@ Pretty Much Every Server
 

I got bored during the day today so I decided to log onto Graal (have just logged on a few times over the past few days for the first time in a few months) and I decided to check out some of the servers I never bothered to give a chance.

I was disgusted.

No matter what server I went on, there was no clear indication of what to do next. I would appear in an OSL and pretty much be on my own.

It's dumb to design servers without giving players clear or even vague directions. To just throw them into a level to find things on their own creates a huge stumbling block that would seem very unappealing to newbs.

The counterpoint most people will bring up is that these servers have communities, but if my explorations of today were any indication, they don't have very good communities.

Steadily sending mass messages every 5 minutes reading "where do I get guns?" I finally got a positive response from Nataxo about 30 minutes later.


On Era and Zodiac I was constantly being killed the moment I left OSL.

On both servers, I had absolutely no idea where to go. After wandering around on Zodiac I apparently fell down a well and walked to some sort of Zorbi area where some Zorbi said something like "the zorbi king is looking for humans to help blah blah blah" so I went to the only building that looked like a castle and I couldn't get in. Thanks for the great gameplay hints.

On Unholy Nation I appear at OSL and am either killed or frozen or any other sort of bizarre effect caused by an NPC I can't get because I will never be able to get past these players. On Unholy Nation I once again found absolutely no indication of where I should be going to gain health or items.

On Era, people always tell me to go do jobs to get money but there is nothing telling me where these jobs are and it seems like you need to pay money to start just about all of them.


These issues will probably cause the playercount to remain inflexible. I don't see why anyone would be interested in laying down money to start playing a game that makes no sense and doesn't even provide a general guideline of what you should be doing.

Ideally all of these servers would be sent back to Development and removed from the Classic tab but that would probably be financial suicide.

Since developers only seem interested in working on Classic servers the chance of a new server coming along that isn't completely terrible seems to be 0 percent (LOL WHILE WE'RE FIXING THINGS LET'S FIX THE FORUMS SO YOU CAN USE PERCENT SIGNS).

I can't imagine Graal is gaining many new players with most of the high population servers in a state that doesn't allow new players to ease into or begin gameplay easily, which is probably also causing financial strain.

The only short-term solution that could really be implemented is a players guide created for these servers that are practically shoved down a players throat so they can actually find out what to do.


P.S: Don't tell me the presence of a community offsets the lack of having the game tell you where to go, because it appears the majority of the communities on these servers are hugely unwilling to help you unless you were hoping they'd just kill you over and over again.

UN is full of insane NPC's only meant to annoy other players. God forbid if you have a poor graphics card when someone decides to play "pokemon" with all the players in the level.

I would think the purpose of some of the servers is for you, the player, to explore on your own. What fun is it if everything is given to you. I think it's pretty cool walking around the GMAP and looking at all the things one can possibly do. Also, if you have questions that what FAQs are for. If you need help have questions you PM them.

Death to the Clap NPC. Everytime a random noob gets it they spam it to people and it's literally impossible to hold a conversation if they're persistent.

Well there's a difference between exploring on your own, and being thrown into a world with absolutely no clue what to do. I can explore the world all I want on my own, but I'd like a general direction at least so I'm not stuck exploring the other 90% of the world that has absolutely no purpose.

I have some neat ideas that can make Era more newbie friendly.

I'll make a thread in a bit.

Sorry I couldnt help you before... I have my mass messege turned off due to the sellings spamm :(. It was very brave for you to come to a gangs elevator to look for help .

In case you wanna come back, here's a guide. www.era-wiki.wikidot.com/jobs

Agreed :P

LOL so that's where I was?

Yup lol, in fact it was the most dangerous place in era at the moment xD

PM Faqs when they are on for era. I answer every question that comes my way.. But yes servers need tutorials. I believe that is one thing required for new servers now

new players to Graal might not even know how to open the player list or PM an FAQ. you can't assume that every new player to Era already has experience with Graal.

I'll gladly answer questions that are asked on UN. I'm always reading mass messages and PMs almost as soon as I get them.
See, our management think that they'll just release a ton of NPCs and hope that it'll bring up the playercount. All of our events consist of a new NPC being released, and everyone has to have it to add on to their collection.
I can't stand most of the NPCs. They're annoying, and they're always being abused. I once dropped a hat by mistake, and of course a person shot me with a web right away (which keeps you from moving) and they took it.

I concur :( If I didn't have lifetime classic I wouldn't subscribe to any of these servers.

Did you try the other two exits out of Zodiac's OSL? Other than that I am fully aware of the lack of direction for newbies and would like to push that as one of main focuses for Zodiac V2.

Stefan made that really nice tutorial system for Zone where the game gives you directions as you approach certain objects (like vehicles, outfit terminals, teleporters, etc.). It's quite impressive.