Stendhal Development Meeting 2009-11-22/Result Log/New Players

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Revision as of 22:24, 29 November 2009 by imported>Blacklads (→Killing the first creature (need summary))
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TODO: Please help to summarize this chatlog. Note: Comments have been removed, sorted and edited. You can find the real chat log in the blue box on the right hand side.

New Players

  • The first 5 minutes of new players.
  • hendrik: In the past only 20% of all players stayed more than 5 minutes.
  • hendrik: we are now at about 50%.

Show Rules before being able to Play?

  • love_puppet: i think there should be a place where u have to read the rules before your player can be made
  • love_puppet: so player can not say when a rule is broken that they didn't know
  • superkym: love puppet you are told after a certain time about the rules page, that's a tutorial message
  • superkym: every new player gets it - i think after 15 minutes of playing time
  • Oslsachem: the first 5 minutes since logging in or since clicking play now?
  • superkym: one of the ideas behind stendhal was to make it accessible for people to just create an account and see the world
  • superkym: forcing to read rules would be the opposite of that. we are really keen that people can visit and see it easily
  • yoriy: i have offer: insert rules to tutorial completely.
  • humana: yes that's important... cannot be that there are some names like porn, with that you can't login?

Prevent new players from getting lost

  • Main Problem: New Players are getting lost after walking out of Semos Village
  • using arrows on the map for guiding new players
    • arrows showing the way to semos city, bank, public chest
    • against arrows: Players could talk to NPCs to learn about different ways
    • exchanging the "N" on minimaps with arrows?
    • against arrows: Players could talk to NPCs to learn about different ways
      • just one NPC on the way to Semos
      • players maybe don't listen carefully about which way they should take, arrows will be visual
  • giving new Players a free Home Scroll in bag?
    • against free Home Scroll: Players could abuse scrolls by creating new chars
      • Maybe scrolls can be fixed for that
  • closing all holes (fence in the north, gate in the south) to guide players to Semos City
    • first task is it to kill a rat, but the only visible one is at the hole in the fence north of the guard house, player went to kill the rat and returned to Hayunn, then walked off north again and got lost
    • a very invisible path is pointing to Semos City
    • idea: moving the gate from Semos Village to Semos City
      • hole is deliberate so people can pass through if they want to
      • using gate for the hole (when that will work)
      • huge sign entrance could be moved over to Semos
        • graphic available?
    • adding a sign gate at the south of Semos City and closing the passage south in the village?
    • preventing that people will walk into that direction and get trapped inside the fence (hole and forest?)
  • changing the starting place to a house in the city?
    • idea of guard house was it, to not confuse players at first while arriving in the townhall (e.g. players running around, lots of NPCs)
    • guard house is a quiet room
    • having a small but closed training area for new players
    • moving path which points to the forest so that it cuts down from Semos through Semos Plains s instead from the village
  • creating a level-gate at the hole in the fence at the gate south (other way around in relation to gate at Gnome Village)
    • NPCs guarding level gates make them look more natural
  • making the fenced area smaller
    • channel them through but leave plenty space around the edges
    • while walking out past Carmen, you would go into the small channeled fenced areas but otherweise, you'd go into the unfenced region
    • put city gate right to Carmen so that this will become the prefered path to Nalwor for older players

Getting from Semos Village to Semos City

  • Well, what about to do a quest, which leads the new player to a NPC in Semos City?
  • <npc>Hayunn Naratha</npc> already points to <npc>Monogenes</npc>
  • The IntroducePlayer quest from <npc>Tad</npc> is hard to find

Warning new players running into dangerous zones

  • There should be zone entry messages that are level based to warn low level players
  • So if a new player walks to the west of Semos Village, he could get a warning to turn around

Losing Club on Death

  • its possible to lose your <item>club</item> when being killed.
  • and you cannot kill a <creature>rat</creature> easily with just your hands.
  • "basic damage" without weapons could be increased slightly
  • mark <item>club</item> and <item>leather armor</item> as undroppable on death

Killing the first creature (need summary)

  • Main Problem: rats are running away, too difficult for new players to catch them
  • exchanging rat with another creature to kill first
    • shouldn't run away
    • maybe in guard house
      • problem: rats can hurt players currently
      • maybe a special rat or a mouse which will not run away or okay to have coward rats in relation to the closed room
        • against: dangerous for new player who wants to find out about gameplay
          • also if low damaging?
    • asking Hayunn to summon a special training enemy
      • maybe a rat or mouse which appears when the player agrees to try to kill one or after agreeing to the quest from Hayunn
        • technically: may need a summon mechanism, so that there is always one enemy if a new player arrives
    • should rats attack players?
  • behaving of rats (AI profile)
    • should be cowards like in real life
    • fits to the atmosphere
    • space for running maybe to big?


  • superkym: ok. i will look into those things that we discussed to help the first 5 minutes then
  • Oslsachem: perhaps hayunn could give the player a piece of cheese and when the player dropped it to the ground, the rat appeared :)
  • blackfinix: i like that osl
  • storyteller: Maybe Hayunn also says: "Oh, how does this rat get in? Quick, kill it before it hurt´s you!" or something ;)
  • superkym: players probably won't know how to put cheese on the ground yet
  • superkym: that's something they are taught later, how to inspect corpses and how to move items around
  • Oslsachem: then make hayunn drop it :)
  • superkym: i wonder how many new players woudl then lay pieces of cheese everywhere and wait the rats to come
  • Oslsachem: and then do as storyteller says
  • bluekiller: :D lol
  • Oslsachem: except kill it before it eats the cheese
  • storyteller: yes ^^
  • Oslsachem: I thought the rat was special :)
  • heder: hola
  • Mayor Sakhs: Welcome citizen! Do you need help?
  • storyteller: well, just something like that :)
  • Oslsachem: a cheese-rat
  • storyteller: ^^
  • Mayor Sakhs: Have a good day and enjoy your stay!
  • bluekiller: who is from germany
  • bluekiller: ?
  • Oslsachem: me, hede
  • hamunu: me too
  • bluekiller: resident evil kommt
  • bluekiller: :D
  • heder: que sea mas facil de cuvir los skills
  • Oslsachem: me, heder
  • superkym: I think that's a good time to close the meeting maybe?
  • bluekiller: yes
  • blackfinix: yes!
  • hamunu: yes!
  • hendrik: I like the idea, but i suggest that we implement it in two steps: First get it to work and only than let Hayunn put down the cheese.
  • storyteller: hmm...
  • bluekiller: and make a rait:D?
  • gummipferd: hayunn could also put up a training puppet. old warrior getting scared of a rat sonds strange to me...
  • yoriy: what with agenda
  • hendrik: Perhaps it should be a smaller cheese image.
  • hendrik: gimipferd, he is not scared.
  • superkym: gummi - i don't think he's scared of it. he's just trying to teach.
  • hendrik: He asks the player to kill the rat because he things the player has too little experiance to even kill a rat.
  • Oslsachem: well, it happens that people are not scared of big animals while they are scared of smaller ones
  • heder: up skills very very fast
  • gummipferd: aah, so he intentionally drops the cheese? sry my brains have been working today
  • hendrik: gummi, yes.
  • heder: make much raids
  • kiheru: or lets a rat out of a cage, or whatever
  • Oslsachem: I was thinking about hayunn accidentally dropping the cheese while offering it to the player
  • blackfinix: which is the way it should be i think
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