Newbie Quests

[Velax]

Title: Newbie Quests

Summary: A series of "quests" for new players to guide them through the confusing first few days of BM and help explain some of the mechanics.

Details: Someone mentioned quests for new player in a thread in the General Discussion board and I thought I would expand upon it.

Every character a new player creates within the first, say, 7 days after making an account would receive these quests. They could be tied into the family gold that a new character receives - start a character, receive family gold as normal. Complete the first quest, get your next lot of family gold. Complete the second to get your final family gold donation. Further quests could reward the character with a point or two of Honour - nothing game breaking.

There would be the option to skip the quests for those who have already done them on another character, say, or for a returning player that knows how to play already. They would receive their family gold in the normal way.

Quest 1 - Find a home: Welcomes the player to BattleMaster and to their new realm. Encourages the player to introduce herself to the rest of the realm (with instructions on how to do that). The actual quest would be to find an estate. The game would list the vacant estates in the surrounding regions (or estates further away if none are in the closest regions - if there are no estates at all, turn off the quests and ask the player to message the Realm Council, perhaps) and explain how to use the Travel tab.

Finishes once the character has an estate. The game congratulates them and gives them their next family gold bonus.

Quest 2 - Travel to the capital: Asks the player to travel to the capital and explains the importance of a capital to the realm (only place to recruit troops, often has lots of paraphernalia, etc). Gives the location and name of the capital and explains how to use the Routefinder.

Finishes once the character reaches the capital. The game congratulates them and gives them their next family gold bonus.

Quest 3 - Recruit some troops: Asks the player to recruit 5 (more) soldiers and explains how to do so. Also explains the various unit stats such as Equipment, Morale and Cohesion, and that if you already have Infantry, for example, you can only recruit more Infantry. Also explains how to pay troops.

Finishes once the character recruits 5 more men. The game congratulates them and gives them a point of Honour.

Quest 4 - Join an army: Tells the player to message his liege lord and ask to be assigned to an army. Also explains the importance of armies in a realm. A special game message should be sent to the liege lord's character (and maybe even to his Player Page) to try to ensure the new character doesn't get stuck in this quest due to an inactive liege lord. Perhaps give this quest a time limit of X days, after which it tells the new character to send a message to the Realm Council.

Finishes once the character is assigned to an army. The game congratulates them and gives them a point of Honour.

More quests could be added after this, but I think the first four explain the most important aspects of the game for a new player.


Benefits: Would give new players a guiding hand to get into the game, and newbie quests are very familiar to anyone who has played a video or PC game, particularly an MMO.

Possible Exploits: Could be used by some unscrupulous players to get family gold more quickly with a new character than they otherwise could. Could replace the family gold rewards with Honour instead, if it's an issue.

[Tom]

Definitely approved.

We need to think about implementation, and collect more ideas on quests or achievements or whatever we'll finally call it. This should be thought of as a kind of tutorial, but more free-form. One thing that'd be important to me is that there is no particular order in which the things have to be done, but some could build upon each other.

Example, Quest 3 could be expanded into recruiting a scout and a healer, or whatever, and then using the scout to scout a region. Those would have an order (scouting only becomes available once you have a scout).

I think it would be perfect if a new player would find himself having 2-3 quest lines open during his first week or two in the game, each one building upon each other. Not too many things in parallel, but give him multiple things to do depending on what he wants but also what the situation in his realm could be.

[Velax]

I like the expanding quests idea. Can you give an idea of the sort of rewards you want to see for the quests? Gold, Honour, Prestige, maybe having a Captain join the unit for Quest 3's reward?

[Chenier]

quest idea: trade with a region at least 100 miles away. 500 miles away. etc.

[vonGenf]

quest idea: trade with a region at least 100 miles away. 500 miles away. etc.

The idea is for quests that can be achievable within "the confusing first few days of BM". New players won't be named Lords so soon, and shouldn't be made to switch to the trader class.

[Lorgan]

Maybe the reward for an expansion of quest 4 could be a unique item?

