Any new player help?

[Pharith]

Are there any plans to do something to help lower the learning curve in this game?

Currently it feels like playing UT or something on paper and pencil would be a lot easier, even managing 60+ FPS full color 3D images should really be easy.

And before anyone offers the suggestion to just ask questions, I need to let you know that I have read the Player Guide on the official site (a bit thin and outdated), the Player Guide installed with the game (more extensive, but so VERY outdated it's almost less useful than the first), the FAQ (first you go to #1 then you do #2 and #3 and then tun right at #4 (replace all the #'s with landmarks/skills/etc. I have never heard about and wouldn't have the first clue about how to recognize if I saw it)), the Getting Started ingame... (roleplaying in all nice and good, but when people don't know what the blue stuff is above their head is, don't know why they can stand on the brown and green stuff beneath their feet or why they keep sinking in the blue wavey stuff, I personally think there are bigger issues).

As for getting help:
  As said before roleplaying is very nice, but when there are bigger issues... As said in some of the guides typing takes time, and 90% of everyone in the game seems to ignore new people. Unless you have tried asking the same question 20 or 30 times (I'm sure it must seem a stupid question to veteran players, but since I'll bet everyone who has tried the game has asked it, people will be very tired of it by now) I don't really think RP'ers can really appreciate how fustrating it is (and if the character has been asking the same question for half an hour to 20 people, maybe it really IS in character to lose a bit of patience :-).

There is (as far as I have experienced) NO SODDING way to get help using normal says :-)

Using the Help channel or /advisor is TOTALLY USELESS 50-75% of the time at least since there are "no advisors currently in the world, you may now use the /shout command to ask other players....", yeah right.

Except of course there is NO WAY TO DO THAT for the first 60 minutes you are logged in :-)

And after that, the only response you get to a shout is that you should be using the help channel instead :-)

I'm guessing that every time I have tried explaining that the silly game TOLD me to use shouts I got an insta-/ignore for the effort.

So what option do people have left? Spamming /shouts out like n00bs?



Not really working IMHO.



And I don't really know what your problem with quests is, but for my first quest from Harnquist (who is in no way anywhere near where the guide claims he is) I had to find to apples from the tavern. Well after a death and about 3 hours I actually manage to find the tavern. And what do I discover? I need money to BUY the apples! But I took the quest to earn money! Luckily there are some helpful people in the game (still needed to shout to get in contact with them :-) I get the money to buy the apples and complete the quest.

For the second quest from Harnquist I'm to bring him some gold ore. from what I read in the guides I need a pick for that :-). ... costing about 100 tiras and I only got 20 from the first quest :-) Is it my math that's bad, did I just get a bad collection of quests or is there a problem?

While shouting earlier, someone also said that I could kill rats to earn money, but since I can't do any damage to a rat before I collapse from exhaustion, that isn't really a great thing for new people to do either. But again thanks to another nice person I got a pair of short swords, and since I started with 5 in sword skill, the rats are easy to kill, but now there is nowhere to sell them :-)


All in all, from my experience, I don't really think that worrying about whether people roleplay should be your biggest concern, but of course I could just be stupid or wrong...

You might want to consider making a global help channel where people could ask questions and everyone could try to answer them there instead of blocking every other form of communication with getting the baiscs solved.

[steuben]

umm two words.

pre-alpha

[Alfonso Knaf]

You raise some good points here.
It is a really hard time for newcomers - especially at the moment as there is a bug in the fighting system and you can indeed do no harm even to rats with your bare fists - but that is temporary.
There was (I think still is) a posibility to solve the Harnquist aplle quest without spending one Tria...
But I also see that there are too few quests for beginners, too few quests which introduce the world just a bit and yes I also think the learning curve is too steep - that are things that should be changed in my opinion. On the other hand, PS is designed to encourage people to interact with others (or at least this is a good excuse of the devs  ).
For the asking thing: if you do it polite and - the most important thing - in character there are many players who really like to help - there are even guilds only for helping newcomers.
I never saw that there were few advisors, maybe you were online on a strange time, or I just was luky till today.
And yes, the playersguide is really outdated in many sections, but I assume there are just too little people in the staff right now to take care of it.
(maybe that could be a good community project, rewrite the guide...)
So my advice for you: keep on, after some troubeling beginnings it is very nice to play PS 

[Pharith]

umm two words.

pre-alpha

So pre-alpha is the same as unless you have a friend whos willing to spend 20 hours leading you by the hand, stay the f... away f...tard n00b???

