A new player perspective.

[p1geonman]

I decided to become born anew after that last ignoble, bug-laden death. It gave me a chance to see the game from a fresh player's perspective again. And it's scary. The first thing a player can do is basically pick branches. Have fun finding trees. There's only one direction a player without swimming and hefty Constitution can walk, and it is barren for many minutes of travel. I only pressed on into the treeless landscape because I knew eventually the world would get less shitty, but what about new players who don't know? What can they truly do when they enter the RoB besides get confused and quit?

[jorb]

I agree completely. The RoB is a blight on the land and should be replaced with some completely different kind of original spawnpoint system.

[Devour]

For a game like this to work, we need some sort of newbie's "playground", where they can level up their skills to about 5K LP and get advice off older players, without fear of any reprecussions on the game.

Otherwise, with such a sandbox game, you're going to end up with a shit tonne of cut down trees forcing players to have to help newbies out on their own ( which may or may not be a good idea ).

[Yolan]

I agree completely. The RoB is a blight on the land and should be replaced with some completely different kind of original spawnpoint system.

I dunno... it seems to me its looking quite a lot nicer now than in the previous world. If there was some way to make a few trees load around it that were invincible...

[commanderkai]

A few comments on this, being a newish player myself. I started off before the map reset, but, I wasn't able to build up much of anything until recently, and even then, it's been horribly difficult because of 1) The Lack of Trees, 2) The lack of ANY metal source, 3) The unavailability of food variety, 4) the FEP system and 5) Claims.

1) The lack of trees, as I've noticed, has been a huge issue within this game...and I think there's a simple solution to this. When somebody cuts down a tree, it should have a few of its seeds naturally be planted within the ground. Much like after natural forest fires, and even harvested forests within the real world, the seeds of some trees will begin to grow. At the very least, it'll allow a less "forested" world, yet allowing forested areas to not become totally void.

2) As of this game, being still a newer, yet not a totally noob character, metal is still a very, very rare material. With swimming being basically impossible, I settled north of the Rob. However, as I've been noticing, there aren't many mines. Now, this can be a good thing, but yet, this is very difficult for people wanting to make cauldrons, meat grinders, or even non-leather armor, and decent weaponry. Now, I'm sure this was implemented to start a trading system, but the trading system in the game is not there. Even the trading forum shows how a newer or even a moderately experienced player might have difficulty getting some of the requirements for ONE bar of cast iron, since iron is used in a great deal of products, yet its supply is very limiting (which is strange, since iron isn't exactly an uncommon element). This also will deal with part 5

3) Beginning characters have very few food choices. Now, you give them a few bits of bread, and a fishing rod. Great...until they make their intelligence trait level 50 because the FEP system was never really explained, and now they find it impossible to raise any other trait. I would say this really needs to be changed. Either add more variety of foods, (eggs, I would say would be a good one, since they're very useful, and you can just have chickens randomly drop them as they walk around) and you should also increase the availability of food in both the wild, and for simple cooking. This would not have one trait overpowered by another.

4) Referring to above...I think the FEP system should have bars for every single trait, instead of one large one for all. You can increase each small bar as those traits get larger, but it'd allow for a more balanced and developed character, and not some random balancing act to try to get the right amount of FEP for a specific trait.

5) Claims. Once again, this is the MOST intimidating part of the game, since newer players claim shitloads of land, and the fact is...its usually a pain in the butt. Now, do I want private property removed? NO. I think it's genius...but...I believe there should be the "Commons". Some chunks of land, be it forests, meadows, and especially mines should be "Communal" areas so independent and freethinking players can access metals, trees, and animal life without worrying about crossing into some Claimed area. Maybe this should be only used in the "Noob" areas so starting players can have access to basic goods like seeds, some metals, and trees/branches/apples easily, while the outer, less civilized areas are more barbaric, and cutthroat, and thus claims can be expanded to more areas, and also ignored whenever the player wished (to access a mine, metal, clay source, not to build on, and of course, this goes with the whole scent/revenge thing as well)

[Axehilt]

I started rather recently and my observations/suggestions:
1. In the starting room, have something which explains "Left-click to move, Right-click to interact." A simple dialog box, or have it written on the floor of that starting room.

2. The starting area is almost impossible to navigate. I wandered an awfully long time before I found my first tree, and was constantly blocked by rivers and property. I reached dead ends where a lot of backtracking was necessary.

3. The river blocked me. Resources were across the river. Obviously I should take swimming and reach the other side! Nearly every LP I earned from the start of the game went towards learning Swimming, and when I finally had it I died instantly upon touching deep water..and nearly quit permanently.

4. My character currently has 10 in every stat, and 31 intellect. FEP is vaguely explained even if you dig around for info on it, and I'm still not totally clear what the design goals for the system are. Is it designed so that each meal you have has some permanent impact on your character's stat relationship? I get the vague impression that's why it's set up the way it is.

If so, the critical breakdown is the lack of access to other types of food.

5. Other spawn points are definitely needed, especially if the game ever gets more popular. Maybe the spawn system should measure how much land is owned within a radius of the current spawn point. If more than x% is owned, switch the spawn point of new characters to a new area a good distance away.

Naturally each starting area would be a haven from the majority of aggressive animals, like the current one. Although I'm not sure if the current one is working as intended, as I've gone a little ways from the starting point to create my dwelling, and still have yet to be attacked by anything.

[KiT]

Being a newb is very, VERY painful, yeah.
1) Starting aerea - i believe the best solution would be to declare some area around RoB a newb playground. Put some completely indestructible trees and low-quality tools/buildings around RoB so that noobs could learn to use them and generally learn the basics of the game.
Also, maybe make newbs start with 1-5k LP? I mean, grinding wicket baskets is fucking stupid, but since you have no other skills, you just dont have ANY other way to gain LP. The only problem would be to teach them to spend these LP on gaining skills from the skill tree instead of wasting them on one of the numerical skills.
2) Well, metal is a problem, but at least you will first face it only after some hours of playing, and I cant think of a way to fix it without ruining metals' high value, which is fine.
3)Food. Personally i found out about FEP system quite early, so my diet for the first few days was apples only. There arent as many apple trees now as there used to be in the previous grassland world, so exploring is prolly going to be a pain in the ass for noobs not only because of animals, but also because of lack of food in fir forests. Can we maybe let them eat bark when they're starving?
5)Claims. Current claim system is ridiculous. Why in the world any single character would ever need to have a claim the size of a whole minimap? Fuck you! There are villages for that. Claiming land is way too cheap. People who get yeomanry usually already get quite nice LP and if someone wants, he can get a huge ass clim easily, fucking up the roads and whatever else is on the claim's way. And the only way to fix it is to make a village and remove the claim. Yeah. Can we maybe get a little exponential with claims so that people dont make claims larger than 1-2 screen sizes? Really, thats more than enough to set up a farm, put your cabin and tools.

[Drakxii]

I agree with the two posts above, it took me days to find my first apple tree and by then I already have like 30 int since fish are basically the only food you can get the area around the starting ring. I have yet to find sheep or cows either.

[PhaedrothSP]

Have a 'Tree of life' in the middle of the ring, this tree cannot be cut down, and only provides branches and fruit.
Solves your no tree for newbies problem.

[loftar]

Have a 'Tree of life' in the middle of the ring, this tree cannot be cut down, and only provides branches and fruit.
Solves your no tree for newbies problem.

Yes, finally: limitless wicker basket making for everyone!

You know, I think there may be a more fundamental problem lying around somewhere. ;)