New Player Experience

Discuss ideas about promoting Genesis and inviting more players into the Genesis community
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Cherek
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Re: New Player Experience

Post by Cherek » 18 Feb 2015 00:01

Drip wrote:^post too long, just speed read it
But I just discovered that guilds can only develop characters....
If that's true, why are there so few of them listed on the website?
I'm hoping for a improvement on the magic stuff in Genesis.
Few? Every guild we have is listed.:)

And no, guilds is not the only way to develop a character. Far from it. Some join a guild with a clear goal and embrace that guild's RP, other's join a neutral, or more lonewolf guild, and decide who they will be completely on their own. There's also a lot of interesting clubs to join, and of course plenty of ways to customize the look of a character.

I think you'll find you have plenty of options on who to become.

But guild DO play a large role. Almost all players belong to guilds since only guilds provide skills and abilities that you'll probably need.

As for magics, well there is a magic recode going on, a few magic guilds have been recoded, others are in the process. So magic in Genesis is definitely changing for the better if you ask me.

Drip
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Re: New Player Experience

Post by Drip » 18 Feb 2015 00:10

Few? Every guild we have is listed.:)
Mage Guilds: Morgul Mages.

Thief guilds: Secret Society of Uncle Trapspringer.

And there's 11 fighter guilds which is unbalanced.

Form new guilds to attract players or wait for players to suggest new things?
(if you don't understand what I've written, assume I have bad wording)

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Cherek
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Re: New Player Experience

Post by Cherek » 18 Feb 2015 00:17

Drip wrote:
Few? Every guild we have is listed.:)
Mage Guilds: Morgul Mages.

Thief guilds: Secret Society of Uncle Trapspringer.

And there's 11 fighter guilds which is unbalanced.

Form new guilds to attract players or wait for players to suggest new things?
Genesis has always been a game where fighters dominate the population and spellcasters are more rare. Why? I dont know, perhaps wizards have wanted to create fighter guilds because it's more fun, or maybe because they are easier to create? I am not sure, but having a game made by it's own players on a volunteer basis has it's problems and it's beauty.:)

But if we count occupational and layman guilds there's at least 8 spell caster guilds, 9 if you count rangers. So you dont completely lack options if you wanna be a spellcaster. There's 2 spellcaster guilds being created too.

Ergo
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Re: New Player Experience

Post by Ergo » 18 Feb 2015 13:23

Cherek :

Thank you for your complete and exhaustive reply/replies. I really appreciate your job here as I go through the forum pages.

If you allow I will address just a few points there, as most of my points was greatly adressed by yourself:

2. I wouldn't encourage a new character to bear a lot of money (for their skill training purposes), as I think, people would abuse that to assure quite wealthy start for their new characters. The worst part of the tutorial area was an obligatory to grind/kill bunnies/rabbits & wolves in order to raise skills.

3. I wouldn't demonize free emotes ability for people topic, as I understand - all of people who actually play the game are adult for quite some time. Aye, maybe we are closing to that "ceratin age" and become childish again ;-) but - from my perspective, it is an added value of a text based game.

10. The best place and time to inform people that the game offers a freedom of choice regarding their career without the need of "re-rolling" a new character would be the main page/web site as well as during the tutorial stage when they reach a maximum level while upgrading their skills (if you implement some version of my idea).

Who killed a veteran, goblin - there were bunch of players, who did not introduce themselves, but whose names were revealed to me by people in game. Why did it happen? Because they could do it? Because Ergo was/is evil aligned goblin? A member of a BDA? I would like to point out that I brought that in a light of a death penalty topic and a de-leveling after that, not to "whine" about being "ganked" by huge myths.

And nay, I did not know that there are pages (are there?) with quest solutions. I was given a link to a site with detailed maps, which helped a lot. As I answered to you in a thread regarding a brute system - I would rather NOT be forced to go through quests (even if the solutions would be available), and I like your idea of having one xp type in the game, of allowing people different path of personal growth. So to answer your question in the light of above mentioned information : even if I had all quest solutions available right now, I wouldn't jump back to the game and do them one after another just to lower my brute -> because of the need of so called "fun" factor of the game - in a different thread of this forum a person named Merserau (I am sorry if I had the name twixed) pointed it out nicely - that we play online games for fun and pleasure. The development of my character right now is hindered by a brute system, to grow further -I would have to engage myself with an activity I do not like atm (quest solving), so answering to the second question - YES. I would go back if the need to quest in order to grow would be lifted.

