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I would like to have a discussion about how EFU can improve on player retention. By this I mean that new players (surprisingly!) daily try out EFU, but many end up not returning. This is to be expected, and is entirely understandable - EFU genuinely isn't to everyone's tastes, and NWN is an old game.

That said, I think a lot of these players really would enjoy EFU a LOT (we have so much neat content that isn't immediately obvious or accessible) if they were to stick around.

Do you believe there's anything EFU can do to improve its "new player" friendliness?

Do you have any ideas for new content for how to "hook" new players?

Are you a player that briefly tried EFU, couldn't get into it, and didn't come back? Would you like to describe your experience?

One of my theories is that to try out a place like EFU can be so overwhemling, that you really need a guide. I'd like to encourage/support the development of some kind of OOC situation where a new player is matched up with an active/veteran player. The veteran can show them around, help out their PC, and involve them in their story. They can explain what's up both IC and OOC. I'd be very happy to support this kind of situation and put additional effort to send some nice content that way.

What do you guys think?

One other thing I'd emphasize, though, is that actually we don't need to aggressively recruit every single new player out there. What I'm really interested in are creative, mature, fun players who would add to our world. I wouldn't want to "dilute" the quality of EFU's playerbase/RP by aggressively recruiting gamers who would do better in a MMORPG. So any ideas for how to get the "right" kind of new player is worth discussing.

I like the idea of matching up new/old players together. Maybe have veteran players post concepts they're currently playing in a specific area and list OOC/IC ways a new player could get involved.

I've guided a few new players who've stuck about a bit, as I'm sure most of us have too by now. It's a really steep learning curve for some who aren't used to such a hardcore environment. I tried bringing someone here too but she got bored of the rp :( Which admittedly from what she experienced was either dialogue or quest gathering. I'll ask her for a formal reply I can make on her behalf to this thread but for most people it's just a big change to get used to all at once, and very harsh if you don't click with it right away. When I first started efu I found it frustrating and sometimes felt like I had to force myself to tough through it but I had ooc suppourt from Thomas (Thanks for recruiting me!) so ended up staying, and once I got my hands on it things worked out well and I started to understand the server and learn how to become part of it.

Matching up new players and volunteering old players with a Big Brother/Big Sister-type program sounds like the best thing to do. I myself have tried to encourage people from my old server to come and try this place out, and I think they found themselves frustrated that they didn't have anyone to hang out with outside of myself, and I was often on at different times from them.

Another idea is something that's already being done - that is, preludes. They're a great way to get players who are new involved with EfU's story and thus get them invested. Although I had already played my first character by then, the Ill Companions prelude that I took part in with others helped me to get a better understanding of the story and made me think about just how I could contribute to that story.

I have an idea for a prelude that I'm going to run in the near future (matching it up with a quest for active PCs also), however in my experience most preludes are just veteran players with alts and they don't end up logging them on again.

But if there are a group of new players out there who would enjoy a prelude in terms of coming to EFU, feel free to get in touch with me.

I actually really like the idea of pairing up veteran player volunteers with new players who are seeking guidance.  I think this will really help the new player understand all that EFU has to offer.

Perhaps there could be something added in the initial OOC area after character creation where a new player can be made aware that there's a lot to EFU, and if they'd like a "mentor" of sorts, they can send word on the forum/wherever is appropriate and a pairing can be made.  Then a veteran volunteer can be selected to pair up with them.  I like the idea of trying to work them into new plots, etc, so the new player can see how enjoyable really good RP/plot development is, as well as questing, etc.

Great suggestion IMO!

Well...

I come from a strong MUD (text based RPG) experience, where everything regarding interactions can be much more alien than we are already in EFU.

In one of them we got something really special and interesting that might be of great enjoyment for us old and new: a Tourism Service Guild (or something related to that). Old, helpful or more experienced players would apply for being part of it and they would be responsible for many things, including initial guidance of new arrivals, promotion of events related to them (including the giving, collecting, controlling and delivering of loot for the newbies) and the like. This guild/ faction got minor powers close to the ones usually only DMs have and also some facilities into offering material for the growth of newcomers. Another thing is that all the players would have on this faction some direction to look at when not so interesting loot came by their hands or when they wanted a group engaged into promoting interesting events (like gathering quests, puzzle solving, story tale contest and other related creativity stuff).

To sum up to it, every single guild of the game had some kind of sage instructed to offer guidance to the ones initiating on the path of the guild, meaning that whenever you'd start something, you would have someone busy and interested into being helpful.

EDITION:

I should mention that I fell in love with our summon system the first time I tried it. And that the preludes and starting areas are something that I just adore. Maybe we could have more optional beginnings, for more flavorful backgrounds... small areas put together to give the player the prologue of the setting. The current is just perfect. Huge starting areas usually are scary for people trying to get into the mood.

Another thing that should be put focus upon: LOTS OF LITTLE DM INTERACTIONS. It is so freaking cool to see the NPCs coming alive due to DM's action, the smaller it is. And you guys do it awesomely. New arrivals maybe would love to see it, as a signal of DM presence and as a signal that the server is pretty much alive and active.

The biggest barrier to retention is the requisite of inside knowledge in order to excel. Once you know about the starter quests you can do quite well for yourself, once you have a firm grasp of mechanics you're free to pursue even weak concepts. How to counter this without providing meta-game information is something I'm uncertain about, but something i've always felt servers should have is a "Skill List" that explains how certain skills might be useful or what they should focus on. For example:

HEAL is used for medicinal herbs, which run a d20+ modifier check against a dc. How much you score over the DC, -10, is the amount you're healed by, at a rate of 1 hp per round (2 hp if you have SKILL FOCUS: HEAL). Being in combat or taking actions increases the difficulty to -20.

CRAFT skills are not used, and are covered by In Game Systems

TUMBLE might be useful for providing boosts to climbing!

It's a good idea to have BALANCED stats, since EFU has many systems in place that can benefit from these!

DM's do take diplomacy skills into account during RP, even if they don't ask for a roll!

Etc and so forth.

That, and providing players with some form of contextual examples of how they can genuinely and seriously matter to the world even at level 2, and the 360 degrees of freedom they have in shaping the metaplot and the course of Dunwarren. It's a little hard to wrap your head around the fact that EFU is almost a sandbox. Understanding the tools available to them and how to get those tools from DM's so both sides can have fun is paramount.

Quote from: Inquisitor;354575Maybe have veteran players post concepts they're currently playing in a specific area and list OOC/IC ways a new player could get involved.