It's more important to roleplay that you have no f..ing clue what so f...ing ever, while everyone else is so f...ing busy roleplaying ignoring you that everyone suddenly burst out in dance??


Well, great, sorry I guess I missed something along the way.

[neko kyouran]

This a game under developement, as such, its not complete.  Many parts of the game are highly under developed.  That's part of it being agame in developement afterall.   You have to remember that you're a alpha tester here first over everything else.  As such, it isn't going to be a walk in the park.  Right now, the focus isn't on making it easier for new players to play.  That wouldn't be logically feasible since most of the games content isn't even in the game yet.  When everything is developed, then the shift to make it easier on the new player can begin.  There has been some work on it, there is the infancy of a tutorial system in game, as example.  If you have never tested games before, welcome to the world of testing.

[zorbels]

This link is to a post a did a couple of days ago. It mentions some stuff I think it is important to know as a newbie. Newbies vs oldbies The planeshift team is very aware that the Players guide needs updating. As far as I know they are doing the best that they can to fill it with new useful information. As this game develops new things will need to be added, but the planeshift team is only a handful of people. I do believe they are trying there best. Example of that is ..... Roleplay Guide Suggesstions

As for quests and NPC's, for sure they can be frustrating. I have been playing planeshift for a year and I haven't even bothered with half of the quests, they can be a pain. The combat system can be just as frustrating. There is nothing we can do except be patient as the planeshift team try to sort out the bugs and fix them. Please do not forget you are a tester in this game. Your job is to report any findings of bugs and basically test the systems in the game, and then provide useful information on the forums about the problems and any suggestions you may have on how to fix them. If that is not your thing then roleplaying is another way I think to help the Dev's accomplish what this game was made for. You can't expect the game play for a pre-alpha to be great or even good. There are systems that need tweaking and bugs that need to be squished.

As for the text, tabs and chat boxes .... Well what can I say, they are still a work in progress. Personally I never understood what the use for the help channel .... when I first started playing I was under the imperssion it was to direct players to certain destinations or answers. I guess the help channel doesn't work that way. The only thing I can suggest when it comes to looking for help in game is to find someone in game and start up a conversation. If you connect with someone, then maybe kindly ask them if they could help you. If you can not find someone then your pretty much outta luck and have to use what ever information is avalible on the forums or main ps website. The advisors are volunteer players who want to take the time to help. So at times it is not uncommon for no one to be advising.  

I will say this, in the year I have been playing planeshift .... I have seen this game grow an incredible amount. Especially this last client update, which is the cause of some of the problems you are experiencing now. Just give the dev's time and they will fix it eventually.

[Denerynn]

Everyone has pretty much said what there was to say.

Just be patient, because losing your temper will only make things worse.

As for bugs, they are quite normal in this game. Some are only minor, and pose no real "Threat", they just seem to be there to annoy you, and make you think that something is seriously wrong. Others, on the other hand, can be quite a problem, and can spoil the game until the devs fix the problem. Also, it seems as though everytime a major bug is fixed, and that you think everything is just about fine, another one comes to take its place. In other words, you will always have to deal with bugs in the game, some big, some small.

RPing is quite an interesting "feature" of this game, as it can be quite a challenge, and interesting.

I may not belong to the category of hardcore RPers, although I still RP. Whenever I talk to someone, I modify my everyday/online vocabulary, I use different expressions, and I try my best to stay IC. On the other hand, I really need to work on my character's background. In fact, I'll go do that right now, and I might try to socialize a bit, as it's not really what I do in real life. Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of friends; walking up to someone and engaging in conversation with them isn't my thing.

