Newbie Welcome Wagon

[FirstAmongstDaves]

http://www.shartak.com/clanview.cgi?id=574

NexusWar had this and it helped me get my head around that game, so I thought I would emulate the idea and set up a similar clan here.

Feel free to direct newbies to this thread or the clan page. I'll write signs in the traders huts, and other places mentioned in the new player tutorial.

New players: feel free to post comments or questions here.

[FirstAmongstDaves]

Oh, and if a mod could sticky this, that would be joyous.

[Dani]

It's a great idea, not least because i've been thinking along the same lines for the past few weeks. In fact, a version of this was already presented on the New Haven Boards, with reference to Rob Zombie's original idea for the WW at the beginning of the year.
http://shartaknewhaven.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=political&action=display&thread=35

A few immediate obstacles:

1) Since this is a player initiative we'd have to rely largely on word-of-mouth at the beginning of the game. Signs would help, but graffiti is always being changed or signs torn down. they'd have to be updated continuously.

2) General apathy, which is the death of all clans (Including, I see, the PHC). Rob had all the kinks sorted out for his welcome wagon project--although it was still a pretty complicated setup--but the thread simply died around Spring. How to avoid the same problem with this?

The first obstacle could be solved by a _small implementation by Simon to the existing tutorial, which would recommend newbies to seek out the clan in a certain hut (or a room on the Shipwreck). That assumes that the clan has the staying power to be around for the long-term, which leads us back to the second obstacle. I think the only way to reduce apathy among clan members is to make sure the main activity is organized and interesting. particularly with the latter, handing out words of wisdom to newbies doesn't cut it. I think organizing newbie quests are the only way to go with this, but that eats up a lot of RP time.

So it's a good time to be rolling this out, but unless clan members are willing to put sufficient time and energy in to make it work, there's no point starting.

[Ahnaom]

I can't promise anything major but welcoming newbies was always one of the reasons I started the tavern in the first place. I wouldn't mind it becoming a place for new players to come and certainly would be happy to give OOC advice about how the game works. The only drawback might be lazy people who would start nagging players about every detail instead of reading the wiki first.

As far as the quests go, I will be certainly doing them once things get rolling. A bit too early for it now, although I already have one courier task available. The main problem here are the rewards. I can't hand out gold every time a newbie goes and does some simple task, it would mean going bankrupt in a few weeks. And I'm not sure if people would be willing to do quests just for the regular xp they might bring.

[Dani]

a reward has to be a big draw for newbie players--alot of the quests that we might think up won't offer much in the way of xp, and anyway, newbies don't have the combat skills to make xp gain the point. So gold is essential, and as i've said before, we need to get gold from the other players who have lots and don't know what to do with it. There's this weird vibe that people get when I mention donating gold--as if i'm talking about RL money, or that they really need that extra 500gc for whenever Simon develops a suitable gold sink.

Whether we give gold directly as a reward or buy them what *we* think they need for supplies (a little patriarchal but ok), is something to think about after we already have the money in the bank.

[Ahnaom]

Gold doesn't grow on trees. It takes time and work to save it. I can't see a single reason why people who have worked for it should just part with their coins. I don't have and never will have such an income to sustain tons of quests for every newbie that comes in. Going bankrupt is not my idea of fun either.

Also, you can't bribe people to stay in the game. Most of them will quit anyway, so you'd just waste gold. I don't mind providing goals and showing them around the island but I can't see point in going further than that.

Simon might implement spirit quests in the future, that might be better than such player-led initiatives. Humans can provide interaction and create meaningful environments, it's a job of an NPC to forge infinite amounts of coins. No use making the former into cash cows.

[Ahnaom]

"Other clans: please note that poaching of members from the Newbie Welcome Wagon is strongly encouraged!"

Oh, that makes me want to join right away.

[Dani]

Gold doesn't grow on trees. It takes time and work to save it. I can't see a single reason why people who have worked for it should just part with their coins. I don't have and never will have such an income to sustain tons of quests for every newbie that comes in. Going bankrupt is not my idea of fun either.

