Have the expansions altered the newbie experience?

[Legal Fish]

Re: Have the expansions altered the newbie experience?

Maybe I missed it, but did he specify a range exactly? He mentions level 20 so it isn't just that low.

[LilithAngel]

Re: Have the expansions altered the newbie experience?

Actually, the OP only mentioned lvl 20 as an example of something someone could say sometime down the line, not that it was his level. He actually did not mention a level, just "low-level".

I'd hate to struggle tooth and nail outside my starting town, only to hear a few months later, 'Oh man, you did what? Didn't you know that the Oasis of Infinite Experience and Gil was just two zones away? Man, I leveled to 20 in half a day there...'

Basically, it can be safely assumed that by low-level, he's talking the 1-10 range.

[Greyfist]

Re: Have the expansions altered the newbie experience?

If someone put a gun to my head and demanded definitions, I'd call the 1-18 pre-subclass spot the newbie levels, the 19-30 pre-advanced class spot the adolescent levels, and 31+ the "you should know what you're doing by now" levels. But I'll take any good advice I can get, regardless of level.

[Lunaryn]

Re: Have the expansions altered the newbie experience?

How on earth could it appear abusive? If he wants to do it, there's no reason he shouldn't.

As a system administrator, there are some activities occurring on a system that might give me pause. Mere creation/deletion of files is nothing, any dev or anyone who builds from source is going to be doing a lot of this very rapidly. But repeated creation/deletion of accounts (e.g. on a forum site, MU*, or similar resource) all from the same apparent source would look significant (and accounts are considered a more significant virtual resource than the sum of the files they occupy) and might raise a red flag. That characters occupy a Content ID slot, and probably overwrite any character data previously tied to that slot, minimizes the chance of actually tying up needed resources by creating/deleting characters, but would be unusual enough behavior as to invite scrutiny and possibly suggest an attempt at exploiting something. (In fact, restrictions on events have had to be made simply to combat users exploiting the ability to delete and recreate characters at will in order to stock up on event items.)

Given that, as a user who is prone to automatically consider what impressions my actions would give an administrator browsing a log file, if not what an automated program might be designed to draw an administrator's attention to, I would personally be inclined to space out such activity over a period of time. Particularly given that a lot of exploits traditionally have involved rapid, repetitive behavior, the typical automated detection method works based on exceeding a given threshold within a given time period, and the typical generic fix involves restricting the frequency with which an action can be repeated.

Again, this is probably not really necessary, an administrator who notices this and looks a little deeper will find nothing really wrong and move on, but my own predisposition is not to draw attention in the first place.

[Murphie]

Re: Have the expansions altered the newbie experience?

I've deleted and created mules over and over and over again before, and no one ever seemed to notice. People did this all the time before the ability to choose your server, since they would often try making a character over and over again in an attempt to land on the server of their choice.

Even if they are tracking it, which I sincerely doubt, a player isn't going to get in trouble for it.

[Tirjasdyn]

Re: Have the expansions altered the newbie experience?

the thing is probably that you learned to read. The opening CS always tells you how to find a starter NPC that will give you things to do and send you off in the right direction.


n00bs do not read, however.

When I started the first time I got a completely different opening. With an intro right into Beauty and the Galka. I did not get that the second time (with a new disk set) I only got the CS that tells of the starter NPC. I made the same character (hume thief starting in Bastok) The only change was a whole new disk set.

[Murphie]

Re: Have the expansions altered the newbie experience?

When I started the first time I got a completely different opening. With an intro right into Beauty and the Galka. I did not get that the second time (with a new disk set) I only got the CS that tells of the starter NPC. I made the same character (hume thief starting in Bastok) The only change was a whole new disk set.

Those intros have always been there. There are three for Bastok, three for Windurst, and three for Sandoria.

I haven't seen any evidence that the race or gender of your character makes a difference. It appears to be entirely random.

[Icemage]

Re: Have the expansions altered the newbie experience?

Chains of Promathia and Treasures of Aht Urghan were both directly aimed at more developed players. I think the lowest level zone added in either expansion was Carpenter's Landing, which doesn't even become a factor until the mid-20s or so (and good luck persuading a group to go there instead Kazham).

What the expansions have really done, particularly ToAU, is empty out Jeuno. That place is a ghost town now, since almost everyone above level 50 congregates in Aht Urghan Whitegate these days.

What needs to happen is that there has to be some easy way to jump to all the focal point cities; not just from Whitegate to Jeuno, but also in reverse, as well as some method to easily get from Tavnazian Safehold to the other two (Tavnazian Ring serves as a decent way to get there).


Icemage