A noob is going to quit when.....

[Argentis]

I would love to see mentoring system. I would love to add new players to town, IF i could only be sure that they actually are new players, not just someones alt.

That is the problem. And also traitors.

I like the idear of a mentoring system.

I will train up a newbie, get him to love the game, he drops £100 supporting the game, and ill rob him blind for all his £££ items.

Rinse and repete with the next new player.

Free $$$ items for mentors all round.

Oh boy... That is not the way!

You need to welcome them to the game. Give them a plot of land and when they are fed up with the game they give you everything! MUAHAHAHAH

[HolyLight]

Sounds very familiar..

[Nektaris]

I remember a game where the tutorial let you 'feel' what the endgame was about.

I say make an instanced island like the current one we have now but much bigger and put every single infrastructure inside it. Add a tutorial that explains most, if not all, of the basic and advanced stuff while the player is using a 'temporary' character with almost every skill/high humours/endgame clothes. A npc could guide you through the island teaching you things and teleporting you like the current guide does. For example the guide ports you near the river and asks you to fill a bucket, as soon as you do it he ports you to the next point and so on.
Then when the player is done he is ported to the current island to create his char and is then ported to Providence.

[Argentis]

Sounds very familiar..

I have no idea of what you're talking about

[Cheena]

My noob boyfriend quit the game because his "safe" leanto and all his noob stuff got looted and destroyed. Probably by you or one of your braves
Another reason was that the wilderness guide ported us hours of walk from each other and we have absolutly no damn clue how much. (we both walked 2 hours to meet and never did actually meet, had to port. so at least 4 hours away from each other)

I do believe that it should be clear for a noob that the wilderness guide isn't going to port you out on a safe place, and that you have to build your own safetyness. That everything you have can decay too, that you can claim stuff to make it a bit safer. We didn't know back then that decay happened and that you need a claim to protect yourself from that.

We didn't know either that the Boston claim was safe until a certain limit; people in town were talking about it but I understood wrongly that leaving the buildings area was dangerous and deadly. Which made me struggle like hell to find god damn GRASS. During the two or three weeks I played alone.

Everything being in english didn't help me either as the very long and complicated explanations in the "help" section of the client were gobbledygook to me, kinda had to alt tab to google translate one word on two. Reminds me that I should have a look to them now... But I think it should be kept simple. Simple words, short sentences, easy understanding.
The wiki didn't help either as you need to know what you're searching for.

The only thing that did actually help me to understand what the heck I was doing in this game, was Sevenless' guide to the new world. Because, yeah, what the heck are we doing in this game ? Only clue was "it's a sandbox, do what you want". And I knew it had politics too. No idea how it could work. If there was an order to do things. I didn't even know how glutonny wa s supposed to work or even what the heck it was usefull for.

The lack of track on your friends is annoying too. Every veteran knows how to play with their friends, but a noob doesn't and sometimes, that makes them quit. You would probably think "bah, once they figured out what to do, they just create another character or abandon their crappy leanto and walk together from Providence" BUT. That's not really how it works in a noob's head. Actually the first character matters, and the little ****** stuff they gathered are all they have and it's very important. How to even get a new leanto !? Is it even possible ??? And when we have the claim, who's gonna leave his stuff ? Their hardwork on their few wooden boxes and that nail needed to build the sawbuck that costed them all the money they had ?

It's a lot easier to get money now than it was when I was a noob, but I don't think that in the first 30 minutes of game the noobs realise how easy it is and the value of their possessions.

[Naerymdan]

Hmmmmm....

Starting out, the most obscure thing to me was the meaning of the various numbers and the clicking mechanics

1 - What are biles, inspiration, the proficiency and skills? Very obscure to someone new. Maybe some screen overlay with little arrows pointing to various biles with a "Blood represents health", "Black bile and is used to place and study stuff", "Yellow is used to fight" and "Flegm is used to building and destroy stuff" would help tremendously.

2 - Starting out we have quite a big pool of inspiration, but studying the same inspirational multiple times magically consumes MORE of it?!? Maybe tooltip could reflect that this specific inspirational is now at 150%, 200$, 250% inspiration cost? Or perhaps new character could have lower starting points but WAY higher point regen for a little while so that they are better paced trying to study stuff.

3 - Using thing in cursor to click on other things. This is probably the only game since old adventure games that uses a 'item-in-cursor' mechanic. ALL other games basically drop that item on the floor when you try that. Even just showing how to light stuff up or fertilize a field would be a boon.

4 - Mouse-wheel Inventory is AWESOME, but a lot of people do not know about shift-wheel. Add a little writing on bottom of inventory bag ("ctrl-click: drop item, shift-wheel: move items")

[trungdle]

Actually the first character matters, and the little ****** stuff they gathered are all they have and it's very important.

Quote of truth.

[Procne]

I think the tutorial should end with character being permakilled with a comment that it will be happening outside the tutorial as well. So that new players will enter the game with the mindset that they WILL die and lose everything.

[Yes]

Actually the first character matters, and the little ****** stuff they gathered are all they have and it's very important.

Quote of truth.

Quote of lack of common sense. It should be obvious for a person who uses a brain that a couple of hours wasted on a char is nothing. I'd love my first char to be killed shortly after starting the game, then I'd know a lot of stuff about crimes and would read "permadeath" as not just words, but with an understanding in my head.
Would be cool if on the shipwreck island in the end of the tutorial all chars would suddenly get into a crime situation where some guy would kill them slowly and painfully.

[Cheena]

I think the tutorial should end with character being permakilled with a comment that it will be happening outside the tutorial as well. So that new players will enter the game with the mindset that they WILL die and lose everything.

I absolutly agree with that. 100%.

Quote of lack of common sense. It should be obvious for a person who uses a brain that a couple of hours wasted on a char is nothing.

Dude you don't think like a noob. We're talking about the first impression on a new game you never put a foot on before. A game you never played before. Everyone is not a H&H veteran.