Newbies

[mrbojangles]

I'll make a couple of points on what's been said in this thread so far.

First off, overall, I believe that quality of the players involved on a shard is much more important than the quantity of players. If we find ourselves being to lenient and sparing of newbs, we will find ourselves with lots of young people, and complainers. Our dog-eats-dog community that exists right now tends to weed out the whiners and makes the solid players more likely to stay.

Second, what I've always enjoyed most about UO was it's Laissez-faire take on game mechanics (atleast during the t2a era) Any non game mechanic problems, such as the griefing of noobs should be settles by the players and community, not by coding something into the game mechanics.

While I don't play enough to run a newbie guild myself, I think this would be the absolute best option. I've also played with the idea of setting up a player-enforced 'Haven'. I always thought it would be an excellent idea for a guild to claim ownership of a town and it's surrounding forestry. The guild would protect all (new?) players doing actitvities in their area of control.

I recognize that it would take more than ideal conditions to set up a guild of this type, but the rewards would be well worth it. The more i type this the more I think i'll make a seperate topic for this idea.

Not only would it create a support network and safe place for newbies to start, but it would also serve as a centralization for PVP. If there were always player guards patrolling said area, then you know reds and other pvpers would be looking at that area as well (take a look at the orc fort)

[Faust]

I've seen talk of creating a newbie guild even before I got here a few months back from reading past threads. I still have yet to see one being reliable of the magnitude that people continue saying is the solution. I don't expect it to change anytime soon in the near future either.

[Xukluk Tuguznal]

I'll make a couple of points on what's been said in this thread so far.

First off, overall, I believe that quality of the players involved on a shard is much more important than the quantity of players. If we find ourselves being to lenient and sparing of newbs, we will find ourselves with lots of young people, and complainers. Our dog-eats-dog community that exists right now tends to weed out the whiners and makes the solid players more likely to stay.

Second, what I've always enjoyed most about UO was it's Laissez-faire take on game mechanics (atleast during the t2a era) Any non game mechanic problems, such as the griefing of noobs should be settles by the players and community, not by coding something into the game mechanics.

While I don't play enough to run a newbie guild myself, I think this would be the absolute best option. I've also played with the idea of setting up a player-enforced 'Haven'. I always thought it would be an excellent idea for a guild to claim ownership of a town and it's surrounding forestry. The guild would protect all (new?) players doing actitvities in their area of control.

I recognize that it would take more than ideal conditions to set up a guild of this type, but the rewards would be well worth it. The more i type this the more I think i'll make a seperate topic for this idea.

Not only would it create a support network and safe place for newbies to start, but it would also serve as a centralization for PVP. If there were always player guards patrolling said area, then you know reds and other pvpers would be looking at that area as well (take a look at the orc fort)

Well Sir. I say go for it and pm me. I'd be willing to assist in any way possible. I'm all for player solutions to player made problems.

[Bean]

I'm very interested in any ideas besides the young system or newbie dungeons that could help new players. I recall my first or second day on OSI in late 1998 being visted by a player counselor to see if everything was working out well for me, which it was, but it was a nice gesture.

Counselors from the vet playerbase that volunteer time to help out the newbies. Allow select players that Derrick or others can vouch to be upstanding to have an option of creating some kind of counselor character. Heavy time-monitoring of said character should be in place as well to guard against exploitation.

I think with this, you'd see some more newbie help.

[Teknix]

I'm very interested in any ideas besides the young system or newbie dungeons that could help new players. I recall my first or second day on OSI in late 1998 being visted by a player counselor to see if everything was working out well for me, which it was, but it was a nice gesture.

Counselors from the vet playerbase that volunteer time to help out the newbies. Allow select players that Derrick or others can vouch to be upstanding to have an option of creating some kind of counselor character. Heavy time-monitoring of said character should be in place as well to guard against exploitation.

