can't believe how hard you made this game for new players

[Sikes]

Are you kidding me? i get 5 coal ores in 90 minutes as a new level 1 miner.  How many new players are going to accept that? your server will get overloaded with new players who just quit and never come back!

[BoevenF]

Have you tried to ask politely in game? Maybe you could retrieve useful informations.

[bilbous]

what is even sadder is that you didn't get any mining practice for any of the unsuccessful attempts. If you are digging in the right place you ought to get something for your efforts.

I am assuming you were digging in the right place most of that time. The mines have specific locations and within those locations some parts are better than others.

[Minks]

I suspect that you were simply digging in the wrong place.  Some mines are beter than others. And the center of a mine is always better than the outer rim. I just mined 4 iron ore within 5 minutes today with level 2 in mining. What you need to find is an experienced miner who can show you the good spots. 

[LigH]

I don't find it very hard to meet, listen to, and talk to other people. That's the real game in PlaneShift.

[bilbous]

ah, the old "the real game is there is no game" theory, chief! I sure hope KAOS doesn't discover it...what is all that nasty development for?

[Caraick]

ah, the old "the real game is there is no game" theory, chief! I sure hope KAOS doesn't discover it...what is all that nasty development for?

>_>

[bilbous]

Seriously, development efforts would be better directed towards integrating webcams and microphones so that the real people are better represented by their characters. You could have audio and video morphing functions that will allow you to sound however you like and imprint your features on your character model and we can all wander around pursing our lips at each other.

Who needs in game functionality when you can have a toy hammer in your hand appear in the game bashing on some poor critter?

[Caraick]

Never once did I disagree.  This is a role-playing game.  What this game is about is akin to acting a play on a stage, or a massive collaborative story-telling effort. Writing, developing, and creating personalities, characters, and stories that cannot in any way be equalled by whatever game mechanics can bring to this game.

[Tessra]

This game *is* hard for new players.  New players are more likely to be shy, to not know many people they feel comfortable asking for help, and are more likely to try and figure things out on their own.  Even if you know the coal mine's location, it's a slow chore to mine it.  Even higher level miners don't do as well with coal as they do some of the other ores. 

Yes, the main aspect of this game is role playing, but not everyone is comfortable simply walking up to new people and talking with them.  I can promise you, if Stashka hadn't taken one look at me and decided I'd make a perfect noob-victim and talked to me, I'd not have continued playing this game.  I would have been far too shy to go up to people.  Even now, I'm reticent to go up to strangers, simply because *I'm* uncomfortable with it, even if my character isn't.  So, what do new players do? They try to mine, or hunt, or cast spells.  They play with the less-involved aspects of the game.  And those levels are really hard if you don't know what to do first. 

It's great to see that the devs are balancing things, that they are working on making it easier, and more user-friendly.  The tutorial is much better now, and that's a great step in the right direction.  But I think it will take more of a conscious effort from the existing players to help the newer players, until those noob levels can be balanced out too. 

[thalaric]

Is it player interaction you want, or role-play? Because in this case they are mutually exclusive. I can guarantee it's not in-character for a miner to lead someone to his strike that overfloweth with ore.

It seems evident to me that this game wants to service more than just a freeform RP community (or if I'm wrong its going about it the wrong way). So maybe we should just all agree that throwing our hands up and blaming the newb for not asking isn't always going to be the answer. Sometimes the answer is going to be tweaking the rules to make the game more accessible.

Thanks for considering this point of view, even if it is immediately rejected as not belonging to the old guard.

EDIT: BTW, this is not targeted at the esteemed developers, whom with their newest changes have shown they at least "Get It".

[Korumak]

It looks like its kind of teasing on the following Arguments

Should Planeshift work as a stand alone game, a game playable with out intereacting?
Or
Should Planeshift force new people to interact with others in order to speed up Character Stat/Skill/Gameplay?
Both sides have folks with hardened in trenched people ready to go down to the mat to argue both sides.