As for that "elite guilds'" point - I understand your defensive position here as a chief of PR section ;-) That is why I haven't mentioned any guild names here. But if the game administrators would like to test which guild people assume as elite and most desired - lets lift ANY joining restrictions (for EXISTING PLAYERS) for a week to every and each guild and see which guilds will be the most populated and which one would be deserted totally (oh well - I assume that the council would stay ;-)). Then you would just shut the rest of them ;-).

btw. When I created Ergo I thought about a wizardry career for him, you know "nuke'em before they reach you" kind of a wizard archetype. The game nowadays has just ONE such guild, and it is purely evil aligned, LOTR theme based, which accept elves only as their main dish ;-) (btw. I was informed that a better choice for a race to suit a wizard career in Genesis would be a gnome.). I would gladly see some kind of Wizards of High Sorcery guild there with 3 viable options for all alignments.

btw2. The game community is an asset. Ergo received some nice help during his existence, thanks to which he got to veteran, mostly by fighting, as I described before. That's why I follow your FB page and read through this forum. I wish I got engaged earlier here (a forum ;-))

@Drip - aye, one cannot develop own character in any field without joining a guild. And thanks for supporting me within a "non sufficient data" topic regarding guilds.

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Kitriana
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Re: New Player Experience

Post by Kitriana » 18 Feb 2015 14:35

As a member of what might be considered one of the RP heavy guilds. I can assure you we do not exclude people from the opportunity to join the guild based on whether we know them or not. We give anyone who makes a real attempt at RP a chance to join our guild. Actually .. sometimes I would even say it would benefit one if they are a fresh face who haven't been influenced by years and years of playing Genesis.. where they have a biased impression of who we are as a guild. They can look at our guild and RP with fresh eyes.. and it will make the transition easier. But altogether.. Is that an easy road? No. Its not. Will we will ever just allow someone to walk up and join? No. It would destroy the integrity of the theme and our RP.

And I have a hard time believing that Morgul Mages or Scop or PoT aren't the same way. Make the effort and see for yourself instead of relying on the assumptions that people make.

I remember long time ago people laughed at me when I said I was trying to join the Mystics with similar statements about how they only accept players they know. But I didn't have any issues of not being accepted because I didn't know anyone in the guild. I just RPed my way in and was fully embraced.

RP guilds generally favor players who show an effort and show characteristics that match their guild mindset.
There are plenty of guilds that one can just walk up and join .. and start playing. And some have argued to me that they are better or equal in terms of abilities to Union. So why go through the bother of joining them or wanting to join them if you don't want the RP experience associated with it?
If something I wrote sounds confusing ... assume you misunderstood it.

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Snowrose
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Re: New Player Experience

Post by Snowrose » 18 Feb 2015 15:02

some of the "listings" are not completly correct

yes there are a ton of fighters. but thats cause
there is multiple fighter types

it might be more balenced if you labled them

tank, meleedps, casterdps, support,stealthy, Zerg, hybrid

Occ guilds: (not including race based occ like archers or ogres and i maybe a bit off on some)
neidar and DO and i think agmars army are very tanky

knights and bda and decent meeleedps mercs are meleedps but you can use versitility to push them stealthy

shadow union is meleedps/and seem to be of the stealthy type

MM caster dps.... yes we are short on casters we used to have a occ caster mystics but they were shut down.
most of the caster guilds are support and or layman

Priests of takesis,Scop are caster and supporty

Rangers are a hybrid of support and stealthy meleedps

calians are zerg

Layman: I know im missing a bunch. not including laymans attached to a occ guild )
casters:
minstrels, heralds, Elementals, necros
melee:
militia, blademasters,
hybrid:
tricksters(if they are still around)

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Kitriana
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Re: New Player Experience

Post by Kitriana » 18 Feb 2015 15:27

Also wanted to address some of your other points from another perspective. ..

2) regarding the money bit .. and need for grinding as much as you do. While I'm sure some would argue that this shows just how much grinding is necessary in the rest of the game to grow... and condition players for that experience. I would actually quite agree with this point and maybe someone should look at the ratio of coins one gets for killing bunnies and wolves so it would expediate ones departure from the tutorial area. So they are not being given a hunk of coins.. but that they earn it faster.

3) I suppose a lot of old timers remember the early days of the game, many of us playing back then were in HS or College, and I recall quite a bit of abusive language sometimes. Or people acting inappropriately. I'm not sure statistically the age range of the new players who are finding Genesis. But as I've seen from the newbie tell line .. there is definitely some need for caution in this area to prevent issues. I think perhaps discussing to lower the player age necessary to get free emotes is something the admin should consider... but I would not want to see it open up altogether. Especially since there are SO many possible emotes.. and guild, club or item emotes that exist.

