Newbie Quests

[Peri]

So maybe we can get started brainstorming the very first quests one would be tasked with, just not to tackle everything at once. Objective (has to be a testable condition), explanatory text, reward.

I believe Tom explained we can't have "send a message" as testable condition, so the very first one should be "take an estate", do we all agree on it? I  think it would be counterproductive to propose any other quest before this one, both because it's the most important thing for a newcomer and to avoid creating even more confusion. Explanatory text should clarify a bit why is so important to have an estate, what they are and introduce briefly the feudal hierarchy concept.

[Tom]

I believe Tom explained we can't have "send a message" as testable condition,

No, we can. But we can't test for any specific content of the message.

[Nosferatus]

No, we can. But we can't test for any specific content of the message.

The one who recieves that message can.
the receiver of the message could be notified that this is sent by a new player on a newbie quest asking the receiver to assists the newbie in his quest and review his letter ( a simple ok or not ok would be enough).
The letter could also be copy sent to the new mentor/newbie message channel where a third party could review and possibly assist.

[Velax]

I would prefer to avoid the completion of a quest being reliant on another player as much as possible. A lot of the players in this game are inactive or semi-active, and these quests will just fall apart if they rely on someone responding. Nothing worse the a newbie stuck on a quest for days waiting for something and they don't even know why.

[Eldargard]

I think just the act of sending a message would be enough. The content, in my opinion, does not need to be reviewed. Something like:

"Send a message introducing yourself. This can be to all nobles of the realm, some nobles or a specific noble. What you say and who you say it to is up to you but here are some guidelines: $WIKI_LINK"

[Eldargard]

New Warrior Quest Track:

Send a message – 5 gold
Read the bulletins (can this be tested?) – 1 honor
Say Goodbye (Visit the Family) – 5 gold
Claim an Estate – 1 Prestige
Move to the capitol  (what if new players spawn in the capitol?) – 5 gold
Train at the Academy (Any Skill) – Skill improvement
Have a practice match – Skill Improvement
Train their units – Troop Improvement
Get Assigned to an Army – 5 bonds
Withdraw Bonds (have a prior reward result in bonds being received) - None
Organize your troops (have units start as evasive making this necessary to ensure a battle) – 1 Honor
Fight a battle – Based on battle results
Add recruits – 5 bonds
Hire scouts – 5 bonds
Hire Healers – 5 bonds
Purchase a Banner – 5 bonds
Pay your men – 1 honor
Scout a Region – 1 honor
Transfer gold – Unknown

[Tom]

my feedback:

Yes, reading the bulletins can be tested.
I don't want "have a practice match" there. I hate that feature, and it was only added because otherwise people abuse the duel option.
I don't think we should have "transfer gold" on the list.

The rest sounds good at first glance.

[Peri]

I still do not like the idea of giving honour as a reward like that. There are very few actions in the game that lead to an increase of honour, and I believe there is a reason for that. Throwing 4 honour on a newcomer for doing minor things gives the wrong impression of the value of this quantity.

Additionally, fight a battle is not a very meaningful quest in my opinion. It is something that would happen the moment the knight follows the army and if the realm is at war with anyone. If a newcomer with his unit charges an enemy alone, even monsters he first has to reach, 90% of the times his men will just get wiped. I don't think this transmits the right message for fighting in bm.

[Anaris]

I still do not like the idea of giving honour as a reward like that. There are very few actions in the game that lead to an increase of honour, and I believe there is a reason for that. Throwing 4 honour on a newcomer for doing minor things gives the wrong impression of the value of this quantity.

I kind of agree. I think the idea of replacing the "your family has sent you X more gold just for being you" with "your family has sent you X more gold for completing this task" is a good one.

Additionally, fight a battle is not a very meaningful quest in my opinion. It is something that would happen the moment the knight follows the army and if the realm is at war with anyone. If a newcomer with his unit charges an enemy alone, even monsters he first has to reach, 90% of the times his men will just get wiped. I don't think this transmits the right message for fighting in bm.

Yes; I definitely think that encouraging newbies to blindly "fight a battle" is a lousy idea.

If the realm is at war, there will be a battle soon.

If there are monsters around, there will be a battle soon, hopefully at least somewhat coordinated.

If the realm is at peace and there are no monsters nearby, the newbie has no way of fighting a battle that won't cause him way more trouble than it's worth.

[Indirik]

I still do not like the idea of giving honour as a reward like that. There are very few actions in the game that lead to an increase of honour, and I believe there is a reason for that. Throwing 4 honour on a newcomer for doing minor things gives the wrong impression of the value of this quantity.

While that may be true in some way, I kind of like the idea of passing out a small amount just for doing some key tasks. Maybe by the time a newbie is done with the newbie quests, their character can actually do useful things. Like, say, police work. Let's face it, it's ridiculous that a newbie character could theoretically have to wait for weeks, or maybe even months, to get enough honor to do something as basic as normal police work. So I say let the newbie quests give enough honor that when they are done with them all, that their character can get at least as far as having enough honor to do police work, or any other basic task that is limited by an honor requirement.

[Tom]

They should end just below the limits for these advanced features.

There are two reasons those restrictions were added. One, to make the game easier for newbies. Two, to prevent realms from creating tons of secondary, third and multi-cheating characters to use in these tasks.

[pcw27]

Will these quests be mandatory? Long tutorial quests tend to turn me off of games. I think the tutorial system coupled with the slow turn based nature of the game will make for a very discouraging experience for new players.

[Hinamoto]

A good idea would be to make sure that quests are written in a way to give new players that sensation of a medieval atmosphere and get used to deal with other players like that.

Explain a hierarchy system and how each person should be adressed. Pherhaps a whole quest could be teaching new players how to behave and interact in a medieval atmosphere.

[Chenier]

I still do not like the idea of giving honour as a reward like that. There are very few actions in the game that lead to an increase of honour, and I believe there is a reason for that. Throwing 4 honour on a newcomer for doing minor things gives the wrong impression of the value of this quantity.

Additionally, fight a battle is not a very meaningful quest in my opinion. It is something that would happen the moment the knight follows the army and if the realm is at war with anyone. If a newcomer with his unit charges an enemy alone, even monsters he first has to reach, 90% of the times his men will just get wiped. I don't think this transmits the right message for fighting in bm.

For new characters, H/P already rises quite rapidly in battle. It's just once you have a lot that it's harder to get more. And odds are, the newbies would gain H/P from these quests first, and as such h/p from battles will be reduced, resulting them them having barely any more h/p than they otherwise would have had, over time.

[Tom]

Will these quests be mandatory? Long tutorial quests tend to turn me off of games. I think the tutorial system coupled with the slow turn based nature of the game will make for a very discouraging experience for new players.

Well "mandatory" in the sense that you will pretty much complete them anyways during normal playing.

But not in the sense that they stop you from doing anything else. It's not a tutorial level. You can ignore them completely if you want, and just notice the game telling you that you've completed newbie quest X every now and then.