I'm thinking, first join the army, then defeat a group of rogues, find a unique item in there remains.
Defeat so they don't go charging right in and already need to learn to cooperate with others for these tasks but the reward would be great as well. After all unique items are still not very common and it could give them something special right from the start. Nothing that makes you feel like a mighty warrior than wielding the Ancient Warhammer of Kickassery.

[Azerax]

This has win written all over it because it helps increase player engagement.

Some ideas:
Send a hello message
Take up an Estate somewhere
Ask to be assigned to an army
Recruit a unit
Change unit formation
Travel
Join a Church or Guild
Do civil work
Do police work
Dig in
Participate in a battle with monsters or undead
Participate in a battle with more than 100 units
Participate in a battle with more than 250 units
Participate in a battle with more than 500 units
Participate in a battle with more than 1000 units

Class specific:
preach, do infiltrator stuff

I'd also recommend opening these quests to current players - that way there's no concern about a new player having an advantage

[Velax]

This has win written all over it because it helps increase player engagement.

Some ideas:
Send a hello message
Take up an Estate somewhere
Ask to be assigned to an army
Recruit a unit
Change unit formation
Travel
Join a Church or Guild
Do civil work
Do police work
Dig in
Participate in a battle with monsters or undead
Participate in a battle with more than 100 units
Participate in a battle with more than 250 units
Participate in a battle with more than 500 units
Participate in a battle with more than 1000 units

Class specific:
preach, do infiltrator stuff

I'd also recommend opening these quests to current players - that way there's no concern about a new player having an advantage

Some of those things are heading into Achievements, which is a separate concept. Let's just stick with newbie quests to start with.

[Anaris]

Participate in a battle with more than 100 units

This is the biggest battle most players will ever participate in.

Participate in a battle with more than 250 units

This is quite rare.

Participate in a battle with more than 500 units

This would be an entire continent.

Participate in a battle with more than 1000 units

And this would be two continents fighting each other.

[Forbes Family]

I know what got me hooked on BM was when I started I joined in a region that had a monster infestation and there was an immediate battle. The entire horde wasn't taken out so the next turn there was yet another battle. Then a nearby region had an infestation and it was hurry up and get there for the same thing. It was exciting and really brought to light the battle in battle master.

Is there a way to run a script so that new players will automatically join in an area with a small infestation? Perhaps one that they can easily put down by themselves and see what battle is actually like? Let's face it some of the realms out there do not have frequent battles and there is nothing like the immediate satisfaction that I received to hook someone.

[Anaris]

Is there a way to run a script so that new players will automatically join in an area with a small infestation? Perhaps one that they can easily put down by themselves and see what battle is actually like? Let's face it some of the realms out there do not have frequent battles and there is nothing like the immediate satisfaction that I received to hook someone.

Unfortunately, that's not practical for a variety of reasons.

[Azerax]

This is the biggest battle most players will ever participate in.

This is quite rare.

This would be an entire continent.

And this would be two continents fighting each other.

This surprises me as all 3 of my chars, on two different islands, have been in battles with over 1000 units (both sides combined) in the last year.  2 of them seem to do it once a month (the staring contest) while the other is now a priest.

[Velax]

You're using the wrong terminology. A unit means a group of soldiers led by a noble character, and I doubt you've been in many battles that involved 1000 characters. 1000 soldiers, perhaps, but not 1000 characters.

[Anaris]

This surprises me as all 3 of my chars, on two different islands, have been in battles with over 1000 units (both sides combined) in the last year.  2 of them seem to do it once a month (the staring contest) while the other is now a priest.

Yeah...no, you haven't.

As Velax says, you may have been in a battle with over 1000 soldiers, but not 1000 units.

[Azerax]

Yeah...no, you haven't.

As Velax says, you may have been in a battle with over 1000 soldiers, but not 1000 units.

I drink heavily before all battles so I'm pretty sure I saw 1000 nobles, and a my little pony rainbow!


so ya, change /unit/soldier in my original post