MORE help for the newbies...

[EZ_Dazzler Twodirks]

Quote:Help for new players - New characters will start with a bag. This will give them a little more storage space and the opportunity to learn how storage containers work earlier rather than later. We are also working on removing one of the more tedious "features" of the game, the need to practice Sense Heading. Most folks have that skill mapped to trigger along with one of their movement keys. Not an exciting skill to practice. So we plan to have all characters start with a 200 skill in Sense Heading. This will allow new players to navigate more easily, and will reduce a bit of tedium over the course of gameplay.

Why not just GIVE them a level 65 toon fully Time geared all spells/aa points ect already in place.

What's next they gonna have a SOE operator play thier toons for them after they log off? Dazzler Twodirks High Speed Quisinart for Hire
Guildleader of the Blades of Honor
Monsters Slain, Pockets Picked, Corpses Dragged, and more.
No job too small, no fee too large.
Card Carrying Member of The Safehouse.

"Classes are not that out of balance -AbsorEQ"

[EZ_JookaWoo]

LoL, who cares? Cry some more about it tho it is entertaining.

[EZ_PandaJoe]

Yes, Dazzler, a bag and Sense Heading = a level 65 character.
Really.

[EZ_Zulian]

OMG, what's next, 250 begging? "Age and wisdom don't always go together, I've found. ... Some people just become stupid with more authority." -- Terry Pratchett

[Nenjin]

/laugh at Zulian

[Krimzan]

Quality, Zulian, quality.

[EZ_BD Nightfall]

Raising Sense Heading made it feel like I was doing something on those long runs. What jerks...

[Glip the Gnome]

Sense heading in itself isnt a big deal, but the logic behind it is what bothers me.

"People are just going to work this up anyway, so we'll save them the trouble."

Sounds nice until you realize its a level based game, and thats basically the entire point. Glip the Gnome
Head Administrator: The Safehouse
Overlord of Doom: The Scurvy Dog Buffet
Where are my pants?

[EZ_Loken]

Sense heading was dumb to have in the first place, no other game has it, or ever will, so instead of saying that it was stupid to have in the first place, they just word it as helping out the new players, its also true what he said, I had mine mapped to backstab, 200 sense heading by the time I was 30, dumb things need to be removed, and this was one of the dumbest.

[EZ_Dazzler Twodirks]

Point is instead of balancing melees they're making the game more newbie friendly every patch.

I remember hitting SH while waiting for the boat or walking somewhere.

Pretty soon it'll be just like test where you can get a loaded 25th toon for no effort.

Fix the rest of the game THEN worry about the newbie players.
Not like there isn't enough of us high levels that will take a few mins out to explain things when they ask.

I've taken newbies on city tours before and explained to them how the game works.

Just add a FAQ NPC to the newbie yard that they can hail and have preset Q/A for anything they can think of.

[Koru]

This is great. This and the new find feature (and the paths in bazaar as well) won't just make life easier for the newbies but for me as well. I hate having to press that stupid sense heading button. It had a point before LoY I will grant you. Now however, it's just the button you press so you'll eventually get the arrow. If I don't have to press a button that does absolutely nothing else for me several thousand times to get that arrow I'm glad. It's a skill that should have been phased out when they put ingame maps in, but since they're not doing that this is good.

As for the bag. So what, it's a minor thing in an economy where you can quite possibly have a few hundred plat in the bank and heckuva lot nicer gear than I had by the time you're 24th. That's untwinked btw. Yes, you do need to know what to hunt to do that but if you do a bit of research it's easy.

I also think that adding something small like this is probably easier and a lot quicker to do than balance melees given that the game is inherently unbalanced in favor of casting classes. Adding a bag to the player starting kit does not (or at least should not) take the same people who should be focusing on the melee problem. It's a little like asking "Why isn't the tradeskill guy fixing melee issues rather than putting in these new recipes?". I mean, would you really like the melee issues to be fixed by someone who may not even know what the problem is? To be fair yeah, that fix is way way overdue. But don't automatically assume that the people who are putting the new things in have anything to do with the melee fix.

