umm...what`s this?

[Xeronn]

Allright , so it`s been a year of so and i`ve decide to give P.S another shot, see how the world has grown and all that

First of all you should know i`m not much into forums, or any sort of mix between my "game world and character" and "out of game things" . So i downloaded the latest version of the game (didn`t bother reading patch notes, it`s irrelevant to me anyway, the game is still pre-beta and skills/gear/whatever would be added don`t interest me that much...all i thought about during the 10 min download was a cold mug of ale at the tavern and maybe finding a job of sorts that would allow me to pay for food and ale...finding out who`s who and what`s what and maybe fitting in somewhere)

So I start my character, a big red ynnwn  , i allready pictured him as a reliugious fanatic and a rather ant-social character , grumpy and allways mumbling (religion stuff) (though i would have had to get in touch with the setings again to define exactly what sort of fanatic...but meh all my characters hated Laanx)

So As i get to chose his parents , Laanx and Talad priests , looking over he new choiches of religion , allready with a background for my character in mind and looking forward to meeting the Harn` crowd again....i find myself in front of a screen that lets me know my "character has been teleported into the game world"...meh...i just close that stuff , I so much hate "idiot-proof tutorials teaching me how to pres keys and move around , i`d rather ask some players about things "i don`t get" in a game , IC if possibly , rather then staring at some walls of OOC text...

Ok so there I am , i start moving around attempting to realize where I am , and after a minute or so i realize i`m in an enclosed area .  the dreadfull word "instance!!" comes to mind followed shortly by "NOOB AREA!!!" . Just some NPC`s around , i ussualy ignore those as it`s frustrating at least talking to them, so i spend 5 more minutes attempting to find a way out , i punch down some rats (same old rats) , then i decide to say "hello sir" to some klyros NPC

he goes "please return to me when you have aquired all three what.ever from your tutors" At this point i`m geting pissed . Who decided it was a good ideea to replace the awessome way PS started (I remember andering around lost greeting random people and falling in the sewers, and actually beeing lost and shouting for help chased by goblins ) and someone heard me and helped me out , and then spent a bunch of time with me helping me out and showing me around.....in turn i helped as many new players as i could myself ....) ...with this pathetic wow-clone style of a noob zone?

Ok so i go to some other NPC, i say "hi" and she allready knows i wanna learn about magic . Ok , i struggle to get her to tell me about magic , she spits out generic stuff at me , i wanna get the "quest" or "help her" or something , but she doesnt understand

at that point i hit a /who , and "tell" some random player , asking him OCC about this "tutorial" thing and if there`s any way to jump the dumb stuff that`s suposed to (drive people into "questing???) . He politely points me to some PS wicki

Well this is my whine and my very short P.S. experience today . Maybe i`ll give it another shot but i doubt it honestly .  / Rant over

P.S. have mercy on the trolls , flames kil them you know

[Eliseth]

That's the tutorial, you should have started with the first NPC you saw. Here, look at the tutorial walkthrough.

http://hydlaa.com/smf/index.php?topic=30436.0

[Kerol]

You also could have asked a GM to move you out (/petition)...

[Prolix]

If a GM is allowed to move you out, which I have never heard of btw, you might as well allow some programmatic means to bypass the tutorial. Perhaps this could be an option in character creation where instead of doing the tutorial you have to scroll through a few pages that has the same information on it. In fact it might even be good to tack on these pages anyway as a refresher to the tutorial when creating secondary accounts. They would be there for those who want to view them and users who do not can traverse them quickly. Perhaps for the first account bypassing the tutorial could be more difficult by requiring the user to answer a few content related questions on each page to get to the next.

I really do think the tutorial should be optional, or at least a little more interesting and less preachy. That said it is not so awful that something has to be done about it. I do have a couple alts stuck there because I do not need them enough to go through it yet again. Perhaps I'll take the petition route. For the last alt I contacted a GM and they gave me helpful advice that got me going again but did not offer to take me out even though they knew it was an alt. At least they knew that the character name did not match my authorized irc name and had no real reason not to accept my statement that it was an alt -- both on the irc channel and in the game.

Of course anyone who bypasses the tutorial should understand that telling them the stuff the avoided is an act of charity by the other players and not something they are owed. You could even make this one of the test questions to drive home the importance of doing the tutorial at least once.

Another alternate suggestion if you are going to require the tutorial is to warn that you will not go directly into the game and provide an optionally printable copy of the walk through before uploading the character.

Still I think the tutorial is in the process of being revamped so what it will be when updated is as yet unknown.

[Kerol]

We mainly move out players who already have played a char for some time, since there are a couple of people who come back after a year or longer and don't expect to land in tutorial, which is a problem due to database settings (the first character created on account starts in tutorial by default).
Moving people out of tutorial is not supposed to be standard procedure, but we're making exceptions when there are problems or in cases like that.

Edit: Emphasize is on "exceptions".

[Prolix]

Ah ok, I do have one account that has two characters in the tutorial and a third in Yliakum, seems kind of strange. All of them predate the tutorial.

[Caarrie]

Ah ok, I do have one account that has two characters in the tutorial and a third in Yliakum, seems kind of strange. All of them predate the tutorial.

if the char had less then 10 hours ingame it was placed in the tutorial.

[Xeronn]

well yes it is a new character

but i`ve seen my share of planeshift and i was looking forward to a lot more development along the lines of player interaction , not NPC`s ...and i have a real phobia of "scripted" NPC stuff in online games , that`s why i tend to avoid NPC`s and play with PLAYERS . NPC`s are just there as crotches or "mobs" to complete the setings and all that stuff, or to perform other game functions that can`t be covered by players

If I want my NPC fun i`ll head to some good single player game , feels like reading a book