Tutorial Improvements ...

[gorboth]

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Denizens of the Donut,

I've spent the week making some much-needed updates to the Tutorial. Many
of these are about 12 years overdue, but a few are me finally catching up
with the various tweaks to the way the character creation process has
changed over the last 5 years - insuring that the design of the tutorial is
cohesive with the way things now work.

Here are the things I have done:

    - I closed the "review" section of the Library which contained the
      old, original pre-creation sequence. This was redundant with the things
      taught in the portal you can enter at the hilltop, and legacy material
      from the original pre-character-creation sequence. It no longer made
      sense to have it in the game.

    - I reworked tutorial signs 1-7 so that they no longer read as if
      they belonged in that sequence, but instead themselves teach the info
      of those early basic concepts independently.

    - I changed the tutorial journal so that it would auto-add chapters
      1-7 as having been read as soon as Lars gives the journal to you,
      rather than having the first 7 chapters be oddly missing until you
      find the (now removed) review section.

    - I added a simple occupational guild to the Tutorial called
      The Patrol Guild of Silverdell. It includes a join room, two
      emotes, a simple special attack, a training room that teaches
      the special skill and parry to superior layman, and a start room
      that includes basic saving racks for weapons, armour, and miscellany.

    - I added tutorial signs 47, 48, and 49 to teach about occupational
      (and other) guilds, and the importance of joining them, special
      attacks, and guild racks.

    - I changed the magic map to include the new guildhall and remove
      the Annex of the library.

    - I changed the portal that takes you out of the Tutorial to Sparkle
      to now ask players to leave the occ guild before they can use it.
      (We don't want the tutorial occ guild membership or abilities to
      extend into the rest of the game!)

    - I have made burned-down versions of all the rooms in the town and
      in the castle, so that once you complete the quest to defeat or
      become allies with the Vampire, you can still search for any as-yet
      unfound and unread tutorial signs to complete the quest to find all
      journal chapters. This was one of the worst flaws of the tutorial
      dating all the way back to 2005. Why did I wait 12 years to do this?!

    - I have returned the Vampire to its original power so that the final
      boss battle isn't just a silly walk in the park like it has been in
      the last year or so. I want the battle to feel challenging, and now
      that the power of an occupational guild special is available, it
      makes sense to again have the Vampire feel a bit tough to kill.

Hopefully this addresses all of the remaining issues with the tutorial. If
you should find that there are any problems remaining, or bugs with any of
these additions listed above, please mail me and I'll get them fixed.

Thanks everyone! Happy Tutorial Adventuring!
G.

[Emmiline Calaith]

Thank you Gorboth for adding these much-needed improvements!

[Melarec]

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    - I added tutorial signs 47, 48, and 49 to teach about occupational
      (and other) guilds, and the importance of joining them, special
      attacks, and guild racks.

Will all current journals be updated with the new chapters?
Because I still refer to my journal from time to time and I'd like it to be complete.

[Kitriana]

Awesome news!

[gorboth]

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    - I added tutorial signs 47, 48, and 49 to teach about occupational
      (and other) guilds, and the importance of joining them, special
      attacks, and guild racks.

Will all current journals be updated with the new chapters?
Because I still refer to my journal from time to time and I'd like it to be complete.

If you are out of the tutorial and still have your journal, I believe you can see all chapters whether you found them while in the tutorial or not. So - yes, these should already appear in your journal.

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> list chapters
 1: Moving Around                        26: Mail                              
 2: Looking At Things                    27: Roleplay and Emotions             
 3: Room Descriptions                    28: Bulletin Boards                   
 4: Deeper Room Descriptions             29: Quests and Brutality              
 5: Getting And Using Things             30: Start Locations                   
 6: Finding Secrets - The Search Command 31: Save, Armageddon, and Recovery    
 7: Working on Quests                    32: Death                             
 8: Statistics                           33: Health and Wimpying               
 9: The Expanded Tutorial and Lars' Gift 34: What to Do Next - Earning Money   
10: NPCs and Conversation                35: Dealing with Quest NPCs           
11: What To Do First                     36: Combat!                           
12: Adventurer Guilds - Meditation       37: The Options Commands              
13: Adventurer Guilds - Skills           38: Herbs                             
14: Skill Training                       39: Light and Darkness                
15: Experience - Gaining Levels          40: Corpses and Leftovers             
16: Food and Fatigue                     41: Teaming                           
17: Drinks and Intoxication              42: Feedback for Wizards              
18: Introductions and the Who List       43: Completing the Tutorial           
19: The Help Command and the Rules       44: Alignment: Good vs. Evil          
20: Making Maps                          45: Quicktyper Commands               
21: Shops - Buying and Selling           46: Grinding - A Necessary Evil?      
22: Using Weapons                        47: Occupational and other Guilds     
23: Using Armours                        48: Guild Benefits - Racks            
24: Logging Out and Linkdeath            49: Guild Benefits - Special Attacks  
25: Money and Banks                          
You can <read #> to read a specific chapter.

G.