Given how often I've had to explain to a true newbie how to speak in the various channels, or even just reply to me, I also think those who really need the most basic help aren't going to be asking for it because they don't know how. That and most of the time I run from newbies to avoid the inevitable "can I have spare stuff plz" spam. Yes, I do help some, I'm just disheartened by how many beg rather than ask a smart question like how they can make cash.

[EZ_Loken]

Quote:Pretty soon it'll be just like test where you can get a loaded 25th toon for no effort.

I'm sure eventually it will be, DAOC does this already, the fact is this game is getting old, with more and more players hitting 65, growth will stagnate if they dont do it.

The point being, that at low levels its almost impossible to get a group as it is, my guess is that they will eventually do it, we cant really whine, cause we leveled the hard way, when we where leveling up, places like lower guk and solb would be packed, even if you started in the kunark era, you still had it good, Lake of Ill Omen was packed with 100+ everynight, and so was sebilis, only problem was lack of spawns, now everyones either in a raiding guild or doing exp in PoP, most newbie and mid level dungeons are deserted, even places that used to be so popular like sebilis, has turned into a bring your own group dungeon.

[DarthEnder]

I don't think this thread is helping newbies at all. "Classes are not that out of balance -AbsorEQ"

[Llabak Tharr]

Now there's the Dazzler we all know and love!

[Kaielen]

Damn...it took me like 6 hours of playing when I first started my rogue to save up enough for a backpack. When I looted one off of an NPC one time I thought I was going to wet myself.

[Jhani Vandolay]

You mean newbies now don't have to take 5 minutes before they leave town for the first time to hail all the newbie quest givers to get a full inventory of quest bags? Or the 15 seconds to map sense heading to the left or right turn key?

The travesty. Not to claim the status of a "real professional" in any one endeavor has been a small price to pay for the many benefits and pleasures of trespassing. ~Leo Lionni

[EZ_Halen]

You think this rant is bad? You should have heard the SOLID 15 minutes of COMPLETE WHINING that was on serverwide.thering about this. @#%$, who cares. A bag for newbies. Big woot. Halen Taz : 62 assassin : Tholuxe Paells <Doomed Legion>
Syrinne Taz : 62 heirophant : Tholuxe Paells <Doomed Legion>

[Dragynphyre]

Does this mean that my characters that were already generated get bumped up to 200 sense heading, or are their compasses still going to fluctuate wildly?? (Back In Black)
Delissandra Splitshadow - Veteran Deceiver of the Circle of Unseen Hands
Grandmaster Poisoner (250), Master Potter (191), Grandmaster Lush (200)

Cause I'm back on the track
And I'm beatin' the flack
Nobody's gonna get me on another rap

[EZ_Santril]

Give the rogues 200 Sense Traps then. Same thing.

[Ponzi]

My guess is that the management at sony is seeing a drop off in the rate of new accounts being created, and has told the eqlive team to make things more newbie friendly.

[Dragynphyre]

Well, EQ is hardly a 'new' game anymore - of course new subscriptions (meaning subscriptions from other than people that already have one or more accounts) are going to be dropping off.

With the next crop of fantasy-based MMORPG's coming out, including WoW and EQ2, they are probably trying to get the last of the 'undecided' market out there - consisting of folks that have been considering playing EQ, have friends who do play EQ, etc. - to get on board EQ.

Of course, these 'perks' for newbies hardly matter when it's a second account for someone - because the second account is always twinked.

[Marbh]

I've always thought it funny that every EQ newbie is a homeless pauper. Why not have it more like D&D, where you have variable money and have to make wise choices in what you purchase?

[Brelkor]

probably so they don't have to listen to newbs whine after they buy the wrong weapon type for their class

[Marbh]

Nah, on creation you have a choice of 2-3 class specific weapons, a basic adventurer package, a slightly nicer one, several grades of armor, and some goodies. I mean the average 1st lvl dnd character is equiped like a lvl 8 or so (non twinked) eq character.