This is a good idea. It does happen already, in the 'Introduction to Groups...' thread, though emphasising it more with a readiness to accept new players could be helpful.

In my time helping new players sink their fangs into the server, I have found involving them in-character and setting an example has had good results. Things like involving them in the alchemy/herbalism [which unfortunately right now, is almost inaccessible to new blood due to a lack of an in-game tutorial process/documentation] crafting systems and other common activities they could potentially pursue on their own.

Quote from: granny;354581Well...
In one of them we got something really special and interesting that might be of great enjoyment for us old and new: a Tourism Service Guild (or something related to that).

Old, helpful or more experienced players would apply for being part of it and they would be responsible for many things, including initial guidance of new arrivals, promotion of events related to them (including the giving, collecting, controlling and delivering of loot for the newbies) and the like.

There's some merit to this actually... maybe we could incorporate it into the courier's functions...

The Civil Service is supposed to do a bit of this, I know for a fact. I showed people around on my previous PC, who was a Civil Servant.

Honestly I'd say the biggest issue about retaining PCs is the fact that at times and depending on timezone, EFU as a PW on the whole is a fairly massive scale. There are times where it feels like nothing is going on, ever, at all, and other times when there's so much stuff going on you can't even get your head around it.

My advice would be for people to be more active and open about their PC plots. A lot of things do require "Secrecy" but it's such a big issue that two people will be in the middle of some whispered conversation and instead of "Hey you, stranger, want to make some coin running this message/errand/task/etc for us?" it's usually "...Go away, I'm talking".

Utilizing anyone, not even new players but just newer people to Sanctuary as a whole will help both existing PCs get their feet on the ground moving forward as well as welcome new people to EFU and all the PC-plots, the conflict, the strife, and all the great stuff that keeps people around.

More PC factions, more recruitment efforts, more agenda pushing, the works.

I think part of player retention issue may start with first impressions in the OOC room.

It's been six or so years since I've done the NwN RP thing. I found the beginning OOC room to be a little daunting as a rusty veteran; I could imagine it being even more so for someone unfamiliar to the setting and style of play that occurs here.

There is a lot of information poured into those large tomes, and it is definitely needed. There's a mix of mechanical changes, setting info, etc. I think it's brilliant having a scripted check on deities, a place to tailor your starting outfit, etc. The issue I found was that it was all jammed into a single place and a bit unguided. It's great to compact as much as possible, but I felt some sensory overload.

It would take time, energy, and resources, but my suggestion would be to reassess the area and perhaps break it into two or three open-concept rooms, each with specific content. i.e. a room marked for information about the setting and mechanical changes, starting gear/deities/disfiguration. All this leading to the IC portals.

The suggestions already given on IG ways to get people involved are quite viable, and it'd be good to see. I'm still working my way back into the setting and at times I do feel the server seems barren in the main Upper areas. I'll login with 20+ people in and see maybe four to six. I do not fault anyone for this as the server is huge and there are many places to be and plot. I plan to and will get more involved with player plots because I know how to go about it, but someone new may not know that players should try and do something with other players besides quest.

I'm sure I'll have something more substantial later on to add to this, but I just wanted to mention one thing I have noticed lately.

We have had a lot of newer players (if that's just young players or new to NWN/EFU, hard to say sometimes)...and I have noticed a lot of more seasoned played have become increasingly unsympathetic to being inclusive to people that are not either optimised, supplied, or they are sure know what they are doing.

I've been guilty of this in the past when I go through the square and pass by the vacant stares of afk players (who tend to be newer players who just can't find anything to do). As players I really feel we could do a better job about being a little more inclusive when we see those newer players. Be it questing, or just emoting a little to them and trying to make them feel like they are part of a world and not just a MMORPG server where they are now bored because they did all the solo quests.

Maybe this is simply a side effect of the increased difficulty, lowered supplies and much smaller reward levels for success on quests making people intolerant of people who may not know all the tricks and techniques to every quest.

Maybe there is some way DM's or scripting could encourage this inclusiveness, I don't know.

The one thing that bothered me with the server when I first joined was its difficulty. Fresh off the boat and with no idea how things worked, I walked right into a Well quest because some guy with an axe walked up to me and said there was trouble afoot.

This quest was then spiced and I died several times as a starter character, on top of getting robbed by some dude who I can't remember that looted my pack while I was dead. If it weren't for friends inviting me onto this server, I probably would've just left.

Maybe a warning of EFU's difficulty would be beneficial, maybe somewhere in the quest journal? Mention how magic weapon is necessary on a variety of enemies that don't regularly require it in stock NWN, how enemies have not been scaled to a player's level and that there is a random factor in what spawns?

oh... and update the initial site with all the nasty stuff in a meaningful and organized way!

this was one of the things that most helped me into being around EFU when I came to here. our site was one of the most complete and more organized around servers of the same kind.

to explain clearly the mechanical changes, perks, familiars, summon system, animal companions, tweaks, special things that only we got, screenies, efus skills and so on would be a must!

I think Blast9thewarrior had a really good suggestion about breaking up the OOC room a bit more.  There is quite a bit all jammed in there, and that can be a bit overwhelming when you're new.

TheTurboNerd also made a really good point about inside knowledge.  Once you've run through things once as a character, it becomes easier to excel.  You start to learn what quests you need to do, you know more about the setting in general, about the major ongoing plots (both PC and DM), and all of this makes it so much easier to integrate.  

What I think we need from new players is immediate by-in to the story of the server.  We need things to be zeroed down to the most basic essentials:  you're one of the few survivors of an event of apocalyptic proportions, huddled in an underground city with the last known free-thinking peoples of your kind.  

It would be interesting to try out some very generic scripted preludes, that give people an opportunity to get a feel for the tone of the server, as well as a chance to integrate their characters into it.  I'd also include a cutscene introduction similar to how things were setup in EfU:M to introduce people to the server for those taking the generic preludes.  It would give some basic background history of recent events (the rise of the Red Star, the Darkening, and the coming of the Dread Empire) which would give a player a good idea why their character came to be in such a grim position for the prelude.

Another thing I'd do would be to create IC and OOC incentives for DM factions and associations to involve new character arrivals (regardless of whether or not they're new to the server).  OOCly those who get their Sanctuary Rings should appear on an OOC list for DM factions and associations when a character logs in.  They'd sit on that list for a week so long as they're flagged by EFUSL as actively playing characters.

