Lifetime Classic

[Demisis_P2P]

Originally Posted by Tyhm

Priority 2, but damn near Priority 1 (maybe co-priority 1) - we need an official tutorial, a world that all newbies will be intrinsically drawn to where they can learn their skills in relative safety, a hook, a place to get them addicted to the possibilities of Graal. I say we patch up Classic, but I'm nostalgic that way. (Incidentally, thanks Sam, glad you liked the Classic Questline.) Kingdoms, unless things ever got fixed, is entirely too brutal to a Level 1 - You can only make money by fighting, which you shouldn't do/can't safely do until level 10...everything is/was based on diamonds...I'll pass. You can't even farm without money, or mining at least...I digress. THE POINT IS, newbies need to play a game where someone's always telling them where they SHOULD go (not necessarily where they need to, I'll grant), and where they don't get frustrated until they're well past the point of no return. No sense getting newbies if we're just gonna have bunnies bite their heads off.

UN

Most servers used to have a tutorial at the very start. Classic had one that taught you about pushing and pulling block, jumping over edges, choosing an appearance, fighting baddies, using bow and bombs, etc.

No point having a whole world devoted to newbies, since they're not going to be newbies very long.

[Tyhm]

Originally Posted by Demisis_P2P

UN

Most servers used to have a tutorial at the very start. Classic had one that taught you about pushing and pulling block, jumping over edges, choosing an appearance, fighting baddies, using bow and bombs, etc.

No point having a whole world devoted to newbies, since they're not going to be newbies very long.

I should know, I made it. :-)

(it promptly broke when NPCServ was put on, and later proved to be the gauge for how compatible a particular System NPC was covering for the old clientside defaults)

I still think a server is necessary; one, so there will be a demo server for Trials, and two, so these Trials will have plenty of room to explore while they learn to love our humble little game. We're not getting many newbies signing on for $30 just wandering around whichever server happens to be at the top of the list, not-saving, not-talking or whatever other restrictions they have nowadays...and we'll get even less at $60. It'll mean bringing back all the old Trial Account problems - IP Banning entire ranges to keep people from just Making Another Account, etcetera...but on a dedicated, well-structured server, that might not be a problem. After all, if it takes an hour to get through the newbie quest before you're allowed to PK, how much damage can a trial-account-wielder do? One nuisance an hour, tops. Unless he has a fleet of accounts queued up, in which case he's dedicated rather a lot of time already to the game...okay, yeah, I'm seeing the flaw in my plan. Enforcement on a Trial Server would be considerably more time-consuming than on any server, and all for the opportunity to entice Newbies into playing.
Of course, with security tight enough (Trials can't affect the gameworld in any meaningful way, including PKing, being PKed, dropping money on the server, spamming, etc) it'd just encourage the Trials to sign up...say, take the Classic that is (or UN, but I like the idea of sticking with our quest-heavy roots), fix it up, and modify the Trials' rules so they can save, or use a password, or whatever, but are otherwise Ghosts. They can see everyone having such a good time, they can play through the quests and see how much better it would be if they could really have the Multiplayer Experience, of course they petition for a birthday present. And while I'll admit I don't know a great deal about serverside security these days, it seems like it'd be a cinch to say "A ghost-newbie-trial is trying to drop bombs in the bank while walking through walls? Ignore him, don't even tell the other players."