Starting in Halas made me cry... [Archive] - EQ2 Forum Archive @ EQ2Wire

Megavolt

05-01-2010, 06:12 PM

I decided I was going to try out the new starting city, as well, a starting player. What I encountered there was a repeating cringe on everyplace I went.Initial zone in: There is nothing leading the player to actually use the tutorial guys sitting around: fighting, banking etc. New players lose alot of knowledge that was given in a pathway in the original isle of refuge. There is a harvesting tutorial quest but nothing to really say what all this harvesting is for since there are no tradeskill tutorials or tradeskilling equipment sitting around. Quests don't really hint at where certain things are (the non-harvesting bushes needed for one of the quests). One quest tells me to hop on the ferry when I still have 2 other quests in my log book, very unlinear and needs to be changed for a starting zone. Players are introduced to in-water combat before they even have the basics of normal auto-facing ground combat down, partly because of the speed in which the first 6 levels are gained. I believe exp before 6 should be slowed so new players can learn the basics before being thrown into the world. A repeatble quest at level 4 is really not needed, and only serves to confuse a bit more because it doesn't show progression through the world. The blue mantas need to be moved closer to the starter island, because content jumping because you see new feathers from the next island is suggested.Across the water by ferry: The first quests are all mixed up here for what the reward text is and what the quest actually gives (coind instead of armor and vise versa).Two seperate quest lines given by the same guy(frog) when there are other suitable npc's sitting right next to him that could have given those quests. Placing the guy's kid so far from camp and so close to the lions is a major foot run, and not a quick jaunt over the hill that the quest text suggests. I was on this quest for a half hour and it is the third most annoying quest of the New Halas area (runes and spears beat it, but that's later). Came across pilgrim bodies that gave coin when looted then respawned as a skeleton, just weird. Killed a couple of named mobs and got melee_dps_cloak, caster_dps_cloak, caster_dps_earing and such. After killing lions (for above frog, can't remember his name) I saw a book pop up on my mini map and it was him in the next area (Great Shelf), a case of duplicate names being able to give and take quests which would confuse the hell out of any truly new player.A set of tracks like a road btween this area and the shelf wouldn't be that bad of an idea because it would lead you where to go next.Onto the Shelf: other than the note which seems like it should give you a quest, which it doesn't, the first couple of quests were pretty straight forward. Then I got the rune quest... Nothing says fun like running across an area like a barbarian metal detector waiting for a pop-up message to say your in the right area, especially when that area is full of agro mobs. There's some nice looking blocks with blue runes on them all piled up near the quest giver cave, how about spreading these out to where the runes are so we get a visual indicator? While doing these I came to quest giver to break the line of spears, after looking for these blasted spears all over the place I still haven't found them (uncompleted quest for the log book). I finished up the rest of quests in the area no problem (found the necro's while looking for the spears so I knew right where to go) and get 2 sets of scout shoulders for my rewards, which do me no good whatsoever for a monk, and a hat. To my surprise the very next quest in the very next area gives me the EXACT SAME HAT as a reward. It's at this point I just gave up, after 8 levels the only upgrades I've gotten for my gear is a hat and a pair of shoes, since everything else I received I couldn't use.Was there any QCing at all before this went to test, because this amount of incompletion and just randomness is not what I know from SOE to put out in the starter cities. Most take you on a linear path, Frostfang does not. At least they put a banker right where you come in the game so you can outfit yer twink and grind yer way through this mess and ignore the [Removed for Content] content.Somewhere there is a man who is all beard that is not a barbarian that I think your suppossed to kill but I'm not really sure because there's just a note about him but no quest but sounds really important since the pilgrims you left at their second stop of their pilgrimage said he knows what a barbarian was but that it wasn't a barbarian......

Gaige

05-01-2010, 06:30 PM

So, you're saying, the delay didn't make Halas amazing?

Rocc

05-01-2010, 07:20 PM

I have to agree with this. The newb isle has well placed npc's, buildings and mobs. Hmmmm.... what's in that tower? Remember asking yourself that? A visual stimulation that arroused curiousity. A single tower gave a feeling of refuge and adventurous times to come. It said "WELCOME"!! One thing that New Halas lacks is anticipation. Upon arrival, the feeling is solitude in nature and not adventurous. You feel alone and in the middle of nowhere.Back to the Isle, the option of going three routes in a progressive circle allowed you to quickly get addicted to this game. Kelethin has a good tutorial as well. The npc's guide you right from the start. Again progressive encounters and visual stimulation make this my favorite starting point. But the isle was very well designed in the sense that the tower, bank, tradeskill and trainer are right in a close proximity to your spawn point. New Halas is well designed for the most part but the newb participation might lose it's encouragement without the "blast of information" the other starting areas have.Remember the thing that makes this game so fun is the huge variety of options. To force a player to start at Halas would result in a % of lost retention (never played eq2) in it's current state. Put a banker out there. Put a tradeskill tutorial close to the spawn point. Perhaps a broker and some more visual stimulation are in order also. Throw a couple tree's down there and make it a little more "busy". First impression is everything!Edit - A good idea would be a huge display of whats to come when you go up that hill into Halas. A series of orbs or pine trees or something pointing to civilization. A sign perhaps or Erollisi statue? Even some Coldain or Barbarian guards lining the way from the newb spawn point to New Halas. It's just kinda boring in it's current state. Sorry if that offends, I'm trying to be nuetral.

NrthnStar5

05-01-2010, 11:13 PM

There is significant disappoint after all the hooplah about how it's going to be the best starting experience to date. Yet, it's quite average really.

Elendhelie

05-01-2010, 11:20 PM

New Halas should be required under Truth In Packaging laws to be renamed to New Blah. Because that was my sentiments upon playing in it.Confusing, random, boring as all get-out, somewhat irritating, and generally not fun at all. Did they have interns do this area or something?On a scale of 1-10 dead orcs, I give it a 1. Still the housing in Halas is simply beautiful.Ive also got to hand it to the OP being able to tolerate the zone long enough to experience all of it. lol

GrunEQ

05-01-2010, 11:35 PM

I sure thought I would get to New Halas before level 10, but no. So, I used my Call to Halas. I figure I can probably make my way back to the newbie area. I did send /feedback in game, so I'm not going to repeat. The houses are BEAUTIFUL, but the housing quest didn't update. Really, I think you should be able to make your way to town by level 10, or else have amenities out by the camps. No collection NPC, one of the reasons I called. You can't have any benefits from newbie collections if you don't have someone to take them. If you are 15-20 by the time you enter New Halas (just guessing) then these newbie collection rewards are useless. Well I know they have very limited usefulness, but anyway.I just think it takes too long to get to the city for newbies. I'd rather get there sooner and then be sent back out to do quests; sort of like Oakmyst, etc. to the villages.

Gaige

05-01-2010, 11:50 PM

Sorry to hear about how terrible it is after the promises of the delay being to make it the best starting experience in the game.If its this badly thrown together it should have went live in February.

Josgar

05-01-2010, 11:53 PM

<cite>Gaige wrote:</cite><blockquote>Sorry to hear about how terrible it is after the promises of the delay being to make it the best starting experience in the game.If its this badly thrown together it should have went live in February.</blockquote>they'd have had to copy pasted the newbie island or Greater Faydark to release it in Febuary.

Elendhelie

05-01-2010, 11:55 PM

*snerk* Maybe they should have copypasta'd GFae quests into Halas, atleast those were midly fun... this is just masochism. lol

Armawk

05-01-2010, 11:55 PM

<cite>GrunEQ wrote:</cite><blockquote>I sure thought I would get to New Halas before level 10, but no. I just think it takes too long to get to the city for newbies. I'd rather get there sooner and then be sent back out to do quests; sort of like Oakmyst, etc. to the villages.</blockquote>You can walk straight off the little ferry, up the path to the left and you are in the centre of New Halas in about 1 minute. At level 1. Okay you dont get sent there, but like kelethin there is nothing at all between the start point and the city except a short walk. 2.5 minutes.

Elendhelie

05-01-2010, 11:57 PM

Brook

05-02-2010, 12:00 AM

<cite>foxspirit wrote:</cite><blockquote>New Halas should be required under Truth In Packaging laws to be renamed to New Blah. Because that was my sentiments upon playing in it.Confusing, random, boring as all get-out, somewhat irritating, and generally not fun at all. Did they have interns do this area or something?On a scale of 1-10 dead orcs, I give it a 1. Still the housing in Halas is simply beautiful.Ive also got to hand it to the OP being able to tolerate the zone long enough to experience all of it. lol</blockquote>Yes

Armawk

05-02-2010, 12:02 AM

<cite>foxspirit wrote:</cite><blockquote>You sorta missed the point here, that being this is a newbie island, its supposed to teach NEW players about the game. This does nothing... its not even that fun.</blockquote>No I got the point. You are making an entirely different point than the one I responded to.I actually think this is a better area than any of the other 3 new ones.I do however dislike things like the skipping of the combat tutorial guy and lack of technical training in ALL starting areas. That aside I think this area is good.

Kamimura

05-02-2010, 12:04 AM

<cite>shaunfletcher wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>GrunEQ wrote:</cite><blockquote>I sure thought I would get to New Halas before level 10, but no. I just think it takes too long to get to the city for newbies. I'd rather get there sooner and then be sent back out to do quests; sort of like Oakmyst, etc. to the villages.</blockquote>You can walk straight off the little ferry, up the path to the left and you are in the centre of New Halas in about 1 minute. At level 1. Okay you dont get sent there, but like kelethin there is nothing at all between the start point and the city except a short walk. 2.5 minutes.</blockquote>A lot of people have had trouble finding that little way up. (Myself included.) I've had to show several people where it is, or direct them through chat. Lots of people missed it even when they were looking for a way into Halas, so I can see how a newbie would easily miss it. I did enjoy the Frostfang questlines, although some were fairly repetitive, but I don't think it's a great place for actual newbies to begin.I do think it would have been better to somehow be directed to Halas sooner in the questlines. I went though them also expecting to get there around level 8 or so (much like Gfay, DLW, and TD) - but my templar wasn't directed there until she was 17 or 18... On the one hand, that was somewhat interesting, but there is some stuff lacking out in the world to really keep that together.

Armawk

05-02-2010, 12:09 AM

<cite>Nevissa@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote>A lot of people have had trouble finding that little way up. (Myself included.) I've had to show several people where it is, or direct them through chat. Lots of people missed it even when they were looking for a way into Halas, so I can see how a newbie would easily miss it. I did enjoy the Frostfang questlines, although some were fairly repetitive, but I don't think it's a great place for actual newbies to begin.</blockquote>I could see why some kind of sign or structure pointing up there would make a lot of sense yes

Elendhelie

05-02-2010, 12:10 AM

Perhaps my lack of fun with the quests had to do with trying it with a paladin... Ill give it another shot when its released with a different class.I think players should be directed to the city first, after going across on the raft, and then tehy are sent back out to help the pilgrims arrive... it would make better sense, since you dont have a banker or any sort of crafting on the starting area, yet you get a gathering tutorial?Oh and I actually stumbled into the path leading to Halas while I was looking for those... vegetables or something from the guy at the sanctuary... never did get any jumjum though, and I think I rummaged through all the bushes on the island. heh

Rijacki

05-02-2010, 12:34 AM

<cite>shaunfletcher wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Nevissa@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote>A lot of people have had trouble finding that little way up. (Myself included.) I've had to show several people where it is, or direct them through chat. Lots of people missed it even when they were looking for a way into Halas, so I can see how a newbie would easily miss it. I did enjoy the Frostfang questlines, although some were fairly repetitive, but I don't think it's a great place for actual newbies to begin.</blockquote>I could see why some kind of sign or structure pointing up there would make a lot of sense yes</blockquote>Storyline, no it wouldn't. I think that passage is there for vets but new players aren't expected to go wandering there. Storyline wise, you're still helping pilgrims and the like make their way around the island to get there. The cave (3rd quest hub) was annoying to find. I found the Coldain ghost but couldn't locate the teeny tiny out of the way cave entrance for a bit.I, too, had a hard time finding the spears until I accidentally fell off the cliff into the water and THEN saw them.Now I am stuck on two quests from the Craggy Spine (4th area if you count the Coldain ghost with the cave since they're close). I can't find something to torch the orc encampments and can't find weapon supplies to destroy.I've been spending the day with New Halas, too, trying to put into words what will be missing when the islands are closed for good.

Armawk

05-02-2010, 12:52 AM

<cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>shaunfletcher wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Nevissa@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote>A lot of people have had trouble finding that little way up. (Myself included.) I've had to show several people where it is, or direct them through chat. Lots of people missed it even when they were looking for a way into Halas, so I can see how a newbie would easily miss it. I did enjoy the Frostfang questlines, although some were fairly repetitive, but I don't think it's a great place for actual newbies to begin.</blockquote>I could see why some kind of sign or structure pointing up there would make a lot of sense yes</blockquote>Storyline, no it wouldn't. I think that passage is there for vets but new players aren't expected to go wandering there. Storyline wise, you're still helping pilgrims and the like make their way around the island to get there. ..Now I am stuck on two quests from the Craggy Spine (4th area if you count the Coldain ghost with the cave since they're close). I can't find something to torch the orc encampments and can't find weapon supplies to destroy.</blockquote>Okay fair point I guess. The fact it is easy to get to for people who do want to do so is still there though.fyi, the orc emcapments you light using a piece of wood in a fire next to the orc emcampments. The weapon racks thing is just broken till the next patch.

Zaurus

05-02-2010, 01:00 AM

Well I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who thought the quests were boring. The one quest at the second quest hub where you have to leash the lion cubs and bring them back one at a time was especially terrible. Run a long distance, click a button, run back....now do that again...and again...and again...and again... all without the quest even saying how many times you need to do it.When peoples expectations are set high, it's easy for them to get disapointed, so maybe that's part of my problem. But I've been playing EQ2 since release, and those were some of the most boring quests I can remember doing. They were all just too predictable. There's too many "go kill 10 things and come back" or "go gather some stuff for me" quests. SOE kept building up New Halas to be the "best new player experience". Then they even go and get rid of the Qeynos and Freeport starting areas because they "are not up to the standards of the newer starting cities." If Frostfang Sea is where the new standards are, then I'm really worried.BTW, I realize this stuff is on Test for a reason, so here's hoping they improve this starting area a LOT before it goes live.

Kamimura

05-02-2010, 01:05 AM

<cite>foxspirit wrote:</cite><blockquote>since you dont have a banker or any sort of crafting on the starting area, yet you get a gathering tutorial?</blockquote>There is a banker there, right next to the harvesting tutorial NPC. (Which is good, consdering the 9999 wight box he hands you...) If they added a collector, and an NPC that talked a little about crafting - even just a go see X when you get to the city - it would be a bit better.

Kamimura

05-02-2010, 01:08 AM

<cite>shaunfletcher wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>shaunfletcher wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Nevissa@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote>A lot of people have had trouble finding that little way up. (Myself included.) I've had to show several people where it is, or direct them through chat. Lots of people missed it even when they were looking for a way into Halas, so I can see how a newbie would easily miss it. I did enjoy the Frostfang questlines, although some were fairly repetitive, but I don't think it's a great place for actual newbies to begin.</blockquote>I could see why some kind of sign or structure pointing up there would make a lot of sense yes</blockquote>Storyline, no it wouldn't. I think that passage is there for vets but new players aren't expected to go wandering there. Storyline wise, you're still helping pilgrims and the like make their way around the island to get there. </blockquote>Okay fair point I guess. The fact it is easy to get to for people who do want to do so is still there though.</blockquote>Well yes, once you know the way up it's easy. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /> For newbies though, probably not so much. While that does make sense for the storyline, it would be nice if they stuck some additional NPCs out there for newbies if they're going to keep them out of the city for so long.

Megavolt

05-02-2010, 11:33 AM

<cite>Valron@Najena wrote:</cite><blockquote>Well I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who thought the quests were boring. The one quest at the second quest hub where you have to leash the lion cubs and bring them back one at a time was especially terrible. Run a long distance, click a button, run back....now do that again...and again...and again...and again... all without the quest even saying how many times you need to do it.</blockquote>You can leash multiple cubs now, but I didn't fnd that out until I ran back for the second one and tried it on a third. Instead of changing it to leashing multiple cubs they should of reduced the amount of cubs to 1 or 2.<cite>Nevissa@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote>A lot of people have had trouble finding that little way up. (Myself included.) I've had to show several people where it is, or direct them through chat. Lots of people missed it even when they were looking for a way into Halas, so I can see how a newbie would easily miss it. I did enjoy the Frostfang questlines, although some were fairly repetitive, but I don't think it's a great place for actual newbies to begin.</blockquote>I had no idea that was there, a newbie wouldn't even know they suppossed to be looking for it.All in all a small pathway or footprints in the snow would help lead newbies to where they can or should go. With the layout of the zone it probably would have been better making a ferry system around to the smaller islands and using them as quest hubs instead of break away quest mob holders, sort of "Island 1: combat and spells", "Island 2: tradeskills and merchants" The pathways in gfay and dlw, and the griphs in gorowyn did a good job of leading you where you suppossed to go next. There's no sense of leading with Frostfang, just a "Here it is, hope ya find it" type feeling. The third area is tucked away in corner, if it wasn't by my accidentally finding the frog too early I may have not ever found it. In all honesty I thought I was gonna be riding the ferry straight into halas a'la EQ1, expecting an OMG moment, but it didn't happen. A matter of my expectations overreaching I guess. What I found of Halaseq2 was a borderless spawl, just a bunch of buildings randomly thrown around. The housing was beautiful (if not glitchy because I have the same black wall glitch that alot of people are getting in shader 3.0 there). It doesn't have the sense of a city, just a large village.I would have loved the whole area to be more tied to a Rime invasion than reintroducing the ry'gorr just so it worked it's way into current EQ2 lore, or maybe aligned with Rime so it felt that was the big lead in to this.As a side note, it's kind of odd that a barbarian barely fits into some of the buildings in the area, well since it was a barbarian city...

Roslyn

05-02-2010, 01:57 PM

I was so excited to test out the new area, but I agree with everyone here, it was an extreme disappointment upon loading in. I just hoped they hadn't finished it and that's why everything was so... boring. I've seen pictures of barren icy tundra, but I've also seen pictures of fascinating glaciers and natural ice formations. I load in and there's nothing to entice me visually, the broken up ship is pretty cool but I immediately found myself wanting to find the city. I absolutely agree with the people who are saying, even aside from the quests (/snore), give me something to make me want to explore that area, to lvl so I can get past the nasty mobs in the distance. Throw in some aurora borealis at night, some shrubbery, something! And then you know, fix quests because I only made it to lvl 5 and logged lol.

Pavahac

05-02-2010, 03:08 PM

I have actually found the story lines interesting, some a long read. I guess more NPC's are needed but it sounds like you want to be hearded instead of exploring. I went the long way around then found the short cut and laughed because i didn't explore. Only the the isles lead you to the fighting tutorial, the other places they were there but no feather. I also would like to point out that on test you are getting 50% more XP so you are leveling faster.

Bhagpuss

05-02-2010, 03:55 PM

A lot of very fair comments in this thread, especially in the OP.Since I play on Test all the time, I'm so used to half-finished content and things not working that it doesn't frustrate me. I levelled my conjuror from 2 to 20 in Frostfang/Halas and enjoyed it a lot, but taking a step back and trying to look at it from the perspective of an inexperienced MMO gamer or one just new to EQ2, I can see it has an awful lot of shortcomings.The point about the harvest quest is very well made. Yes, it tells a new player how to harvest, but doesn't really tell him why he might want to. There IS a full crafting tutorial, of course, but you don't find it until you get into the Housing cave in New Halas. That's also the first time you see any crafting stations. By then, if you have followed the quest lines as a new player logically would, you will be not far from ready to leave Frostfang altogether.Surely it would make more sense to have the crafting tutorial in the starting camp, connected to the harvesting tutorial. That way not only could new players learn how to harvest and craft, but could make themselves gear with the stuff they are harvesting before they have already outlevelled it. This would let them fill in the gaps in the gear they are given from quest rewards, which is a bit patchy as has been mentioned.This is just one example of what seems to be somewhat ill-considered zone layout. Things just don't seem to happen in the order that would be best suited to helping a genuine new player acclimatise. I do agree that excitement will make up for a lot of confusion in the learning process when starting a new video game, but really Frostfang isn't that exciting.

Elendhelie

05-02-2010, 05:08 PM

I plunked around on test last night again, to explore the city... and I was sad to see the temple of Erolissi, knowing what they did with my favourite goddess. >.<I really like the design of the buildings and stuff, even if they dont have doors - going for a warcraft look are we? lol The coldain are pretty cool looking, would love to have a skin option for the dwarves.One thing I really liked though, was the quest armour you get. Its fur-lined and barbarianish... so the devs/art team gets +rep for not doing something That Other Game would have: making vanilla armour that doesnt fit the setting.

guillero

05-03-2010, 03:51 AM

New Halas is the most boring starter area I have come across so far (Next to Kelethin)! What a huge letdown and dissapointment!All the Hype and PR bulls hit and excuses about the delay. And this is what we got??The only thing that I really liked was the housing. Those are really well designed and well done.But as starting area it is severely lacking! It lacks depth. It lacks lore. It's just mehh.Even with the 3 month delay. It feels completely rushed and thrown together!And the worst of all is! That they are going to dissable Quenos and Freeport as starting cities, to force new players and people rolling ALTs to start here!It seems the EQ2 Dev Team has finally lost it. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/1cfd6e2a9a2c0cf8e74b49b35e2e46c7.gif" border="0" /> They have completely lost their minds. /facepalm

Pavahac

05-03-2010, 10:57 AM

For those of you that are calling New Halas boring must not be reading the story line. They are telling you how they got there what they are doing and who their enemy is and what it takes for them to survive. Evidently your looking for a thunderbolt with lightning and magic with no rhyme or reason. You don't care how they got there, how they are survivng and what they have been up to since it started. All of this is called a story line that must be read to understand. So my question to you is what is lore here? You keep putting it down but offer no insight.

Elendhelie

05-03-2010, 11:03 AM

<cite>Pavahac@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>For those of you that are calling New Halas boring must not be reading the story line. They are telling you how they got there what they are doing and who their enemy is and what it takes for them to survive. Evidently your looking for a thunderbolt with lightning and magic with no rhyme or reason. You don't care how they got there, how they are survivng and what they have been up to since it started. All of this is called a story line that must be read to understand. So my question to you is what is lore here? You keep putting it down but offer no insight.</blockquote>You can have the greatest storyline in the world, and the best graphics to boot, but if the game play puts you to sleep, then its all for naught. The starting area is dull and haphazard... no ones talking about the storyline. This is supposed to be a tutorial area for NEW players. Instead they treat it like an optional starting area for the old players...