There would be two lists:  New Characters (with Online / Offline indicators) and New Characters Introduced (along with Online / Offline indicators).

The list could be accessed at any time by typing /c newpcs.  

The new characters listed as offline are characters PC's should keep an eye out for to see if they spot them, and those listed as online are the characters PC's should ACTIVELY be seeking out.  Finally, the New Characters Introduced list are people who've become "known" by a particular faction.  We could treat that like IC rumors, allowing faction PC's to "spot" someone who has recently been introduced to a faction and introduce themselves.

Examples of what it could look like in combat chat log:
New Characters:  XXXX [Online], XXXX [Online], XXXX [Offline], XXXX [Offline], and XXXX [Offline].

New Characters (Introduced):  XXXX introduced by YYYY [Online], XXXX introduced by YYYY [Online], XXXX introduced by YYYY [Offline], XXXX introduced by YYYY [Offline], XXXX introduced by YYYY [Offline].

The Spellguard and their Agents would want to introduce new arrivals to the Auxiliary, as would other members of the Auxiliary itself.  The Watchers are actively looking for new recruits, and would want to inform new arrivals about the law.  The Civil Servants would want to get a new arrivals name, and some basic information about where they've come from for their files and records.  The Society would want to get new arrivals to sign up for their Crusade.  The Scriveners are going to want to get your last will and testament, because - well, you're going to die, and they need to inform you of this fact.  Finally, the Stewards are going to want to try and sway people away from the Machine and Sanctuary.

Basically, it would be setup as a fetch quest for faction PC's where they actively go out, look for new players, and bring them back to their faction base.  For doing this they'd receive some XP and gold.  It's a quest that could be done at any level, and an unlimited number of times.  (With rewards scaling appropriately based on level to maintain server balance.)

This is valuable because it provides new arrivals with the opportunity to get involved in plots, as well as to learn about Sanctuary and its surrounding environments from other PC's.  It also provides ample opportunity to become a member of an association:  Oathsworn to the Society, a member of the Scriveners, a member of the Civil Servants, a recruit of the Watchers, or a member of the Spellguard Auxiliary.

One of the things that would hook new players is showing them the potential of EFU, perhaps by showing them what successful PCs have done and what you can do on the server.

Example: Make an archive of some achievements you have seen from the player base. Characters who have done monumental work, built their own conflict, built upon the server, or achieved something magnificent.

Listing a few characters on my mind:
Qadima
Sorngol
Proverson
Saint Mororn
Hectaxius
Akreaya
and many many more

And then of course the factions that have changed the server:
Sanqites
Elf'qada
Brotherhood of Mercy
The Iron Halo

The only thing that I fear of this is that some players may view it as favoritism and react with jealousy and anger but on the other hand it shows what can be accomplished if you put your mind to your character and try to have the most fun you can while including plenty of other characters.

Quote from: Kinslayer988;354618The only thing that I fear of this is that some players may view it as favoritism and react with jealousy and anger but on the other hand it shows what can be accomplished if you put your mind to your character and try to have the most fun you can while including plenty of other characters.

It's exactly what will happen, concerning the angst.

QuoteAnother thing I'd do would be to create IC and OOC incentives for DM  factions and associations to involve new character arrivals (regardless  of whether or not they're new to the server).  OOCly those who get their  Sanctuary Rings should appear on an OOC list for DM factions and  associations when a character logs in.  They'd sit on that list for a  week so long as they're flagged by EFUSL as actively playing characters.

This is an excellent idea, the first step to help out new players is to be able to find them IG. We should add an option in the starting area, to take a special ''newplayer'' portal* that would flag you as such for the purpose of this list. Likewise, we could create a list of Veterans willing to help out newcomers by IC and OOC means that a newplayer could directly have access to IG.

I fear that some manner of system that pairs people together would only be good here, on paper so to speak, and not work so well in practice. Notably due to different play styles that may actually be a deterrent towards the new arrival rather than a welcome.

Secondly, whenever I personally jump into a new game or world then that is in fact exactly what I want to do, jump right in. I do not want to spend a great deal of time reading little tidbits or being forced to do things that appear somewhat "outside" of the actual world. The current intro system is just fine for this (though maybe a slightly cleaner approach would be best) as it provides the optional means to gather more information while not forcing some lengthy and likely dull process upon them.

There are some great ideas in this thread, but overall I think the best idea is to quite simply tone down the difficulty and randomness of the content designed for new characters (or players) and provide a more gradual learning curve.

I built a new start area. Check it out (after a reset) and please let me know if it seems more accessible/less intimidating for a new player!

I support RwG's sentiment- sometimes you can wander around and not find any players in Upper, Lower, the Canal Wards or the Inns. If you have your heart set on being a Lower Rebel (4 lyfe) you'll have a terrible time finding people to hang with (I'm speaking from experience)- most of the time I end up just logging off, because I cannot figure out where people are.
 
If you're unlucky enough to log on when some event has drawn the entire player crowd to one area, perhaps some ambient messages to guide players there might help?

Checked out the new starting area, looks great.

Might be a good idea to put some kind of reminder near the shops that you'll lose the majority of unspent gold though (if that is still true).

Quote from: Chronicler;354666I support RwG's sentiment- sometimes you can wander around and not find any players in Upper, Lower, the Canal Wards or the Inns. If you have your heart set on being a Lower Rebel (4 lyfe) you'll have a terrible time finding people to hang with (I'm speaking from experience)- most of the time I end up just logging off, because I cannot figure out where people are.
 
If you're unlucky enough to log on when some event has drawn the entire player crowd to one area, perhaps some ambient messages to guide players there might help?

Take it for what it is worth.  This is why I stopped playing.  With limited play time, I would log on, try to find someone or something to do, find no one, even with 30 people on and just log off.  Repeat enough times and thats that.

I am afraid that this will be seen as criticism, but, the thread asked for input.

We all have different time commitments in life but EFU has seemed to me, to be too much effort for much too little fun.  I log in, cannot find anyone to play with, no one responds to my sendings and EFU becomes then much of a time commitment.  I also think, which may be a justifiable fear considering how hostile the setting is, that many people are too prone to only playing or adventuring with their friends.  They log on, form a band among those they know and trust and set off.  No sending, leaving those without any real connections left out.

This makes sense considering how dangerous the setting is and how much your life depends on your traveling companions, but, again, it leaves people out.

