Have the expansions altered the newbie experience?

[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

[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.

[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?

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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Murphie]

Re: Have the expansions altered the newbie experience?

Uh, 1-10 not really, but newbie experience? To me that's level 30 and under.

Sure, if you alter the question altogether, there is a lot to be said. And a lot of posters (myself included) have made mention of all of these things. But as for the question the OP asked, no. It hasn't changed.

[Legal Fish]

Re: Have the expansions altered the newbie experience?

Please explain how the expansions have affected the 1-10 level range. That's what the OP was asking.

Uh, 1-10 not really, but newbie experience? To me that's level 30 and under.

Kazham, Korroloka, Carpenters' Landing, and Bibiki Bay are all expansion areas. I can't remember the last time someone invited me to a party outside Kazham or Bibiki Bay 25-30.

Let's forget items like Cunning Earring. Before that piece, the BLM earring slots were his most expensive slots. Enchantment items like Vision Ring are quite a big deal.

If you count the actions of teams during expansions(as no expansion is released all at once), then things like Empress Rings and Outpost warps certainly have had their effects on the starter game.

[Karinya]

Re: Have the expansions altered the newbie experience?

I've tp burned in the dunes for excellent exp. Killing t-vt mobs in quick succession is always great exp, as long as you have enough mobs.

True, but a tp burn party setup is not often helpful for doing so at low levels. Without dark staffs and refresh and other high-level tricks, it's more beneficial to have a balanced party IMO, even for T-VT targets.

This happened pre-toau btw, with numerous pts, though many of the pts were heavy with ls members.
As such, that tactic of exp had nothing to do with expansions.

Yes, it did. Colibri massively increased the rewards of having a melee-heavy party and Sanction greatly reduced the drawbacks (even at high levels a melee-heavy party doesn't perform as well on more typical mobs and outside the Empire).

And of course it's hard to ignore the ultra-short repop times of TAU areas and the impact that has on exp camps and target levels. You can't sustain the kill rate of Mamool Ja Staging Point in an area with 10 or 15 minute repops. I've pulled for T-VT hunting parties in Valkurm and you have to cover a *wide* area to pull in enough mobs to keep your chains alive even up to #5 - enough that there could be 2-3 parties there on a busy night. (Fortunately Valkurm doesn't have many busy nights anymore... although that may change when more jobs are introduced.)

[Murphie]

Re: Have the expansions altered the newbie experience?

You could set aside a content ID and just make various characters for various nations on it, deleting them after a short time. I wouldn't do it in rapid succession, though, as that might appear abusive.

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

[Lunaryn]

Re: Have the expansions altered the newbie experience?

You could set aside a content ID and just make various characters for various nations on it, deleting them after a short time. I wouldn't do it in rapid succession, though, as that might appear abusive.

[Silent Howler]

Re: Have the expansions altered the newbie experience?

There is more than one opening scene for each starting city. I'm not sure if it's just determined by character race or if there is a random factor.

Really? Now I'm curious to know what they are.

[Ziero]

Re: Have the expansions altered the newbie experience?

I do see an issue with the endgame shell tards leveling new jobs, and trying to force TP-burn mechanics onto low-level parties, which is obviously not very effective. It might be possible to blame this on ToAU, but I'd just blame normal stupidity.

I've tp burned in the dunes for excellent exp. Killing t-vt mobs in quick succession is always great exp, as long as you have enough mobs. This happened pre-toau btw, with numerous pts, though many of the pts were heavy with ls members.

As such, that tactic of exp had nothing to do with expansions.