MoiraesFate

05-03-2010, 12:22 PM

<cite>foxspirit wrote:</cite><blockquote>Perhaps my lack of fun with the quests had to do with trying it with a paladin... Ill give it another shot when its released with a different class.I think players should be directed to the city first, after going across on the raft, and then tehy are sent back out to help the pilgrims arrive... it would make better sense, since you dont have a banker or any sort of crafting on the starting area, yet you get a gathering tutorial?Oh and I actually stumbled into the path leading to Halas while I was looking for those... vegetables or something from the guy at the sanctuary... never did get any jumjum though, and I think I rummaged through all the bushes on the island. heh</blockquote>But thats never how this game has worked. None of the starting areas have ever been "go through the city, then through the starting area". This isn't EQ1. You ALWAYS start off in a smaller area and gradually move toward the city on or around level 10. They didn't do it with any of the other cities, why would they do it with this one? I do think they should have a sign when you get off the raft that points left saying Halas, but thats all.

macsux

05-03-2010, 01:10 PM

I personally think they should bring back the tutorial ship that was removed. At least it had a good voice over tutorial that people could actually listen to to figure out what was going on. I found it incredibly helpful when I was starting out. It's small size actually ensured that you didn't wonder off somewhere before you grasped what was needed to play the game. I've actually seen someone new starting out recently and they had absolutely no idea what was going on, how spells worked, how to manage them etc. They didn't even notice the little crappy help window in the corner that they had to read and then try to figure out what it was talking about.Simplicity of noob island was it's main attraction. People didn't need 50 different places to go when they are starting out. They need an in-your-face linear progression. I think getting people to grasp concepts of the game is WAAAY more important then ensuring their gear is up to par in T1.

Brook

05-03-2010, 02:08 PM

<cite>Snipex@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>I personally think they should bring back the tutorial ship that was removed. At least it had a good voice over tutorial that people could actually listen to to figure out what was going on. I found it incredibly helpful when I was starting out. It's small size actually ensured that you didn't wonder off somewhere before you grasped what was needed to play the game. I've actually seen someone new starting out recently and they had absolutely no idea what was going on, how spells worked, how to manage them etc. They didn't even notice the little crappy help window in the corner that they had to read and then try to figure out what it was talking about.Simplicity of noob island was it's main attraction. People didn't need 50 different places to go when they are starting out. They need an in-your-face linear progression. I think getting people to grasp concepts of the game is WAAAY more important then ensuring their gear is up to par in T1.</blockquote>Agree 100% with what you said.This is the thing I think the developers don't get, they are trying to change this game to be more in line with mainstream changes the other companies are offering to there customers that they cant see that this game doesn't need to follow anyone, in fact they will finish destroying whats left of it if they don't back up and punt.I am certain there are people out there that like the direction the game has taken, but at the same time I just get the feeling they have lost more customers to their well intended changes than they are bringing in at this point.I made it to lvl 6 before I called it quits with that zone, went back to the live server and rolled up a new toon on the island and the difference is like night and day. The whole ambiance of the starting area is completely different.The first thing I would do is change the music to something that makes it feel like I am about to embark on a journey of epic proportions.Next add voiceovers to the NPCs, they just stand there and you have to read the storyline, give them movement and attitude, other wise it looks like just another cheesy game.The zone is to friggen big for a starter area. You can make big zones and thats great but its not what I would call a good thing when trying to introduced a new character the the game. Everything is so spread out with dabbles of mobs here and there.There needs to be an NPC that a new player is introduced to that a new player can go back to for direction of which NPC they should talk to. That NPC should TALK to them and give appropriate responses depending on what the player is having trouble with. A highlighted path should guide them to the appropriate NPC.There are just so many things that should have been done another way if they are truly interested in putting some magic back into the new player experience.Personally I think they should load up a machine with some of the original content and set up a server to play on internally and go back to my start date and see what the experience was like when I started, it was a really fun game then.So many things have been removed that really did capture what a great game this was. Most of it were just small things that made a huge impact on capturing a new players attention.Things that sadly are not in New Halas.

Hawkmoons

05-03-2010, 02:27 PM

I think the actual city needs more, seems dull and by compare to the the others, very lack luster in design, almost like it is a little outpost, not a city, more buildings would be nice, like the design on the log ones. I am also let down in mob placment a spiral that scales up hmm all the islands and that is the main bulk, come on they took all this time, good looking zones do not make up for layout.

Alima_Tunare

05-03-2010, 02:41 PM

While I was testing the new starter zone I just had the feeling of....why. Not gonna bash it too much, its a chunk of ice floating around in the sea...so you cant expect a whole lot. But thats what brought me back to....why. Why would you start there? How many people want to Live in a desolate place that has almost nothing to do with the rest of the game. The housing is awesome and much appreciated, been waiting for it for years to have something that nice. But again, why would anyone Live in Halas. Hot springs? Oil? To be away from anything living? Why are Fae born there, wouldnt their wings freeze and break off? Shouldnt anyone born there be able to have blue skin options to be a native inhabitant? The questing and whole feel of the place was get it done and get out.Will our world evolve because Norrathians are now moving there to live? Will they plant some trees eventually? Create something that feels like life in the area?

hempick

05-03-2010, 02:50 PM

Alenna

05-03-2010, 04:04 PM

MoiraesFate

05-03-2010, 04:46 PM

<cite>Alima_Tunare wrote:</cite><blockquote>While I was testing the new starter zone I just had the feeling of....why. Not gonna bash it too much, its a chunk of ice floating around in the sea...so you cant expect a whole lot. But thats what brought me back to....why. Why would you start there? How many people want to Live in a desolate place that has almost nothing to do with the rest of the game. The housing is awesome and much appreciated, been waiting for it for years to have something that nice. But again, why would anyone Live in Halas. Hot springs? Oil? To be away from anything living? Why are Fae born there, wouldnt their wings freeze and break off? Shouldnt anyone born there be able to have blue skin options to be a native inhabitant? The questing and whole feel of the place was get it done and get out.Will our world evolve because Norrathians are now moving there to live? Will they plant some trees eventually? Create something that feels like life in the area?</blockquote>... whaattt?This argument is completely illogical.Ok, I grew up in Canada, though I have lived for the last two years in the United States. Its colder than the US but not that bad, though the true north (as in the Territories) CAN be. People live there. Ever heard of Eskimos (though that isn't the right name for them. Rightly, they should be called Inuit)? People live just fine in these areas. No, they don't live in igloos as a normal way of life.There are no hot springs, oil, or anything else there but they have managed to survive. Why wouldn't Fae be born there?Coming from Canada, the last two years in Louisiana have been hell for me during the summer. My body is naturally adjusted to colder temperatures so sometimes even something in the 70's is too hot if there's also lots of humidity. Over 100 degrees and I have to pretty much stay inside unless its walking from one air conditioned area to another or I start to feel sick. I don't have blue skin. I have slavic colored skin due to the fact that most of my family on my mom's side is German, and on my dad's side is Norwegian. But my American/Louisianan husband barely notices the temperatures that are leaving me feeling like I'm being cooked alive because he was born in the south.If you are born in a place, your body will naturally change itself to match the area you live. Most of the time, it may take 10-20 years, people will adjust to new places they live too. I personally will probably take 10-20 years to adjust to the new temperatures but adjust I will. Its the way our bodies work.Its not surprising at all that you might find Fae living in the north, just as it isn't surprising that you might find a native African living in the territories in Canada. Trees? There are no places to plant trees on a glacier, though maybe in the more temperate area's, you might find evergreens.Things are perfectly alive in the north, even in the far north. They just aren't life like you happen to know it. Incidentally, its only lizards that might have problems in these colder areas doing anything at all because they are cold blooded. Warm blooded creatures should be just fine for at least a small amount of time. A fae's wings would be fine so long as they didn't get them wet.And frankly, why are you asking for realism in an MMO. Does it strike you that having FAE at all would be realistic?

Brook

05-03-2010, 05:07 PM

<cite>MoiraesFate wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Alima_Tunare wrote:</cite><blockquote>While I was testing the new starter zone I just had the feeling of....why. Not gonna bash it too much, its a chunk of ice floating around in the sea...so you cant expect a whole lot. But thats what brought me back to....why. Why would you start there? How many people want to Live in a desolate place that has almost nothing to do with the rest of the game. The housing is awesome and much appreciated, been waiting for it for years to have something that nice. But again, why would anyone Live in Halas. Hot springs? Oil? To be away from anything living? Why are Fae born there, wouldnt their wings freeze and break off? Shouldnt anyone born there be able to have blue skin options to be a native inhabitant? The questing and whole feel of the place was get it done and get out.Will our world evolve because Norrathians are now moving there to live? Will they plant some trees eventually? Create something that feels like life in the area?</blockquote>... whaattt?This argument is completely illogical.Ok, I grew up in Canada, though I have lived for the last two years in the United States. Its colder than the US but not that bad, though the true north (as in the Territories) CAN be. People live there. Ever heard of Eskimos (though that isn't the right name for them. Rightly, they should be called Inuit)? People live just fine in these areas. No, they don't live in igloos as a normal way of life.There are no hot springs, oil, or anything else there but they have managed to survive. Why wouldn't Fae be born there?Coming from Canada, the last two years in Louisiana have been hell for me during the summer. My body is naturally adjusted to colder temperatures so sometimes even something in the 70's is too hot if there's also lots of humidity. Over 100 degrees and I have to pretty much stay inside unless its walking from one air conditioned area to another or I start to feel sick. I don't have blue skin. I have slavic colored skin due to the fact that most of my family on my mom's side is German, and on my dad's side is Norwegian. But my American/Louisianan husband barely notices the temperatures that are leaving me feeling like I'm being cooked alive because he was born in the south.If you are born in a place, your body will naturally change itself to match the area you live. Most of the time, it may take 10-20 years, people will adjust to new places they live too. I personally will probably take 10-20 years to adjust to the new temperatures but adjust I will. Its the way our bodies work.Its not surprising at all that you might find Fae living in the north, just as it isn't surprising that you might find a native African living in the territories in Canada. Trees? There are no places to plant trees on a glacier, though maybe in the more temperate area's, you might find evergreens.Things are perfectly alive in the north, even in the far north. They just aren't life like you happen to know it. Incidentally, its only lizards that might have problems in these colder areas doing anything at all because they are cold blooded. Warm blooded creatures should be just fine for at least a small amount of time. A fae's wings would be fine so long as they didn't get them wet.And frankly, why are you asking for realism in an MMO. Does it strike you that having FAE at all would be realistic? </blockquote>How long do bugs last in teh snow?

MoiraesFate

05-03-2010, 05:14 PM

Depends on the bug. Many of them will lay eggs and then die. The eggs lie dormant until the first thaw. Thats what mosquito's do. Must be what crickets and the like do, too because you never see them during winter, but once it starts to war up a bit they start reappearing. Then again, there are some bugs that actually live in snow. There's very few places in the world that don't have insects, even cockroaches can survive almost anywhere and will survive a nuclear blast.

GrunEQ

05-03-2010, 05:38 PM

When I first started EQ2 at launch the Isles had a crafting tutorial, and you could actually craft to level 9. They eventually took it out, and I really missed it when I ran other toons thru it. The New Halas starting area should either direct you to the city after you've crossed the ferry, and then give you quests that send you out to help the floundering pilgrams or have a newbie crafting tutorial at the starting area. Actually it would be nice to have both.The New Halas starting area kind of assumes that you know what to look for, because it isn't intutively set up as a progressive learning experience with NPCs directing you to other NPCs who have something to teach you and where important NPCs like bank, mender and mailboxes are located. Also I found the mailbox by accidently moving my cursor over it. I thought it was a oven. Would be nice to have it look more like a mailbox than an appliance.

Megavolt

05-03-2010, 07:12 PM

<cite>MoiraesFate wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>foxspirit wrote:</cite><blockquote>Perhaps my lack of fun with the quests had to do with trying it with a paladin... Ill give it another shot when its released with a different class.I think players should be directed to the city first, after going across on the raft, and then tehy are sent back out to help the pilgrims arrive... it would make better sense, since you dont have a banker or any sort of crafting on the starting area, yet you get a gathering tutorial?Oh and I actually stumbled into the path leading to Halas while I was looking for those... vegetables or something from the guy at the sanctuary... never did get any jumjum though, and I think I rummaged through all the bushes on the island. heh</blockquote>But thats never how this game has worked. None of the starting areas have ever been "go through the city, then through the starting area". This isn't EQ1. You ALWAYS start off in a smaller area and gradually move toward the city on or around level 10. They didn't do it with any of the other cities, why would they do it with this one? I do think they should have a sign when you get off the raft that points left saying Halas, but thats all.</blockquote>Unless of course you left the island early, at which point you start a series of quests actually in your home village. Of course nobody runs these anymore on alts because it's easier to throw on crafted gear and go head first in the level 6+ zones. That's just it, initial start areas should be able to be bipassed if you're experienced or done if you're new to the game. I would say the second area should be reworked into a small village area similar to what you expect a pilgrim landing point to look like, with tradeskill tutorials etc put there. Move the Harvesting tutorial and the first bank and mailbox to that area. Make a HEAVY path between the second area and New Halas, but give quests in that area that send you out and about Frostfang. Take the pilgrimage story out, and turn it into a defender's story. Move meeting the frog and finding his son to the first island and help bring his son to the second island.Adding a village will help with the awefactor that is really missing from this starting area, even if it's only 3 small houses.I was one of those that initially got sucked in by the drakota in the boat tutorial, and I think the first 10 minutes of a game players should be sitting there slackjawed by what they are seeing. Even a first person movie of being attacked by orcs would help with the 'pull-in'. I believe stronger in a single tutorial area with only evil or good alignment picked from the character creation screen, and the home town being chosen after this tutorial is completed or bypassed( similar to refuge, but only instead of asked if you are ready to leave, asked which town you want to head out into the world to).Don't get me wrong, refuge is a bit outdated since it basically hasn't changed in 5 years, and new players deserve a fresh start, just the same basic lead has to be taken into a new area.

Brook

05-03-2010, 07:58 PM

<cite>Brickfist wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>MoiraesFate wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>foxspirit wrote:</cite><blockquote>Perhaps my lack of fun with the quests had to do with trying it with a paladin... Ill give it another shot when its released with a different class.I think players should be directed to the city first, after going across on the raft, and then tehy are sent back out to help the pilgrims arrive... it would make better sense, since you dont have a banker or any sort of crafting on the starting area, yet you get a gathering tutorial?Oh and I actually stumbled into the path leading to Halas while I was looking for those... vegetables or something from the guy at the sanctuary... never did get any jumjum though, and I think I rummaged through all the bushes on the island. heh</blockquote>But thats never how this game has worked. None of the starting areas have ever been "go through the city, then through the starting area". This isn't EQ1. You ALWAYS start off in a smaller area and gradually move toward the city on or around level 10. They didn't do it with any of the other cities, why would they do it with this one? I do think they should have a sign when you get off the raft that points left saying Halas, but thats all.</blockquote>Unless of course you left the island early, at which point you start a series of quests actually in your home village. Of course nobody runs these anymore on alts because it's easier to throw on crafted gear and go head first in the level 6+ zones. That's just it, initial start areas should be able to be bipassed if you're experienced or done if you're new to the game. I would say the second area should be reworked into a small village area similar to what you expect a pilgrim landing point to look like, with tradeskill tutorials etc put there. Move the Harvesting tutorial and the first bank and mailbox to that area. Make a HEAVY path between the second area and New Halas, but give quests in that area that send you out and about Frostfang. Take the pilgrimage story out, and turn it into a defender's story. Move meeting the frog and finding his son to the first island and help bring his son to the second island.Adding a village will help with the awefactor that is really missing from this starting area, even if it's only 3 small houses.I was one of those that initially got sucked in by the drakota in the boat tutorial, and I think the first 10 minutes of a game players should be sitting there slackjawed by what they are seeing. Even a first person movie of being attacked by orcs would help with the 'pull-in'. I believe stronger in a single tutorial area with only evil or good alignment picked from the character creation screen, and the home town being chosen after this tutorial is completed or bypassed( similar to refuge, but only instead of asked if you are ready to leave, asked which town you want to head out into the world to).Don't get me wrong, refuge is a bit outdated since it basically hasn't changed in 5 years, and new players deserve a fresh start, just the same basic lead has to be taken into a new area.</blockquote>Refuge is still a better starter area for a new player because of the layout and some of the frills they havent stripped it of.I am not talking about a new player that has played MMO games before, I am talking about a new player that hasn't ever played one. Hell the ship ride even showed you how to move your toon around and kill your first rat. The later starting areas are fine if you have played this type of game before but they do lack in the NEW player experience with the latest one probably coming in at the bottom of my list of where I would want to start.So all in all this much delayed update will do nada for me except remove content I did enjoy for a frozen waste of time should I choose to give it a second chance (likely not) with the excuse of Lore being involved? If this starting area is the best this team can deliver I shudder to think what they plan on for the future of Qeynos and Freeport.

Purr

05-03-2010, 08:30 PM

I took my sweet time posting my opinion on this one, simply because I desperatly WANT to like New Halas. With you taking away the islands I would LOVE to have a starter area that is actually fun, easy to navigate and get through, easy on the eyes, presented with a little bit of humor on top of that. Something I can show my friends to go and try and hopefully like it, too.Halas is nothing like that. Not for me anyway. You begin on the ice. You are supposed to help the pilgrims. Why don't they get the help they need from the city nearby? You are (supposedly) a newbie. Wouldn't it make more sense to actually have you make a run for the city to drum up some help there? Lighting a big fire on a tower won't do the trick?The landscape is bleak and hurts the eyes. Most mobs are recycled old ones with an icy skin. One of the first things you do is deal with a Fungus infection... I mean, come on! Aside of the fairly ironic pointers, Fungi on an iceberg? Norrath's bio system is close to Earths. How the >censored< do we have Fungi living in arctic conditions? I would have bought the all adaptable rats, but Fungi?Halas' inner city... well, not a lot going on there. I understand, it's freezing cold, people most likely live in their houses. But then I find those houses to have no doors. Who came up with that? Even Eskimos close their Igloos doors, and be it just with a heavy fur curtain.The one thing that IS indeed beautiful is the Halas player housing. Why did this housing not get used for the buildings that make the inner city? We have 3 different buildings around the temple to Erollis, not one has doors, not one uses player housing features. I'm standing in the freezing cold, shaking my head. No place for a Kerra, at least not for this one. This is not what I had hoped for, I don't see this as something that will give the game the much needed boost. Maybe I am wrong. I really hope that I am.Thanks for reading.Purr~

deKoven

05-04-2010, 11:16 AM

Either I'm not playing the same game y'all are playing or I'm just more tolerant of the fact that I'm playing on TEST where we're supposed to be giving constructive criticism to the devs.I've had few problems, and have 4 toons all based in NH. Yes, quests don't all work properly but several have been fixed just in the week or so that I've been playing. Of those 4 toons, 3 are over or near lvl 20 and the last is coming hard. What is really needed here is a "suspension of disbelief" when dealing with the "world" and the environs. This is, after all, a GAME where reality has been suspended in favor of FUN.I really do wish that Shadowknights were able to live in NH though. Would make my day. Had to settle for a Zerker instead.

Brook

05-04-2010, 12:33 PM

<cite>Reese@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote>Either I'm not playing the same game y'all are playing or I'm just more tolerant of the fact that I'm playing on TEST where we're supposed to be giving constructive criticism to the devs.I've had few problems, and have 4 toons all based in NH. Yes, quests don't all work properly but several have been fixed just in the week or so that I've been playing. Of those 4 toons, 3 are over or near lvl 20 and the last is coming hard. What is really needed here is a "suspension of disbelief" when dealing with the "world" and the environs. This is, after all, a GAME where reality has been suspended in favor of FUN.I really do wish that Shadowknights were able to live in NH though. Would make my day. Had to settle for a Zerker instead.</blockquote>What are you talking about?I don't understand what your trying to say.

MoiraesFate

05-04-2010, 12:44 PM

You do remember that you weren't always able to skip the starter island, right? Thats actually fairly new as these games go. They didn't intro it until EoF if I remember right.And then there's the obvious fact that we are playing BETA and not all the quests are updated, fixed, or even added yet. Patience Padawan. Something most people seem to be severely lacking when it comes to MMO's. They haven't had a bad starter experience yet, and I don't see them starting now. Far too many people playing on here are forgetting that they're playing on test server.

Sorann

05-04-2010, 01:05 PM

<cite>Brickfist wrote:</cite><blockquote>I decided I was going to try out the new starting city, as well, a starting player. What I encountered there was a repeating cringe on everyplace I went.Initial zone in: There is nothing leading the player to actually use the tutorial guys sitting around: fighting, banking etc. New players lose alot of knowledge that was given in a pathway in the original isle of refuge. There is a harvesting tutorial quest but nothing to really say what all this harvesting is for since there are no tradeskill tutorials or tradeskilling equipment sitting around. Quests don't really hint at where certain things are (the non-harvesting bushes needed for one of the quests). One quest tells me to hop on the ferry when I still have 2 other quests in my log book, very unlinear and needs to be changed for a starting zone. Players are introduced to in-water combat before they even have the basics of normal auto-facing ground combat down, partly because of the speed in which the first 6 levels are gained. I believe exp before 6 should be slowed so new players can learn the basics before being thrown into the world. A repeatble quest at level 4 is really not needed, and only serves to confuse a bit more because it doesn't show progression through the world. The blue mantas need to be moved closer to the starter island, because content jumping because you see new feathers from the next island is suggested.Across the water by ferry: The first quests are all mixed up here for what the reward text is and what the quest actually gives (coind instead of armor and vise versa).Two seperate quest lines given by the same guy(frog) when there are other suitable npc's sitting right next to him that could have given those quests. Placing the guy's kid so far from camp and so close to the lions is a major foot run, and not a quick jaunt over the hill that the quest text suggests. I was on this quest for a half hour and it is the third most annoying quest of the New Halas area (runes and spears beat it, but that's later). Came across pilgrim bodies that gave coin when looted then respawned as a skeleton, just weird. Killed a couple of named mobs and got melee_dps_cloak, caster_dps_cloak, caster_dps_earing and such. After killing lions (for above frog, can't remember his name) I saw a book pop up on my mini map and it was him in the next area (Great Shelf), a case of duplicate names being able to give and take quests which would confuse the hell out of any truly new player.A set of tracks like a road btween this area and the shelf wouldn't be that bad of an idea because it would lead you where to go next.Onto the Shelf: other than the note which seems like it should give you a quest, which it doesn't, the first couple of quests were pretty straight forward. Then I got the rune quest... Nothing says fun like running across an area like a barbarian metal detector waiting for a pop-up message to say your in the right area, especially when that area is full of agro mobs. There's some nice looking blocks with blue runes on them all piled up near the quest giver cave, how about spreading these out to where the runes are so we get a visual indicator? While doing these I came to quest giver to break the line of spears, after looking for these blasted spears all over the place I still haven't found them (uncompleted quest for the log book). I finished up the rest of quests in the area no problem (found the necro's while looking for the spears so I knew right where to go) and get 2 sets of scout shoulders for my rewards, which do me no good whatsoever for a monk, and a hat. To my surprise the very next quest in the very next area gives me the EXACT SAME HAT as a reward. It's at this point I just gave up, after 8 levels the only upgrades I've gotten for my gear is a hat and a pair of shoes, since everything else I received I couldn't use.Was there any QCing at all before this went to test, because this amount of incompletion and just randomness is not what I know from SOE to put out in the starter cities. Most take you on a linear path, Frostfang does not. At least they put a banker right where you come in the game so you can outfit yer twink and grind yer way through this mess and ignore the [Removed for Content] content.Somewhere there is a man who is all beard that is not a barbarian that I think your suppossed to kill but I'm not really sure because there's just a note about him but no quest but sounds really important since the pilgrims you left at their second stop of their pilgrimage said he knows what a barbarian was but that it wasn't a barbarian......</blockquote>I haven't been to New Halas yet, but I was going to try it out tonight, and now this tells me to want to see if this is really true. If it is, then that's terrible. SOE has always done a good job, but for quests to be like that, especially in a starting area, it's horrible. Wait, didn't SOE get a new producer or something? Oh man...