I also dislike how hard it is to get supplies.  EFU:M may have had too much, but I fear it has gone way too far in the opposite direction now.  Just because some people, quite a few people in fact, mastered EFU:A and EFU:M and knew how to run quests optimally and get massive, ridiculously huge stockpiles of gold and supplies, does not mean everyone else did.  You log in twenty times, only manage to find something interesting to do four of those times and the two of those times you log in and find actual adventure, you spent much more in supplies than you started with.  The response to that is, to save you the effort of writing it in advance often is:

1.  It's not about the loot!  Have fun with the adventure!
2.  You suck!  (Phrased in a more polite tone)  Try harder to find loot!  *I* find loot easy! I ROCK!

As to those:
1.  I agree.  Adventure is fun.  I want to explore and fight monsters and go do cool things.  And if you keep dying and have no supplies, you will not have much in the way of adventure.
2.  I don't think I need to really respond to this, do I?  Only a minority of players say this, but it has been said enough times to really bother me.

Simply put, I think it is too hard for more casual players to get groups and even harder for them to get enough supplies to adventure.


Edit:

Howland,

I like what you did to the starter area and I appreciate the effort.  I think it makes it a little more approachable, but I do not think that it addresses the underlying problem retaining new players.  I fear that many who come find the server, can't find anyone to group with and when they do, rarely actually profit by the end of their adventure, the same concerns I have.

I think my starting story might be instructive here. Outdated though it may be, I think it's a good illustration of the kinds of totally off-base assumptions a new player will make in the absence of hard information.

When I started playing here waaay back when dinosaurs ruled the Earth I actually thought the server was kind of boring and unfinished. There was nothing worth buying in the shops, what was worth buying was super expensive, and there was no obvious way to get gold. The only indication I had that there might have been more than meets the eye was the fact that nearly every object in the game had a description. I must have spent my first couple of weeks here just walking around and looking at the descriptions for everything. I just assumed that "low magic" meant there was no decent loot in the place at all, and thus it kind of reminded me of a better designed version Fraghaus Krynn.

Two things hooked me and completely changed my perspective of the place.

The first thing was an OOC conversation I had with Dr. Dragon, the result of which was my character becoming a thrall to Inryzz. It never occurred to me before that you could just ask the DMs to do things for you, like possess an NPC and have a conversation with them. I was used to role-play servers where the best way to get DM attention was to sit in a locked room with another PC and spew paragraph-long emotes that were essentially borderline cy0br. I then spent the next few weeks becoming disillusioned that the DMs were not responding to my every request to talk to an NPC. What, do these people not like me any more? Did I not role-play well enough that one time? All right, to heck with these DMs, I'm just going to learn this place and have my own fun doing that.

I abandoned my thrall PC and rolled up a character specifically designed to explore the server and uncover every little secret I possibly could. By this time, I had discovered a secret door, which I suppose was another sort of hook. This was the first place I'd ever seen where the search skill was actually useful, and I was excited at the idea of finding more secret doors.

Are you following me here so far? The point I want to get across is that I was surrounded by some pretty high-brow content and was utterly oblivious to all of it. This was during the Tigereye rebellion, and rather than getting involved in that I was wetting my pants at the prospect of finding hidden doors. I still found the server to be pretty flat and the role-play uninteresting. I had no notion at this point that the Tigereye situation meant anything important, it just struck me as primarily a contest over paper doll uniforms that would soon be replaced by another one and quickly forgotten. There was no reason that I could see for me to care.

About a month or two into my new character, I had found myself some more secret doors. Mission accomplished. I was getting kind of bored again, and just on the verge of going back to play somewhere else when my character got ambushed by an NPC possessed by Sternhund who started my little throwaway character on a DM plot that would end with the biggest schism between the Spellguard and the Watch since the Bresleys were alive. I can't even say what exactly happened because to this day, 6 years later, it still constitutes a spoiler. I played that character for another year, and he didn't finally die until the start of EfU:A.

At each step of the way, the thing that consistently hooked me and transformed me from a boring townie scrub to an active contributing member of the EfU community was exposure to possibility. The possibility of on-demand DM interaction, the possibility of uncovering secrets, the possibility of becoming a secret agent of destruction and despair, and finally the possibility of changing the course of history. I went from thinking this place was flat and featureless to finding myself immersed in a rich terrain of intrigue and suspense. At the introduction of each new possibility, my imagination was suddenly flooded with new ideas, new character concepts, new ways to make an impact and have fun.

I can remember that back then, it was very popular on the forums for people to say "you have to make your own fun here." I always resented it when people said that, not because it isn't true, but because you have to have some initial sense of what is and is not possible here in order to know where to start. I had previously come from an epic-level server where PC lichdom was possible. It took me about three months of frustrating trial and error to really wrap my head around what EfU is all about. It took another three years after that before I finally learned how and when to fetch a DM without having to apologize for something afterward.

This was back in 2006-2009 and things are so much better now for new players. But I still see newbies walking around and I sometimes get a strong sense that all they need to trigger their imagination is some kind of sense of what is possible. I try to give them that when I can, and I must have done all right since several of them are still playing here today. But when a player is treading water, there's nothing quite like having a DM toss them headfirst into the deep end of the pool.

The DMs and less-than-controllable factors like server populations at different times of the day can only do so much to hook new players onto the server or disappoint them.

New players will have the most interaction with other players, and so I think it should always be kept front of mind that new players are most likely to be hooked on EFU by the quality of the interactions they experience between their PCs and the PCs of other players.

As much as Howland and the other DMs try to do, it will primarily fall on us to make new players feel welcome.

I'm new enough, at least to the veterans. I think I've been here around a month now and a half now, almost two I think.


When I started, I wasn't quite sure to expect, I got brought in by another friend who'd just recently joined. He actually stopped playing so much, having been used to so much dm attention from previous servers.


I don't actually mind this. While I had difficulty finding my niche, and my way for characters to interact with others, it was the actual rp with other players that kept me around. Most of my dm interaction has been a few messages here or there, I think I was part of a few tiny events that had little to do with anything, and just random exp for rping and attending player run events.  Even that tiny exp is an encouragement, because its not the amount that matters, but it shows that you are doing good. I'm sure there's plenty of events out there too, just that they seem to focus on the more established characters they've already come to know.


I think, the best way to keep player retention is of course, to find ways to force new players into meeting with others, though I think this has been said. Its very difficult for some to fit in, I felt that for a good whiles and I'm only now starting to get comfortable that I'm starting to recognize players, and their characters. Hell, maybe recommend to new players that their first character should be a bit more open to socializing, just to get into the swing of things.