10. Agree. This sounds like a great idea. I think we need to do more to educate players about some of the things many of us take for granted as knowledge.

RE: Getting ganked. Really sorry to hear this happened to you. Unfortunately this has always been a risk of being part of a guild involved more heavily in PVP. I know some guild leaders have made attempts to protect smaller players even in the event of a war .. but doesn't mean it doesn't still happen. I would imagine though that you guild members would likely be very happy to help you recover.

RE: Quests.. this has always been a long standing conversation. As someone on the side of liking the quests .. and the fact that one doesn't lose quest XP when they die. I wouldn't be a fan of them being merged together or their necessity removed. So while I do understand your feelings of not liking them. I hate grinding. So shouldn't I have the option not to grind? and just quest and RP? Its part of the game though.. both parts equally.

RE: Wizard archetype guild --- We have several magic based guilds. Some are more clerical in nature

Occupations:
1) Morgul Mages
2) Priests of Tahksis
3) Scop (which will be replaced by Elemental Clerics)
[4) Necromancer Guild in process of being coded]

Laymen:
1) Elemental Worshippers
2) Heralds of Valar
3) Minstrels (through songs of power)
4) Necromancers

you could KINDA put Rangers into the list too .. as they do have some spells.

maybe I'm forgetting some?

We used to have a WoHS -- perhaps they would reconsider adding this back in. But EC is supposed to be a neutral aligned guild.

RE: Forum -- it might not be a bad idea to have more advertisement of the forum pages on the opening screen to the game.
If something I wrote sounds confusing ... assume you misunderstood it.

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Mersereau
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Re: New Player Experience

Post by Mersereau » 18 Feb 2015 16:27

Magic guilds traditionally have been a bitch to balance, which is why the game is melee heavy.
"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die."
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Cherek
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Re: New Player Experience

Post by Cherek » 19 Feb 2015 02:04

Ergo: Thanks again for your feedback. It's definitely very helpful, us old players have usually a hard time imagining how someone completely new experiences things. So thanks for sharing. I think you were very unlucky who happened to join a guild that happened to become involved in a war. It is usually very uncommon for low level characters to be killed by high level ones.

As for quests, yes, currently they are a requirement, and yes, without solutions many are very hard. We are working on ways to make things easier. If we will remove the need to quest completely, we'll see. There's both good and bad aspects of making that change, depending on who you ask. Either way, we still need to make our quests more logical, less frustrating, and present better information on how to solve them, where to start, which to solve first, etc. I am actually surprised nobody handed you solutions, which again proves the need to make quest help/guides more easy to find.

I hope you do return to playing again at some point!

Ergo
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Re: New Player Experience

Post by Ergo » 19 Feb 2015 15:39

@Cherek - thank you.

@Kitirana - I haven't written my posts in order to "whine" but to express a point of view of a newcomer ;). The topic of this thread is "New Player Experience" so I did share my experience and pointed out things, that in my opinion, should attract your attention.

I was informed that there is a "clique" of friends who hold council positions in certain "elite guilds" (I did not mention any of names) and allow only their friends and friends of friends, but pile problems in front of "unknown" persons. As I said - the community of the game is an asset, you are great and helpful regardless the character's alignment (Ergo received help from both sides), but the community is also a "gossiping" one ;) as I was told who is who, who plays whom, why certain characters are logged simultaneously and are only active while the other one is active too, who hold strings in few major guilds there. The rest is easily tracked/confirmed by an open sources like FB for example. Friends are friends and I understand that they want to tag along even in your game :)

So my idea of fighting against such "nuances" and make the game new player friendly was to remove a human factor and to allow every single person to every single guild in the game.

I do not have anything against "RPlaying your way into the guild" but as I was informed such RPlaying in one of the "elite guilds" meant for example : to pick up and bring 5k herbs in a certain set of time (day/2 days) - and now we get back to one of my points - how much time does a standard person spend sitting in front of PC playing a game - 2 hrs/daily - max, and now imagine that you have a newcomer to the game, who would like to commit her/him self and RPlay as a member of that guild, and is tasked with such task - impossible to be done (the info went from a person whom I met in game, while looking for a place for Ergo).

To attract new players you have to set a target (what is your target here?), perform a SWOT analysis (which is the simplest one), remove obstacles and "cure" weaknesses, present a refreshed product to a market and... TADAM! (ofc a marketing campaign and well used wording is crucial at that stage). Treat my first post as a part of a SWOT ;).

Good luck!

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