And that's pretty much it

[Allive]

Ill have to agree with the original poster on this. When i first started i looked at this supposid player guid on the forums and it told me absalutely nothing and like him my first day was just learning luckaly enough i have played many games and didnt find the learning curve to big. But still there has to be something done to help new players along i see many players and try to help them with weapons and info but they have infact been sitting for hours shouting the same thing over and over. And then i see ppl complaining about em not rping yeah ok it an rp game but how are ppl ment to rp if they dont know how to do anything. I mean honestly when you start a game and dont know even the basics rp is the last thing on your minds and im sure 80 % of the ppl will agree with this. There really has to be more done to help a player along and a gm or dev or even a band of players makeing a guiid would be an extreamly solid start. I would think this should be adressed as a big issue for the next update instead of justr giveing us more bugs to play with but dont get me wrong the work the devs do is nice and apprectiated but comeon guys give us something usefull that all players could use.

[Pharith]

Like I have said before roleplaying is all good and nice, but what fun is it to roleplay that you just woke up in a new world, about age 20, and you can't remember how to tie you shoelaces???

And regarding the thread about "Newbies vs oldies", why would I bother discussing roleplaying with people who obviously don't know the first thing about it?

Someone got into trouble for calling an Enkidukai a cat??? What are we talking about 12 year olds for crying out loud? Do you really think anyone in the real world would be attacked like that if he/she said some VERY hairy person with bushy eyebrows looked like a werewolf??? I have never personally seen a werewolf, I haven't even seen a wolf in person, still I do know what wolves, werewolves, and even dragons are, and noone has tried to lock me up in a mental institution because of it.

Ok, he called someone a cat in a world where no cats exists, so he obviously couldn't just have seen a cat chasing a rat around five minutes ago, but does that really mean that he doesn't know what a cat is? And before all you roleplaying morons jump at me, I'm not talking about the PLAYER, I'm talking about the character, IN CHARACTER, his personal experience while growing up! I have never personally seen any Enkidukai around where I live, but as a child I did hear a story about a cat in boots that fought with a sword, maybe some of you have as well, I have also heard of the Kzinti. Would it be impossible to have heard a faerytale about a creature the size of a big rat (a creature that does exist in the world and which most people will have seen or at least have described while growing up) but looked almost like Enkidukai including a furry tail, unlike the rat. Consider then that the child grew up in a village without any Enkidukai. Would it really be very unlikely that he called the first Enkidukai a cat when he actually saw one? The cat from the fairytale might be just as real to him as the Enkidukai, perhaps even more so, since the fairytale might be more exciting than just another person doing his regular job.

Don't blame people for not roleplaying just because you have a limited imagination.

Besides how can you even begin to judge whether people are roleplaying or not? Did you sneak into their house and read their character sheet and their roleplaying information? Unless you are the kind of person who walks up to total strangersm, greet them by name, ask to their wife and children and offer condolences for their loss of their grandmother who died this morning (a fact the person will only discover himself after he gets home from work and gets the phone call from whomever found the body).

I'm assuming that not a lot of you are, so maybe you should try to assume that maybe people know what they are doing and you do NOT know everything including why someone you have never met before don't react the way you expect them to.

Of course I could be wrong...

About the "roleplaying nazis", I'll just offer a quote: Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately be explained by stupidity.

In other words, maybe they are just stupid or don't know any better. Sometimes it's just better to ignore those people and move on.

The big question now is just if it's time for me to ignore this game and move on, or...

[Alfonso Knaf]

Arg, why must things like this always go the same way?
Some stated that it is true that beginners have a hard time but that you can solve this problem by jumping into your character and have some roleplay.
And *kazooom* thats enough to start a little flame war again.
Why?
PS is in development, the beginning is hard, but there is nothing the community can magicaly do to solve this problem in a sudden, so all we can do is to help and thats what some of us wanted to do in your case.
And than again everyone who takes roleplaying seriously (because thats the way they experience the game as fun) they are nazis, gestapos, SS people (btw. am I the only one that hates the trivialising of those words?).
And now for my defence for the roleplayers:
In the mentioned example its right that you wouldn't end up in the psychiatry if you called someone a werewolf, you would also not end up there if you call him a tschukipol (a something that just does not exist) but you will earn either some evil gazes or some bad word or a fist in your face (depending on whom you call a tschukipol). And you mostly can assume that such a people has a mental problem, is stupid, or just want to provoke. But all these things has in common that they do not stop with saying "catperson", the wole behavior would be a bit different - so you can tell ingame if someone is roleplaying. And as written somewhere else, we don't know how these words (we are roleplaying here...) were ment and in what a mood the speaker was and so on...