Sorann

05-04-2010, 01:10 PM

<cite>MoiraesFate wrote:</cite><blockquote>You do remember that you weren't always able to skip the starter island, right? Thats actually fairly new as these games go. They didn't intro it until EoF if I remember right.And then there's the obvious fact that we are playing BETA and not all the quests are updated, fixed, or even added yet. Patience Padawan. Something most people seem to be severely lacking when it comes to MMO's. They haven't had a bad starter experience yet, and I don't see them starting now. Far too many people playing on here are forgetting that they're playing on test server. </blockquote>Oh, you're right... duh... of course it's not going to be perfect, it's still on the test server. Wow... I gotta not let posts trick me... I forgot that it would not be perfect. No idea why, because I have always known test servers are for fixing things, and not specifically bugs, but problems with other stuff too, like quests for example. Testing is for players to give thier feedback to SOE, and that way you can get a perfect update. The problem is that testers never figure that out. If they did, then the updates and expansions would be perfect. You just have to tell SOE what you think about it while it's being tested, so that they can fix it. It's not SOE messing the expansions up, it's us, we're not letting them know about problems when testing it except for bugs. Give more feedback people, and let's get SOE to make this right while it's still in testing!

Crismorn

05-04-2010, 03:02 PM

Its only a starting city, if you dont like it then start somewhere else.Its not like there is a shortage of fluff in this game

guillero

05-04-2010, 03:42 PM

<cite>Crismorn wrote:</cite><blockquote>Its only a starting city, if you dont like it then start somewhere else.Its not like there is a shortage of fluff in this game</blockquote>That's the whole problem. They gonna shut down the Isles of Refuge!!They are going to limit us and force us to start in either Kelethin (horrible) or New Halas (even worse).

MoiraesFate

05-04-2010, 04:02 PM

<cite>Jerokane@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Crismorn wrote:</cite><blockquote>Its only a starting city, if you dont like it then start somewhere else.Its not like there is a shortage of fluff in this game</blockquote>That's the whole problem. They gonna shut down the Isles of Refuge!!They are going to limit us and force us to start in either Kelethin (horrible) or New Halas (even worse).</blockquote>Or you can start in Neriak, or you can start in Gorowyn. Stop making more out of it than it actually is. Its just the isles of refuge and frankly, the gorowyn starter area kicks butt over any other starter area currently in existence.

deKoven

05-05-2010, 09:59 AM

<cite>MoiraesFate wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Jerokane@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Crismorn wrote:</cite><blockquote>Its only a starting city, if you dont like it then start somewhere else.Its not like there is a shortage of fluff in this game</blockquote>That's the whole problem. They gonna shut down the Isles of Refuge!!They are going to limit us and force us to start in either Kelethin (horrible) or New Halas (even worse).</blockquote>Or you can start in Neriak, or you can start in Gorowyn. Stop making more out of it than it actually is. Its just the isles of refuge and frankly, the gorowyn starter area kicks butt over any other starter area currently in existence.</blockquote>Yep, Gorowyn is currently the leader, hands down. But I have high hopes for New Halas; I know that all my good toons will be moving there. I DO think that Kelethin is just too, too clunky and out of the way like. Never have liked it much. I try not to go there except for a couple questlines. The city is, of course, set up for the winged ones; thus, doors and spaces don't accommodate the larger races very well. And having to go up those lifts to get to the "city" isn't a whole lot of fun, except for the first couple times.I do sometimes think that devs should have to play the spaces they create, like, day in and day out for a significant amount of time. Some of the devs do actually play the game for bits of time but I'm betting they don't spend hours at it.

Dareena

05-05-2010, 10:35 AM

<cite>Reese@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote>I do sometimes think that devs should have to play the spaces they create, like, day in and day out for a significant amount of time. Some of the devs do actually play the game for bits of time but I'm betting they don't spend hours at it.</blockquote>Now that is something that I fully agree with. Over the years, I ran a lot of pencil & paper RPG games. When designing or running a session, I had one eternal question. Would I have fun playing this? Because if you wouldn't have fun doing something, then why in the world would you expect others to have fun?A lot of people seem to lose sight of that fact. Whether it's something as simple as a pencil & paper RPG or designing a MMO, I see people falling into a classic pitfall. They get this grand vision in their heads, then proceed to force people to follow their vision to the letter. It doesn't matter if their consumers aren't enjoying themselves. Nor does it bother the story teller to force them along this path to the point that they're forcing their consumers to dance like puppets. Only their "grand" vision matters. Everyone else is just there to exist as actors in a scripted play that they've written out.I know that MMOs do have a kind of script that people have to follow. But if a story or experience is really enjoyable, then they won't notice that they're following a script. It's only when an experience is unpleasant that people start to object. If MMO writers would put themselves in the shoes of their own customers, I think that it could change their point of view. But these days, I swear that a lot of the various Devs only understand their own view point and have an issue seeing / understanding the view point of others. Perhaps that's due to the stereotype that programers are poor communicators or that they're introverts. Whatever the reasons, I've love to know that the Devs actually play through their various content additions / nerfs so that they can truly understand how their changes affect others.

Whilhelmina

05-05-2010, 10:54 AM

I must confess that I found this whole questline boring. Kill 10 mob, get 7 random items, find things well hidden, take hours to reach Halas to get quests to... gather food killing level 4 mobs at level 20.The starting area is a long way from Halas, you don't see collection NPC, guards to train killing mobs on, you take hours to level and you only have 1 leveling way...Qeynos, Freeport and DLW are the best starting experiences for me. For Qeynos and Freeport you have a lot of ways to level after level 6 (different areas, different quests based on your race). All 3 cities are not far off the starting area if you just want to skip some quests and explore a city first. Halas... No way. I did it once on Test and I'll go start the toon I wanted to make in Halas for housing in Qeynos before the Islands are destroyed. No way I'll start another toon there. It's too mind numbing.Sorry SoE.

MoiraesFate

05-05-2010, 11:51 AM

I can agree with Kelethin. I don't know what they were smoking, especially since they made the fae's wings totally useless for anything other than gliding. I don't start characters in Kelethin and only play there rarely. Gorowyn though, I start almost every character there and betray to where I want to go. I'm an alt-aholic but I have three that I've decided to permanently keep.

Paddyo

05-05-2010, 01:51 PM

<cite>MoiraesFate wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Jerokane@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Crismorn wrote:</cite><blockquote>Its only a starting city, if you dont like it then start somewhere else.Its not like there is a shortage of fluff in this game</blockquote>That's the whole problem. They gonna shut down the Isles of Refuge!!They are going to limit us and force us to start in either Kelethin (horrible) or New Halas (even worse).</blockquote>Or you can start in Neriak, or you can start in Gorowyn. Stop making more out of it than it actually is. Its just the isles of refuge and frankly, the gorowyn starter area kicks butt over any other starter area currently in existence.</blockquote>Neriak - Not if you are good.Gorowyn - Not if you're good.Nice, constructive comment.What is getting lost on me is WHY are they shutting down the islands? They are just sitting there, quietly, not bothering anyone. LEAVE THEM ALONE. THEY DID NOTHING TO YOU, MR. DEVELOPER!As far as New Halas goes: It should have been ( and do not make excuses to me about this, because I WILL NOT hear them) much more polished when it hit test. Why? Because it was expected in February. I still cringe thinking of the New Player Experience rant Alan gave at Fan Faire last year. I didn't stick around long enough to see the kilts that were dangled by Mr. Crosby when Halas didn't launch. I'm sure they are just as gorgeous as the emporer's new clothes.MR. PRODUCER: Please do not make grandiose announcements that go nowhere. This is an understanding player community, if you simply shoot straight with us. And, I read in your interview (with Zam was it) that you will do alot of asking "Why". Well, go into whomever's office you need to and ask "Why are we removing the ability to start in Qeynos or Freeport". Unless you get an answer along the lines of "because it will balance all classes, eliminate lag and increase the playerbase 10 fold" tell them to shelf the idea.Underwhelmed.

MoiraesFate

05-05-2010, 02:11 PM

Paddyo... ummmm, ever heard of the betrayal quest? Yes, you need to start off evil in Neriak or Gorowyn, but you don't have to stay that way.

Deson

05-05-2010, 02:18 PM

<cite>MoiraesFate wrote:</cite><blockquote>Paddyo... ummmm, ever heard of the betrayal quest? Yes, you need to start off evil in Neriak or Gorowyn, but you don't have to stay that way.</blockquote>Can't betray until 10. That's well after the newbie experience and more work than a player should have to go through for the fun game experience that has existed and should exist from teh moment you start playing.

Blu

05-05-2010, 02:32 PM

There are really two considerations when picking a starting city. Newbies will be unaware of either of these implications.The Newbie AreaTD is the clear winner here. DLW isn't bad.The City LayoutKelethin is the worst of the worst. FP is next-worse ([Removed for Content]-tastic travel, e.g. NFP from bell to mage guild). Gorowyn is somewhat annoying. Q is next best, losing marks because of having to memorize which sub-zone (NQ, SQ, or QH) things are in. Neriak is probably the best with its teleporters, although not without it's flaws (like the confusing crafter area tunnel system).So, when I make a character, I choose based on city layout or houses I prefer first. Then I simply run that character to TD and utilize the newbie area there.I really can't see how you can call Kelethin one of the two best new player experiences, considering the city layout. The newbie area is ok, and GFay itself is visually interesting, but the city is just horrible. Having to wait on lifts, trying to find things from the map, trying to figure out which ramps to take even if you know what level something is on, crafting area being so far from banking and other stuff, etc. I could see the city of Kelethin itself being another thing that drives unguilded newbies away from the game.

Jaremai

05-05-2010, 02:45 PM

I loved Kelethin in EQ1 and their revamp of the fae-takeover that is EQ2's Kelethin. I'm a bit biased in that I have an elf/fae fetish but I don't really see anything wrong with Kelethin as a starter city. But I also don't see anything wrong with the Isles and think they should stay in the game, just with a popup message if someone chooses the Isles that indicates they might not be the best choice for a brand new player. There's obviously debate about whether they offer a good tutorial-experience, hence my emphasis.

Anestacia

05-05-2010, 02:57 PM

<cite>Xerq@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote>There are really two considerations when picking a starting city. Newbies will be unaware of either of these implications.The Newbie AreaTD is the clear winner here. DLW isn't bad.The City LayoutKelethin is the worst of the worst. FP is next-worse ([Removed for Content]-tastic travel, e.g. NFP from bell to mage guild). Gorowyn is somewhat annoying. Q is next best, losing marks because of having to memorize which sub-zone (NQ, SQ, or QH) things are in. Neriak is probably the best with its teleporters, although not without it's flaws (like the confusing crafter area tunnel system).So, when I make a character, I choose based on city layout or houses I prefer first. Then I simply run that character to TD and utilize the newbie area there.I really can't see how you can call Kelethin one of the two best new player experiences, considering the city layout. The newbie area is ok, and GFay itself is visually interesting, but the city is just horrible. Having to wait on lifts, trying to find things from the map, trying to figure out which ramps to take even if you know what level something is on, crafting area being so far from banking and other stuff, etc. I could see the city of Kelethin itself being another thing that drives unguilded newbies away from the game.</blockquote>This, and almost every other thread here, is just proof that everyone likes something different. You think Kelethin is the worst layed out, yet you put Gorowyn third in line? Thats your opinion, and thats perfectly fine. My opinion, however, is that Kelethin is the BEST layed out city and the best Good Aligned New Player Experience currently on Live servers. I havent even set foot in Gorowyn since they added the teleporters so I cant really comment on its present state, but I know the ONE character I made in TD was the last. TD itself was pretty good and I can stand behind that quest-wise its probably the best for new evil players. However, the atmosphere was never something I really cared for in comparrison to DLW and Gfay. Gorowyn was confusing, bland and down right ugly. It was starting city to the most hideous player race I've seen in my 6 years here and I could have lived my whole EQ life w/o TD, Sarnaks or Gorowyn. Again, those are MY feelings.People say they hate Halas. I for one love almost everything about it. The dark sky and bottomless ocean is awsome. Gives a real immersive feeling that you are on a lonely iceberg inthe middle of the ocean. The starter quests for me were enjoyable, the stories interesting and the visuals stunning. The city of Halas is laid out perfectly, the tradeskill area is gorgeous and the housing is breath-taking. I for one am looking forward to May 25th and already have 2 alts that are for sure moving to thier new Velious type home! I'm sorry for those that don't care for it but really that just makes things really simple for you. Stay in your current city and continue on as if Halas doesnt exist.

Blu

05-05-2010, 02:59 PM

<cite>Paddyo wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>MoiraesFate wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Jerokane@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Crismorn wrote:</cite><blockquote>Its only a starting city, if you dont like it then start somewhere else.Its not like there is a shortage of fluff in this game</blockquote>That's the whole problem. They gonna shut down the Isles of Refuge!!They are going to limit us and force us to start in either Kelethin (horrible) or New Halas (even worse).</blockquote>Or you can start in Neriak, or you can start in Gorowyn. Stop making more out of it than it actually is. Its just the isles of refuge and frankly, the gorowyn starter area kicks butt over any other starter area currently in existence.</blockquote>Neriak - Not if you are good.Gorowyn - Not if you're good.</blockquote>While you can't start in Neriak or Gorowyn if you're good, you can still run both zone's newbie areas. No guards will even aggro you in Gorowyn. Guards will kill you in Neriak, but you can avoid them and still do nearly all the quests (only 2 that I found were blocked by guards).However, most newbies are not going to know to ignore their starting area and run to TD... nor should they have to really.I could understand why programmers would want to get rid of the islands. They are relics of a different time in EQ2, and probably still have most of those old rules in place, but just worked around so that it still manages to (just barely) work with the existing content. I imagine that's probably the main drive to get rid of them... they have restrictive code paths and create a lot of problems when planning future updates.But since I'm not a programmer on their staff, I'd still rather not see them go. But it's not going to be game-breaking or subscription-canceling for me. It will be an annoyance to have to switch citizenships if I wanted to be in Q to start with, and it would be nice if they did something about that. Otherwise, I use TD's starting area anyway.

MoiraesFate

05-05-2010, 03:40 PM

<cite>Anestacia wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Xerq@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote>There are really two considerations when picking a starting city. Newbies will be unaware of either of these implications.The Newbie AreaTD is the clear winner here. DLW isn't bad.The City LayoutKelethin is the worst of the worst. FP is next-worse ([Removed for Content]-tastic travel, e.g. NFP from bell to mage guild). Gorowyn is somewhat annoying. Q is next best, losing marks because of having to memorize which sub-zone (NQ, SQ, or QH) things are in. Neriak is probably the best with its teleporters, although not without it's flaws (like the confusing crafter area tunnel system).So, when I make a character, I choose based on city layout or houses I prefer first. Then I simply run that character to TD and utilize the newbie area there.I really can't see how you can call Kelethin one of the two best new player experiences, considering the city layout. The newbie area is ok, and GFay itself is visually interesting, but the city is just horrible. Having to wait on lifts, trying to find things from the map, trying to figure out which ramps to take even if you know what level something is on, crafting area being so far from banking and other stuff, etc. I could see the city of Kelethin itself being another thing that drives unguilded newbies away from the game.</blockquote>This, and almost every other thread here, is just proof that everyone likes something different. You think Kelethin is the worst layed out, yet you put Gorowyn third in line? Thats your opinion, and thats perfectly fine. My opinion, however, is that Kelethin is the BEST layed out city and the best Good Aligned New Player Experience currently on Live servers. I think I have to disagree with both of you. I find the layout of both cities incredibly aggravating with Gorowyn being the worst. However, the one I hate the most is still Freeport. I hate the colors, the sharp corners, and everything else about it. I've tried again and again to start a character there but get so aggravated that I betray every single time. Though I do have to say that Neriak is quite interesting. Not as aggravating. I usually prefer Qeynos first and foremost to all others for housing, Gorowyn for beginner questing (even though the layout of the city is incredibly aggravating), Kelethin because its pretty, Neriak, and finally Freeport. But honestly, Halas blows them all away. The questing is only so-so but I simply LOVE the city, and the housing is by far the best I've seen in any of the cities. The layout of the houses makes the most sense and the decor is simply breathtaking. This is the first time I've ever felt the desire to come on here every day to research designs/decorating for my house. I've been playing for five years and never had this desire. But its just so beautiful that I'm going to bring all my characters there (except for one, who's in Neriak) when it opens on May 25. I've even started packing up for my other characters and moving everything I have to one or two of the houses they own in preparation for moving them.I'm from Canada. While we can get up to 110 degrees fehr in the summer, we do get snow in the winter (something I'm actually missing now that I've been in New Orleans for two years. Never thought I'd say that) and as cold as say minus 20 fehr in winter. One of the common decorations you'll see in hotels, museums, zoo's and the like in Alberta (where I'm from) is wood carvings, including of buffalo. The design of Halas reminds me of home so much. I havent even set foot in Gorowyn since they added the teleporters so I cant really comment on its present state, but I know the ONE character I made in TD was the last. TD itself was pretty good and I can stand behind that quest-wise its probably the best for new evil players. However, the atmosphere was never something I really cared for in comparrison to DLW and Gfay. Gorowyn was confusing, bland and down right ugly. It was starting city to the most hideous player race I've seen in my 6 years here and I could have lived my whole EQ life w/o TD, Sarnaks or Gorowyn. Again, those are MY feelings.lol. I can agree about the Sarnaks to a point. I don't think they're the ugliest but they're close. I just find Gorowyn confusing. And I also wonder why they have spikes jutting up from the bottom of the walls. Thats an insane idea.People say they hate Halas. I for one love almost everything about it. The dark sky and bottomless ocean is awsome. Gives a real immersive feeling that you are on a lonely iceberg inthe middle of the ocean. The starter quests for me were enjoyable, the stories interesting and the visuals stunning. The city of Halas is laid out perfectly, the tradeskill area is gorgeous and the housing is breath-taking. I for one am looking forward to May 25th and already have 2 alts that are for sure moving to thier new Velious type home! I'm sorry for those that don't care for it but really that just makes things really simple for you. Stay in your current city and continue on as if Halas doesnt exist.I don't. I love it. It reminds me of Jaspar National Park with its glaciers. Or maybe the dinosaur museum in Drumheller. The houses all have a animal head design on the doors that reminds me of one of the casino doors in my home city.</blockquote>Sorry, feeling a bit homesick. I haven't been back in over two years now and I miss my family.

Blu

05-05-2010, 03:41 PM

<cite>Anestacia wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Xerq@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote>I really can't see how you can call Kelethin one of the two best new player experiences, considering the city layout. The newbie area is ok, and GFay itself is visually interesting, but the city is just horrible. Having to wait on lifts, trying to find things from the map, trying to figure out which ramps to take even if you know what level something is on, crafting area being so far from banking and other stuff, etc. I could see the city of Kelethin itself being another thing that drives unguilded newbies away from the game.</blockquote>This, and almost every other thread here, is just proof that everyone likes something different. You think Kelethin is the worst layed out, yet you put Gorowyn third in line? Thats your opinion, and thats perfectly fine. My opinion, however, is that Kelethin is the BEST layed out city and the best Good Aligned New Player Experience currently on Live servers. I havent even set foot in Gorowyn since they added the teleporters so I cant really comment on its present state, but I know the ONE character I made in TD was the last. TD itself was pretty good and I can stand behind that quest-wise its probably the best for new evil players. However, the atmosphere was never something I really cared for in comparrison to DLW and Gfay. Gorowyn was confusing, bland and down right ugly. It was starting city to the most hideous player race I've seen in my 6 years here and I could have lived my whole EQ life w/o TD, Sarnaks or Gorowyn. Again, those are MY feelings.People say they hate Halas. I for one love almost everything about it. The dark sky and bottomless ocean is awsome. Gives a real immersive feeling that you are on a lonely iceberg inthe middle of the ocean. The starter quests for me were enjoyable, the stories interesting and the visuals stunning. The city of Halas is laid out perfectly, the tradeskill area is gorgeous and the housing is breath-taking. I for one am looking forward to May 25th and already have 2 alts that are for sure moving to thier new Velious type home! I'm sorry for those that don't care for it but really that just makes things really simple for you. Stay in your current city and continue on as if Halas doesnt exist.</blockquote>It is really a toss-up between Gorowyn being next worst and next-next-worst. I probably just should have said that Gorowyn and FP tie for next-worse. Gorowyn shares some of the same finding-stuff-from-the-map problems as Kelethin, but there's less need to figure out (the hard way) which ramps are dead ends, because it's basically one big spiral. So if you just keep going around, you'll eventually hit what you're looking for.I can understand you liking Kelethin, honestly. I was the same way with Kelethin of old in EQ1. I had memorized all the paths and locations and knew it like the back of my hand, and it was a unique city to be sure. However, in an honest comparison between cities, it's simply harder to find and get to places in Kelethin, not even considering lifts. Some things are really dumbly far apart, like the crafting area and bank. It's much harder to find things and understand where they are from the map because of the 3d layout vs 2d map. It's more of a hassle than any other city I can think of. I made one character there and did crafting before guild halls were out, and it completely soured me on the city. I've run through the newbie zone on a couple of other characters, but it's definitely not a city that I want to live in.The GFay atmosphere is great. For new players, perhaps the scenery and wonder mitigates the seemingly lots of travel you have to do for the quests, which is fine. I found the DLW atmosphere much inferior to TD. The initial atmosphere is great (darkness and green grass), but it never really changes much, and it gets boring after a while (or maybe the gloom of the zone finally sets in and I just can't wait to leave it). TD does it right with changing the scenery and feel as you level. TD is basically the only newbie zone I can still enjoy doing for a 6th time, although I do ignore the city of Gorowyn as much as possible. After trying them all, basically the only two cities I ever choose nowadays are Q and Neriak. I don't actually like the feel of Neriak that much, but it's more convenient than the alternatives. I haven't tried Halas yet, but I'll probably move there for the much-vaunted housing if nothing else.

Deson

05-05-2010, 03:45 PM

<cite>Anestacia wrote:</cite><blockquote> I'm sorry for those that don't care for it but really that just makes things really simple for you. Stay in your current city and continue on as if Halas doesnt exist.</blockquote>That's going to be hard if I make a goodie alt as I'm being deprived of the place I actually find tolerable.

