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

[Taipion]

I would like to remind people that Locksmithing is off Whittling now. Pretty much RIGHT after you can build your first fence you can make your first lock. Now if players want to invest the 1-2 iron bars to do so, is completely up to them. But I don't think 1-2 pig iron bars is unreasonable for locked gates.

In comparison to what locks used to cost (some stones), and especially in relation to the cost of the makeshift fence, I dare to say that it is in fact unreasonable!

My previous idea with having different locks for different gates would be at least a viable solution, with the added bonus option of making higher walls even more costly.

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.

Oh, now that is a good idea! I'd say start the tutorial out with a charater of higher biles and skills. At the end of the tutorial said character gets killed off and the first thing that happens to your "real" char is that he inherits a few things from his predecessor. That way you can teach players some of the more advanced mechanics but still start them off fresh without them feeling screwed over.

+1, sounds like Salem

[mrmay87]

I recently started playing this game and am enjoying it a lot. Some of the things I found tough were the inspirational system, not knowing exactly how it worked I wasted much inspiration on using the same inspirational twice and doubling the cost. The gluttony system was hard at first but after reading the wiki it really cleared things up. The fighting system was tough to figure out for me, I was killed by numerous grass hoppers, they never stood still for me like they do for the people on youtube (this was most likely an update from before I joined). The thing that kept me playing this game was the willingness of everyone to answer questions on the forums, a few seasoned plays taught me how to fight animals. As you know I'm sure being new to the game the permadeath aspect is scary, I still don't understand the alt thing and how you can inherit from your prior character but that's pretty much what I had problems with.

[trungdle]

I would like to remind people that Locksmithing is off Whittling now. Pretty much RIGHT after you can build your first fence you can make your first lock. Now if players want to invest the 1-2 iron bars to do so, is completely up to them. But I don't think 1-2 pig iron bars is unreasonable for locked gates.

In comparison to what locks used to cost (some stones), and especially in relation to the cost of the makeshift fence, I dare to say that it is in fact unreasonable!

At first I would say the same.
Then I begin to think, "who put lock on makeshift fence anyway?"
Then I went all the way back to feeling stupid.

In my old country, back when we need to burn our own land, we use only a rope to "lock" our claim land. We did build makeshift fence too. for the straw hut we use a long and thin plank to jam the door, prevent it from opening.
So when it come to protecting, if you have makeshift fence you won't use a lock anyway. split rail and up maybe. that's why I prefer upping the BB cost of opening door.
Or just make that plank door jam for newbie and make it breakable by high bile chars

[Taipion]

In Salem, why would anyone build a fence but not use a lock?! Opening a door is trespassing, that means nothing, having to remove any fence on a claim means waste, which is potentially deadly.
Therefore: no lock = no fence!

It used to be rocks only to make the lock, everyone (ok, most smart people) did put a lock in their makeshift fence.

[VagabondEx]

I think there is a discrepancy between real life and game reality here.
In real life, you can't make a real lock from twigs, a rope and stones, that can not be easily opened with a hatchet. However, in real life, in the real middle age, the peasants lived there on their farms, had some dogs to alert them and fight and also had pitchforks (made of wood) to defend themselves with. Against a single guy who wanted to steal something, he had reasonable chances to defend himself.

In Salem, there are no dogs, and a newbie has no chance whatsoever to defend themselves against a player who played for a week longer or even against the alt of an experienced player. It might make sense to ease it up a bit.

Having said that, I agree that once you have the essential knowledge, collecting enough money and buying iron is not really that hard. However, this can be a factor that turns away newbies from the game. Ie. I did not notice the player stalls until about my second week in the game...

[Spazzmaticus]

3. A button to wiki in plain view on the game screen so players have easy access to help.

I think this is a standard feature of the Ender client. I wouldn't mind going even further with it, though. Clicking the wiki button turns on Inquisitive Mode. Clicking anything in game gives you detailed information about that object or structure with info from the wiki. That way you don't have to multi-task too much and you can still stay in the game without rummaging through the forums. Having it toggle and making it optional wouldn't ruin the immersion for the people that want it.
I think this and H&H are the only games I've played that more or less forces you to read the forums to even understand them. The less cumbersome you can make the process of understanding mechanics on the fly the better. Of course, there's a fine line between ease-of-access and dumbing down. A good interface goes a long way, though.

[trungdle]

Or you come to the new world with a patch of necessities. The postman can hold them for you and when you are ready he will give it to you. Because noobs will die a lot, make it that the postman have several warning before they take it out.
Could make for races diversity also.
Starter patch:
Irish: booze, alcohol and whiskey.
German: money, lock and farming tool.
Chinese: straw hat, sword, the "laboring" skill.
English: pickaxe, watch, some tea.
Indian: Hunting and gathering skills. A horse?
French: institution skills, homestead right ect.
And so on so forth

[Tammer]

I think that many of the various issues could be solved by giving a mechanic for noobs to chat with each other in game. Maybe anyone who is not in a town gets put in a noob chat which works like village chat for a town?