The difficult thing about playing something outside of the sanctuary though is the actual finding of other players, which keeps you here. Perhaps we should let that be known to other players? It seems to me the most successful 'outside of sanctuary' groups would be a group of people who come together and make characters towards that idea, rather then a single, hoping to find others and THEN establish a group of sorts. That way, they do have a base.

Sorry if my thoughts are a bit disorganized, kind of scatter brained atm.

The first few hours a new player spends, from what I've noticed, decides whether they stay or not.  I once invited a friend who tried to play but became discouraged after about an hour or two because he claimed he couldn't really understand the intricacies.  This was in EFU:A and I've tried getting him to play since but it always ends in him become discouraged and logging out.  

It'd be cool if as soon as a new character enters Sanctuary a message was sent to a Clerk of the Civil Service informing them that this character needs to be oriented.  Perhaps then once the Clerk has oriented the newly ringed character they can use a tool on the character that asks them if the Clerk was "helpful". If they click "yes", the Clerk could receive some sort of benefit to reward them.

It goes without saying that DMs can do some special things and so forth in noticing/aiding new players. Though, I would probably argue when thinking about it, that in many instances I could be in a better position to mingle and help new players get involved as a player myself.

That said, we could make a system, scripted or otherwise, etc. to reward players who took on apprentices, but in reality it is very easy for us to both notice when a player is taking their time to help a newbie, and reward them appropriately, if not already rewarding enough in itself to help someone in need and possibly gain an ally/friend in the process, or even simply helping the server as a whole in welcoming new players.

It has been said over and over, so I will simply add my voice. Reward those characters who take their time to introduce new players to the server. Reward those characters who involve all those willing, and not just their clique, in their plots/story. Every kind of character has a reason to "recruit", from the paladin looking for support in his crusade to the bandit looking for more men in his gang.

Quote from: Crimsonchamp;354708The difficult thing about playing something outside of the sanctuary though is the actual finding of other players, which keeps you here. Perhaps we should let that be known to other players? It seems to me the most successful 'outside of sanctuary' groups would be a group of people who come together and make characters towards that idea, rather then a single, hoping to find others and THEN establish a group of sorts. That way, they do have a base.

I had a scenario that has some relevance to this notable observation. I was playing with a friend who I was trying to introduce to the server (we had previously attempted the same concept during the EFU:M to EFU:R transitional of Old Port) who I let guide our direction after coming through the portal into Sanctuary. It was nice to see him explore the place as we roleplayed along first arriving in the Underdark, but he was a rather intrepid one...

You see, he was playing a dwarf at the time and had previously passed by the hooded human and despite my suggestion that we speak to him, he just said, "Bleh, humans. Let us explore before dealing with miscreants," and continued along. I was not going to ruin his fun, so I played along, and we eventually got to the stairs leading to the In-Between. We went on through, the intrepid dwarf exploring as an inquisitive mind is wont to do...to only then run into a starving kobold bandit and get rather brutally murdered by it. I was able to go invisible and drag him into the nearby abandoned alchemy lab, but that had set the tone of that.

He has not played since then, and seems to have become disinterested--a great shame.

There are some insights to gain from that though, especially regarding the new player experience. [I suppose I should have provided a more explicit OOC warning regarding the dangers of taking those stairs, for one.]

Several  things come to mind.

First, timezones.
You can’t do much when you log on and everthing is empty. But there’s not much we can do about it.

Second, groups.
I feel long formed groups in our community, as in most tend to exclude people.

Secretive groups, it was already mentionned. These could open up a bit, inviting risk perhaps, but inviting others into play, surely.

OOC groups that don’t want people either, especially for quests, because they don’t know who the player is, because they fear the noob will get them in trouble, because there’s loot to split, because fewer numbers is « best ». OOC groups I’ve really come to just hate, and usually avoid DMing for them. (which isn’t a solution, either for that matter). Part of the solution might be to make quest loot scripted per person taking it, not a collective loot to share. (like, spawning automatically in a PC loot bag on critter death or something, which would also lvl the loot for everyone if someone has too much already).

IC groups exclude because sometimes doesn’t make much sense to bring people along. As for « IC » exclusion, it can usually be easily be bypassed with a bit of an open mind. Remember not everything you do should be wholly IC. Maybe the PC asking/lingering on the square is useless, but even then, this is a video game : try to involve others. Asocial PCs come to mind, for example. They don’t naturally go towards others, so need a little OOC « helper » from folks. Or even bland/ neutral ones. It’s easy to just say « come along », instead of ignoring folks. Some players do. Most don’t, moving along quickly before someone asks them « where are you going ? ».

Concerning groups : it is sometimes said the new guy should make the effort be integrated. I would bring everyone’s attention as to the group’s responsability to share the effort. I was dragged in EfU because it was welcoming. Playing alts, I don’t feel it anymore. When we know a guy is new, we are all cool to answer questions, but involving the others isn’t just answering questions.

Rewarding players that involve others must be heavily encouraged. (like an official « tutor » role with benefits).

Third : harshness and learning curve.
We like it (or grow to like it), but new players aren’t used to it. Making a « new player mode » where noobs have a few safeguared lives would give them a bit of time to get used to the game. Like, when in fugue, having a message saying « soon you won’t be respawning for free » with a counter based on IP/CD.

Fourth : time dedication.
EfU is enjoyable if you can dedicated 2-3 hours a day, which is a rythm most people save hardcore gamers can’t do. Occasionnal players don’t attract DM attention because they just can’t. This is why OOC groups form : it’s people you can rely on being there. Others must just tag along, hook on occasionnally, miss out on most stuff and well, for these it’s a bit dull.
Making regular DMed gaming sessions( like pnp), not just preludes, with some players might keep them.
I would add : new players travels to small pearls of places are rare, because travelling takes RL time (and is dangerous) : forming a party, waiting on others, moving along… If you can’t play 2h, you’re on your own to get back, or you wait for a reset. Having a paying « travel agency » might have some new folks see how awesome the UD is. (Mage with teleport, anyone ?)
Please put forth any ideas to balance hardcore players with occasionnal ones. Not loot balance : involvement balance.

Fifth : app systems.
We have cool factions, but it takes a stigmatizing procedure to enter them. And they exclude new players because we don’t know them. Faction should be IC recruitement only. We can always kick out ICly those that don’t fit. I would get rid of apps to enter our factions, and keep apps for subraces and prcs and the like.