Blu

05-05-2010, 03:52 PM

<cite>MoiraesFate wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Anestacia wrote:</cite><blockquote>I think I have to disagree with both of you. I find the layout of both cities incredibly aggravating with Gorowyn being the worst. However, the one I hate the most is still Freeport. I hate the colors, the sharp corners, and everything else about it. I've tried again and again to start a character there but get so aggravated that I betray every single time.</blockquote></blockquote>By the way, I never said that Gorowyn was great. It's still an annoying city, but Kelethin is still moreso, if offset a bit by the scenery.FP was the first city I started in, and grew to utterly loath it for similar reasons to what you describe, but mainly the longest-way-possible travel paths through the zones. This is why I rank it worse than Gorowyn. I think I still have one character who is a FP citizen, but fortunately it's an alt that I rarely play.

SmokeJumper

05-06-2010, 02:25 AM

I've played Darklight Woods and Kelethin extensively now "as a newb".Halas rocks over those two, at the very least.The starter isle is very well laid out, the RP aspects are better than usual with interesting dialog responses, the rewards are good and...well...I loved Halas in EQ1, so this is very cool for me.I'm not speaking as a dev here. I had nothing to do with the creation/execution of Halas. I'm just speaking as a player.Yes, there are some rough edges to smooth out still, but in general, I'm having a much easier time understanding everything, the NPC dialogs and quests are more interesting, and the environment is well laid-out. Even the tradeskill collection items are more logically laid out so that you can intuitively figure out where to go to get items.I dig it, personally.(NOTE: I've worked my way around the island to the third NPC area now, but still haven't made it to Halas. I'm about 5 hours into it, trying to complete all quests.)

Sar

05-06-2010, 02:35 AM

Let's be honest here... most of you complaining about this already know how to play the game... nothing they add to teach a new person should be remotely interesting to you. It really doesn't matter how they do it... storyline is more the key here as with most quests in this game its kill, harvest, or run an errand... seriously what more are you expecting? And if you know of something better why not give those ideas instead of useless complaints? Don't get me wrong we are all entitled to an opinion, such as myself... but the fact remains... what are you really ticked off about? I think this thread is all those people who are just upset that the starting isles are gone, so if they bash Halas they are justified, well I am certain if its better or the same as any other starting city we have now in the game, Neriak, Kelethin I will be fine with it... Not like that matters much because clearly end game is where its at... it doesn't take long to get up in the levels, so why dwell on a newbie isle? Furthermore, for actual newbs, which I assume are a majority of folks who already know someone playing the game prolly get most of their information and tweak gear/plat package so seriously folks... who are we really defending here?I'm bored already....

Wurm

05-06-2010, 03:10 AM

<cite>Brickfist wrote:</cite><blockquote>I decided I was going to try out the new starting city, as well, a starting player. What I encountered there was a repeating cringe on everyplace I went.Initial zone in: There is nothing leading the player to actually use the tutorial guys sitting around: fighting, banking etc. New players lose alot of knowledge that was given in a pathway in the original isle of refuge. There is a harvesting tutorial quest but nothing to really say what all this harvesting is for since there are no tradeskill tutorials or tradeskilling equipment sitting around. Quests don't really hint at where certain things are (the non-harvesting bushes needed for one of the quests). One quest tells me to hop on the ferry when I still have 2 other quests in my log book, very unlinear and needs to be changed for a starting zone. Players are introduced to in-water combat before they even have the basics of normal auto-facing ground combat down, partly because of the speed in which the first 6 levels are gained. I believe exp before 6 should be slowed so new players can learn the basics before being thrown into the world. A repeatble quest at level 4 is really not needed, and only serves to confuse a bit more because it doesn't show progression through the world. The blue mantas need to be moved closer to the starter island, because content jumping because you see new feathers from the next island is suggested.Across the water by ferry: The first quests are all mixed up here for what the reward text is and what the quest actually gives (coind instead of armor and vise versa).Two seperate quest lines given by the same guy(frog) when there are other suitable npc's sitting right next to him that could have given those quests. Placing the guy's kid so far from camp and so close to the lions is a major foot run, and not a quick jaunt over the hill that the quest text suggests. I was on this quest for a half hour and it is the third most annoying quest of the New Halas area (runes and spears beat it, but that's later). Came across pilgrim bodies that gave coin when looted then respawned as a skeleton, just weird. Killed a couple of named mobs and got melee_dps_cloak, caster_dps_cloak, caster_dps_earing and such. After killing lions (for above frog, can't remember his name) I saw a book pop up on my mini map and it was him in the next area (Great Shelf), a case of duplicate names being able to give and take quests which would confuse the hell out of any truly new player.A set of tracks like a road btween this area and the shelf wouldn't be that bad of an idea because it would lead you where to go next.Onto the Shelf: other than the note which seems like it should give you a quest, which it doesn't, the first couple of quests were pretty straight forward. Then I got the rune quest... Nothing says fun like running across an area like a barbarian metal detector waiting for a pop-up message to say your in the right area, especially when that area is full of agro mobs. There's some nice looking blocks with blue runes on them all piled up near the quest giver cave, how about spreading these out to where the runes are so we get a visual indicator? While doing these I came to quest giver to break the line of spears, after looking for these blasted spears all over the place I still haven't found them (uncompleted quest for the log book). I finished up the rest of quests in the area no problem (found the necro's while looking for the spears so I knew right where to go) and get 2 sets of scout shoulders for my rewards, which do me no good whatsoever for a monk, and a hat. To my surprise the very next quest in the very next area gives me the EXACT SAME HAT as a reward. It's at this point I just gave up, after 8 levels the only upgrades I've gotten for my gear is a hat and a pair of shoes, since everything else I received I couldn't use.Was there any QCing at all before this went to test, because this amount of incompletion and just randomness is not what I know from SOE to put out in the starter cities. Most take you on a linear path, Frostfang does not. At least they put a banker right where you come in the game so you can outfit yer twink and grind yer way through this mess and ignore the [Removed for Content] content.Somewhere there is a man who is all beard that is not a barbarian that I think your suppossed to kill but I'm not really sure because there's just a note about him but no quest but sounds really important since the pilgrims you left at their second stop of their pilgrimage said he knows what a barbarian was but that it wasn't a barbarian......</blockquote>Sentinel's Fate is the same way... quest lines die out leaving you with a "huh" feeling and you have to go look for something else to do on your own. The big difference is at that level you know a bit of whats going on and can pretty much figure out where to go next.In a starting area, especially one replacing the n00b isle, that concept is deadly, you have to hand-feed new players or they will go "[Removed for Content]" and leave.Get it right SOE, the future of the game depends on it.

lollipop

05-06-2010, 03:11 AM

guillero

05-06-2010, 03:16 AM

<cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote>I've played Darklight Woods and Kelethin extensively now "as a newb".Halas rocks over those two, at the very least.The starter isle is very well laid out, the RP aspects are better than usual with interesting dialog responses, the rewards are good and...well...I loved Halas in EQ1, so this is very cool for me.I'm not speaking as a dev here. I had nothing to do with the creation/execution of Halas. I'm just speaking as a player.Yes, there are some rough edges to smooth out still, but in general, I'm having a much easier time understanding everything, the NPC dialogs and quests are more interesting, and the environment is well laid-out. Even the tradeskill collection items are more logically laid out so that you can intuitively figure out where to go to get items.I dig it, personally.(NOTE: I've worked my way around the island to the third NPC area now, but still haven't made it to Halas. I'm about 5 hours into it, trying to complete all quests.)</blockquote>No offense Smoke,A lot of players (you know... people that pay their monthly subs and so pay your salary!) ENJOY the starter isles. Hence the reason they are still one of the most busy starter areas currenly on Live!If Kelethin and Gorowyn are so much better and more fun as the Starter Isles... why do most players still prefer rolling new ALT's on the Starter Isles??The bottom line is. Why remove content, wich the players (who pay your salary) enjoy?!I like the good side. Hate the bad side.I like the Starter Isles. I hate Kelethin. Gorowyn is so so. I tried New Halas and I hate it. I find it an extremely boring starter area (sorry).We also like to live in Quenos. And don't like any of the other Cities.By shutting down the Starter Isles. You will lose people like me (ALT'aholics who keep rolling new chars and never even had a char at max level) and my gf.Simple as that! As we rather quit the game and drop our subs, than being forced into something we do not want.I play games for fun. And when it stops being fun. I am out.Jer

SmokeJumper

05-06-2010, 03:21 AM

Jerokane...I wasn't discussing the starter isles at all. Just Halas.I haven't played the starter isles since the initial launch of the game.As I said, I was only comparing Halas to my recent experiences in Darklight Woods and Kelethin.

guillero

05-06-2010, 03:28 AM

<cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote>Jerokane...I wasn't discussing the starter isles at all. Just Halas.I haven't played the starter isles since the initial launch of the game.As I said, I was only comparing Halas to my recent experiences in Darklight Woods and Kelethin.</blockquote>My apologies then Smoke.It's just that this has become a very heated topic! And these two topics being the primary topics this is discussed in.So things seems to have blended somewhat. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />But at least you have read my post. And in that my point still stands (like I said in my last post in the other topic).That removing content is a BAD thing! It's not a solution. It won't bring in more new players and keep them playing beyond the trial. Because if they won't know. They won't after the new GU either.I hope you can bring this message over to the team! As I strongly urge them to reconsider this decision!Jer

lollipop

05-06-2010, 03:46 AM

<cite>Jerokane@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote>I've played Darklight Woods and Kelethin extensively now "as a newb".Halas rocks over those two, at the very least.The starter isle is very well laid out, the RP aspects are better than usual with interesting dialog responses, the rewards are good and...well...I loved Halas in EQ1, so this is very cool for me.I'm not speaking as a dev here. I had nothing to do with the creation/execution of Halas. I'm just speaking as a player.Yes, there are some rough edges to smooth out still, but in general, I'm having a much easier time understanding everything, the NPC dialogs and quests are more interesting, and the environment is well laid-out. Even the tradeskill collection items are more logically laid out so that you can intuitively figure out where to go to get items.I dig it, personally.(NOTE: I've worked my way around the island to the third NPC area now, but still haven't made it to Halas. I'm about 5 hours into it, trying to complete all quests.)</blockquote>No offense Smoke,A lot of players (you know... people that pay their monthly subs and so pay your salary!) ENJOY the starter isles. Hence the reason they are still one of the most busy starter areas currenly on Live!If Kelethin and Gorowyn are so much better and more fun as the Starter Isles... why do most players still prefer rolling new ALT's on the Starter Isles??The bottom line is. Why remove content, wich the players (who pay your salary) enjoy?!I like the good side. Hate the bad side.I like the Starter Isles. I hate Kelethin. Gorowyn is so so. I tried New Halas and I hate it. I find it an extremely boring starter area (sorry).We also like to live in Quenos. And don't like any of the other Cities.By shutting down the Starter Isles. You will lose people like me (ALT'aholics who keep rolling new chars and never even had a char at max level) and my gf.Simple as that! As we rather quit the game and drop our subs, than being forced into something we do not want.I play games for fun. And when it stops being fun. I am out.Jer</blockquote>I can anwser some of this.People who play the game start on the starter islands cause it is easier for them. (not new players)It is easier to get to your GH or mains (if being PL)Its what they did org and have become so used to it, it becomes second nature. ( Between myself and my sigifficant other we have 6 accts and over 17 toons.........so yeah we know why people start on the island.I will be upset when it goes but come on....for a new player yeah the other area's are better. It sucks ....but our alts will get made at the new area and we will have to take the time to get back to Qey or freeport. Will we quit over it...no not unless it becomes a real pain.Yeah the gammer and everything sucks....what do you expect its late lol....I should be in bed!

Xalmat

05-06-2010, 04:42 AM

<cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote>(NOTE: I've worked my way around the island to the third NPC area now, but still haven't made it to Halas. I'm about 5 hours into it, trying to complete all quests.)</blockquote>This is a problem.

Kasar

05-06-2010, 05:36 AM

<cite>lollipop wrote:</cite><blockquote>I will be upset when it goes but come on....for a new player yeah the other area's are better. It sucks ....but our alts will get made at the new area and we will have to take the time to get back to Qey or freeport. Will we quit over it...no not unless it becomes a real pain.</blockquote>I can't imagine a new person bothering with either Qeynos or Freeport if they're not directed there. Remember how much fun it was to figure out the city layouts and where things were? Me neither, it's not happening if not necessary. The cities are dead post-guildhalls, and without new players in them, they'll be even more empty and unused. Maybe someone will decide to revamp them and bring some new purpose to them as they're not new homes for refugees anymore.

Hanokh2010

05-06-2010, 06:39 AM

<cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote>Jerokane...I wasn't discussing the starter isles at all. Just Halas.I haven't played the starter isles since the initial launch of the game.As I said, I was only comparing Halas to my recent experiences in Darklight Woods and Kelethin.</blockquote>Perhaps you should, since there is a 46 page thread discussing what a poor decision it is to remove them. The Isles are far superior as starting areas in teaching a new player to play the game. The new areas are great for someone whose only concern is to get to level 20 as quickly as possible. The Isles and racial villages give a much broader education as to the depth of possibility available to a new player. The new areas could be likened to going to technical school while the Isles are going to an Ivy league university. The Golden Path to 90 and "loot greed" will not keep players around long term. What happens when they solo to 90 in a week and then don't know how or what else to do?

Inferius

05-06-2010, 06:53 AM

How do you ensure players do not ignore your new flashy starter areas?Turn the old ones off thats how ,Feel our iron fist!!!!

Calain80

05-06-2010, 06:55 AM

I also did test the New Halas starting experience. I really didn't like it until I reached the 3rd camp. Here are my main reasons: I tried to find some fish for the tradeskill / gather quest but could not find some. I did need ~20 Minutes the get 5 fish and I only got them 'cause I left the starter isle and went to the main isle and then went back again. This is really really bad. There where several quests that force you to go from the starter isle to the main isle. One (repeatable) quests on the starter isle asks you to kill mantas who swim next to the main isle and a quest in the pilgrim camp sends you to kill fish near the starter isle. While there is a back entrance to New Halas I did only find it 'cause of the map. There is no clue that will tell you that this "hole in the wall" will lead to new Halas. I stopped counting how often I needed to run between the pilgrims camp and the lion area. And while I was already fed up running the same way over and and over again I finally got a quest that said: "Do it 4 more times again, please." I had to turn the game off at that moment. This is particularly bad as there is the next quest hub right next to the lions. By the time I was done with the pilgrims camp I hated New Halas. I did spend 2/3 of the time running the same way back and forth it wasn't fun in any way any more. I was fed up and if I would not already play I would have stopped right there. It got a lot better after that. The 3rd quest hub is actually good and fun. Just reading the dialogs made me laugh out several times and you don't have to run the same (long) way over and over again. There is a scripted battlefield with a lot things going on. But the problem is most won't see it as they will have stopped playing before they even reach this camp! Just so you can compare a bit better play the starter expirience of the Freeport and Qeynos isles. The 1st 5 to 8 levels are so much more fun there then they are in new Halas. Yes you also have to run around a bit but mostly you run to an NSC in the field do a few quests for him and then return to the main camp and not like with the pilgrims camp where you have to run the whole way for every single quest. If you would move some of the NPCs to the location where you find the frog child (or would add new ones that get the existing quests) then it might be a fun area, but currently all my chars will only start in Gorowyn or Darklight Woods. It is more fun to betray later, if you want to play a "good only" class, then to run any of the remaining "good" starter zones.

Hanokh2010

05-06-2010, 06:55 AM

<cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote>I've played Darklight Woods and Kelethin extensively now "as a newb".Halas rocks over those two, at the very least.The starter isle is very well laid out, the RP aspects are better than usual with interesting dialog responses, the rewards are good and...well...I loved Halas in EQ1, so this is very cool for me.I'm not speaking as a dev here. I had nothing to do with the creation/execution of Halas. I'm just speaking as a player.Yes, there are some rough edges to smooth out still, but in general, I'm having a much easier time understanding everything, the NPC dialogs and quests are more interesting, and the environment is well laid-out. Even the tradeskill collection items are more logically laid out so that you can intuitively figure out where to go to get items.I dig it, personally.(NOTE: I've worked my way around the island to the third NPC area now, but still haven't made it to Halas. I'm about 5 hours into it, trying to complete all quests.)</blockquote>I can see the advertisements now: Come try New Halas! It's better than terrible at the very least!I disagree that the starter area is very well laid out. The quests do not proceed smoothly from one quest hub to the next. One is constantly running back on forth between 2 at a time.The RP aspects? Does one even see or speak to a barbarian before level 10? I am still not sure that New Halas has anything to do with the Halas of EQ1. It seems to be a Dwarven area much more than a Barbarian area.The rewards are also not that good. By level 10 I had more rings and bracelets than I had appendages to put them on but still had no new weapon, no necklace, no secondary, ranged, or charm items. All of these are available by level 6 or so on the starter Isles.

Armawk

05-06-2010, 06:57 AM

<cite>Kasar wrote:</cite><blockquote>Remember how much fun it was to figure out the city layouts and where things were? Me neither, it's not happening if not necessary. The cities are dead post-guildhalls </blockquote>I cannot agree in any way. NONE of the new cities are comparable to the two real cities in either quality (art wise the wooden houses in halas are the first thing to come close for years) or scope, in fact none of the new cities are cities at all, just villages. Halas is barely bigger than one of the qeynos suburbs and has no more buildings and essentially the same facilities as, say, willow wood.They make good STARTER cities, being compact and in one zone so simpler to navigate for a noob, but people absolutely should be led to the two metropoli for their long term settlement. The devs do seem to realise this much anyway with talk of high level content hubs in the two big cities, and witht he higher level guild halls being only there (as they should be)And I just never ever see these 'dead' cities of yours. I log into North Qeynos and always, absolutely always, day or night, there are people there. This is not true at all of the other cities, especially gorowyn but also kelethin (I never go to neriak so I cant comment on that) Its right now the middle of the night in the US, I just logged in on our not particularly busy server and the first thing I saw was 2 players running past me. Its not like it was pre guildhalls but its not what you say it is either.

Hanokh2010

05-06-2010, 07:01 AM

<cite>Calberak@Valor wrote:</cite><blockquote>I also did test the New Halas starting experience. I really didn't like it until I reached the 3rd camp. Here are my main reasons: I tried to find some fish for the tradeskill / gather quest but could not find some. I did need ~20 Minutes the get 5 fish and I only got them 'cause I left the starter isle and went to the main isle and then went back again. This is really really bad. There where several quests that force you to go from the starter isle to the main isle. One (repeatable) quests on the starter isle asks you to kill mantas who swim next to the main isle and a quest in the pilgrim camp sends you to kill fish near the starter isle. While there is a back entrance to New Halas I did only find it 'cause of the map. There is no that this "hole in the wall" will lead to new Halas. I stopped counting how often I needed to run between the pilgrims camp and the lion area. And while I was already fed up running the same way over and and over again I finally got a quest that said: "Do it 4 more times again, please." I had to turn the game off at that moment. This is particularly bad as there is the next quest hub right next to the lions. By the time I was done with the pilgrims camp I hated New Halas. I did spend 2/3 of the time running the same way back and forth it wasn't fun in any way any more. I was fed up and if I would not already play I would have stopped right there. It got a lot better after that. The 3rd quest hub is actually good and fun. Just reading the dialogs made me laugh out several times and you don't have to run the same (long) way over and over again. There is a scripted battlefield with a lot things going on. But the problem is most won't see it as they will have stopped playing before they even reach this camp! Just so you can compare a bit better play the starter expirience of the Freeport and Qeynos isles. The 1st 5 to 8 levels are so much more fun there then they are in new Halas. Yes you also have to run around a bit but mostly you run to an NSC in the field do a few quests for him and then return to the main camp and not like with the pilgrims camp where you have to run the whole way for every single quest. If you would move some of the NPCs to the location where you find the frog child (or would add new ones that get the existing quests) then it might be a fun area, but currently all my chars will only start in Gorowyn or Darklight Woods. It is more fun to betray later, if you want to play a "good only" class, then to run any of the remaining "good" starter zones.</blockquote>Good point! They have changed the cub quest only to take some of the tedium out of this hub, but it would be a major roadblock to me if I was a new player. Do I really want to play a game that has 80 more levels of senseless running back and forth time sinks?

Armawk

05-06-2010, 07:08 AM

<cite>Calberak@Valor wrote:</cite><blockquote>I also did test the New Halas starting experience. I really didn't like it until I reached the 3rd camp. Here are my main reasons: I tried to find some fish for the tradeskill / gather quest but could not find some. I did need ~20 Minutes the get 5 fish and I only got them 'cause I left the starter isle and went to the main isle and then went back again. This is really really bad. There where several quests that force you to go from the starter isle to the main isle. One (repeatable) quests on the starter isle asks you to kill mantas who swim next to the main isle and a quest in the pilgrim camp sends you to kill fish near the starter isle. While there is a back entrance to New Halas I did only find it 'cause of the map. There is no clue that will tell you that this "hole in the wall" will lead to new Halas. I stopped counting how often I needed to run between the pilgrims camp and the lion area. And while I was already fed up running the same way over and and over again I finally got a quest that said: "Do it 4 more times again, please." I had to turn the game off at that moment. This is particularly bad as there is the next quest hub right next to the lions. By the time I was done with the pilgrims camp I hated New Halas. I did spend 2/3 of the time running the same way back and forth it wasn't fun in any way any more. I was fed up and if I would not already play I would have stopped right there. </blockquote>To be fair a lot of those have been addressed already in upcoming test patches already announced. inadequate mob spawns is very easy to fix and has been. The leasing lion cubs one by one was bad but again, fixed. So I wouldnt be too quick to judge big things on small things.I think the first batch of quests on the starter beach are nicely clean and simple. The second camp is weakest but has been improved a lot (It is still maybe a bit dull and could do with work. The battlefield area I think is very nice indeed, especially the bit up the ramp from the cave and the destroying the catapults on the island etc. The spine is also good though a lot of swimming back and forward to the same islands.I especially applaud the use of the instanced cave on the island to give some idea about instances etc.. this is very much needed info for new players. Also the cave diving one is good training.There is a LOT of variety in the kind of quests given overall, and a definite story going on. It does get a bit slow at camp 2, but then Ive done those kind of quests so often its hard to see that through a new players eyes.

Deson

05-06-2010, 08:38 AM

<cite>Xalmat wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote>(NOTE: I've worked my way around the island to the third NPC area now, but still haven't made it to Halas. I'm about 5 hours into it, trying to complete all quests.)</blockquote>This is a problem.</blockquote>This is an understatement.New players in an MMO should not be taking 5 hours to get into it.There is a serious design flaw or shift in design we haven't been made aware of if the newbie zones aren't being designed to familiarize players with the world then kick them into it as soon as practical. Even reading everything and wandering around DLW takes at worst 3 hours.Even the non optimized starter Isles that still serve their intended function perfectly( if you don't care about loot) get you out and into the world in an hour at most. If it's taking you five hours, it'll probably be the second starter area I pass on( I couldn't stomach Kelethin until much later).