No, it doesn't grow on trees, it grows in resource huts. i agree it takes time to collect, work i'm not so sure about. in any case, the fact that there's no purpose for gold other than to buy the same stuff you already have makes the capitalist incentive of keeping it fall a little flat.Yes, it would be ridiculous for individual members to supply their own gold to pay for quest rewards; there would have to be a fund that clan members would be able to access. Since going bankrupt is meaningless in a game that has nothing resembling an economy, I'm not sure how your tavern can go bankrupt.

Also, you can't bribe people to stay in the game. Most of them will quit anyway, so you'd just waste gold. I don't mind providing goals and showing them around the island but I can't see point in going further than that.

Yes, I figured many players would see it as a bribe. it aint a bribe. it's a material reward for completing whatever introductory quest they do. it means they don't have to spend as long farming for FAKS or fungi. and if you set it up right, then most players won't quit, not right away. And as my last point indicates, you can't waste gold, because there's no choice to sink it in anything else. The point is to introduce new players to RP; the gold is just something to help them cope with the frustration of the slow start to the game. If you don't know what I mean, you've never been a pirate.

Simon might implement spirit quests n the futurei, that might be better than such player-led initiatives. Humans can provide interaction and create meaningful environments, it's a job of an NPC to forge infinite amounts of coins. No use making the former into cash cows.

Yes, Simon might do that (or he may not) at some unspecified time in the future. Meanwhile, how many new players are leaving the game feeling they don't have a sense of connection to anybody in the game? How many older players are leaving the game because (excuse me, FAD) they're tired of putting up with the same forum drama BS and/or interacting with the same players constantly? Shartak needs new blood, and spirit quests which might be implemented at some point aren't an answer to that. Tbh, I don't actually think it's necessarily Simon's responsibility to begin with. The disadvantage of diminishing players should be pretty clear in an RP environment. Shartak has a do-it-yourself kind of atmosphere to it--I don't see why we shouldnt take a hands on approach with it. I can't speak for FAD, but I'm not envisioning that we spend all our time in Shartak on this, or even most of our time. 20% sounds about right, cumulatively. I'm personally ok with giving one of my alts a job helping with that. We just need to find others who feel the same way.

[Mr Crowley]

Must say I agree with Mencken on alot of aspects there. Especially the one about old players leaving (Were back in 2008 incase anyone hasn't noticed).

Getting on the clan topic though. Say if I want to help out, as a quest giver/helper whatever the hell it might be. Should I join the clan or do I just suddenly become one of the people there pointed too?

[Ahnaom]

Regardless what we decide or not decide here, I will still be doing quests for newbies. Probably my own way and without belonging to some specific newbie clan but I have been planning on this since the very beginning. I am also for doing things to keep new players around, always.

But your post here seems very contradictory.

First of all, gold is useful. Bounties on players that bug you, heavy swords in PvP trading, yeastweed, FAKs at shipwreck... It is good as it is and with possible new additions to the game that are always coming, it is likely to become even more valuable.

Being bankrupt means having no gold. No money to for bounties, for quests, for buying yeastweed. It doesn't put the tavern out of business but it does make life hard.

You state that gold is useless ant then proceed to argue new players are having hard time without it. You can survive without FAKs and good pirate clans should point people to other settlements, that's the whole point of the wreck. It is not a town and never was. You get a huge AP bonus to fill your inventory with all kinds of stuff on the first day and it is enough to get everything you need in every other village. If anything, larger amounts of gold become useful later in the game. To organise contests, pay for merc hits and so on. You can't use half of the items without the proper skills anyway, why would you want to buy them during your first days.

Quests might be an introduction to RP, gold is not needed for that. In fact, simple communication and pointing newbies to the most populated locations might do the trick.

You also state how this game is do-it-yourself and then argue that people will leave if they don't find any content prepared for them already. And lastly you give some examples of veteran players quitting, how does that tie in with level 0 and 1 quests is a bit beyond me.