6th : The magic : custom stuff.
New players don’t know about it. Probably some stuff regular players don’t know either. Stuff I don’t know because I’m a back seat DM. Forum for new players is good though, but who wants to read a huge forum when they can start playing straight off ? Having an intro scene/questy that forces new players to use/glimpse every single custom stuff might give them an idea of efu potential. Revamping the welcome area’s a good idea, maybe making two paths : vet quickstart and the new player way, with â€"short- info distilled slowly

7th : habits & server culture.
Most noobs come from social servers or hak’n’slash. Giving them more food to which they are accustomed would keep some. Race languages. Crafting weapon/armor. Pretty dresses. Dialogue options making alignement move. Celebrity points. Prostitute area for freeky cyb0rs (kidding). Whatever. More hak content would help, I believe. As for hak’n’slash players, easier quests just for the fun of killing stuff would help too (though not rewarding obviously). The thing is, being an elistist server is excellent, but elitism draws some people away, that are not all unwanted. Wanting new players to stay but not giving away one inch of our server culture is impossible, imo. The game is old. We need to compromise on what we can. On that note, some social servers have excellent role players that would teach us a lot.

8th : PvP
Not just the risk of loosing a pc. This is a red line we don’t want to cross. Some players just want epic lvls at no risk. This can’t be helped.
But pvp handling can draw new players away.
Some noobs quickly come to think that this is a pseudo arena server (which, sometimes imo, isn’t too far off, until a new period begins). And if they try their luck, either they are beaten by vets, or are scowleded for not respecting pvp spirit/rules.
I for one am in favor of efu playing modes. Normal, Harcore (no respawn, XP & loot bonus), pvp safe (unable to attack.be attacked), lvl blocked (start and stay lvl6), for example. (+New player mode ?)

That being said, EfUR is the best EFU chapter so far, imo.

My 2c

I really like the start at lv6 but can't go below or past that. It would allow new players to have a chance to see some of the difficult stuff and explore where a lv2 would not.

I was going to write a thorough post about my thoughts, but then LPFF went and put down into words almost exactly what I feel (in a more succinct way than I'd ever be able to).

I'd just like to add one other thought that tangents the time constraint issue - Hardly anything is ever planned, and often when it is people don't care. Basically, if it weren't hard enough that an event might take two hours minimum of play time, you have no clue when they'll kick off either. Nearly every DM quest I've been on has "just happened" when I've been with a group somewhere, and most player organised stuff is spur-of-the-moment too. So that means you can't really even plan your playing time to specific scheduled points either.

What this leads to, in terms of new players, is there being a lot of stuff going on, but them not noticing in advance there's something special to log on to. If this player can't/doesn't want to hang around IG for hours to "stumble upon stuff", they will likely not experience any of the cool stuff either.

I don't know if it's feasible or wanted, but perhaps both DMs and players could schedule stuff a bit more often? It wouldn't have to be particularly specific, but for example if a DM would like to run something for someone, maybe they could just send a quick tell asking "I've got this thing for you, when would be a good time?". This doesn't only enable people to plan their time, it also gives them something to look forward to. The few things this has happened with DM's for me, I've been super excited and looking forward to the scheduled time a bunch. It'd be sort of like a scheduled PnP meeting, except on EfU.

Just a thought.

I actually like that most DM events are NOT widely announced. If you're out, doing stuff, DM's drop some DMly love on you in some form (be it aberrant lost children or helpful unlimited undead summoning circles...). If you're afk in the square 10 hours a day only coming to life for quest sendings, probably not so much.

For one thing, it tends to turn them all into mobs of 10-20 players when it is wisdely announced and a lot of people (myself included) get very very slim amounts of enjoyment from RPing in that kind of atmosphere. Sometimes it ends up just being not fun at all and I only stay out of obligation.

To your point Wrexsoul, I personally have found if a DM wants to run you something or wants faction pc's involved in an event they will usually make a forum post/pm you asking how long you have and if now is a good time.  I also agree on time constraints, at the moment I have almost unlimited playtimes, but even so it can be intensely frustrating trying to even start a quest with a random group.  I've found as often as not the main advantage of having a buddy team for questing is the fact you can basically log in and be ready to go do stuff in about 5 minutes.  Now given the choice I would rather spend an hour or two doing fun stuff than herding around players for 50 minutes into a group without leaving sanctuary.  As a new player being forced to sit around for this sort of thing would probably be even more discouraging.

I don't really think that the thing with factions has already changed (favourably imo) in that some like the Watchers are virtually app free and allow easy access to an involving part of the server's action.  However stuff like the spellguard aren't really appropriate for those without a good understanding of the server and what the faction entails.

Quote from: Divine Intervention;354986I don't really think that the thing with factions has already changed (favourably imo) in that some like the Watchers are virtually app free and allow easy access to an involving part of the server's action.  However stuff like the spellguard aren't really appropriate for those without a good understanding of the server and what the faction entails.

What the Spellguard needs is just some kind of Nebezzduon access. Janitors and overly explored "apprentices".

Quote from: granny;355081What the Spellguard needs is just some kind of Nebezzduon access. Janitors and overly explored "apprentices".

Thats the Auxiliary.

Hrm... On the topic of groups and clicks which may be the issue... How about another forum piece towards groups and factions? Perhaps the shady groups could hold something very short and a small clue, posted in the forums, but in one of the lower taverns, which would then lead to pms of other clues until the shady bunch meet and group up. While I'm feeling more comfortable here, and starting to recognize some names, sometimes it does seem pretty clique-ish after someone brought that up to my attention. Sometimes its hard to not just lounge about in the square, when everyone else is already off doing their own thing. Everyone knows its not safe to go out alone, and if your character isn't comfortable with a few that are available, its easier to just lounge about and wait for others who you can do things with. Maybe offer some advice in the newbie section as to how to go about doing things in your limited time on the server, goals and actions that can draw the attention of others, rather then simply waiting to get picked up by some clique and hopefully integrating.

In the Short Term
When I first joined EFU:M I was drawn to the server by the starting sequence: being teleported to the Zigurrat, the Mist Visions, the mythology surrounding Mistlocke and the Last Keep. Not only did this serve to establish the setting but it showcased all the different on-going storylines: the Mist, H'bala, the Star-gazers, Nebezzdos... through this a new PC unfamiliar with the setting is shown very clearly how much the setting has changed over the years as the story's progressed - and that they can be a part of it. They're also given several lofty goals to pursue and mysteries to unravel.

