Grinding areas for new players

[Cherek]

Wow ... yeah, we need to change the design of that Pelargir area. Somebody tell Eowul!

G.

He's been officially told. It actually took us like half an hour to find the place... without Varian's help we'd never had found it. It's not even on Crossbearer maps. No wonder it's overlooked. So uh yeah, it will also need a magic map before we can start sending newbies there. And maybe some other tweaks... but it's got potential:)

[Prokop]

Happy to see you found it.
It has fantastic potential.
My only suggestion would be add a newbie boat right to the village dock. Waiting for the
Pelargir gates to open on middle earth time, or searching for ways in or around might be
difficult for true newbies.

[Cherek]

Happy to see you found it.
It has fantastic potential.
My only suggestion would be add a newbie boat right to the village dock. Waiting for the
Pelargir gates to open on middle earth time, or searching for ways in or around might be
difficult for true newbies.

Yup. I am thinking of changing two of our newbie ships from Sparkle to be two pure newbie grinding ship lines.

[Amorana]

Out of curiosity...

What's wrong with the newbie grinding area that was coded in Sparkle?

There's an orc temple that you're only sized for if you wear the amulet or if you are a newbie.

Why can't we create more areas like this?

Just seems logical to create more rather than take away areas that are useful for guilds like the Ogres who need lots of small things for skulls or others that use leftovers for components.

[Cherek]

Amorana: The orc fortress is great, but far from enough on its own. Some new areas would be great too , and if someone wants to work on creating some grinding areas for newbies I sure wont stop them. Meanwhile, we do have some usable areas already, and making them more accessible for new players and tweaking them a little to fit them better is in my opinion very good.

I assume you are referring to not being able to enter the Kobold area in Terel anymore as the thing that has been "taken away"? Well, I really believe this area was designed with young players in mind. It is a perfect place to grind when you're fresh out of the tutorial. I think we should keep it that way, and help guide them there to grow. In peace. Without having to run into myths on scripts cleaning out the whole area in a few minutes and moving on, leaving them standing there in an empty place wondering what on earth happened.

After all you have tens of thousands of other rooms to hunt for skulls and leftovers. Can't the newbies have at least a handful of areas too?:) Since most of the world is too dangerous for them, I think having a few areas where they can hunt fairly safely while growing surely must be good.

[Zestana]

Kobolds had one of the highest yield rates for "skulls", were quick to kill, and their leftovers weighed hardly anything. Ilrahil only used kobold and elf leftovers as spell components due to their light weight. Alternatives are some human/troll/ogre leftovers weigh 4-5 kilos a hit so its not feasible to carry even 5 of them around. Kinda sad to hear the kobold area is closed down.

[Draugor]

Kobolds had one of the highest yield rates for "skulls", were quick to kill, and their leftovers weighed hardly anything. Ilrahil only used kobold and elf leftovers as spell components due to their light weight. Alternatives are some human/troll/ogre leftovers weigh 4-5 kilos a hit so its not feasible to carry even 5 of them around. Kinda sad to hear the kobold area is closed down.

Aye, but the area should have a size requirement so that we dont get tons of people killing the newbies stuff, big people have an easy size restrictor, newbies go there and fight, they get their ass kicked, good restrictor, zone the a newbie specific area off fo each type of alignment so they have somewhere they can go and mess around untill they strike GA or so

[Cherek]

Kobolds had one of the highest yield rates for "skulls", were quick to kill, and their leftovers weighed hardly anything. Ilrahil only used kobold and elf leftovers as spell components due to their light weight. Alternatives are some human/troll/ogre leftovers weigh 4-5 kilos a hit so its not feasible to carry even 5 of them around. Kinda sad to hear the kobold area is closed down.

They are not closed. They are very open. Just not as a harvest spot for myths anymore, nor should they be. So... get over it and find a new spot. Things change. Adapt.

[Cherek]

Okay, this at first seemed like I pretty small concern to me compared to giving new players somewhere to grind, hence my rather frosty replies. But okay, after a good chat with someone about this I am starting to get it now.

However, letting small players have areas of their own is also very important. And Kobolds also happens to be one of few areas we currently have for new players to grind.

This may obviously be a concern with any area, new or old, that's targeted at smaller players. And not only leftovers are popular with bigger characters, so is heads to rip off for ogres, and of course people farming low level NPCs in hopes of upping the odds of finding imbuements. Which is of course a very normal and logical thing to do. But with the many low level characters we now have, and the low number of good grinding areas for them, this is likely to become a problem down the road.

I say it would be best if new players only had to compete with other new players over low level grinding areas. But as long as they are lucrative for high level players too, they will want to go there as well.

I currently do not have a solution other than letting some areas be open for all, and some others newbie only. Anyone has a better solution, I am listening.

[Mortis]

You can do like I did with the Tower of Arms in Palanthas. There, the bigger you are, the more loot you destroy.

Kobolds could be similar and have not only gear but corpses destroyed if anyone over a certain size got the kill.

This way all players can mingle there, but only the targeted levels are able to benefit from it.