At the beginning I thought this thread is about some problems for newcomers in PS, but is it only an other 'serious' roleplayers are bad thread?
So if it is about the first one, I would like to help you, if it is about the second one, I slowly get the feeling that I am wrong what I assume PS is...

[Robinmagus]

This a game under developement, as such, its not complete.  Many parts of the game are highly under developed

As said before roleplaying is very nice, but when there are bigger issues... As said in some of the guides typing takes time, and 90% of everyone in the game seems to ignore new people.

So I assume the community is heavily under development? You mate, are a newbie. But the idiots who always ignore you, they are forever doomed as n00bs.

I'm for this one. *gets protest signs* Help the newbies, Help the newbies!

I was touched when you compared it to UT. I slaved hours on that piece of crap. Sweat, Blood, TEARS!

EDIT! 

'serious' roleplayers

What in the world is a serious roleplayer???

[Alfonso Knaf]

What in the world is a serious roleplayer???

Please mind the ''...
You can also call them 'heavy' 'extreme' however, I haven't found a better word, sorry 

[zorbels]

Pharith after reading your last post I wonder if the help and suggestions people have given you on this thread helped you? I fear I gave you more information for you to rant about! You don't really seem very thankful for the help. Most of what you said in that post was pretty much already discussed and in another thread. Maybe you could have posted you point of view there? Point is I read your post like a grumpy mother lecturing her kids with the same lecture she uses everyday. Again ...... 

pre-alpha

You will find helpful, kind players to help you, and you will find jerks who annoy you. Some expect great roleplay, well others couldn't careless. If you can deal with all the set backs as the game is being developed then great. If alot of what you have learned so far irritates you, then maybe ths isn't the game for you.   

So I assume the community is heavily under development?

Yup.

[Karyuu]

The big question now is just if it's time for me to ignore this game and move on, or...

I'm not sure what you're expecting at this point - you seem quite decided already.

User-friendliness, while definitely a goal, is not our priority right now. This game is version 0.3 - when we hit 1.0 and people are crying that they have no idea how to get started, they will have every right in the world to complain. But right now we have a lot of people playing and enjoying themselves as well, regardless of bugs, of impending character wipes, of tensions. They log in, find something to do, meet some friends, and get lost in the game for a few hours. So it's possible - now if you're not enjoying this, you can leave the game for a while and come back when things are more stable. No one is tying you in shackles to PlaneShift, nor are we charging you for your time.

PlaneShift requires a lot of patience - a lot. And if you the players are frustrated, you can imagine how the dev team feels sometimes when they are the ones who have to fix all these issues, on top of adding more new content. But it's worth it, and we love it here. If you don't, come back when you think you'll enjoy it more. I'm not kicking you out - I'm stating that people have left, are leaving, and will leave because they are not satisfied, and that's perfectly fine. We cannot please everyone, and definitely not immediately.

But if you have realistic suggestions to make as well, you are most certainly welcome to make them. I'm here to listen, and many of the other devs and GMs are too. The decision rests on your shoulders, but people like it here - maybe there's something to it afterall.

[ketsuna]

waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaait a minute... you mean for the past hour I've been trying to kill these stupid rats  in plain veiw of obviously not new characters, and nobody bothers to mention the bug about not being able to kill stuff without a weapon to me?  I must have read the entire website adn half te forum trying to find out why I can't kill anything, and the only mention of it I find is here? In this one little post where verybody and the devs are bashing this one guy for saying that hey! maybe you're just veyr inatentive of new players?  I mean.. its not like just mentioning the rat problem in the faq would be so hard...  So now I gotta go look like a totally annoying 12 year old n00b while I try to bum a weapon off someone jsut so I can finish a newbie quest so I can get some money os I can buy a weapon cause I can't kill these rats without one.... I think yall need to get off his back about this, I mean you don't even care to warrn new players of the problems they'll face, and you say he's whining?  It's not whining when you yell at someone who can obviously see you're about to walk over an uncovered man hole and dosen't care to even warn you about it.... </rant>

ps please excuse some misspelled words I tried to get them all but I'm sure I missed one

Language please. --Karyuu