What this server is missing

[Derrick]

Thanks a ton for the brainstorming. Since the beginning we've relived mostly on our players and word of mouth for publicity.

A tutorial (demo) has been something that has been rumbling in conversation for some time and is very much a priority. We get quite a few new players every day, many new to UO entirely; however the complexity of the game does throw them off.

If there is anything I can do to help, please let me know. I'd be very happy to put up a well written and comprehensive new player guide in a prominent position on the main website.

[Titus Valerius]

Im curious about one thing here with this free shard: Can and will EA force this shard to close if this community does get to the point where it is booming?

I like the idea of having a vast community. I think it would be great and add new dynamics to how the game is currently played. However, if its at the expense of potentially closing the shard down on everyone, then obviously I would have to disagree.

I dont know if that is or is not possible. If someone could get back to me on that I'd appreciate it.

[Chaos]

No EA can not mess with us .. they have tried attacking free shard many years ago and failed .. UO has had many lawsuits over its years on both sides .. osi was first sued for the min req. on the very first boxed cd..

[Wernham Hogg]

Thanks a ton for the brainstorming. Since the beginning we've relived mostly on our players and word of mouth for publicity.

A tutorial (demo) has been something that has been rumbling in conversation for some time and is very much a priority. We get quite a few new players every day, many new to UO entirely; however the complexity of the game does throw them off.

If there is anything I can do to help, please let me know. I'd be very happy to put up a well written and comprehensive new player guide in a prominent position on the main website.

So an ingame tutorial might be ingame pretty soon? Or how will it work? Will new people be able to walk through it before entering their first town?

Im glad to hear that. Even tho it might not be "ERA-accurate" i still think its an extremly important step to keep the newbies.

I also think a well written guide - not really like the skill-guides, more like "learn the basics" of how to play uo - on the webpage would be usefull.

[Chaos]

If I might say .. I think a lot of the problems we have in this isn't just how to play (most anyone will get the point and click ideas) but what to do ( How to Play) .. the problem with that is that UO is HUGH with things to do or ways to do them .. thats what makes it great .. so maybe we should focus on guides to go along with our skill guides as to how skills interact with other skills .. so people can get the whole concept of the game and at the same time make chars that are not the normal cookie cutter temp..

pls let me know if i'm off base??

[Wernham Hogg]

If I might say .. I think a lot of the problems we have in this isn't just how to play (most anyone will get the point and click ideas) but what to do ( How to Play) .. the problem with that is that UO is HUGH with things to do or ways to do them .. thats what makes it great .. so maybe we should focus on guides to go along with our skill guides as to how skills interact with other skills .. so people can get the whole concept of the game and at the same time make chars that are not the normal cookie cutter temp..

pls let me know if i'm off base??

Like.. what the skills actually are good for? Yea, i agree.

However i do think that some people also need help with the very basics. The game do have some huge differences compared to moster other 3d-mmorpgs.

[chainsoar]

While we're on this subject there's something I've discussed with a few people lately and I wondered if Derrick might give this some thought. While it's not strictly era-accurate, I wondered about spectating at events. Thing is, events are the one non-accurate thing here, so I'm not asking for a major change that's going to ruin the shard, rather a minor change to an already technically non era-accurate feature.

[Lomita]

Hi

Sorry for my english, i am from germany.

I guess people think they get killed every 10 minutes on a felucca only shard.
It would help a lot when you make it more publicity that players can play here a worker or do roleplaying without fighting all day long.

[maceone]

When T2 first came out, they had a program called Companion.We helped and guided all the new players..I was a companion for Osi for about 3 months on Atlantic Shard till my second son was born..Maybe bringing that about again wont be a bad idea and it might help bringing more players to this shard..New players will tell others that are reluctant play for one reason or another..It might be worth exploring...

[Cindrew]

just implement player elders who can have Counselor abilities to help newbies. or have a newbie starting area?

[chumbucket]

I think most of things people putting out here are really good ideas. I especially agree about a newbie guide.

One thing that might help with the newbie problem (both complete newbies and returning players) would be a large guild completely dedicated to newbies. Maybe someone has started one up since I've been on hiatus, but at least when I played there was never really a guild for this, or at least, there never was one that lasted. But a guild dedicated to showing players the basics, helping them get set up on a character and providing them with a way to meet other players, both old and new, would be immensely useful.

It might also be nice if, when you logged in for the first time in the day, some sort of prompt would come up that would take you directly to places to vote. That sort of nudge might net us a good deal of votes.

Back to lurking for me.

[Derrick]

We do have a player companion program. Info is in the news section.

The idea behind the demo/tutorial is very era accurate. It will be the actual tutorial that came on the CD in 1998 in an online playable version.

There's been talk of doing this for the voting. We did add a [vote command a few weeks ago. I could pop up a button daily, but I'm just afraid it's a little too intrusive.

[Hemperor]

We do have a player companion program. Info is in the news section.

The idea behind the demo/tutorial is very era accurate. It will be the actual tutorial that came on the CD in 1998 in an online playable version.

How will this be executed?

A gump as soon as you make a character on a new account asking, cancel resulting in teleportation to the user selected starting city?

[Wernham Hogg]

We do have a player companion program. Info is in the news section.

The idea behind the demo/tutorial is very era accurate. It will be the actual tutorial that came on the CD in 1998 in an online playable version.

This is excellent imo.

Im sure it will help alot of new players.

When can we expect to see it?

[Derrick]

How will this be executed?

It would be the actual demo iteself, it would come up as a seperate server in the shard list.

[quote="Wernham Hogg"When can we expect to see it?[/quote]
We've been working/dreaming on this for 6+months. I really think it may be time to make this top priority.
Most of the credit for turning the dream of this into a possiblity goes to wobble llama.