes that benefit a wider number of players - Crystalshaper, Barrier Vale, upcoming T3 revamp, etc.

[Guaran]

Perhaps after those projects are done...

I did say mini-epic quests.. so nothing huge.

Just a series of say 4 or 5 quests for each school at level 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30. Could all start with class trainers in Tazoon. All be about the history of previous (famous?) warriors/monks/druids/healers. First one could just be go around tazoon interviewing/talking to some npc's. Last one could be an exploratory adventure that walks them from mahagra, across the ice, into the tower of sorcery, up to the top, teleport to trandalar, and the gatekeeper there could be the final step. (quest would have triggers that track the progress across the ice, so they actually have to WALK it, and not just teleport and be done).

That's how I would do it

The quest to trandalar could be for one of the schools (Warrior, since there is no "Warrior" tower). The druid one would require a trek to the top of the nature tower. healer/Cleric one a trek to the top of the healer tower (in tazoon desert).. etc. etc. Do a spiritist one where as lvl 30 they get to try and safely make it to the spirit tower in the swamp. That would be a fun quest. And it is totally doable. And it would be exciting and scary for a new player. That was the kind of thing I loved doing on my hatchy when he was in his 20's.. i explored ED, Spiritous Swamp, WD, all over the place.

[Arzel Rashemi]

Does the lack of time to develop quests like these also extend to those player made quests which are submitted?

Just curious. Afterall if we want to see more content and its there, why not use it.

[AmonGwareth]

Does the lack of time to develop quests like these also extend to those player made quests which are submitted?

Just curious. Afterall if we want to see more content and its there, why not use it.

Less time, but it still takes time because even player written quests have to be adapted for the system and then all of the content entry/development done. I've got two rather large player-written quests involving half-giants and trandalar that were submitted a long time ago that I've partially adapted but they have become part of the T3 revamp.

If you have ideas for specific story-lines, please either post them here or send me a message. I'd be more than happy to discuss it with you further.

[Arzel Rashemi]

Thank you very much amon.

[Brusinger]

I have in idea on the tutorials, idk if its possible Amon with the type of system istaria is run on. but... a lot of players dont read the blue pop ups :/ i know this from a few years ago trying to get some of my friends into this mmo.

anyways i'll get right to the point.

if you can manage some sort of short video showing how to use "said" controls.
(Example) small video, dragon dies, up close view of recall button. dragon is revived. end of story.
(Example) small video, Auto open C window showing the list of ability icons, Mouse cursor appears on screen, displaying a drag and drop motion with the ability icon onto the hotkey bar.

ECT

I don't know *Shrugs* just an idea.
to me it would make the game seem a bit more interactive with the players
could work for explaining how biped classes work as well

Or new idea! this one may be less invasive to the players.
you could have a "Guide" tutorial. show them around the game interface a bit with a guide,
highlight buttons and tabs on the screen encouraging the players click on them, follow the tutorial.

could work with a little bit of all 3 styles of tutorial, little high lighted button here, short video there, and a pop up bubble to explain more complex things..

I'm probably rambling by now, no idea if this was of any help or inspiration. i hope you find a solution Istaria is a wonderful mmo and i hope it stays alive for a long time to come

[AmonGwareth]

Videos aren't possible, but the guide is. And in fact the tutorial does guide you around the UI as it introduces concepts and it tells players about the ? icon which brings up each window's specific tutorial.

[Steelclaw]

Wow! The thread made it this long without going totally off topic. Thanks everyone!

The conversation seems to have died down, so it sounds like this is a good opportunity to circle back and close out the discussion.

I see a general acceptance of a "you must be this tall to ride" concept, though the token bypass seems to have some catches. I'll have to go back and look at the technical hurdles to implementing an account-level completion check, so alts have the option of bypassing the quests if another character on the account has completed the tutorials. It may be simple to do, otherwise, we may try the craft-able token route and see how it goes. In any case, I want to make sure that the process is self-service, even for the odd school configurations, and does not require a support ticket to complete.

Looking back, I see three additional themes that came up: the current tutorial promotes skipping, power-leveling contributes to poor retention, and there may be a lack of post-new-player investment incentive.

The post-new-player investment incentive is more of a school-by-school issue, where we need to identify the holes and commit the time to fill them in with quests. Aside from identifying the holes, this is pretty much an easily-solved problem. As Amon points out, it's just a (developer) time investment issue.

Power-leveling, as I mentioned earlier, is outside the scope of this discussion, though it does deserve a nod. I think we, as a community, need to look at the motives behind power-leveling before condemning the entire practice. Does the new-player experience just plain suck? Does the power-leveled player want to max out so they can just run around and squash things? Does the power-leveling player want to show off? Does the power-leveling group just want to get the low-level up so they can all enjoy a challenging fight? Some motives may be ways to cope with frustrating game mechanics or design, rather than pure laziness. The former should get some attention, as that's a sign that there's something wrong (more "F-U-N", less "F-U"). The latter... well, we can't cure laziness.

That said, please save your comments on power-leveling for another thread. This isn't the place for it.

Regarding the tutorial, I agree that it could use some work to be more engaging (and less demeaning). Nobody wants to read a wall of text when it gets in the way of playing their game. There's some useful ideas in this thread, and I'll make sure to point them out when the new-player experience comes up for review.

Thank you again to everyone who contributed and for the feedback!

[Deelighted]

I'm a little late responding but hope my suggestions will be taken into consideration.

I really try to help the new players to Istaria, and from what I've heard from new players, many of them want to start tinkering school right away which is a difficult school for a new player to take on. Some players will take the time to stock the NT connie with flax cargo gear at a reasonable price, but many times there isn't cargo gear available or what's available isn't what the new player needs. So would it be possible to have some kind of cargo gear (even refurbrished) available on trainers like smith or outfitter? If that isn't possible, would it be possible to introduce a quest line similar to Geoff's cargo disk?

Another player brought up the need for the low-level biped backpack forms to be made more accessible to new players. Would it be possible to change the beginner leather backpack form from a drop item to a quest formula similar to the Nielenoss quest line?

[Kaishan]

Just ran into this thread and found it most interesting. It's been a year and a half since it was started by Steelclaw is this still in the works? I think it would be a great idea to lock new players into the beginning island to learn the basics. Although I do love how Istaria is open world with no restrictions like some other games out there. That is one of the key things in this game that make it so great and I wouldn't want to ruin that, but the starter island to teach fundamentals would be a good area to change that part.

I also agree with a sort of token being craftable along the lines of the cargo disk that a person who wanted to bring an alt through wouldn't have to do things to learn something that they probably already know.

I would like to touch on a few ideas for improvement; food for thought if you will. A lot of the crafting in Istaria is tied together, another thing that makes Istaria hands down the best crafting mmo platform in the world. Now since crafts are tied together wouldn't this be a great time to just scratch the surface on how some of the basic crafts help each other?

Level blacksmith alittle (level 1?) then note how it gave you woodworking, sculpting, metalworking to show them how to see skills and see them change.
Level Scholar on stone from blacksmith with this newly achieved skill.(level 1?)
Level Outfitter by smelting bars from blacksmith and achieving foraging skills.
Use outfitter to harvest flax or something to make spools to give xp for outfitter (level 1)

Then you could have a line for adventure, this should be enough to get off the island and on to New Trismus. I think it would give a beginner a basic understanding of the game and open their eyes to the possiblities before them.

P.S. Maybe add a chat tab for new player chat to ask questions in case someone is having difficulty understanding something and leaving the AI world out of that part? Hehe

Great idea Steelclaw
-Kaishan