I can see the orgional posters point.  I can agree to it to a point.  When you go through the tutoral, you end up with a rock pick, a gliff, two maps, and a leter from a friend and some Tria.  Its enough to get you started out for a first character.  If you say 'Create a throwaway character, just to see what the game was about' then start a more serious character, like many including my self do.  The starting character starts with 0 Tria, 0 Items, like he was robbed coming off the boat.  Now I got to remember which quests didnt 'cost' Tria (cause i don't have any to spend) and which where quick quests, to earn enough for the aforementioned pick, to go get some ore to start getting money so i can go back to thoes other quests I had to skip cause I had no money at the time.

A solution might be Equiping all new characters with a rock pick, and or Tria say 1,000  Enough to cover some of the early quest covers, and handle if a character wants to head off to the mines, plus a choice of weapons.

Now I believe a game should encourage role playing, AND be able to work stand alone.  I'm a minority here, I know.  The one big gripe I got right now with 'starting characters' other than that I just mentioned is the simple fact some items have "Minum Reqirements" that you don't find out until after you buy said item and try to equip them.

Let me give you an example RL for the above to illustrate my points.
I recently got my son on to the game.  He's been playing Wizzard 101, and kept hitting their 'cap' the point where they started asking for money.  So here I was with Planeshift, and i went over to his box and got him started.  There where some adjustment issues, explaing actual role playing as apposed to 'trash talking' others on the server.  Then walking him through the tutorial, and with the help of a fellow guild menber, who donated an Axe, shield and some Tria, we turned him loose.  Granted he wanted to kill everything but rats, and was getting chased by everything but rats.  But thats beside the point.  He's used to calling me dad, and yep Forum name= character name, and right in front of Herihi Dwarf calles and Enki, Dad.  So we had to have the in character out of character discussions.
So I figured, why not make a dwarf 'Dad' so when he comes on line, a fathery dwarf to go play with.  Poof there i was with 0.  Ok from playing Koru, i knew the peta handler had an easy run a round quest, then theres Harns apples, still not enough to buy pick axe. find another quest.  yess. now run back grab axe, head out to the mine for load one (2 hours later) back with load one, no metelergy skill but enough to buy an axe.  ok, make a secound run. 1.75 hours later) back to harns... then run all the way out to Oja for axe.  Got it and got some chainmail armor!... bank fund depleated.
[Sorry you dont have enough STR to equip this item]
-.-
So for an ALT just to play with my kid, to at least equip him with a chosen weapon.  4 hours play time.  Plus frustration on something I have griped about.  The please show what you can wear vs what you cant wear, so we know what we need before buying the armor/weapon/what ever.

So yes, Starting out with rock pic, Tria, and mabey a Axe/Sword/Gliff depending on "Kit" or something along those lines might be a good way to help start characters.

[bilbous]

Couldn't you have given your son stuff to hold for your alt from your main? I suppose that would have been too OOC and pragmatic but then again did you really think of an IC reason for that particular Enki to help that dwarf or did you do it just for the OOC ( and perfectly justifiable ) reason he was your son?

If you go through the tutorial and trash the character out of hand you are wasting resources. Perhaps it should be that any new character on an empty account ought to be sent to the tutorial instead of just the first character of a new account. Then again, unless it has changed, which it might have, if you create a new character before the first one gets out of the tutorial it too will be started in the tutorial. This way with a new account you can get 4 characters to go through the tutorial.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

[valentineaaron]

I am unsure why you think it's hard for new players.  There are plenty of places to ask questions and get information such as gossip, the help channel, and just asking other players nearby.  Plus I don't know what mine you were at but i can get coal every time I try for one so it's really not that hard to mine.  I can also do the same for copper, tin, and iron.  Plus I found it much easier to hunt (at least one eyed rats for a new player then before) and you also get more tria from the loot.  Crafting training is also much easier now so it's faster to make money doing that.  There are of course tricks that you need to learn but the devs made it that way so you would have to RP to find things out in game.

[thalaric]

Yeah, just ask in gossip or help. Oh, but no spoilers allowed.