Guy De Alsace

05-06-2010, 08:45 AM

A lot of good feedback in this thread. Lets hope Sony listens. Halas has to be better than the Isles to justify removing them. It just has to.

deKoven

05-06-2010, 09:21 AM

<cite>Xalmat wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote>(NOTE: I've worked my way around the island to the third NPC area now, but still haven't made it to Halas. I'm about 5 hours into it, trying to complete all quests.)</blockquote>This is a problem.</blockquote>In fairness; Smoke could have been in New Halas in minutes. I was and I don't consider myself particularly good at the game. What I don't care for about the situation is that some kind of "pointer" should be given to newbs to let them know where the "city" is.

Deson

05-06-2010, 09:29 AM

<cite>Reese@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Xalmat wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote>(NOTE: I've worked my way around the island to the third NPC area now, but still haven't made it to Halas. I'm about 5 hours into it, trying to complete all quests.)</blockquote>This is a problem.</blockquote>In fairness; Smoke could have been in New Halas in minutes. I was and I don't consider myself particularly good at the game. What I don't care for about the situation is that some kind of "pointer" should be given to newbs to let them know where the "city" is.</blockquote>Either way, the 1-20 experience shouldn't be taking 5 hours since that range has been developmentally newbie since at least when Neriak was introduced.No other newbie experience takes 5 hours to run completely through except perhaps Freeport and Qeynos but, speaking for Freeport at least, 5 hours would come from doing all the quest paths. During that time however, Freeport walks you right to Wailing Caves and Fallen Gate to group in.

GrunEQ

05-06-2010, 09:48 AM

I know that as a new toon I wanted to get into the city to get my housing settled, and then go back out to adventure. I think most new toons want the same thing. I also wanted to get my crafting started, as I'm out harvesting as I adventure. Once you cross the ferry you should have an NPC who directs you to the city, and in the city you should have an NPC who directs you back out to help the pilmgrims.It was taking too long, IMO, to get directed to the city, so I used my Call of Halas. I'm sure there are other people who were longing to get there, too. It takes a new person way to long to get directed there.Btw, I personally think Gorowyn is absolutely the worst city to get around in or find anything. I've learned Kelethin, and don't have a problem getting around...and I agree the bank is too far away from the tradeskill area, and the tradeskill area is too crowded. Love the Halas tradeskill area, btw.

Gungo

05-06-2010, 11:08 AM

<cite>shaunfletcher wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Kasar wrote:</cite><blockquote>Remember how much fun it was to figure out the city layouts and where things were? Me neither, it's not happening if not necessary. The cities are dead post-guildhalls </blockquote>I cannot agree in any way. NONE of the new cities are comparable to the two real cities in either quality (art wise the wooden houses in halas are the first thing to come close for years) or scope, in fact none of the new cities are cities at all, just villages. Halas is barely bigger than one of the qeynos suburbs and has no more buildings and essentially the same facilities as, say, willow wood.They make good STARTER cities, being compact and in one zone so simpler to navigate for a noob, but people absolutely should be led to the two metropoli for their long term settlement. The devs do seem to realise this much anyway with talk of high level content hubs in the two big cities, and witht he higher level guild halls being only there (as they should be)And I just never ever see these 'dead' cities of yours. I log into North Qeynos and always, absolutely always, day or night, there are people there. This is not true at all of the other cities, especially gorowyn but also kelethin (I never go to neriak so I cant comment on that) Its right now the middle of the night in the US, I just logged in on our not particularly busy server and the first thing I saw was 2 players running past me. Its not like it was pre guildhalls but its not what you say it is either.</blockquote>People are discussing 2 separate things the main cities and the starter isles. The main cities are NOT going anywhere. The starter isles are being removed. Now compare halas to the starter isles and there is no comparison New Halas is much larger.

Gungo

05-06-2010, 11:12 AM

<cite>Deson wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Xalmat wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote>(NOTE: I've worked my way around the island to the third NPC area now, but still haven't made it to Halas. I'm about 5 hours into it, trying to complete all quests.)</blockquote>This is a problem.</blockquote>This is an understatement.New players in an MMO should not be taking 5 hours to get into it.There is a serious design flaw or shift in design we haven't been made aware of if the newbie zones aren't being designed to familiarize players with the world then kick them into it as soon as practical. Even reading everything and wandering around DLW takes at worst 3 hours.Even the non optimized starter Isles that still serve their intended function perfectly( if you don't care about loot) get you out and into the world in an hour at most. If it's taking you five hours, it'll probably be the second starter area I pass on( I couldn't stomach Kelethin until much later).</blockquote>You are quite wrong it took me MORE then 5 hours on the starter isles before I even stepped foot into freeport.

Deson

05-06-2010, 11:14 AM

<cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Deson wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Xalmat wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote>(NOTE: I've worked my way around the island to the third NPC area now, but still haven't made it to Halas. I'm about 5 hours into it, trying to complete all quests.)</blockquote>This is a problem.</blockquote>This is an understatement.New players in an MMO should not be taking 5 hours to get into it.There is a serious design flaw or shift in design we haven't been made aware of if the newbie zones aren't being designed to familiarize players with the world then kick them into it as soon as practical. Even reading everything and wandering around DLW takes at worst 3 hours.Even the non optimized starter Isles that still serve their intended function perfectly( if you don't care about loot) get you out and into the world in an hour at most. If it's taking you five hours, it'll probably be the second starter area I pass on( I couldn't stomach Kelethin until much later).</blockquote>You are quite wrong it took me MORE then 5 hours on the starter isles before I even stepped foot into freeport. </blockquote>Right now?At launch it took me about 4 hours. Since the last revamp, never more than 2 hours to do everything. A huge amount of my early time wasted used to be trying to finish the collections.

Gungo

05-06-2010, 11:33 AM

<cite>Deson wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Deson wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Xalmat wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote>(NOTE: I've worked my way around the island to the third NPC area now, but still haven't made it to Halas. I'm about 5 hours into it, trying to complete all quests.)</blockquote>This is a problem.</blockquote>This is an understatement.New players in an MMO should not be taking 5 hours to get into it.There is a serious design flaw or shift in design we haven't been made aware of if the newbie zones aren't being designed to familiarize players with the world then kick them into it as soon as practical. Even reading everything and wandering around DLW takes at worst 3 hours.Even the non optimized starter Isles that still serve their intended function perfectly( if you don't care about loot) get you out and into the world in an hour at most. If it's taking you five hours, it'll probably be the second starter area I pass on( I couldn't stomach Kelethin until much later).</blockquote>You are quite wrong it took me MORE then 5 hours on the starter isles before I even stepped foot into freeport. </blockquote>Right now?At launch it took me about 4 hours. Since the last revamp, never more than 2 hours to do everything. A huge amount of my early time wasted used to be trying to finish the collections.</blockquote>No now it takes me like 2 hours as well but then i know where everything is and I can run the zone blindfolded. As a new player it took me like 8 hours as i was trying to go through everything. Even when they revamped it it took me more then 2 hours and most of the quests were the same, but the difference was when they revamped it i skipped the entire tradeskill tutorial because its ten times easier to do tradeskills when i feel like it in my own home or guildhall. I remeber when they revamped it the first time it took me a few minutes to figure out the whole dead rat summon hawk thing. Quests like that i dont even think about, now. I know where every single update is on the isle. Halas is a brand new zone as well heck I spent over 2 hours on my lvl 90 exploring new halas. You cant expect a new player to know where every single update is instantly. Smokejumper hasnt played eq2 since 2004. You act as though he should summon his 65% run speed mount from his claim window, pop open eq2i.com and runthrough a brand new zone like he has done it for the 100th time.

Anestacia

05-06-2010, 11:46 AM

It would probably take longer than 2 hours for a new player on the starting islands but lets pretend that it did take only 2 hours. After that 2 hours you are what? Level 6? Then what? You step off the boat and are confronted with your racial quest then after that you have NO set path. You have to go hunt to even find a quest in pathetic sub zones like The Sunken City and Oakmyst. Sure it worked for us veterans because it had to, but theres also alot more choices now than there was then. Back to the real subject; even if you take 5 hours, your talking about getting to your late teens or even 20's in that time frame and when you view it like that, its a very fun and nicely paced experience. I've said it before, the feedback to Halas has been unfair because everyone wants to cry about the starter islands being disabled. Halas is wonderfully done, looks awsome and I cant wait for it to go live!

Deson

05-06-2010, 11:49 AM

<cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Deson wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Deson wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Xalmat wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote>(NOTE: I've worked my way around the island to the third NPC area now, but still haven't made it to Halas. I'm about 5 hours into it, trying to complete all quests.)</blockquote>This is a problem.</blockquote>This is an understatement.New players in an MMO should not be taking 5 hours to get into it.There is a serious design flaw or shift in design we haven't been made aware of if the newbie zones aren't being designed to familiarize players with the world then kick them into it as soon as practical. Even reading everything and wandering around DLW takes at worst 3 hours.Even the non optimized starter Isles that still serve their intended function perfectly( if you don't care about loot) get you out and into the world in an hour at most. If it's taking you five hours, it'll probably be the second starter area I pass on( I couldn't stomach Kelethin until much later).</blockquote>You are quite wrong it took me MORE then 5 hours on the starter isles before I even stepped foot into freeport. </blockquote>Right now?At launch it took me about 4 hours. Since the last revamp, never more than 2 hours to do everything. A huge amount of my early time wasted used to be trying to finish the collections.</blockquote>No now it takes me like 2 hours as well but then i know where everything is and I can run the zone blindfolded. As a new player it took me like 8 hours as i was trying to go through everything. Even when they revamped it it took me more then 2 hours and most of the quests were the same, but the difference was when they revamped it i skipped the entire tradeskill tutorial because its ten times easier to do tradeskills when i feel like it in my own home or guildhall. I remeber when they revamped it the first time it took me a few minutes to figure out the whole dead rat summon hawk thing. Quests like that i dont even think about, now. I know where every single update is on the isle. Halas is a brand new zone as well heck I spent over 2 hours on my lvl 90 exploring new halas. You cant expect a new player to know where every single update is instantly. Smokejumper hasnt played eq2 since 2004. You act as though he should summon his 65% run speed mount from his claim window, pop open eq2i.com and runthrough a brand new zone like he has done it for the 100th time. </blockquote>You must be caught up in the other arguments to say all that.Even playing as much like a newb as possible including walking every part of the isle and trying to finish every single collection and quest on the isle and reading everything, the isle should take no more than 3 hours. After that you head to Freeport, do your 10 minute racial, get led to the other zones and hopefully get advised to avoid The Ruins, head out to CL, run by Wailing Caves and Neriak and unless you are absolutely lost play games at all, your total time spent is about 6 hours from 1-20. The difference between Freeport and all the other starters with that extra time is you actually get led to places to group in. My statement isn't about how Smokejumpmer is playing, it's that the content doesn't give a new player the full game experience to include heading ito the city in a reasonable time frame. Every other starter effectively forces you to the city in at most 2 hours of play. He shouldn't be able to actively play for 5 hours and not be led into the city and run through housing and such.

Rijacki

05-06-2010, 11:49 AM

<cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote> Even the tradeskill collection items are more logically laid out so that you can intuitively figure out where to go to get items.</blockquote>What are "tradeskill collection items"?You could be referring to the red shinies you can only see if you have the Earring of the Solstice (which requires level 80 in a craft -and- a quest given in the Fens which involves something crafted by each crafting class), but NO new character would have that starting near Halas.You could be referring to harvest items, but those aren't "collection items", they're harvests that can be used in tradeskilling, not that any NPC ever tells you that except maybe the tradeskill tutor which is only in the City and you'll likely not reach him/her until you get close to level 20 in adventuring following the Halas quests and definately not before level 10 unless you skip all new character quests and go direct to the city upon creation (which is something a new player wouldn't know to do).So.. what are you going to do with those "tradeskill collection items" that you can more intuitively figure out wher to go to get? Put them in the bank? why? starting from the new character area, you'd have no clue what you'd do with them (even though you get a big box to put into the bank to hold them). What about after you get on that raft and start following those quests? Why would you keep harvesting? what are they for? and, when your bag gets full, where are you going to put them? Go all the way back to where you started to stop at the bank there? (note: the Halas quests have you ring the island without actually getting to Halas until you've gone all the way 'round). Why would you go all the way back to the bank to drop of stuff you have no clue and no information how to use?How about the crafting books that start dropping at level 10. How are you going to use those? They all say level 10+. You'd be that level by then.. in adventuring.. but you can't scribe them. Why not? how can you learn tradeskilling to be able to use them? oh. You still don't have that information, you don't get that until you get to the city. Oh look this NPC will buy them and take the useless things out of your bag. That's handy. You don't have any other information on how to use them, so might as well sell them.Tradeskills have been, apparently, something available only to veteran players. It's considered to 'overwhelming' to even have someone in the new character area offer information about where to find a crafting tutor. Because you don't want anyone to feel they're "required" to do crafting, it's made the most difficult thing for a new player to discover.As a side note: there is never any introduction to the Broker either or how to sell to other players using that broker or even how to buy (or that you can use shift and control keys while buying to buy quantities instead of one by one by one.. I assume someone buying T9 poisons has leveled to 90, but many of my alchemists sales of those are one by one by one, even up to buying 25+ at a time).

Banditman

05-06-2010, 11:56 AM

I think he is referring to harvests, and I think what he means here is that wood is found near forests, rocks found near, well, rocks . . . that sort of thing. "Intuitive" locations for resources basically as opposed to simply strewn about the ground haphazardly.

Gungo

05-06-2010, 12:04 PM

<cite>Deson wrote:</cite><blockquote>You must be caught up in the other arguments to say all that.Even playing as much like a newb as possible including walking every part of the isle and trying to finish every single collection and quest on the isle and reading everything, the isle should take no more than 3 hours. After that you head to Freeport, do your 10 minute racial, get led to the other zones and hopefully get advised to avoid The Ruins, head out to CL, run by Wailing Caves and Neriak and unless you are absolutely lost play games at all, your total time spent is about 6 hours from 1-20. The difference between Freeport and all the other starters with that extra time is you actually get led to places to group in. My statement isn't about how Smokejumpmer is playing, it's that the content doesn't give a new player the full game experience to include heading ito the city in a reasonable time frame. Every other starter effectively forces you to the city in at most 2 hours of play. He shouldn't be able to actively play for 5 hours and not be led into the city and run through housing and such.</blockquote>Leveling history is completely public on eq2players. Look it up your self if needed. You can claim people are lying but facts>lies. Furthermore it takes significantly more time then 2 hours to get from timerous deep to gorowyn or from the nursery to kelethin as a newbie since you start on the other side of the island and have dozens of quests to do before you even set foot in gorowyn. I should know i had my neice playing the game for the first time last weekend.

Dareena

05-06-2010, 12:07 PM

<cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote>I've played Darklight Woods and Kelethin extensively now "as a newb".Halas rocks over those two, at the very least.The starter isle is very well laid out, the RP aspects are better than usual with interesting dialog responses, the rewards are good and...well...I loved Halas in EQ1, so this is very cool for me.I'm not speaking as a dev here. I had nothing to do with the creation/execution of Halas. I'm just speaking as a player.Yes, there are some rough edges to smooth out still, but in general, I'm having a much easier time understanding everything, the NPC dialogs and quests are more interesting, and the environment is well laid-out. Even the tradeskill collection items are more logically laid out so that you can intuitively figure out where to go to get items.I dig it, personally.(NOTE: I've worked my way around the island to the third NPC area now, but still haven't made it to Halas. I'm about 5 hours into it, trying to complete all quests.)</blockquote>Thank you for making the time and effort to both experience this new content. The response is appreciated. Back on page #4, I had made a post about how it feels like the EQ2 Devs often don't physically try to experience their content changes from a player perspective. While I personally don't have an issue with Halas, it did bother me that no one from SOE had chosen to comment about the new zone.I would love to see more of these kinds of posts. It would be even better if there were some kind of monthly column. Perhaps it could be simply called "EQ2: From My Point of View" or something like that. One of the things that has me more personally excited about other upcoming MMOs than EQ2 at this point is that these other developers let us inside their heads. Between the various interviews and officially released information on Bioware's site for their upcoming MMO, I've gotten a real feel for their design philosophies and how they view the MMO genre. To be honest, both this level of honesty and their points of view have really sold me on their upcoming game.Why can EQ2 have more Dev blog'ish posts like that? Let us know what you think about certain matters, but from a player's perspective. Zam does their various interviews, but the responses have always given me the impression that the Devs are talking in an official capacity and the answers have a kind of corportate'ese language tone to them. What I would like to see is a Dev sharing their own genuine thoughts about a matter while making it completely clear that they aren't representing the company in any way. Sort of like how dvd commentary tracks have the same disclaimers from the studios.

Gungo

05-06-2010, 12:08 PM

<cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote> Even the tradeskill collection items are more logically laid out so that you can intuitively figure out where to go to get items.</blockquote>What are "tradeskill collection items"?You could be referring to the red shinies you can only see if you have the Earring of the Solstice (which requires level 80 in a craft -and- a quest given in the Fens which involves something crafted by each crafting class), but NO new character would have that starting near Halas.You could be referring to harvest items, but those aren't "collection items", they're harvests that can be used in tradeskilling, not that any NPC ever tells you that except maybe the tradeskill tutor which is only in the City and you'll likely not reach him/her until you get close to level 20 in adventuring following the Halas quests and definately not before level 10 unless you skip all new character quests and go direct to the city upon creation (which is something a new player wouldn't know to do).So.. what are you going to do with those "tradeskill collection items" that you can more intuitively figure out wher to go to get? Put them in the bank? why? starting from the new character area, you'd have no clue what you'd do with them (even though you get a big box to put into the bank to hold them). What about after you get on that raft and start following those quests? Why would you keep harvesting? what are they for? and, when your bag gets full, where are you going to put them? Go all the way back to where you started to stop at the bank there? (note: the Halas quests have you ring the island without actually getting to Halas until you've gone all the way 'round). Why would you go all the way back to the bank to drop of stuff you have no clue and no information how to use?How about the crafting books that start dropping at level 10. How are you going to use those? They all say level 10+. You'd be that level by then.. in adventuring.. but you can't scribe them. Why not? how can you learn tradeskilling to be able to use them? oh. You still don't have that information, you don't get that until you get to the city. Oh look this NPC will buy them and take the useless things out of your bag. That's handy. You don't have any other information on how to use them, so might as well sell them.Tradeskills have been, apparently, something available only to veteran players. It's considered to 'overwhelming' to even have someone in the new character area offer information about where to find a crafting tutor. Because you don't want anyone to feel they're "required" to do crafting, it's made the most difficult thing for a new player to discover.As a side note: there is never any introduction to the Broker either or how to sell to other players using that broker or even how to buy (or that you can use shift and control keys while buying to buy quantities instead of one by one by one.. I assume someone buying T9 poisons has leveled to 90, but many of my alchemists sales of those are one by one by one, even up to buying 25+ at a time).</blockquote>Dont mind smokejumper he is a newb. He is referring to harvests and the fact they are more logically laid out such as rocks by rocks, etc. There is also a harvest quest npc as SOON as you make a new toon on the starting isle of new halas. Did people even play in new halas?

Deson

05-06-2010, 12:14 PM

<cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Deson wrote:</cite><blockquote>You must be caught up in the other arguments to say all that.Even playing as much like a newb as possible including walking every part of the isle and trying to finish every single collection and quest on the isle and reading everything, the isle should take no more than 3 hours. After that you head to Freeport, do your 10 minute racial, get led to the other zones and hopefully get advised to avoid The Ruins, head out to CL, run by Wailing Caves and Neriak and unless you are absolutely lost play games at all, your total time spent is about 6 hours from 1-20. The difference between Freeport and all the other starters with that extra time is you actually get led to places to group in. My statement isn't about how Smokejumpmer is playing, it's that the content doesn't give a new player the full game experience to include heading ito the city in a reasonable time frame. Every other starter effectively forces you to the city in at most 2 hours of play. He shouldn't be able to actively play for 5 hours and not be led into the city and run through housing and such.</blockquote>Leveling history is completely public on eq2players. Look it up your self if needed. You can claim people are lying but facts>speculations. Furthermore it takes significantly more time then 2 hours to get from timerous deep to gorowyn or from the nursery to kelethin as a newbie since you start on the other side of the island and have dozens of quests to do before you even set foot in gorowyn. I should know i had my neice playing the game for the first time last weekend. </blockquote>Leveling history only lists by what day, I looked and even tried comparing alts by unfortunately all my surviving alts were made on different days. Leveling history also doesn't take into account what else a person may be doing like speaking in chat channels to get a clue or afk for a few hours unexpectedly. Furthermore I've already stated how much I hate those zones and how they do the new player experience. It's bad design but at least before there were other options. If I'm actually going to be playing with someone else, I cannot in good conscience recomend any live zones except Freeport and Neriak. If I'm not going to be around, DLW is the best of the live starters. If the person has never played an MMO before, I'm hard pressed to not recommend Freeport because of the Isle. The person may hate me when trying to navigate the main city, but other than that, everything gets explained, the person gets led to group zones and the first 6-8 hours take him to actually different places.

Anestacia

05-06-2010, 12:14 PM

<cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote>Did people even play in new halas?</blockquote>No, and thats the problem. They are so stirred up over the islands being removed that they can't see that Halas is indeed a wonderful new player starting hub. Can they be convinced of that? Not a chance, but doesnt mean that they are right.

MoiraesFate

05-06-2010, 12:19 PM

The ONLY starter area that can be done in two hours is Kelethin and maybe Gorowyn. Get over it.Part of the fun of Everquest is the exploration. Yes, sometimes it gets frustrating to have to find stuff. But this IS beta, NOT live. That means that not everything is in the game or working the way its supposed to be. Last night I had two quests that I couldn't find no matter what I did until I exited the three holes near the bottom and noticed that there was a cave on an iceberg across the way and it turned out it was the Illboding Caves (or whatever). But so what.... exploration is part of the game.Get over it and stop trying to cater to the ADHD WoW people.

