Do New players know what to do?

[Seranthor]

not a bad idea either Klaus, wouldn't hurt to scatter the higher tier stuff around also going to fire island for cobalt is kinda stupid anyway.

[imported_Ssilmath]

The handholding kind of stops at about level 5...In my opinion it should keep going till at least ten, and maybe a little bit after that...

As for the newbie Islands, when was the last time you were at New Vassarak? The place is fair crawling with Flax, Cedar and Bronze...Everything a Sslik needs...

[Aamer Khan]

I like level of handholding done by the new tutorial. It should address well what my concerns were for starting this thread.

But what Ssilmath mentions illustrates why, for some new players, no tutorial or hand holding will ever be enough... people forget, don't explore, cancel the tutorials, and want to do it all themselves without help.

Thats why I think the NPA channels on the shards will continue to provide a valuable service to take up where the tutorial leaves off.

Now if we could just turn off the tutorial dialogs for us seasoned players... [:P]

[Svayvti]

New player here, I must say that the game was initially frustrating for me but has been growing on me steadily.

My #1 complaint wouldn't be the game itself but the long load time my computer seems to have for no reason.

My #2 frustration is the quest/chat interface. The quest log frequently doesn't have some of the info I need (for instance which city to go to for wedding quests) and if you've closen the NPC chat box then you're out of luck.

#3 Lack of story/lore/setting for Non-Dragon races. I had a friend try out the dragon race and then was a bit disappointed at the lack of lore and race introduction for "bipeds".

#4 maybe along with story, but it would be nice to be given instructions when hopping through all these teleporters for quests what the basis is for each city and when it would be appropriate to hunt there.

[Nexxus]

I know I've gotten on to this topic quite late, but on the subject of dragons sucking at t2 when level 30 or so:

Dragon Crafter is a *very* broad base school, like Outfitter or Blacksmith.

You gain not only metal abilities, but also stone abilities, essence abilities, gemworking, spellcraft etc etc.

As such, you are never quite as good at any one of them as a specialist school, for example, Weaponsmith/Armorer, who are able to do the one resource they can do alot earlier.

There is no harm in having your DCRA way higher than your DRAG, I've been 100 DCRA since about 45 DRAG, and it has ment I can wear a full set of t5 scales, teched, and I have a much higher str/dex/etc.

The only way dragons are going to get a way of being 'halfway thru t2 at 30' is if we get specialist 'subschools', like, Dragon Spellcrafter, Dragon Metal Scalecrafter, Dragon Stone Scalecrafter, etc, similar to how bipeds have it.

I personally dont want that to happen :P

[AA0]

The latest client seems to have eliminated some major memory leaks but loads things extremely slow, hopefully this is quickly resolved.

Quests are rarely that complex, and the wedding quest does need some refinement in directions. The whole quest interface is somewhat poor but you should be able to open up your in game notepad to take notes.

Lack of lore is a big problem, but for tier 1 there is quite a bit and getting to be more and more. You can go through Aug and listen to the dwarves stories, etc too.

As far as I know, from new trismus you are sent on to kion and sslanis, which are very obvious in their racial make up. Its something you will learn and not just told to you, not everything has to be plainly spelled out as to what needs to be done, its part of discovering the world.

[Yardo]

A few things I like to add:

It would be nice to get some pointers as to where to go to get quests. Something like a barkeep at the local inn that has some gossip for you. Don't go around putting big markers on NPC's (like WoW does) I realy don't like that.

Other than that, I think that the basic things are nicely explained in the tutorial, I had no problems to find out how everything works. The only thing that was a bit of a mystery, are the lore tokens and bounty markers. I did find out what they are for, but it took me a while.

Something else, at lvl 20 the crafter trainer that gives quests for tokens, only gives tier II quests. It's realy hard to get those, as like others here have said, your not ready to do those, especialy at lvl 20! So, go out and craft 15 iron bars is doable, but not easy. Maybee mix in some tier I tasks?

[AA0]

The new system for quests will show you who has a quest you are elidble to do by a icon with the npc. This should only work on newer quests though, so older ones won't show until they get updated.
I am pretty sure they aren't able to make an npc to list available quests, etc.

[Jaraiden]

Enjoyed the dragon tutorial Skaalar island (or similar name) and continued to the dragon trainers on NT - more than enough info. I'd just add "Seek Gerix in Kion if you want more adventure" as that "Status Report to Gerix" quest may not show in the Greet dialogue.

Don't know about the biped tutorial, however I'd expect it to be similar. If players opt to wander around NT or Lesser Arodoth w/o exploring the tutorial or NT fully then it is their choice.

[Sigi]

Think it's been suggested earlier but since it isn't implemented yet...
It would be very nice and usefull if tokens and markers would be treated like money -> the amount to be shown in the inventory window and automaticly paid when buying a tech or a form. That way you could also have a dialogue with something like - you don't have enough tokens to buy this form - making it clear you pay with tokens and not with money.

[Svayvti]

#5 in-game class descriptions. I think it would help if they were a bit more descriptive and detailed so one knew what they were getting into. Adventure and Craft classes.

#6 I've only tried Scholar so far and its been good for explaining quarrying and spellcrafting. If it explains essence harvesting or any of the other skills in Scholar then I totally missed it. Could use improvement in my opinion.

#7 I was very delighted last night to discover armor dye kits after reading about them on the web. Would have made me much happier to know about them sooner. Maybe I missed something, but I think knowing about character customization options would make a lot of new players happy.

[Foxtrick]

#1
I think too many tutorials will put us into the mess that AO got itself into where the learning curve became incredibly steep.

If you look into how the current setup is, atleast you are pushed forward to choose a school. And you dedicate to that initially, maybe it would be best if people was forced onto an adventure school, even if its only for 3 levels, to make sure they understand the concept of scribing a spell/skill and hot-baring it, whilst slight mentionings that this method is the same for crafting.

I guess the problem im highlighting here, is that there are too many choices too early on for new players, I doubt people would like the suggestion of being pushed into hunting for 3 levels but if it makes it easier on a noob so be it. I've only been playing since Saturaday, and I'd consider myself quite advanced at MMO's, yet it was a hard and slow start even for me.

#2
On another note before choosing a race I think there should be a popup window that says that the difference between races isnt 'huge' in terms of ability, and mostly should be choosen for preference visually and alittle on the site of 'specialitys'.

#3
Continuing on from above.. why not explain somewhere along the lines(ideally somewhere early on) that certain crafts will enable you go to onto the actual skills for plot building.. because the biggest attraction for me in this game wasnt being a dragon but actually community builds/plot

#4
Another thing, explain that only one craft school and one adventure school can be active at any one time, I got frustrated realising I was getting any skill during crafting because it wasnt active :P

#5
Suggestion, maybe have the game open up with a minimal GUI for a new player and the tutorial slowly fill it up with things as and when needed to learn - ie hot bar when a school is choosen

Oh and hi Svayvti!

[Tenebrian]

Well I created a biped last night right before I had to log and the scholar tutorial mentions essence harvesting but I didn't see any sign that it explained it. But I was rushed.

[Mojo-LaHojo]

Would be great if there were a person in your racial city that would help direct you to the next set of quests

As a dragon, I found it very helpful to have Gerix in Kion telling me what I needed to do. He kept me busy and interested in the game, and had me exploring to learn about the various places and NPCs. More Gerix-like NPCs might help out bipeds a great deal, to get basic skills like gathering, crafting, making money, and fighting.