[Omsdizzy]

This topic feels like it was created just for me. Im a noob and i have (almost) quited (97% i dont know why i even read this forum)

First things first who am i and what i was looking in this game:
I played the game for the first time for about 7-10 days starting a little before mining path.
I love collecting and trading. Iron, leather, inspirations, SILVER i need to have a lot of everything.
I love exploring new locations.
I love hard games, games that try to kill you not something like: "try to survive a weekend at deserted supermarket with all the food."
I love numbers, all those proficiencies, inspirations, humours, gluttony.
I loved the lack of information in Salem! (in game the wiki it is a different case...)

Blizzard is my worst enemy for making games so casual and easy ANY noob can play it with ease getting spoon feed and
blocking all the things that can go wrong.
Id rather go play tibia than wow at last there all noobs stay on tutorial island and never leave...



OK lets go with the story:

Used up all my inspiration first day but it was fine i made new character and carefully calculated in excel what skill i
need what inspirations are most efficient.

had a little problems with Wiki as it is outdated but soon after visiting forum found Wiki Tribe Endorsed that was a little more accurate.


1.
First time i almost left the game was when i couldnt build a house pilgrims hovel, the land wasnt flat enough GOOOOD this message was
so annoying how should i know that you can use Ctrl options on shovel to flatten it it was nowhere not even wiki i found it in some guid long time later.

2.
Few day later after killing lots of crickets i have decided to try my luck with something bigger and attacked rabbit it died fast no problem, killed few more with healing.
my yellow bile allowed me for 5 kicks and i needed 3 to kill rabbit. I wasnt at full stamina and missed 2 times, than i learned that bile dont regenerate during fight from food.
I DIDNT know that rabbit will only knock me out i was convinced that if you drop to 0 hp in this game you DIE!!!!

Rabbit was a lot faster than me, but it could never hit me as long as i was moving on the other side i couldnt escape.
I am almost saint person... not many things move me in real live and since childhood 20+ years i dint hit another human...
BUT AFTER ESCAPING FROM THAT RABBIT FOR 40 MIN!!! i wanted to smash the face of the person who made this game.

3.
after reading countless outdated guids about game mechanics i dint know whats real and whats not.
wiki is outdated yes
and i have heard long time ago that "if game doesnt have an up to data wiki it prabobly ist worth playing"
wiki takes a LOOOT of work from community who love the game they play, if no one bothers than it prabobly ist very good game i was thinking..
But i was WRONG its not fault of lazy people who dont update, its not fault of frequent updates and changes.
Its the FORM the changes are presented... JohnCarver makes an announcement with pretty much states something like that:
"some things mey or mey not have changed... go and check it out"
god id kill for a change log!
yes you give some really important info and answer questions, but after that we learnt that there is tons of **** thats not in announcement but it changed as well


4.
i dont have braziers... i was so close had lots of iron stored needed only the skill, than boom path comes in and i cant make them anymore...
now i need wrought iron bar dont have oven 9000+ coal so i need to wait 3 days to get some more.
It is impossible to rush them now. What do you want me to do sell my soul and buy wrought iron from other players? its to expensive at this point
and no newby can afford brazier before he gets robbed and quits.
I got frustrated just by not having the ability to protect my self i wasnt even robed just had a lot of expensive items stored.
Had walls, locks, torch posts and stake claim. But guide told me about the ability to unclime personal clime and ways to out maneuver braziers.

5.
I got robed. Lots lots of things but they are not important i could geather much more in next week or two... but i lost the will to do so
Why should i go on exploring runs getheting recoreces i cant protect? Why should i invest my time for someone else gain?
If the game doesn satisfy my need to gether things its not worth anything for me.

Dont get me wrong im not saing "block crime" hell no as soon as i get hold of basicks id like to plunder someone else house as well:)
I played Ultima Online and Tibia ages ago and i know how full loting system works, but even in thoes games you had save haven you can store few items.

I know i could just join some town but whats the fun in that i wanted to lern the game first and than bring friends with me to play.
I dont want to be dependant from people i dont know whan i learn my game they can trick me i dont trust anyone!

6.
I dont trust anyone so make a real traiding system thoes barrel in town are so retarded when you barter with someone.



Let me know whan you start, a separate server with no crime i can learn how to play on
or whan you introduce some sort of 21 days protection for new players whan they cant be robed.
Until than i see no reason to sacrifice my time on getting used to this game.

[pistolshrimp]

It's a balance about hand holding and have a good game. Yes the wiki could use improving, I'm working on that. Anyone can help by making suggestions or doing quick write ups I can upload onto the wiki.

One thing that would help, just from a forum perspective, is that all the old outdated guides stickied or what not should either get updated or archived.

Crime isn't and shouldn't go away, I'm working on a guide to how even noobs can protect themselves, but also at the same time playing and editing the wiki so its slow goings.

As far as inspiration, I think a little hint box should pop up when a noob first hits that "you need more inspiration to study this item" just like entering the darkness. That box should explain about regeneration and what someone can do while waiting, how to increase speeds etc. That might help soften that first initial discouragement.