Gungo

05-06-2010, 12:20 PM

<cite>Deson wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Deson wrote:</cite><blockquote>You must be caught up in the other arguments to say all that.Even playing as much like a newb as possible including walking every part of the isle and trying to finish every single collection and quest on the isle and reading everything, the isle should take no more than 3 hours. After that you head to Freeport, do your 10 minute racial, get led to the other zones and hopefully get advised to avoid The Ruins, head out to CL, run by Wailing Caves and Neriak and unless you are absolutely lost play games at all, your total time spent is about 6 hours from 1-20. The difference between Freeport and all the other starters with that extra time is you actually get led to places to group in. My statement isn't about how Smokejumpmer is playing, it's that the content doesn't give a new player the full game experience to include heading ito the city in a reasonable time frame. Every other starter effectively forces you to the city in at most 2 hours of play. He shouldn't be able to actively play for 5 hours and not be led into the city and run through housing and such.</blockquote>Leveling history is completely public on eq2players. Look it up your self if needed. You can claim people are lying but facts>speculations. Furthermore it takes significantly more time then 2 hours to get from timerous deep to gorowyn or from the nursery to kelethin as a newbie since you start on the other side of the island and have dozens of quests to do before you even set foot in gorowyn. I should know i had my neice playing the game for the first time last weekend. </blockquote>Leveling history only lists by what day, I looked and even tried comparing alts by unfortunately all my surviving alts were made on different days. Leveling history also doesn't take into account what else a person may be doing like speaking in chat channels to get a clue or afk for a few hours unexpectedly. Furthermore I've already stated how much I hate those zones and how they do the new player experience. It's bad design but at least before there were other options. If I'm actually going to be playing with someone else, I cannot in good conscience recomend any live zones except Freeport and Neriak. If I'm not going to be around, DLW is the best of the live starters. If the person has never played an MMO before, I'm hard pressed to not recommend Freeport because of the Isle. The person may hate me when trying to navigate the main city, but other than that, everything gets explained, the person gets led to group zones and the first 6-8 hours take him to actually different places.</blockquote>Thats fine and the first thing i did was help my neice create a new toon and told her to make her new character in timerous deep. She enjoyed the game so much she brought her laptop over the next day and had me install it for her sunday. I didnt have to hold her hand or anything she found out everything she needed from the tutorial. I was downstairs the entire time laying new tiles. When the last time you recomended a friend to eq2 had them start on the isles? Is that person still playing?Also my leveling history clearly showed i started the day the game came out played all night and was still on the island the NEXT day. Way more then your 2 hour claim.

Deson

05-06-2010, 12:28 PM

<cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Deson wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Deson wrote:</cite><blockquote>You must be caught up in the other arguments to say all that.Even playing as much like a newb as possible including walking every part of the isle and trying to finish every single collection and quest on the isle and reading everything, the isle should take no more than 3 hours. After that you head to Freeport, do your 10 minute racial, get led to the other zones and hopefully get advised to avoid The Ruins, head out to CL, run by Wailing Caves and Neriak and unless you are absolutely lost play games at all, your total time spent is about 6 hours from 1-20. The difference between Freeport and all the other starters with that extra time is you actually get led to places to group in. My statement isn't about how Smokejumpmer is playing, it's that the content doesn't give a new player the full game experience to include heading ito the city in a reasonable time frame. Every other starter effectively forces you to the city in at most 2 hours of play. He shouldn't be able to actively play for 5 hours and not be led into the city and run through housing and such.</blockquote>Leveling history is completely public on eq2players. Look it up your self if needed. You can claim people are lying but facts>speculations. Furthermore it takes significantly more time then 2 hours to get from timerous deep to gorowyn or from the nursery to kelethin as a newbie since you start on the other side of the island and have dozens of quests to do before you even set foot in gorowyn. I should know i had my neice playing the game for the first time last weekend. </blockquote>Leveling history only lists by what day, I looked and even tried comparing alts by unfortunately all my surviving alts were made on different days. Leveling history also doesn't take into account what else a person may be doing like speaking in chat channels to get a clue or afk for a few hours unexpectedly. Furthermore I've already stated how much I hate those zones and how they do the new player experience. It's bad design but at least before there were other options. If I'm actually going to be playing with someone else, I cannot in good conscience recomend any live zones except Freeport and Neriak. If I'm not going to be around, DLW is the best of the live starters. If the person has never played an MMO before, I'm hard pressed to not recommend Freeport because of the Isle. The person may hate me when trying to navigate the main city, but other than that, everything gets explained, the person gets led to group zones and the first 6-8 hours take him to actually different places.</blockquote>Thats fine and the first thing i did was help my neice create a new toon and told her to make her new character in timerous deep. She enjoyed the game so much she brought her laptop over the next day and had me install it for her sunday. I didnt have to hold her hand or anything she found out everything she needed from the tutorial. I was downstairs the entire time laying new tiles. When the last time you recomended a friend to eq2 had them start on the isles? Is that person still playing?Also my leveling history clearly showed i started the day the game came out played all night and was still on the island the NEXT day. Way more then your 2 hour claim. </blockquote>You must be reading someone else before to responding to me.<cite>Deson wrote:</cite><blockquote>At launch it took me about 4 hours. Since the last revamp, never more than 2 hours to do everything. A huge amount of my early time wasted used to be trying to finish the collections.</blockquote>My leveling history (Deson, Lucan D'lere) has me on the island from November 10-11th. What it doesn't have though is my actually played time during that era or my alt (Deson, AB) that I played during that same time period or me still being an officer in my EQ1 guild during one of our rougher periods.Yes, the last person I recommended to play on the Isle was after Neriak had been released. That person still makes Freeport characters and starts there. I've recommended no one since RoK launch however, since the current game design direction overall is not something I can recommend to people who have not alredy invested themselves. That said, I've brought back a few vets but they don't count.You'll also note that I said if I wasn't going to be around, DLW was the best.

Kasar

05-06-2010, 12:32 PM

<cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote>Thats fine and the first thing i did was help my neice create a new toon and told her to make her new character in timerous deep. She enjoyed the game so much she brought her laptop over the next day and had me install it for her sunday. I didnt have to hold her hand or anything she found out everything she needed from the tutorial. I was downstairs the entire time laying new tiles. When the last time you recomended a friend to eq2 had them start on the isles? Is that person still playing?Also my leveling history clearly showed i started the day the game came out played all night and was still on the island the NEXT day. Way more then your 2 hour claim. </blockquote>Some people were on the isles for quite a while, I remember many "Hunter of Goblins" titles and people who'd acquired drops to fill every equipment slot, while still level locked at 8 I think it was.Is the Trial of the Isle being replaced? I ran into a couple of new people doing that, they'd assumed that was the entire game as could be expected.

Paddyo

05-06-2010, 02:44 PM

<cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Deson wrote:</cite>Thats fine and the first thing i did was help my neice create a new toon and told her to make her new character in timerous deep. She enjoyed the game so much she brought her laptop over the next day and had me install it for her sunday. I didnt have to hold her hand or anything she found out everything she needed from the tutorial. I was downstairs the entire time laying new tiles. When the last time you recomended a friend to eq2 had them start on the isles? Is that person still playing?Also my leveling history clearly showed i started the day the game came out played all night and was still on the island the NEXT day. Way more then your 2 hour claim. </blockquote>If you started the day the game came out, then you didn't start on the Isles that are in game now. Apples and Oranges. Not to mention lag, multiple isles... and your post reminds me of citizenship quests....if anyone cares to recall, there used to be a new player experience that walked you through choocing an archetype, a class, and then a subclass. You had things to do, missions to complete, in order to ultimately end up a templar or brigand or whatever. They removed all of that, and that's when Qeynos and Freeport became what it is today, because at THAT time it made more sense from an immersion standpoint of getting people into the game as their subclass right away.I can't speak for everyone else personally, but for me its the inability to roll an alt and roll straight outta Qeynos or Freeport. No argument about which starting area is best from me. I just want them to leave Qeynos and FP available as starting points.If the concern is funneling NEW accounts to the 4 starting cities that have a better newbie experience, then there are a couple of ways to handle this. 1) leave Freeport and Qeynos enabled, with a pop-up warning message that as starting cities they are intended for seasoned players who understand the new player experience, and that the other cities are more streamlined for a novice player.OR2) Simply require Freeport or Qeynos to be "unlocked" on a new account. It could be something as simple as once a new account steps into either/or Qeynos/Freeport for the first time they will get an option to start there. Or they could simply add a short quest line that explains to new accounts the back story of the Isles of Refuge and opens them up as starter cities after completion.

Sar

05-06-2010, 04:43 PM

Since when did we become experts on the new player? Most people posting here are not new players... the new players are actually playing because they have no expectations... think about that... they aren't rushing to the city housing because they don't know its the best in the game unless someone tells them... we aren't new players and we can't assume what new players 5 years later expect....

Calain80

05-06-2010, 04:48 PM

<cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote>Even the tradeskill collection items are more logically laid out so that you can intuitively figure out where to go to get items.</blockquote>1st thanks for posting. Just as it was bought up actually the placement of nodes makes sense on both versions of the Isle of Refuge. They did that when they revamped the zone. I actually have a char still on the Freeport isle as it is the best zone for harvesting T1. The T2 harvesting is not so good if you start in Freeport or Qeynos, but the isles themselves are great.

Sorvani

05-06-2010, 05:03 PM

<cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote>Even the tradeskill collection items are more logically laid out so that you can intuitively figure out where to go to get items.</blockquote>But what do you do with all of those harvests? Why do you keep harvesting them? The bank box quest on the first island is good, but then this aspect of the game is completely ignored until you are adventurer level 20 and in New Halas. It seems to me that the dev team is completely ignoring tradeskills for the new player experience.Domino did an awesome job for Sentinel's Fate, but if this is supposed to be the best new player experience, then the team has failed to include an entire section of the game.

Rijacki

05-06-2010, 06:19 PM

<cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote> Even the tradeskill collection items are more logically laid out so that you can intuitively figure out where to go to get items.</blockquote>What are "tradeskill collection items"?You could be referring to the red shinies you can only see if you have the Earring of the Solstice (which requires level 80 in a craft -and- a quest given in the Fens which involves something crafted by each crafting class), but NO new character would have that starting near Halas.You could be referring to harvest items, but those aren't "collection items", they're harvests that can be used in tradeskilling, not that any NPC ever tells you that except maybe the tradeskill tutor which is only in the City and you'll likely not reach him/her until you get close to level 20 in adventuring following the Halas quests and definately not before level 10 unless you skip all new character quests and go direct to the city upon creation (which is something a new player wouldn't know to do).So.. what are you going to do with those "tradeskill collection items" that you can more intuitively figure out wher to go to get? Put them in the bank? why? starting from the new character area, you'd have no clue what you'd do with them (even though you get a big box to put into the bank to hold them). What about after you get on that raft and start following those quests? Why would you keep harvesting? what are they for? and, when your bag gets full, where are you going to put them? Go all the way back to where you started to stop at the bank there? (note: the Halas quests have you ring the island without actually getting to Halas until you've gone all the way 'round). Why would you go all the way back to the bank to drop of stuff you have no clue and no information how to use?How about the crafting books that start dropping at level 10. How are you going to use those? They all say level 10+. You'd be that level by then.. in adventuring.. but you can't scribe them. Why not? how can you learn tradeskilling to be able to use them? oh. You still don't have that information, you don't get that until you get to the city. Oh look this NPC will buy them and take the useless things out of your bag. That's handy. You don't have any other information on how to use them, so might as well sell them.Tradeskills have been, apparently, something available only to veteran players. It's considered to 'overwhelming' to even have someone in the new character area offer information about where to find a crafting tutor. Because you don't want anyone to feel they're "required" to do crafting, it's made the most difficult thing for a new player to discover.As a side note: there is never any introduction to the Broker either or how to sell to other players using that broker or even how to buy (or that you can use shift and control keys while buying to buy quantities instead of one by one by one.. I assume someone buying T9 poisons has leveled to 90, but many of my alchemists sales of those are one by one by one, even up to buying 25+ at a time).</blockquote>Dont mind smokejumper he is a newb. He is referring to harvests and the fact they are more logically laid out such as rocks by rocks, etc. There is also a harvest quest npc as SOON as you make a new toon on the starting isle of new halas. Did people even play in new halas?</blockquote>Actually, the point IS that he's a newb and didn't get that fundamental information (i.e. that they're HARVESTS and used to make things in tradeskills and not collectibles).Yes, I started a new character on TEST and went through each of the quests. Yes, you can see a feather (what's that supposed to mean? if you're a NEW player, there is no information that feathers give quests) from the 2nd quest giver, the one you're sent to from the person you start right next to. There is only one quest giver "as SOON as you maka a new toon on the starting isle of new halas" and that one directs you to the one up a ways who then gives you a series of adventure quests. Did YOU even play in New Halas?So, you go over to that person with the feather and get a quest to pick up various items and even get a handy bag to put them in. As a reward, you get a box, that's a bit too heavy to carry with, I think, advice to put it in the bank. The banker is right next to him and does have a purpose tag saying banker, so that's kinda helpful. BUT at no time at all does the quest giver for the harvest collection say YOU can use the harvests in tradeskill or where you might learn about tradeskilling. I don't think he even says anything about there being different harvests in different areas and you have to get better skill to harvest in other areas (not positive, I'd have to read it again to see).BUT, the Outpost islands, Darklight Wood, Greater Faydark, and Timmorous Deep ALL have harvests related the location of the node. There is no starting area on Live which doesn't have that. Commonlands and Antonica don't, yes, but they're not -starting- zones.But the points remain, if the senior producer who is playing as a newb doesn't understand what a harvest is vs what a collection item is, that is a failing of the new player experience. If he doesn't have information FROM THE GAME about how to start in tradeskills (or what to do with his "tradeskill collection items"), that is also a failing of the new player experience. If, after playing "extensively" in Darklight Woods he thinks that New Halas is the first or only starting zone to have locative harvest nodes or that the Outposts don't, then somone is feeding him a bunch of....He IS a new player, so he should be given that information AS a new player IN the game.

Sorann

05-06-2010, 06:34 PM

<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" width="43" height="42" /> THIS IS DIRECTED AT THE ORIGINAL POSTER! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" width="44" height="44" /><img src="/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" width="25" height="23" /> I tried out New Halas and it was PERFECT! I have no idea how you can think it's not good for new players. It works the same as the other places in teaching new players. You have absolutely no idea how good this is. It's great! Now crawl back into your hole and be good. Thank you. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" width="24" height="22" />

Gungo

05-06-2010, 07:00 PM

<cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote> Even the tradeskill collection items are more logically laid out so that you can intuitively figure out where to go to get items.</blockquote>What are "tradeskill collection items"?You could be referring to the red shinies you can only see if you have the Earring of the Solstice (which requires level 80 in a craft -and- a quest given in the Fens which involves something crafted by each crafting class), but NO new character would have that starting near Halas.You could be referring to harvest items, but those aren't "collection items", they're harvests that can be used in tradeskilling, not that any NPC ever tells you that except maybe the tradeskill tutor which is only in the City and you'll likely not reach him/her until you get close to level 20 in adventuring following the Halas quests and definately not before level 10 unless you skip all new character quests and go direct to the city upon creation (which is something a new player wouldn't know to do).So.. what are you going to do with those "tradeskill collection items" that you can more intuitively figure out wher to go to get? Put them in the bank? why? starting from the new character area, you'd have no clue what you'd do with them (even though you get a big box to put into the bank to hold them). What about after you get on that raft and start following those quests? Why would you keep harvesting? what are they for? and, when your bag gets full, where are you going to put them? Go all the way back to where you started to stop at the bank there? (note: the Halas quests have you ring the island without actually getting to Halas until you've gone all the way 'round). Why would you go all the way back to the bank to drop of stuff you have no clue and no information how to use?How about the crafting books that start dropping at level 10. How are you going to use those? They all say level 10+. You'd be that level by then.. in adventuring.. but you can't scribe them. Why not? how can you learn tradeskilling to be able to use them? oh. You still don't have that information, you don't get that until you get to the city. Oh look this NPC will buy them and take the useless things out of your bag. That's handy. You don't have any other information on how to use them, so might as well sell them.Tradeskills have been, apparently, something available only to veteran players. It's considered to 'overwhelming' to even have someone in the new character area offer information about where to find a crafting tutor. Because you don't want anyone to feel they're "required" to do crafting, it's made the most difficult thing for a new player to discover.As a side note: there is never any introduction to the Broker either or how to sell to other players using that broker or even how to buy (or that you can use shift and control keys while buying to buy quantities instead of one by one by one.. I assume someone buying T9 poisons has leveled to 90, but many of my alchemists sales of those are one by one by one, even up to buying 25+ at a time).</blockquote>Dont mind smokejumper he is a newb. He is referring to harvests and the fact they are more logically laid out such as rocks by rocks, etc. There is also a harvest quest npc as SOON as you make a new toon on the starting isle of new halas. Did people even play in new halas?</blockquote>Actually, the point IS that he's a newb and didn't get that fundamental information (i.e. that they're HARVESTS and used to make things in tradeskills and not collectibles).Yes, I started a new character on TEST and went through each of the quests. Yes, you can see a feather (what's that supposed to mean? if you're a NEW player, there is no information that feathers give quests) from the 2nd quest giver, the one you're sent to from the person you start right next to. There is only one quest giver "as SOON as you maka a new toon on the starting isle of new halas" and that one directs you to the one up a ways who then gives you a series of adventure quests. Did YOU even play in New Halas?So, you go over to that person with the feather and get a quest to pick up various items and even get a handy bag to put them in. As a reward, you get a box, that's a bit too heavy to carry with, I think, advice to put it in the bank. The banker is right next to him and does have a purpose tag saying banker, so that's kinda helpful. BUT at no time at all does the quest giver for the harvest collection say YOU can use the harvests in tradeskill or where you might learn about tradeskilling. I don't think he even says anything about there being different harvests in different areas and you have to get better skill to harvest in other areas (not positive, I'd have to read it again to see).BUT, the Outpost islands, Darklight Wood, Greater Faydark, and Timmorous Deep ALL have harvests related the location of the node. There is no starting area on Live which doesn't have that. Commonlands and Antonica don't, yes, but they're not -starting- zones.But the points remain, if the senior producer who is playing as a newb doesn't understand what a harvest is vs what a collection item is, that is a failing of the new player experience. If he doesn't have information FROM THE GAME about how to start in tradeskills (or what to do with his "tradeskill collection items"), that is also a failing of the new player experience. If, after playing "extensively" in Darklight Woods he thinks that New Halas is the first or only starting zone to have locative harvest nodes or that the Outposts don't, then somone is feeding him a bunch of....He IS a new player, so he should be given that information AS a new player IN the game.</blockquote>terminology and knowing what an item does are 2 separate things. You seem to act as though he had no idea what harvests items are used for. Its obvious he does since he mentioned tradeskilling prior. But it suits your point so you end up fabricating a story to fit your needs. Btw the game DOES tell you what the feather is for. It is told to you with the purple popup boxes when you create a new character. Its obvious you either turned them off or dont read them. There may be one for harvests i dont recall. But it is not hard to create a new character and check. Most of the stuff you mentioned ARE in game.

Alenna

05-06-2010, 07:14 PM

<cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>shaunfletcher wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Kasar wrote:</cite><blockquote>Remember how much fun it was to figure out the city layouts and where things were? Me neither, it's not happening if not necessary. The cities are dead post-guildhalls </blockquote>I cannot agree in any way. NONE of the new cities are comparable to the two real cities in either quality (art wise the wooden houses in halas are the first thing to come close for years) or scope, in fact none of the new cities are cities at all, just villages. Halas is barely bigger than one of the qeynos suburbs and has no more buildings and essentially the same facilities as, say, willow wood.They make good STARTER cities, being compact and in one zone so simpler to navigate for a noob, but people absolutely should be led to the two metropoli for their long term settlement. The devs do seem to realise this much anyway with talk of high level content hubs in the two big cities, and witht he higher level guild halls being only there (as they should be)And I just never ever see these 'dead' cities of yours. I log into North Qeynos and always, absolutely always, day or night, there are people there. This is not true at all of the other cities, especially gorowyn but also kelethin (I never go to neriak so I cant comment on that) Its right now the middle of the night in the US, I just logged in on our not particularly busy server and the first thing I saw was 2 players running past me. Its not like it was pre guildhalls but its not what you say it is either.</blockquote>People are discussing 2 separate things the main cities and the starter isles. The main cities are NOT going anywhere. The starter isles are being removed. Now compare halas to the starter isles and there is no comparison New Halas is much larger. </blockquote>Why should someone have to go to 2 ambassadors to become a citizen of NQ or Freeport since from the beginning they were the main cities? it is not only the starter islands being removed but the right to choose to start your toon as a NQ or Freeport citizen.

Gungo

05-06-2010, 07:23 PM

<cite>Alenna@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>shaunfletcher wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Kasar wrote:</cite><blockquote>Remember how much fun it was to figure out the city layouts and where things were? Me neither, it's not happening if not necessary. The cities are dead post-guildhalls </blockquote>I cannot agree in any way. NONE of the new cities are comparable to the two real cities in either quality (art wise the wooden houses in halas are the first thing to come close for years) or scope, in fact none of the new cities are cities at all, just villages. Halas is barely bigger than one of the qeynos suburbs and has no more buildings and essentially the same facilities as, say, willow wood.They make good STARTER cities, being compact and in one zone so simpler to navigate for a noob, but people absolutely should be led to the two metropoli for their long term settlement. The devs do seem to realise this much anyway with talk of high level content hubs in the two big cities, and witht he higher level guild halls being only there (as they should be)And I just never ever see these 'dead' cities of yours. I log into North Qeynos and always, absolutely always, day or night, there are people there. This is not true at all of the other cities, especially gorowyn but also kelethin (I never go to neriak so I cant comment on that) Its right now the middle of the night in the US, I just logged in on our not particularly busy server and the first thing I saw was 2 players running past me. Its not like it was pre guildhalls but its not what you say it is either.</blockquote>People are discussing 2 separate things the main cities and the starter isles. The main cities are NOT going anywhere. The starter isles are being removed. Now compare halas to the starter isles and there is no comparison New Halas is much larger. </blockquote>and with the starter Island the right to choose to start in the main cities Gungo why should someone have to go to 2 ambassadors to become a citizen of NQ or Freeport since from the beginning they were the main cities?</blockquote>You do realize you had to go to the boat captain to become a citizen of either city before? You always had to hail the captain before you ended up a citizen. On the isles we started off w NO faction, no citizenship. This was why i was able to bug the game and used the coveteran item to go to the queens colony and hail the boat captain and max out my qeynos faction and become a citizen of qeynos as a bruiser. The difference now is you hail the boat captain(ambassador) in halas who sends you to Qeynos to hail the boat captain (ambassador) there.

