Stendhal Development Meeting 2009-11-22/Result Log/New Players

From Arianne
Jump to navigation Jump to search



New Players

  • The first 5 minutes of new players.
  • In the past only 20% of all players stayed more than 5 minutes. We are now at about 50%. (That is better than Second Life)

Show Rules before being able to Play?

  • it was suggested to show the rules before a characters can be created so that trouble makers can not say they didn't know
  • there is a tutorial event after 15 minutes of playing time
  • one of the ideas behind Stendhal is to make it accessible for people to just create an account and see the world
  • forcing to read rules would be the opposite of that. we are really keen that people can visit and see it easily
  • normal people don't cause trouble even without knowing the rules. The few trouble makers are in most cases outright lying when they claim they did not know it.

Prevent new players from getting lost

  • Main Problem: New Players are getting lost after walking out of Semos Village
  • using arrows on the map for guiding new players
    • arrows showing the way to semos city, bank, public chest
    • against arrows: Players could talk to NPCs to learn about different ways
    • exchanging the "N" on minimaps with arrows?
    • against arrows: Players could talk to NPCs to learn about different ways
      • just one NPC on the way to Semos
      • players maybe don't listen carefully about which way they should take, arrows will be visual
  • giving new Players a free Home Scroll in bag?
    • against free Home Scroll: Players could abuse scrolls by creating new chars
      • Maybe scrolls can be fixed for that
  • closing all holes (fence in the north, gate in the south) to guide players to Semos City
    • first task is it to kill a rat, but the only visible one is at the hole in the fence north of the guard house, player went to kill the rat and returned to Hayunn, then walked off north again and got lost
    • a very invisible path is pointing to Semos City
    • idea: moving the gate from Semos Village to Semos City
      • hole is deliberate so people can pass through if they want to
      • using gate for the hole (when that will work)
      • huge sign entrance could be moved over to Semos
        • graphic available?
    • adding a sign gate at the south of Semos City and closing the passage south in the village?
    • preventing that people will walk into that direction and get trapped inside the fence (hole and forest?)
  • changing the starting place to a house in the city?
    • idea of guard house was it, to not confuse players at first while arriving in the townhall (e.g. players running around, lots of NPCs)
    • guard house is a quiet room
    • having a small but closed training area for new players
    • moving path which points to the forest so that it cuts down from Semos through Semos Plains s instead from the village
  • creating a level-gate at the hole in the fence at the gate south (other way around in relation to gate at Gnome Village)
    • NPCs guarding level gates make them look more natural
  • making the fenced area smaller
    • channel them through but leave plenty space around the edges
    • while walking out past Carmen, you would go into the small channeled fenced areas but otherweise, you'd go into the unfenced region
    • put city gate right to Carmen so that this will become the prefered path to Nalwor for older players

Getting from Semos Village to Semos City

  • Well, what about to do a quest, which leads the new player to a NPC in Semos City?
  • Hayunn Naratha already points to Monogenes
  • The IntroducePlayer quest from Tad is hard to find

Warning new players running into dangerous zones

  • There should be zone entry messages that are level based to warn low level players
  • So if a new player walks to the west of Semos Village, he could get a warning to turn around

Losing Club on Death

  • its possible to lose your club when being killed.
  • and you cannot kill a rat easily with just your hands.
  • "basic damage" without weapons could be increased slightly
  • mark club and leather armor as undroppable on death

Killing the first creature

  • Main Problem: rats are running away, too difficult for new players to catch them
  • exchanging rat with another creature to kill first
    • shouldn't run away
    • maybe in guard house
      • problem: rats can hurt players currently
      • maybe a special rat or a mouse which will not run away or okay to have coward rats in relation to the closed room
        • against: dangerous for new player who wants to find out about gameplay
          • also if low damaging?
    • asking Hayunn to summon a special training enemy
      • maybe a rat or mouse which appears when the player agrees to try to kill one or after agreeing to the quest from Hayunn
        • technically: may need a summon mechanism, so that there is always one enemy if a new player arrives
    • should rats attack players?
  • behaving of rats (AI profile)
    • should be cowards like in real life
    • fits to the atmosphere
    • space for running maybe to big?
  • Hayunn could give new players a piece of cheese -> rat appears after dropping it on the ground
    • idea for a sentence by Hayunn after player dropped the cheese (by storyteller): "Oh, how does this rat get in? Quick, kill it before it hurt´s you!"
    • against: players won't probably not know how to drop cheese (will be taught later by NPCs about that)
      • making Hayunn to drop it?
        • letting him accidentially dropping the cheese while offering it to the player
      • letting rat out of cage
      • problem: for new players it could look like it's always in the way of dropping cheese and getting a rat summoned
    • Suggestion (by Hendrik): Implement it in two steps: First get it to work and only than let Hayunn put down the cheese
    • smaller cheese image?
Retrieved from "https://stendhalgame.org/w/index.php?title=Stendhal_Development_Meeting_2009-11-22/Result_Log/New_Players&oldid=10059"