I think with this, you'd see some more newbie help.

pleeeeeeease allow this to happen.

i've been wanting to jump into a role like this for sometime now. im sure i can find enough people to vouche that i'm a good guy.

if not, i'm content with doing what i've always been doing

ps. this is BiscoPhan

[JBURNS]

Another thing like Derrick said earlier...
There were 'player counselors' when I first started back in 99 that had the special title in their paper doll and were able to teleport to new players i think under certain circumstances - heavily monitors for exploitation of course.

I think at the end you as a young player, once you were finished your young status, had to write a report about how that counselor helped you, and maybe those reports lead to gm given items? I don't remember.

I remember being helped by the "counselors" msyelf. I would be willing to volunteer what knowledge and time I have without any kind of reward lol this shard has great potential and is definetly going in the right direction.

[Thesbus]

Even easier, just make characters that have the "councelor" flag unable to attack, be attacked, or use any skills. All they are able to do is walk, talk, and teleport around.

It's easy to tell a new character how things are or show them around, especially since they only start in like 8 places. It's easy to have another character that can gate the newbie around if you have a mage and a set of runes to all the different locations they spawn.

The only real problem would be knowing if someone was really a newbie or not as any "New Character" has a very real chance of being an alt, and even with a new IP address it could be a vet that just wants to take advantage of the system. Anyone can get a new IP address in a multitude of ways.

[Wernham Hogg]

Anything new with this young-status idea? It seems era-accurate?

The quest-ideas for young-people would be neat.

[archaicsubrosa77]

Oh great now you are going to make the Pkers go after those that arent exactly new...gee thanks alot
Everyone gets hazed in. Once you are no longer afraid to die you start having more fun trust me. What you lose one day you will make twice as much the next...promise...kay?
Let's be honest though...if you see someone mountless in danger of death to skeletons,zombies, or liches in a GY lay off. Only the poorest of players would use them to test their new FS they could cast or Dped weapon they just bought.
These tend to be the newest players that havent built the base or the understanding of razor to macro skills. I would commend an aventguard of royal blue PKK's to weed out these weak people or even have the red scourge to bring them under wing as they are mostly players that have accidentally turned murderer or hadn't a clue of what it entails. So they stick around the only place they ever thought was home.
Then again in statloss all you can kill are newbs :p

[Wernham Hogg]

Let's be honest though...if you see someone mountless in danger of death to skeletons,zombies, or liches in a GY lay off. Only the poorest of players would use them to test their new FS they could cast or Dped weapon they just bought.

One would think so. However you'd be surprised if you knew how many people there are out there who dont understand the importance of these players, and they dont understand how easy it is to make them log off and never log back on.

But i just read that Derrick is working on introducing a newbie-tutorial soon. That alone will do wonders.

[Mephistopheles]

When you get a community of people that are playing in an open-ended environment that allows for negative actions against another player, no matter how cowardly and in complete disregard for advantages/disadvantages, you are going to get players that jump on these opportunities. Honor is a virtue but one will never be forced to abide by it. The disadvantage newbies have to playing in such a small community are obvious, in that when you were playing with a few thousand people you were almost guaranteed to find your share of friends, thus helping you conquer any foes that might come along. Maybe you were killed when there weren't any players who normally have your back at the GY around.

Griefing (IE, not ressurrecting you, stealing everything you have on your corpse, chopping up your horse, killing nearby wandering healers, resurrecting and then killing you again [lying and such]) is simply something that you have to deal with. If it bothers you, there's nobody stopping you from plotting your revenge.

As for the issue with trash talking, well, if they're just being vulgar you can always put them on ignore or not pay attention to them. Harassment is a bannable offense so if you feel as though this is happening, report it.

It's always good to keep the new players but honestly, if they're going to quit because somebody dry looted or silently watched them die, then there's not much that can be done about it save a kind player reimbursing them...

[Mikel123]

Is there any argument against the [young] player system? I remember it being around at some point when I played (and I know I didn't begin playing until at least fall 1999). All I see is upside here.

[tenduil]

Young player system is fine and era accurate. I don't see a way it can be exploited directly by vet players if the 'new' flagged character can not attack other players.