Alenna

05-06-2010, 07:29 PM

<cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Alenna@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>shaunfletcher wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Kasar wrote:</cite><blockquote>Remember how much fun it was to figure out the city layouts and where things were? Me neither, it's not happening if not necessary. The cities are dead post-guildhalls </blockquote>I cannot agree in any way. NONE of the new cities are comparable to the two real cities in either quality (art wise the wooden houses in halas are the first thing to come close for years) or scope, in fact none of the new cities are cities at all, just villages. Halas is barely bigger than one of the qeynos suburbs and has no more buildings and essentially the same facilities as, say, willow wood.They make good STARTER cities, being compact and in one zone so simpler to navigate for a noob, but people absolutely should be led to the two metropoli for their long term settlement. The devs do seem to realise this much anyway with talk of high level content hubs in the two big cities, and witht he higher level guild halls being only there (as they should be)And I just never ever see these 'dead' cities of yours. I log into North Qeynos and always, absolutely always, day or night, there are people there. This is not true at all of the other cities, especially gorowyn but also kelethin (I never go to neriak so I cant comment on that) Its right now the middle of the night in the US, I just logged in on our not particularly busy server and the first thing I saw was 2 players running past me. Its not like it was pre guildhalls but its not what you say it is either.</blockquote>People are discussing 2 separate things the main cities and the starter isles. The main cities are NOT going anywhere. The starter isles are being removed. Now compare halas to the starter isles and there is no comparison New Halas is much larger. </blockquote>and with the starter Island the right to choose to start in the main cities Gungo why should someone have to go to 2 ambassadors to become a citizen of NQ or Freeport since from the beginning they were the main cities?</blockquote>You do realize you had to go to the boat captain to become a citizen of either city before? You always had to hail the captain before you ended up a citizen. On the isles we started off w NO faction, no citizenship. This was why i was able to bug the game and used the coveteran item to go to the queens colony and hail the boat captain and max out my qeynos faction and become a citizen of qeynos as a bruiser. The difference now is you hail the boat captain(ambassador) in halas who sends you to Qeynos to hail the boat captain (ambassador) there. </blockquote>actually for me it is a big difference from when I started the game I came in a few months before RoK and had the choice of kelethin or NQ citizenship to start as so yes this is a big difference then my experience I am NOT ALLOWED to choose to be a NQ or Freeport Citizen from day one as I was before.

Vortexelemental

05-06-2010, 08:19 PM

<cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Alenna@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>shaunfletcher wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Kasar wrote:</cite><blockquote>Remember how much fun it was to figure out the city layouts and where things were? Me neither, it's not happening if not necessary. The cities are dead post-guildhalls </blockquote>I cannot agree in any way. NONE of the new cities are comparable to the two real cities in either quality (art wise the wooden houses in halas are the first thing to come close for years) or scope, in fact none of the new cities are cities at all, just villages. Halas is barely bigger than one of the qeynos suburbs and has no more buildings and essentially the same facilities as, say, willow wood.They make good STARTER cities, being compact and in one zone so simpler to navigate for a noob, but people absolutely should be led to the two metropoli for their long term settlement. The devs do seem to realise this much anyway with talk of high level content hubs in the two big cities, and witht he higher level guild halls being only there (as they should be)And I just never ever see these 'dead' cities of yours. I log into North Qeynos and always, absolutely always, day or night, there are people there. This is not true at all of the other cities, especially gorowyn but also kelethin (I never go to neriak so I cant comment on that) Its right now the middle of the night in the US, I just logged in on our not particularly busy server and the first thing I saw was 2 players running past me. Its not like it was pre guildhalls but its not what you say it is either.</blockquote>People are discussing 2 separate things the main cities and the starter isles. The main cities are NOT going anywhere. The starter isles are being removed. Now compare halas to the starter isles and there is no comparison New Halas is much larger. </blockquote>and with the starter Island the right to choose to start in the main cities Gungo why should someone have to go to 2 ambassadors to become a citizen of NQ or Freeport since from the beginning they were the main cities?</blockquote>You do realize you had to go to the boat captain to become a citizen of either city before? You always had to hail the captain before you ended up a citizen. On the isles we started off w NO faction, no citizenship. This was why i was able to bug the game and used the coveteran item to go to the queens colony and hail the boat captain and max out my qeynos faction and become a citizen of qeynos as a bruiser. The difference now is you hail the boat captain(ambassador) in halas who sends you to Qeynos to hail the boat captain (ambassador) there. </blockquote>Why do you keep arguing about that point? No one even cares about the semantics of the situation in which it happens it's the entire unnecessary step in general.

SmokeJumper

05-06-2010, 09:50 PM

lol @ all you guys giving me grief over semantics.Okay, okay...you're correct. Just because you collect items for tradeskills doesn't make them collectibles. I was just using the word as a verb, not a noun. 'Twas an unfortunate choice of verbage. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Yes, I was speaking about the harvest items, to be clear.

SmokeJumper

05-06-2010, 09:53 PM

Hmmm...I made a post earlier, but I must have timed out my forum login and it didn't take. So I'll repeat what I tried to say earlier.Basically, the reason I played for five hours last night without getting to Halas yet was because a) I'm reading everything pretty carefully, b) I'm taking time to talk to other players, c) I spent time gathering items for tradeskills to ensure there were plenty of them around in logical places, and d) I'm trying to complete every available quest (again, for feedback reasons).So yeah, it would be easy to rip through the area faster than I've been doing...but I wasn't trying to do that. I don't think the amount of time is an issue here. I've been enjoying the pace.

Gungo

05-06-2010, 10:00 PM

<cite>Vortexelemental@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote>Why do you keep arguing about that point? No one even cares about the semantics of the situation in which it happens it's the entire unnecessary step in general.</blockquote>Because the semantics are the same except for in your head. You are lying and using false facts for reasons why the isles should be kept. You may think lying, being obnoxiosu with large fonts, and harassing people who dont agree with you will get your point across but the fact is it only makes people disregard your posts. You NEVER started off as a citizen of qeynos/freeport arguing that you did is just another lie.

Gungo

05-06-2010, 10:01 PM

<cite>Alenna@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>actually for me it is a big difference from when I started the game I came in a few months before RoK and had the choice of kelethin or NQ citizenship to start as so yes this is a big difference then my experience I am NOT ALLOWED to choose to be a NQ or Freeport Citizen from day one as I was before.</blockquote>You NEVER were a freeport citizen from day 1..... NEVER

Guy De Alsace

05-06-2010, 10:12 PM

<cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Alenna@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>actually for me it is a big difference from when I started the game I came in a few months before RoK and had the choice of kelethin or NQ citizenship to start as so yes this is a big difference then my experience I am NOT ALLOWED to choose to be a NQ or Freeport Citizen from day one as I was before.</blockquote>You NEVER were a freeport citizen from day 1..... NEVER</blockquote>Personally I'm at a loss as to understand what this has to do with anything really. As it stands you could exist the entire time in-game without ever visiting about or knowing about the Isles of Refuge if you so wish. It impinges on your gameplay in no way whatsoever.So why remove it? Its like objecting to some ugly sculpture thats nowhere near where you live or care about simply because...well, I really dont know tbh.Fair dues if you dont like it. Its not everyone's cup of tea. However calling for its removal when you never need to go there is just being awkward for the sake of it.Plenty of people find the Isles just as good now as they have always been. Me included. I dont ask for removal of your favourite starting areas I've never been interested in anyway so why should you so vehemently argue that mine should be removed?Removal of content is never a good thing. Removal of choice is never a good thing.Well, this is turning into a copy of the other thread so thats my last 2p on this.

Hanokh2010

05-06-2010, 10:23 PM

<cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote>lol @ all you guys giving me grief over semantics.Okay, okay...you're correct. Just because you collect items for tradeskills doesn't make them collectibles. I was just using the word as a verb, not a noun. 'Twas an unfortunate choice of verbage. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />Yes, I was speaking about the harvest items, to be clear.</blockquote>I don't think semantics are funny.Brenlo said "moving away from" and what he really meant to say was "deleting". Semantics matter.Unfortunately, SmokeJumper says nothing.

Vortexelemental

05-06-2010, 10:35 PM

<cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Vortexelemental@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote>Why do you keep arguing about that point? No one even cares about the semantics of the situation in which it happens it's the entire unnecessary step in general.</blockquote>Because the semantics are the same except for in your head. You are lying and using false facts for reasons why the isles should be kept. You may think lying, being obnoxiosu with large fonts, and harassing people who dont agree with you will get your point across but the fact is it only makes people disregard your posts. You NEVER started off as a citizen of qeynos/freeport arguing that you did is just another lie. </blockquote>Seriously? You're the only one who keeps going on and on about totally unrelated and unnecessary tangents...Honestly you are harassing me with all of the comments...I never cared about that alignment thing ever, so not sure what it has to do with anything.

Rijacki

05-06-2010, 10:48 PM

<cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote>terminology and knowing what an item does are 2 separate things. You seem to act as though he had no idea what harvests items are used for. Its obvious he does since he mentioned tradeskilling prior. But it suits your point so you end up fabricating a story to fit your needs. Btw the game DOES tell you what the feather is for. It is told to you with the purple popup boxes when you create a new character. Its obvious you either turned them off or dont read them. There may be one for harvests i dont recall. But it is not hard to create a new character and check. Most of the stuff you mentioned ARE in game. </blockquote>Does he know because there is in-game information BEFORE getting to the city or because he has people on staff to tell him. I'm not fabricating anything at all. I am also not reading into things further than what's really there. (Yes, I know he was talking about harvests, but since it's easy for a newb to get jumbled, case in point him, then there could/should be more clarity).Have you actually really started a new character recently and read any of the boxes yourself? There is no information about feathers. Feathers were added AFTER the boxes were put in the game as part of the Outpost revamp.There also isn't anything from the starting NPC about looking for the purple and gold boxes. I have a large screen, they can pile up a lot and I can easily miss them (and there is a limit, I think, to the max number with the oldest ones 'scolling' off) and I'm sure my computer setup is not that terribly abnormal (it's not even bleeding edge of technology.. last upgrade was over a year ago).However, there isn't any mention about HOW to start in tradeskills (or even really that the new player can) in any quest dialog or purple box until you reach the city and find the tradeskill tutor who is tucked off to the side somewhere (in New Halas near the housing, but in Neriak as far from the beaten path as you can get). The harvest/collections tutor who gives you the harvest quest does mention that harvests can be used by tradeskillers but no mention at all of HOW to start tradeskilling yourself or who to talk to for more information about it.How about some screenshots to prove I know what I'm talking about? sure.. here you go.First Purple box:<img src="http://www.eq2alchemy.com/rijacki/SS/Halas/startHalasBox.png" />The next three talk about you starting with a book in your inventory you can place in a house.So, where is that collectible/harvesting quest standing right next to where you start?<img src="http://www.eq2alchemy.com/rijacki/SS/Halas/startHalas.png" />Right.. in that boat section to the right, up the hill, behind where this halfling will send you to talk to someone else.What are harvests?<img src="http://www.eq2alchemy.com/rijacki/SS/Halas/harvestquest1.png" /><img src="http://www.eq2alchemy.com/rijacki/SS/Halas/harvestquest_TS.png" />trades or sold to OTHER players. But this is as close as you get to a mention of tradeskilling even being a part of the game, in the starting area.When you first run out of food or drink, you will get a purple box which tells you that you can buy from an NPC or another player. It doesn't say anything about the option for YOU to become a provisioner and make them yourself. It doesn't even say another player can make them, just that you can buy them from another player or NPC.So are you still going to claim I am fabricating things? or are you misremembering?The Original island quests DID involve tradeskilling. The Outposts had an NPC standing there telling you -something- about tradeskilling and then a place you could enter to do tradeskills (sans the really nicely done tradeskill tutorial which is only available in the cities).Could the harvest quest NPC be improved by adding "If you are interested, you can learn more about how to get started in tradeskilling yourself from the tradeskill tutor in the city."

Vortexelemental

05-06-2010, 11:35 PM

<cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Really good Explanation but too long to quote.</cite></blockquote>I totally agree.I also wish we could do that quest again with the guy in the tower, it was fun going in there and being told to tidy up the place and move items.

GrunEQ

05-07-2010, 01:54 AM

<cite>Vortexelemental@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote>I also wish we could do that quest again with the guy in the tower, it was fun going in there and being told to tidy up the place and move items.</blockquote>I had forgotten that part. So it also taught you how to move items around in your future house.Besides the Harvesting NPC not talking about you being able to tradeskill, he also did not take about the broker and how to buy and sell on it. I also think the combat NPC is too far away from the 3 opponants that you can fight to see how you rate dps-wise. He's under the ship hull and they are outside. Would be nice if he was outside with them, and you were directed by an NPC to talk to him.

Rijacki

05-07-2010, 02:02 AM

<cite>GrunEQ wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Vortexelemental@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote>I also wish we could do that quest again with the guy in the tower, it was fun going in there and being told to tidy up the place and move items.</blockquote>I had forgotten that part. So it also taught you how to move items around in your future house.Besides the Harvesting NPC not talking about you being able to tradeskill, he also did not take about the broker and how to buy and sell on it. I also think the combat NPC is too far away from the 3 opponants that you can fight to see how you rate dps-wise. He's under the ship hull and they are outside. Would be nice if he was outside with them, and you were directed by an NPC to talk to him.</blockquote>Yes. There doesn't need to be a -quest- to talk to him, just an NPC that you do have a quest with telling you to talk to him if you need help.. say, for example, if the quest giver who gives you the first combat quest, if that quest giver could also say, "if you want to learn a bit about combat before taking on the [whatever those were called], talk to [combat tutor], he's standing [location description.. i.e. behind the boat] and can give you tips on how to fight." Then, someone who is a vet can ignore him and someone who truly is a new player knows where to go to learn more.It's not about forcing a particular path or "dumbing it down", it should be about making information available AND telling the new player where they can find that information. The starting area and beginning quests are the User Guide for the game. Everything you need to start in the game and do well should have its seeds there.

Armawk

05-07-2010, 02:05 AM

You know what this game COULD stand to take from another game (or maybe more like reintroduce)? Class training quests.. the ones in conan are superb.Genuine new players would appreciate them enormously.. just a sequence of tasks given by a person of your class and specifically targetted at your abilities.

Rijacki

05-07-2010, 02:11 AM

<cite>shaunfletcher wrote:</cite><blockquote>You know what this game COULD stand to take from another game (or maybe more like reintroduce)? Class training quests.. the ones in conan are superb.Genuine new players would appreciate them enormously.. just a sequence of tasks given by a person of your class and specifically targetted at your abilities.</blockquote>I truly miss the original EQ2 class and sub-class quests.

Armawk

05-07-2010, 02:33 AM

<cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>shaunfletcher wrote:</cite><blockquote>You know what this game COULD stand to take from another game (or maybe more like reintroduce)? Class training quests.. the ones in conan are superb.Genuine new players would appreciate them enormously.. just a sequence of tasks given by a person of your class and specifically targetted at your abilities.</blockquote>I truly miss the original EQ2 class and sub-class quests.</blockquote>Me and my partner likewise. That was a sad sad loss.

Vortexelemental

05-07-2010, 02:49 AM

<cite>shaunfletcher wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>shaunfletcher wrote:</cite><blockquote>You know what this game COULD stand to take from another game (or maybe more like reintroduce)? Class training quests.. the ones in conan are superb.Genuine new players would appreciate them enormously.. just a sequence of tasks given by a person of your class and specifically targetted at your abilities.</blockquote>I truly miss the original EQ2 class and sub-class quests.</blockquote>Me and my partner likewise. That was a sad sad loss.</blockquote>I never actually understood the point of removing them...I mean making them optional was simple enough why remove them?

Guy De Alsace

05-07-2010, 06:48 AM

AFAIK there's no explanation what ANY of your items do. I'm not sure if there is one anywhere in the game either. By explanation I mean what does "Potency" do? "Ability Modifier"? Or what the adornment slot is for - which there is a white slot on items from day one now. Its unlikely a player will see the more specialised abilities till later but there's bound to be a couple of items with unexplained stuff on them.No explanation what your transmute skill does or how its supposed to work either. There's no explanation what tinkering does. Both available from toon-start. Maybe they are around but I've not seen the NPC yet.

Gungo

05-07-2010, 10:07 AM

<cite>Vortexelemental@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Vortexelemental@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote>Why do you keep arguing about that point? No one even cares about the semantics of the situation in which it happens it's the entire unnecessary step in general.</blockquote>Because the semantics are the same except for in your head. You are lying and using false facts for reasons why the isles should be kept. You may think lying, being obnoxiosu with large fonts, and harassing people who dont agree with you will get your point across but the fact is it only makes people disregard your posts. You NEVER started off as a citizen of qeynos/freeport arguing that you did is just another lie. </blockquote>Seriously? You're the only one who keeps going on and on about totally unrelated and unnecessary tangents...Honestly you are harassing me with all of the comments...I never cared about that alignment thing ever, so not sure what it has to do with anything.</blockquote>How in the world do you even think I am harassing you. When you were the one who quoted me first in this thread rehashing the same conversation from prior. Honestly you are just a delusional troll at this point.

Gungo

05-07-2010, 10:16 AM

<cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote>terminology and knowing what an item does are 2 separate things. You seem to act as though he had no idea what harvests items are used for. Its obvious he does since he mentioned tradeskilling prior. But it suits your point so you end up fabricating a story to fit your needs. Btw the game DOES tell you what the feather is for. It is told to you with the purple popup boxes when you create a new character. Its obvious you either turned them off or dont read them. There may be one for harvests i dont recall. But it is not hard to create a new character and check. Most of the stuff you mentioned ARE in game. </blockquote>Does he know because there is in-game information BEFORE getting to the city or because he has people on staff to tell him. I'm not fabricating anything at all. I am also not reading into things further than what's really there. (Yes, I know he was talking about harvests, but since it's easy for a newb to get jumbled, case in point him, then there could/should be more clarity).Have you actually really started a new character recently and read any of the boxes yourself? There is no information about feathers. Feathers were added AFTER the boxes were put in the game as part of the Outpost revamp.There also isn't anything from the starting NPC about looking for the purple and gold boxes. I have a large screen, they can pile up a lot and I can easily miss them (and there is a limit, I think, to the max number with the oldest ones 'scolling' off) and I'm sure my computer setup is not that terribly abnormal (it's not even bleeding edge of technology.. last upgrade was over a year ago).However, there isn't any mention about HOW to start in tradeskills (or even really that the new player can) in any quest dialog or purple box until you reach the city and find the tradeskill tutor who is tucked off to the side somewhere (in New Halas near the housing, but in Neriak as far from the beaten path as you can get). The harvest/collections tutor who gives you the harvest quest does mention that harvests can be used by tradeskillers but no mention at all of HOW to start tradeskilling yourself or who to talk to for more information about it.How about some screenshots to prove I know what I'm talking about? sure.. here you go.First Purple box:<img src="http://www.eq2alchemy.com/rijacki/SS/Halas/startHalasBox.png" />The next three talk about you starting with a book in your inventory you can place in a house.So, where is that collectible/harvesting quest standing right next to where you start?<img src="http://www.eq2alchemy.com/rijacki/SS/Halas/startHalas.png" />Right.. in that boat section to the right, up the hill, behind where this halfling will send you to talk to someone else.What are harvests?<img src="http://www.eq2alchemy.com/rijacki/SS/Halas/harvestquest1.png" /><img src="http://www.eq2alchemy.com/rijacki/SS/Halas/harvestquest_TS.png" />trades or sold to OTHER players. But this is as close as you get to a mention of tradeskilling even being a part of the game, in the starting area.When you first run out of food or drink, you will get a purple box which tells you that you can buy from an NPC or another player. It doesn't say anything about the option for YOU to become a provisioner and make them yourself. It doesn't even say another player can make them, just that you can buy them from another player or NPC.So are you still going to claim I am fabricating things? or are you misremembering?The Original island quests DID involve tradeskilling. The Outposts had an NPC standing there telling you -something- about tradeskilling and then a place you could enter to do tradeskills (sans the really nicely done tradeskill tutorial which is only available in the cities).Could the harvest quest NPC be improved by adding "If you are interested, you can learn more about how to get started in tradeskilling yourself from the tradeskill tutor in the city."</blockquote>Honestly you proved my point. I honestly dont know what tangent you are trying to change your point to now (it seems you are clamoring about the monet you start the game there is not an NPC jumping out at you telling you how to tradeskill when that was NOT your original quote). Orignally you said there as NO tutorial on what HARVESTS were used for. I said there is one as soon as you start the game and questioned if you even tried new halas. You clearly provided the harvest guide. Which Clearly states you can use harvests in tradeskills. If you think he should provide additional details on how to sell harvests or how to tradekill or to talk to someone else to learn how to tradeskill you should feedback it. But the fact remains there IS an npc detailing what a HARVEST is and what it is used for (in example tradeskilling). Also smokejumper likely already knew what harvests were for because he played eq2 during its developement and already knew what they were for (or he could of read the harvest tutorial npc) so he didnt need anyone to tell him what they were for and hold his hand while he played eq2. As he said before you are attacking him based on semantics.The npc you qouted clearly details what HARVESTING skills are for and why you need to increase them. Furthermore it was located right when a new character starts JUST like i said. Whereas you claimed it didnt originally.<cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote> Even the tradeskill collection items are more logically laid out so that you can intuitively figure out where to go to get items.</blockquote>What are "tradeskill collection items"?You could be referring to harvest items, but those aren't "collection items", they're harvests that can be used in tradeskilling, not that any NPC ever tells you that except maybe the tradeskill tutor which is only in the City and you'll likely not reach him/her until you get close to level 20 in adventuring following the Halas quests and definately not before level 10 unless you skip all new character quests and go direct to the city upon creation (which is something a new player wouldn't know to do).</blockquote>Of course you are correct the npc could say to meet the tradeskill npc in halas. You might want to /feedback that instead of crying on the boards.Finally there is a purple box indicating what a feather is for and what the red book is for and if by some reason you intentionally missed it. You could open up the help window to look it up.

Rijacki

05-07-2010, 12:20 PM

<cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote>Honestly you proved my point. I honestly dont know what tangent you are trying to change your point to now (it seems you are clamoring about the monet you start the game there is not an NPC jumping out at you telling you how to tradeskill when that was NOT your original quote). Orignally you said there as NO tutorial on what HARVESTS were used for. I said there is one as soon as you start the game and questioned if you even tried new halas. You clearly provided the harvest guide. Which Clearly states you can use harvests in tradeskills. If you think he should provide additional details on how to sell harvests or how to tradekill or to talk to someone else to learn how to tradeskill you should feedback it. But the fact remains there IS an npc detailing what a HARVEST is and what it is used for (in example tradeskilling). Also smokejumper likely already knew what harvests were for because he played eq2 during its developement and already knew what they were for (or he could of read the harvest tutorial npc) so he didnt need anyone to tell him what they were for and hold his hand while he played eq2. As he said before you are attacking him based on semantics.The npc you qouted clearly details what HARVESTING skills are for and why you need to increase them. Furthermore it was located right when a new character starts JUST like i said. Whereas you claimed it didnt originally.<cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote> Even the tradeskill collection items are more logically laid out so that you can intuitively figure out where to go to get items.</blockquote>What are "tradeskill collection items"?You could be referring to harvest items, but those aren't "collection items", they're harvests that can be used in tradeskilling, not that any NPC ever tells you that except maybe the tradeskill tutor which is only in the City and you'll likely not reach him/her until you get close to level 20 in adventuring following the Halas quests and definately not before level 10 unless you skip all new character quests and go direct to the city upon creation (which is something a new player wouldn't know to do).</blockquote>Of course you are correct the npc could say to meet the tradeskill npc in halas. You might want to /feedback that instead of crying on the boards.Finally there is a purple box indicating what a feather is for and what the red book is for and if by some reason you intentionally missed it. You could open up the help window to look it up. </blockquote>-I- never said there wasn't a harvest/collections tutorial, but that there is no direction to go to him/her. I could screen shot the view from the 2nd quest giver. Yes, the harvest/collections tutor has a quest feather but there is NO information that you can have more than one quest active at a time (many games you can't) or even what feathers are for. Really, there is NO purple box about them. The HELP topics were written later than the tutorial ones -and- have been updated more frequently. Do you click on the Help often? Where's the help button? Look at your screen like a new player. Where is the help button? You have been playing a while, you do know where it is.The harvest/collection tutor is the only mention of tradeskills (which is what I said) but it never says YOU can take it up, does it. Read it. Does it? Does it give any indication where you can start them or learn more?Feedback it, yes, I have. I went through the entire Halas new character / new player experience and took notes the entire way. I also directly feedbacked it giveing suggestions for improvements. You're the one attacking everyone for saying that the new player experience could be improved and enhanced with small additions.Am I upset tradeskills is marginalised and being further and further removed as a "side" activity without any importance except as a time/money sink for -vet- players? yes. I've been upset about it for years. Even though there have been improvements to the tradeskill -process- and more things to do for players who tradeskill, the presence of tradeskills in the game has continued to be marginalised.Citing new Halas as a superior starting area citing things present in the other 5 areas and ignoring the things absent from the Islands is nothing short of disappointing to me. It's not that I am hanging on to the Islands, I would rather the things that were good about the Islands got translasted and propogated not only to New Halas but to the other 3 areas and then close the tutorial islands when there truly is something better for the new player experience, not just more refined graphics.