1) Defeat H'bala and be cured of the Withering
2) Find out what the Mist is.
3) Learn what's up with the Last Keep and the Founder.

People felt like they had something to do in Mistlocke, a reason to be there, and a problem to solve. EFU:R is more of a sandbox at a glance. EFU:R's starting sequence is nice and setting appropriate, don't get me  wrong. It establishes the atmosphere of Sanctuary well enough. But the  only major plot point we're introduced to in the first hour of playing  is a note by a guy named Faussad, but only EFU veterans really know of  his true signifiance. I'm sure asking around town could turn up all  sortsof nifty rumors on Faussad, the Man in the Mask, Dread Empire, Mad  Marge, etc. But I just don't think the impact is quite the same as  EFU:M's mist journey.

In the Long Term
Whether or not people stay depends on whether or not they can make friends, and feel they can have meaningful story impact. I think very often when it comes to questing and player-plots the stakes are so high, and people are so afraid of failure or betrayal, they only bring close friends along to guarantee success. This makes IC sense... especially since death is so crippling if not permanent, and banditry is rampant. But this also encourages exclusion. So much happens behind closed doors, and very few people will take a chance at recruiting idlers in Freedom Square as guardsmen or laborers.

All you can really do is reward people for taking a chance and making their machinations a little more public, even if entails more risk than would make IC sense.

Maybe something akin to the Mistlocke begining could be made?

Like the portal malfunctions and you get the option to see visions or the [OOC: for experienced players] shortcut choice.

Maybe a point not so much for retention of new players, but of old ones.

When considering coming back, I found myself salivating at the prospect of being back in Sanctuary and possibly stomping around in all the iconic and nostalgic places.

However, when reading all of the changes, I found myself left with an overwhelming sense of... "With all this stuff that's happened, how the hell do I start a concept for this?" I first considered playing a cleric, before reading that half the gods were dead and no longer granting spells (Including the one I wanted to play) yet some abstract reward for playing one anyway was implied. I get that wanting to be mysterious is cool and everything, but unless there's something ingame to give primer to a new player choosing to be a cleric of a dead god, there's just nothing there explaining about how much the player would know about the fate of their god, etc.  

All in all, there's more questions than answers. Like someone else pointed out... To really 'click' with EFU, you pretty much need to get inside knowledge of the setting by actually playing.  It's been like this with every major setting shift within EFU, but I  feel like EFU:R seems a lot harder to dive into from scratch. EFU,  EFU:A and EFU:M  All presented themselves in the out-of-game resources very well, and gave the players a primer of basically where they were and what the overall aim/endgame should be for a character (Be it escape to the surface, escape from the islands/defeating the nightrisers, or defeating H'bala and curing the withering) All of which had the common theme of "Survive", but EFU:R is essentially presenting itself as "The entire world has gone to shit, try not to die."

  As badass as the events as I've read them are... It makes starting fresh really intimidating and confusing without knowing anything about what's going on firsthand. Fleshing out a concept without having some kind of idea of where you came from or what you intend to do is difficult, made even more so by the lack of a clear cut way to  get up to speed before diving into the server.

Quote from: Vlaid;354981I actually like that most DM events are NOT widely announced. If you're out, doing stuff, DM's drop some DMly love on you in some form (be it aberrant lost children or helpful unlimited undead summoning circles...). If you're afk in the square 10 hours a day only coming to life for quest sendings, probably not so much.

For one thing, it tends to turn them all into mobs of 10-20 players when it is wisdely announced and a lot of people (myself included) get very very slim amounts of enjoyment from RPing in that kind of atmosphere. Sometimes it ends up just being not fun at all and I only stay out of obligation.

I want to clarify that I didn't mean for DM's to turn their events into public announcements - that doesn't work out very well for most quests. I meant that in addition to the "random stuff" happening when you're out and about, it would help if some (non-public) stuff could be made possible to plan your playing time in advance for.

Because every single DM event I've been included in that wasn't planned in advance led to sessions -at least- 4 hours long, sometimes turning into all-nighters, even though the actual DM event part of it was around 2 hours. And that's a long time to be around if you are working and/or have a busy schedule. Planning some of these things in advance would give players (both new and old) to a) have stuff to look forward to and feel there is really attention of this kind going on, and b) be able to actually get to experience DM quests even if you only have a few hours here and there to play (I'd say even only having 2 hours to play every day is a larger commitment than many can spare).

So to summarise: With "plan in advance" I don't mean "publically announce for the whole server".

Quote from: Cruzel;355162Maybe a point not so much for retention of new players, but of old ones.

When considering coming back, I found myself salivating at the prospect of being back in Sanctuary and possibly stomping around in all the iconic and nostalgic places.

However, when reading all of the changes, I found myself left with an overwhelming sense of... "With all this stuff that's happened, how the hell do I start a concept for this?" I first considered playing a cleric, before reading that half the gods were dead and no longer granting spells (Including the one I wanted to play) yet some abstract reward for playing one anyway was implied. I get that wanting to be mysterious is cool and everything, but unless there's something ingame to give primer to a new player choosing to be a cleric of a dead god, there's just nothing there explaining about how much the player would know about the fate of their god, etc.  

All in all, there's more questions than answers. Like someone else pointed out... To really 'click' with EFU, you pretty much need to get inside knowledge of the setting by actually playing.  It's been like this with every major setting shift within EFU, but I  feel like EFU:R seems a lot harder to dive into from scratch. EFU,  EFU:A and EFU:M  All presented themselves in the out-of-game resources very well, and gave the players a primer of basically where they were and what the overall aim/endgame should be for a character (Be it escape to the surface, escape from the islands/defeating the nightrisers, or defeating H'bala and curing the withering) All of which had the common theme of "Survive", but EFU:R is essentially presenting itself as "The entire world has gone to shit, try not to die."

  As badass as the events as I've read them are... It makes starting fresh really intimidating and confusing without knowing anything about what's going on firsthand. Fleshing out a concept without having some kind of idea of where you came from or what you intend to do is difficult, made even more so by the lack of a clear cut way to  get up to speed before diving into the server.

From what I can tell, the lack of information is intentional design. Hence the name, Escape From Uncertainty. What you know about your gods is - nothing. You know they stopped giving spells one day. That's it.

Lame pvp is the reason most people leave I'm sure.  For every aggressive PK'er I'd guess multiples have left.
 
There are many ways this server is good, the way pvp is handled isn't one of them.