[Pyrocat Moonstalker]

My fist backpack was uber. I worked my arse off for that thing, trying to find supplements (anyone remember the tax collection quest in qeynos?) but they were all too heavy or could only hold tiny items. Finally I got myself a beautiful, nicely made leather "back pack". They always had a special place in my heart after that. Good ol' backpacks.

Why when I was your age we used to have to click that sense heading every dang time it came up! Most of us didn't even know what key mapping was! Let alone how to use it! Course we coulda just dropped a sword on the ground and it would always point north for some reason... weird magnetic swords.. but that woulda risked loosing a high quality rusty sword! They were worth a few loafs of bread at least! You could feed yourself for a week with that rusty sword! Dang kids these days, no sense of worth, always wastin their coppers, they're "too good" to carry around rusty weapons to sell! All high-and-mighty now that they've got their free backpacks... boy I tell ya Pyrocat Moonstalker
It's murder on the dance floor.. You better not steal the moves
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Co-Writter of the webcomic Random Parody
Harry Potter Fanfics You know you want to.
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[Brelkor]

Pyrocat, you post gave me a great idea for /gu type comic

[EZ_Tsukasa The Wavemaster]

I remeber just geting 5 food, 5 water, newbie spells (2?) if caster, and a crappy sword. That was it =/.

[Greldek]

you also got a note that would turn into a robe/tunic or something for iksars, bracers or a weapon I think.

oh and an uber PVP book, that so many turned in foolishly ~Edited by: Greldek at: 10/17/03 11:40 pm

[EZ_Clailya]

The newbie casters also have their spells prememmed for them... this really annoys me. and there are macros already... macros i dont want. its like.. go away! my spells are mapped to the keypad so i can use my macros and my spells at the same time! ... they should just do that for noobs! Clailya Clearmind
65 enchantress
Tunare Server

[EZ_manofnox]

When i first started playing, i had to sell my newbie tunic and weapon for food.

[Biral]

Those were no drop manofox :/ I remember selling rat meat to the Ogre in WFP to buy food. I loved that ogre.

[Koru]

The tunics were made no drop later, they (and the weapon as I recall) were sellable at one point. I remember before they changed them that some people were actually trying to twink themselves up by making new characters just to sell them.

[EZ_Pedric Cuf]

I resent them trying to change my Autoattack from 'a' to 'q'!

[EZ_Northerner]

Ouch, 200 sense heading built in? That's a "SLAP IN THE FACE" if I've ever seen one.

Meh, I must admit I grow indifferent really but the trend towards dumbing down the process did yeild me a few fantastically idiotic groupmates in LDoN lately. Celeris Tujimson
Maurading Deceiver of The Nameless

Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.
E. W. Dijkstra

[EZ_Tsukasa The Wavemaster]

The newbie casters also have their spells prememmed for them... this really annoys me. and there are macros already... macros i dont want. its like.. go away! my spells are mapped to the keypad so i can use my macros and my spells at the same time! ... they should just do that for noobs!

lol prememmed already? if there prememmed how do the newbies learn how to mem there spells :P. <remebers the old days where you sat there for like 5 min meming 1 spell at level 1>

[EZ_Dahne]

I remember how long it took me to figure out you could actually READ those newbie notes and they would tell you who to give them to....I would just hand it to somebody at the guildhall who looked important, hope I got lucky, then restart the character if I didn't.

Dahne may also have run through Halas asking where she could buy a SoWing kit at some point, but don't quote her on that.
Moogle Charm

Have you hugged a white mage today?

[EZ_LiquidXIR]

Quote:I resent them trying to change my Autoattack from 'a' to 'q'!


I don't resent that, I HATE that. I flipped out when I came back after a month and started playing a bit, god awful change, why did they do this?

[EZ_Boddi the ranger]

People still play EQ??