Sar

05-07-2010, 12:27 PM

Maybe those of us who played EQ1 will appreciate Halas more... I loved going on test and getting that feeling back from the first game... and I was in awe seeing the Coldain dwarfs... It brought back Velious and all its glory! I can't wait.

Vortexelemental

05-07-2010, 12:45 PM

<cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote>yadda yadda<cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote> Even the tradeskill collection items are more logically laid out so that you can intuitively figure out where to go to get items.</blockquote>What are "tradeskill collection items"?You could be referring to harvest items, but those aren't "collection items", they're harvests that can be used in tradeskilling, not that any NPC ever tells you that except maybe the tradeskill tutor which is only in the City and you'll likely not reach him/her until you get close to level 20 in adventuring following the Halas quests and definately not before level 10 unless you skip all new character quests and go direct to the city upon creation (which is something a new player wouldn't know to do).</blockquote>blah</blockquote>-I- never said there wasn't a harvest/collections tutorial, but that there is no direction to go to him/her. I could screen shot the view from the 2nd quest giver. Yes, the harvest/collections tutor has a quest feather but there is NO information that you can have more than one quest active at a time (many games you can't) or even what feathers are for. Really, there is NO purple box about them. The HELP topics were written later than the tutorial ones -and- have been updated more frequently. Do you click on the Help often? Where's the help button? Look at your screen like a new player. Where is the help button? You have been playing a while, you do know where it is.The harvest/collection tutor is the only mention of tradeskills (which is what I said) but it never says YOU can take it up, does it. Read it. Does it? Does it give any indication where you can start them or learn more?Feedback it, yes, I have. I went through the entire Halas new character / new player experience and took notes the entire way. I also directly feedbacked it giveing suggestions for improvements. You're the one attacking everyone for saying that the new player experience could be improved and enhanced with small additions.Am I upset tradeskills is marginalised and being further and further removed as a "side" activity without any importance except as a time/money sink for -vet- players? yes. I've been upset about it for years. Even though there have been improvements to the tradeskill -process- and more things to do for players who tradeskill, the presence of tradeskills in the game has continued to be marginalised.Citing new Halas as a superior starting area citing things present in the other 5 areas and ignoring the things absent from the Islands is nothing short of disappointing to me. It's not that I am hanging on to the Islands, I would rather the things that were good about the Islands got translasted and propogated not only to New Halas but to the other 3 areas and then close the tutorial islands when there truly is something better for the new player experience, not just more refined graphics.</blockquote>I totally agree Rijacki, I wouldn't be so upset about the islands going away if it was justified. I have yet to see proof that this the touted, ULTIMATE NEWBIE ZONE, like the article claims it to be, if anything it's very subpar. The original Isle of Refuge was a better tutorial than anything we currently have anyways.

GrunEQ

05-07-2010, 03:41 PM

<cite>Vortexelemental@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>shaunfletcher wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>shaunfletcher wrote:</cite><blockquote>You know what this game COULD stand to take from another game (or maybe more like reintroduce)? Class training quests.. the ones in conan are superb.Genuine new players would appreciate them enormously.. just a sequence of tasks given by a person of your class and specifically targetted at your abilities.</blockquote>I truly miss the original EQ2 class and sub-class quests.</blockquote>Me and my partner likewise. That was a sad sad loss.</blockquote>I never actually understood the point of removing them...I mean making them optional was simple enough why remove them?</blockquote>I don't miss those sub-levels at all. I was happy when we started out as our class from the begining. Being so restricted for 20 levels just wasn't fun. Of course, this is just my take. Class training sounds good.

Megavolt

05-07-2010, 04:57 PM

<cite>Sorann@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><img src="/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" width="43" height="42" /> THIS IS DIRECTED AT THE ORIGINAL POSTER! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" width="44" height="44" /><img src="/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" width="25" height="23" /> I tried out New Halas and it was PERFECT! I have no idea how you can think it's not good for new players. It works the same as the other places in teaching new players. You have absolutely no idea how good this is. It's great! Now crawl back into your hole and be good. Thank you. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" width="24" height="22" /></blockquote><img src="/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" width="44" height="44" /> THIS IS DIRECTED AT THIS REPLY! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" width="43" height="42" /> <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" width="25" height="23" /> I'm happy you think it's PERFECT! If you have no idea how I can think it's not good for new players, you must not be able to read more than a sentence at a time, because in my original post I gave a few reasons why I think as it was last week when I tried it why it wasn't good as a starter are, but I'll rehash the biggest reasons for you in big red letters so you can read them since you think that's the only way posts will be seen <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" width="25" height="23" /> <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" width="44" height="44" /> No tradeskilling until 20 levels after start<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" width="44" height="44" /> Lack of quest rewards pertaining to played class/doubling of quest rewards.<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" width="44" height="44" /> Many quest updates have to be stumbled upon by wandering/unclear locations given in quest. Some are closer to the next quest area than they are the original quest area.<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" width="44" height="44" /> Quest areas are in a sprawl that have to be wandered upon, no paths directing you from one to the next. except for ferry between first and second<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" width="44" height="44" /> New Halas itself feels more like a large refugee camp than a city.Now do you understand? And for those saying we should /feedback and stop complaining on the boards, I did /feedback and alot of it. But I was under the impression this was a public feedback area since the name of this forum is IN TESTING FEEDBACK.

Guy De Alsace

05-07-2010, 05:46 PM

Now its just getting silly. SOE wont listen, which is a shame but I guess you just have to move on. From what I've seen of Halas I grudgingly quite like it so far.Lets just hope content removal stops at the Isles. I'd quit if Antonica or Commonlands went next.

Kendricke

05-07-2010, 06:44 PM

Domino

05-17-2010, 07:12 PM

<cite>Brickfist wrote:</cite><blockquote>No tradeskilling until 20 levels after startNew Halas itself feels more like a large refugee camp than a city.</blockquote>A brief reply NOT in big red text ... I won't comment on the adventure quests, but the first tradeskill tutorial quest (Learning to Harvest) is available just a couple of meters from where new characters start. There is also now a small quest from Bull the Mender which is offered once the harvesting tutorial is complete, which has you craft your first item, and then points you to the tutorial questgivers in the city itself so that you won't miss them when you enter the city.In addition to this, the zone was carefully designed so that there is a safe shortcut directly from the ferry to New Halas city itself, so that if you do want to go straight to the city (for example, if you're already familiar with the area and just creating an alt, or if you only want to tradeskill) you can go straight in instead of around.As for New Halas feeling like a refugee camp ... well, it's a city that didn't even exist a year ago, and is only here due to divine intervention. Mithaniel may have created the shrine to his sister and had his father sweep a Far Seas ship off course to "discover" the new isle, but he didn't build a whole new city, that's something that the residents and pilgrims are doing now they are arriving. So yes, of course it doesn't feel as established a city as Qeynos. The residents of New Halas are hard at work building their new home and making it feel like a city, but it'll be a long time before it has all the luxuries that a city hundreds of years old can boast. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Jesdyr

05-17-2010, 07:42 PM

<cite>DominoDev wrote:</cite><blockquote>In addition to this, the zone was carefully designed so that there is a safe shortcut directly from the ferry to New Halas city itself, so that if you do want to go straight to the city (for example, if you're already familiar with the area and just creating an alt, or if you only want to tradeskill) you can go straight in instead of around.</blockquote>I was able to take the long way around as a lvl 2 (disco) without any problem. I actually had a hard time figuring out where halas was and was just running around looking for it.

TniEradani

05-19-2010, 11:01 AM

<cite>Guy De Alsace wrote:</cite><blockquote>Now its just getting silly. SOE wont listen, which is a shame but I guess you just have to move on. From what I've seen of Halas I grudgingly quite like it so far.Lets just hope content removal stops at the Isles. I'd quit if Antonica or Commonlands went next.</blockquote>This is just what they're doing on the PvP servers with their 10 lvl pvp range and zergfest warfields - ((( They claim nobody uses it (funny how I lvl'd my new main to 21 on pvp xp only (mostly in Ant and CL) if there was nobody there but me) and at the same time are removing our AA restriction of lvl * 1.5 and I wonder where all those extra AAs are going to be found now.Don't get me wrong: I love PvP and could never stay interested in a game that didn't have it, but I kinda like to do stuff when it's level appropriate and, therefore, seemingly challenging. Questing at 10 and being killed by 20s just doesn't seem anything but impossible.I'm just sad for what they're taking away from this game. It used to rock and every change they make for the new ppl they hope to attract is counter-acted by some other change that makes things more difficult for them.Back on topic: Starting in Halas made me cry...It made me cry too. I found it boring and totally dislike the linearity of the questlines and zone.

MoiraesFate

05-19-2010, 02:03 PM

<cite>DominoDev wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Brickfist wrote:</cite><blockquote>No tradeskilling until 20 levels after startNew Halas itself feels more like a large refugee camp than a city.</blockquote>A brief reply NOT in big red text ... I won't comment on the adventure quests, but the first tradeskill tutorial quest (Learning to Harvest) is available just a couple of meters from where new characters start. There is also now a small quest from Bull the Mender which is offered once the harvesting tutorial is complete, which has you craft your first item, and then points you to the tutorial questgivers in the city itself so that you won't miss them when you enter the city.In addition to this, the zone was carefully designed so that there is a safe shortcut directly from the ferry to New Halas city itself, so that if you do want to go straight to the city (for example, if you're already familiar with the area and just creating an alt, or if you only want to tradeskill) you can go straight in instead of around.As for New Halas feeling like a refugee camp ... well, it's a city that didn't even exist a year ago, and is only here due to divine intervention. Mithaniel may have created the shrine to his sister and had his father sweep a Far Seas ship off course to "discover" the new isle, but he didn't build a whole new city, that's something that the residents and pilgrims are doing now they are arriving. So yes, of course it doesn't feel as established a city as Qeynos. The residents of New Halas are hard at work building their new home and making it feel like a city, but it'll be a long time before it has all the luxuries that a city hundreds of years old can boast. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Everything you just said is what I already figured which is why I don't have a problem with it. I think some people on here just want to complain about everything. Domino, I love this area. The quests, the feeling of the area, and the city are all wonderful and I fully intend to start a new character in Halas as soon as it goes live. I'm also going to bring my good characters over to Halas to play there. The few complainers don't represent all of us. I just wanted to let you know that.As for the feeling that this feels like a refugee camp... you can tell which people on these forums have never even been to the mountains, much less lived there. To those people, I say, its a glacier with mountains. There are no sprawling populated areas in these areas on the planet, no matter how big the city. There are certain limitations, especially with a new city, that MUST be lived by. Honestly, try to be reasonable. What you are seeing in Halas makes sense if you've ever been in the mountains anywhere in the world. ALL cities look rather like this in the mountains, even the ones that are tourist destinations.Oh and to the person that said there's no direction on where to go to learn more about tradeskilling... yes there is. After you finish your first tradeskilling quest at the beginning, it says to go talk to the tradeskill people in Halas. Just like every other area of the game says. You really need to chill out.

GrunEQ

05-19-2010, 06:07 PM

I ran a new toon thru New Halas last night and it has improved a lot. I was particularly impressed with the mender starting you out on a tradeskill. There are now more explainations, and directions. If a newbie uses the Map, I'm pretty sure they might be able to find the entrance to city if they wished, even though there is no direction to that entrance. I also like that the newbie quests get you geared up, and house items to boot. Still found I was pretty poor at level 10, with less than a gold. Thank goodness I know about the Mara harvesting cloak quests. However, as a strick newbie, I would not know about making money that way. If you could find a way to put a little more currency into the newbies pockets, I think that would help the experience.

Brook

05-19-2010, 06:53 PM

You know whats missing from the zone that would help people tremendously..Paths... Its snow, when people walk through it shouldn't there be a path from the footprints?This would help guide players which direction the main path to the city is. The islands made good use of the main path setup where you could tell the most used path through the zone had footprints and the grass didn't grow there. Halas has no path to show any sense of direction.

MoiraesFate

05-20-2010, 01:29 PM

<cite>Brook wrote:</cite><blockquote>You know whats missing from the zone that would help people tremendously..Paths... Its snow, when people walk through it shouldn't there be a path from the footprints?This would help guide players which direction the main path to the city is. The islands made good use of the main path setup where you could tell the most used path through the zone had footprints and the grass didn't grow there. Halas has no path to show any sense of direction.</blockquote>Now thats a great idea. Snow always has paths when people have walked through. Can you add this devs? Or at least signage telling you where to go?

SisterTheresa

05-20-2010, 02:31 PM

I have made characters in each starting area in the last few years.I have liked the starting isles (been playing in Beta and even remember the boat) though I did feel the lack of a quest to go and meet all the trainers is lacking. Heck I play free MMOs now that at LEAST have that part in them! And yes, the small squares that are your new "tutorial" stink really. Half the time you can't click on them because your UI window is covering them ... and as a new player I'm sure many don't know how to move UI parts.I really am not so hyped up about New Halas as I was when it was first annouced. I checked it out on Test and was underwhelmed. For a place where spanking new people start ... bad choice.I would suggest Neriak if you are evil/neutral starting race. Good side? Eh you're screwed unless you betray from there to New Halas. Kelethin area is a nightmare even to this old player.

JAEnox

05-24-2010, 12:51 AM

<cite>DominoDev wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Brickfist wrote:</cite><blockquote>No tradeskilling until 20 levels after startNew Halas itself feels more like a large refugee camp than a city.</blockquote>A brief reply NOT in big red text ... I won't comment on the adventure quests, but the first tradeskill tutorial quest (Learning to Harvest) is available just a couple of meters from where new characters start. There is also now a small quest from Bull the Mender which is offered once the harvesting tutorial is complete, which has you craft your first item, and then points you to the tutorial questgivers in the city itself so that you won't miss them when you enter the city.In addition to this, the zone was carefully designed so that there is a safe shortcut directly from the ferry to New Halas city itself, so that if you do want to go straight to the city (for example, if you're already familiar with the area and just creating an alt, or if you only want to tradeskill) you can go straight in instead of around.As for New Halas feeling like a refugee camp ... well, it's a city that didn't even exist a year ago, and is only here due to divine intervention. Mithaniel may have created the shrine to his sister and had his father sweep a Far Seas ship off course to "discover" the new isle, but he didn't build a whole new city, that's something that the residents and pilgrims are doing now they are arriving. So yes, of course it doesn't feel as established a city as Qeynos. The residents of New Halas are hard at work building their new home and making it feel like a city, but it'll be a long time before it has all the luxuries that a city hundreds of years old can boast. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>The runspeed item that the mender has one make is too powerful of a runspeed boost for a level 5, "free" item. A race with 5% runspeed racial, a green cloak, and this item is running at 47% speed at level 5 and 52% at level 10 with 5 AA. Why even have Selo's in the game, or SoW, or Blood of the Wolf, or AA, or in game mounts, or the new $25 mounts on Station Cash? (Run) Speed has been de-valued enough already without this item.Domino, the quest text for "If I Had A Hammer" sends you to the "bank and housing" area to look for the tradeskill area. The bank is on the other side of the city, as far away from the housing (and tradeskill) area that one can go! I wasted a lot of time running in circles around the bank. If I hadn't read the quest text, I might have actually found the area more quickly.The zone is not "carefully designed"--New Halas is difficult to find for a player new to the area, the city is poorly laid out with many buildings full of NPC's with no purpose. The buildings with purposeful NPC's are so small and cramped that there is room for only one PC at a time. The mailbox is hidden, the housing and tradeskill area is hidden, the docks and griffon are hidden, and the scout's guild is hidden. All but one fishing node is invisible from the shore along the coast by the raft. It is quicker to swim across the water, rather than wait for the raft.What city that is hundreds of years old? With the removal of the Isles, one can level from 1 to 90 without ever entering Qeynos. How will someone new starting in New Halas even know that Qeynos exists?

bks6721

05-24-2010, 04:47 PM

I was saving my last character slot on live sever for New Halas. I created a test_copy toon in New Halas. I played it to level 10 before I found a path to New Halas. I looked around, checked out the housing. Then I logged back into my live server account an filled my last chat slot with another Isle of Refuge character.It seemed to me that TD has 3x the number of quests as New Halas starting area, better gear, more logical zone layout.So as usual, my new character zoned to Qeynos at level ONE, made his way to my guild hall to get his recall spell. After obtaining a few bags, off to TD to do the newbie quests. My last 6 alts all used that route.When creating an ALT, getting to my guild hall within a couple minutes of creation is important to me. I don't want to quest for hours with a 10 slot newbie backpack before I get to town.back when I started in 2005 this was my FIRST MMO ever. I played on Isle of Refuge for 3 nights. I never wandered around lost in a huge zone looking for mobs or hidden items. Everything was compact and easy to figure out. I had Hunter of titles for Goblin and Undead by the time I left. I was a level 9 artisan, thanks to the original quests that are no longer there. Even on my low population server there was always someone on Isle of Refuge every single time I created an alt there.I've seen guilds have a guild recruiter on the Isle that help out new folks. There are a milion reasons to leave the starter isles in game and no good reason to remove them.

Guillard

05-25-2010, 01:55 PM

Look, just one more I-cannot-powerlevel-anymore thread. /clap

Guillard

05-25-2010, 01:57 PM

Look, just one more I-cannot-powerlevel-anymore thread. /clap

Wilderbeast25

05-25-2010, 02:02 PM

<cite>Guillard wrote:</cite><blockquote>Look, just one more I-cannot-powerlevel-anymore thread. /clap</blockquote>What are you talking about?

Lera

05-25-2010, 04:00 PM

<cite>Bella@Najena wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Guillard wrote:</cite><blockquote>Look, just one more I-cannot-powerlevel-anymore thread. /clap</blockquote>What are you talking about?</blockquote>The same thing he's talking about in the big giant 67-page thread on the isles - nothing that has a point to it.If getting to level 10 on the isles with the current (super-fast) low-level XP progression is powerleveling, then we're all powerlevelers.

Guillard

05-25-2010, 08:32 PM

<cite>JAEnox wrote:</cite><blockquote>With the removal of the Isles, one can level from 1 to 90 without ever entering Qeynos. How will someone new starting in New Halas even know that Qeynos exists?</blockquote>If they haven't, they shouldn't. So you basically say that the progression is so rubbish so you have not to visit your faction capital ever? Then it's not a starting zone problem.As for the capitals themselves, no-one visits them probably because there 1 loading door at each 3 meters. Seriously, can you name any MMO (except AoC) which has zoning in 2010?

Lera

05-25-2010, 08:57 PM

<cite>Guillard wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>JAEnox wrote:</cite><blockquote>With the removal of the Isles, one can level from 1 to 90 without ever entering Qeynos. How will someone new starting in New Halas even know that Qeynos exists?</blockquote>If they haven't, they shouldn't. So you basically say that the progression is so rubbish so you have not to visit your faction capital ever? Then it's not a starting zone problem.As for the capitals themselves, no-one visits them probably because there 1 loading door at each 3 meters. Seriously, can you name any MMO (except AoC) which has zoning in 2010?</blockquote>No one visits Qeynos and Freeport because of guildhalls, but the point about not having to go to Qeynos and Freeport stands - besides, Qeynos and New Halas are separate factions.Eliminating zones would likely make them have to rebuild the entire engine, and they might as well just make EQ3 if they're going to do that. And with the travel system the way it's been for a while, getting anywhere usually requires no more than 2 or 3 zones. Saying EQ2's a 2010 MMO is ridiculous - it's a 2005 game that people still play, and it's silly to expect it to be just a like a game that's released now.

Kain-UK

05-25-2010, 11:03 PM

I have to say, I wasn't very impressed with New Halas as a starting area.I made a character on Test and tried to play it as a mostly new player. Obviously I can't be a completely new player due to knowing how the game works. With that in mind, I personally found the following good and bad points (and these are just my opinion as a player):The Good.<ul><li>Quests seemed to be fairly well laid out.</li><li>Levelling was quick (though this was probably due to the Test server bonus XP).</li><li>Gear rewarded was mostly appropriate for my class (Paladin).</li><li>Coin rewards seemed very reasonable.</li><li>Seemed to be a decent amount of lore behind the quests.</li><li>The housing is fantastic! All the amenities and tradeskill area right outside the Guild Hall and housing is also a very nice touch.</li></ul>The Bad.<ul><li>A minimum of 10 house items in my bags before the questline actually TOOK me to New Halas (yes I know I could've gone there earlier. A new player likely wouldn't know this).</li><li>No major tradeskilling until you get into the city proper. You have a brief tutorial that gives you a box (which is too heavy to be used in your inventory and will -only- hold harvests), a harvests-only bag and a decent charm slot item. Getting into crafting in a major way I would've expected before I hit Tier 3.</li><li>Some doubling up of quest rewards, which was a little irritating when I'd already chosen the one item that was useful for my class.</li><li>No major explination of what's going off with Qeynos, Kelethin, Gorowyn, Neriak or Freeport.</li><li>The dock is hidden out of the way, and the NPC who sends you off to Butcherblock Mountains doesn't exactly give you decent directions to find it, thus meaning post-20 levelling could be irritating.</li><li>No backpacks as rewards. Thankfully you can buy the 8 slot vendor bags... but if you're collecting shinies, harvesting AND saving the god-knows how many house items that you're given as a quest reward, you'll fill your bags and bank pretty quick. Would be nice to see a couple of backpacks as alternatives to house items.</li><li>There are quests in New Halas to stock up on food, but none for drink. Why is mana regen less important than health? Instead of giving us [Removed for Content] near 20 food items to use (and I guarantee a character will out-level it before they use it all), how about 10 food and 10 drink? (5 per quest, 4 quests) Or a choice? I'd rather have taken drink than food as a Paladin as I can just heal myself.</li></ul>As I said, this is just my opinion... but I likely will not be starting a character in New Halas. I will be running it with alts for the AA, but that's about it.