I would probably agree with a lot of what you've said here, it just doesn't tie into a coherent plan to keep new players around. And you are likely to run out of gold doing this, sooner or later. Unless you keep an alt or two exclusively for making money.

Wish you luck though. As long as you can afford doing such things... Always better than doing nothing.

[Bobby the Hatchet]

I think it's a good idea. We need to start thinking more about the majority of the community and not getting all exclusively twisted up into the small percentage of the meta-game. Fighting the same players gets old for most, the same drama, everyone's got their niche established, new groups are extremely slow to start and there are a ton of players wandering aimlessly.

Taverns are a good hub to work from here. We've got four of them running stable and they're generally a place for everyone to gather, with minimal politics. Throw down some signs and infrastructure geared towards newer players, directing them to these hubs. Not everyone's going to want to be handed a quest, but so long as they're pointed to a populated area they should be able to figure the rest out from there. Dalpok and Wiksik don't have taverns, but they've got custom huts or Medical Huts which could serve as hubs, so long as they're populated. The shipwreck is pretty discouraging to players that have no idea what they're doing, I think this is why they end up mindlessly killing one another, it could use some signs directing players to other outsider settlements. Rakmogak can also be discouraging, and could use some signs and whatnot directing players to the mainland.

More signs, more wiki/map awareness, all the tools are there, I think some of these knuckleheads just need to know where to find them, someone to hold their hands for a few days, etc.

[Dani]

Ahnoam:

Well, I certainly respect your decision to do your own thing. So long as you're helping incoming players, that's all that counts. but I do need to correct your arguments so that people reading this thread don't fall into the same logic trap you have.

First, despite your avowal that there is plenty for things to do with gold, this thread would indicate that a problem exists. http://forum.shartak.com/index.php/topic,2702.90.html. of course, you may not agree, but it seems to me that you're missing how the value changes depending on how much of it you have. All the uses for gold you listed either require exceptional circumstances to get any use out of it (buying heavy swords depends on people having and be willing to sell them, not how much gold you have) or are of limited use to most players (yeastweed costs might trouble tavern owners; but for most players the item isn't a gold sink). don't know about mercs--you seem to put a lot of emphasis into them--mostly because i've never hired them. But they aren't gold sinks in themselves.

So, for the person who has lots of gold, it is indeed a problem if you want to spend it on something. for the incoming player who has little to no gold, it is valuable to buy the supplies that they don't have. What supplies? a backpack, maps to other villages (assuming the exploration skill), FAKs, weapons. The fact that there is a sliding scale of value for new and old players is not the logical fallacy you seem to think it is. And as far as good pirate clans go, we don't have them. in fact, to go on a brief tangent, if the clans were doing their job in the first place, we wouldn't be in this current predicament. but they aren't helping new players and/or new players aren't joining up with them. You say you can survive without FAKs, but most of the ways to earn xp require taking a lot of pain and then healing.

RP is something you do when you're comfortable with the environment. you don't do it in a weakened state, early on. I didn't even consider it for my main alt, Mencken, until he was level 20. but then, I always planned to stick around with the game. many players will simply quit and move on to another game, a more straightforward game. In order for quests to have any value, they need a material reward, that's either gold, or whatever item(s) we deem they could use the most with gold.

As for a coherent plan, it's still very early to be talking of such a thing as if all the kinks have been worked out but I did post such a plan on the newhaven boards. I put the link to it on my first post for this thread. did you read it?

[Solemn]

Ahnoam:

...

As for a coherent plan, it's still very early to be talking of such a thing as if all the kinks have been worked out but I did post such a plan on the newhaven boards. I put the link to it on my first post for this thread. did you read it?

If a person doesn't have access on the New Haven boards, then they can't read beyond the public section.

[Dani]

Ah. my mistake, Sorry Ahnoam. I'll post some version of it on the clan board at some point.

[Etherdrifter]

I don't mind lending the spirit hut to this, I generally spend most of my time in there answering questions anyway...