Quote from: Nihm;355205Lame pvp is the reason most people leave I'm sure.  For every aggressive PK'er I'd guess multiples have left.
 
There are many ways this server is good, the way pvp is handled isn't one of them.

I have serious doubts about this. People like to vastly exaggerate how common PVP is on this server, especially if they feel the victim of "lame pvp".

I think in my 7 years here, playing on and off with breaks ect....I have been killed in pvp maybe 2-4 times at most, and all well earned or in large pvp battles between two opposing sides.

It's possible, I just don't think it's as likely as some people like to convince themselves it is.

Of course the more aggressive and conflict oriented your PC is, the more likely you are to be killed. But then that isn't the fault of the server for your death then, is it?

^ Ditto.

Been assassinated only once.
Been beaten down several dozen times, often when the other players had PLENTY of reason to kill me but didn't.

RL time constraints kill off the vast majority of my characters. Second being boredom for low levels and DM quest for high levels.

Including an entire plot based around PCs signing up to murder each other, various gang conflicts, executions, and various PvP situations where the player clearly wanted to die (i.e. doing something to get executed) there have been all of 18 PvP non-goblin/kobold PC deaths in all of EFU:R. No death happened to a new player as best as I could determine, and as far as I'm aware only two players of all the deaths haven't returned since and both of them are notoriously comfortable with EFU PvP - so I assume they had other reasons.

I don't wish to distract a useful thread with PvP concerns. I really don't think we have some kind of PvP problem.

Deep Lizard, drowning, Bandits, Menhirs... these are far more griefy to new players than any player.

I believe they're simply having a hard time adjusting to the difficulty paradigm of EFU.  It's very different than any other server (except for its progenitor CoA).  Not sure how to remedy this, but the new players I've spoken to are becoming discouraged because how their unfamiliarity with the server greatly deters their ability to advance their character. (mechanically speaking).

Quote from: Howland;355255I don't wish to distract a useful thread with PvP concerns. I really don't think we have some kind of PvP problem.

I really don't think it's PVP. While (I don't know if still true, but it was a couple of years ago) there is some pvp that can leave a sour taste... I know I've both been the one dealing the killing blow of lame FDs, and been killed in a similar fashion more than once. It wasn't a super rare thing back in the day, but none of those times did I really see anyone disappear because of it. Everyone who played EFU at the time was used to cycling characters, and cycling a character was rarely done under the circumstances of one's own choosing, unless they simply got bored.

In my mind at least, the biggest barrier to (re)entry for EFU is the sheer standard of awesomeness, and lack of information to go on before just saying fuck it and diving in with a substandard/rocky start and then refining with a second concept after you know what you've gotten yourself into.

I'm speaking mostly from an out of game context though, as I have no idea what kind of new character experience you guys have rocked out for EFU:R.

Quote from: Knight Of Pentacles;355263I believe they're simply having a hard time adjusting to the difficulty paradigm of EFU.  It's very different than any other server (except for its progenitor CoA).  Not sure how to remedy this, but the new players I've spoken to are becoming discouraged because how their unfamiliarity with the server greatly deters their ability to advance their character. (mechanically speaking).

As one of the new players you're trying to retain, I want to emphasize this and expand a bit on it.

EFU's learning curve is extremely steep. I have an advantage in that I know a few players who've been around a while so I can bounce questions off of them and avoid the worst of the newbie mistakes, but even so it's daunting. Between the high lethality, brutal death penalties and tons of new or tweaked mechanics on the one hand and incredibly dense social structure and setting lore on the other, getting off the ground is punishingly difficult. Frankly, if I didn't have something resembling a support structure already in place I probably wouldn't have stuck with it as long as I have.

This may be a feature, not a bug. If you want people who are willing to soldier on and pay the cost in time and effort to integrate themselves and learn the mechanics on the hope that it'll pay off, in the belief that you'll weed out all but a certain caliber of player, the system in place right now may very well do that. And the population does seem strong enough that you don't really need many more players in any case. But if you do want to retain more of the players who check out EFU, the entry needs to be smoothed out a little more. Not just "Intro to EFU Mechanics 101," either: new PCs could use ways to get involved in the social structure of Sanctuary quickly, so they have some kind of purpose or direction while they figure out what they really want to do.

This might sound unintentionally degrading. Bounce it off as a dumb suggestion, whatever. Here's my two cents:

Giving (newer) players individual attention when you have a free moment as a DM or otherwise making an effort to make them feel appreciated is a big, big thing. This could literally be as simple as offering them a drink and roleplaying with them for 2 minutes on some NPC. That is the sort of stuff that did it for me.

Do not measure with equal bars either. A new player is having a hell of a hard time getting to just settle into our rough setting. Reward those that roleplay well or act pro-actively a little easier with XP or other rewards than you do with veterans.

In the end I believe that most of our playerbase would go to lengths to help new players out once they're identified. But trust me, a pad on the back from a 'random vet' will mean a lot less to most of us regulars than a pad on the back from a DM who's complimenting your efforts.

I met several truly amazing new-ish players while playing Slyd Radke, and I will be pretty bumbed if I find out that they're not feeling supported in what they're trying to do. It's always a lot harder for new people in an established community. Ask them if their char. has a goal in an idle moment IG, and see if it's feasible.

Quote from: John Doe;355638This might sound unintentionally degrading. Bounce it off as a dumb suggestion, whatever. Here's my two cents:

Giving (newer) players individual attention when you have a free moment as a DM or otherwise making an effort to make them feel appreciated is a big, big thing. This could literally be as simple as offering them a drink and roleplaying with them for 2 minutes on some NPC. That is the sort of stuff that did it for me.

This. This accounts for 'older' players too. When the world around you becomes too stagnant and does not feel alive, you (I?) lose interest.

It's been mentioned, I'm sure of it, but a large part of keeping the new players really falls on the vets shoulders.  Making them feel welcomed both OOC'ly and IC'ly are a huge deal.

I know we all have those players we love to play with, those that just seem to click with our play-style. On the other hand we have those that we really don't "look for".  But, in order to keep the new players around, we need to start forgetting who the player is and concentrait on who the character is.

I'm sure it's happened to all of us (well.. alright maybe not all, for we have some players that anyone would want in their group) that feeling of slight, or the "wtf.. why him and not me" moments.  It's happend with DM's and players alike.  

Now we can all say "I would never do that.  I would never chose character A over character B just because I know who the player is."  And I would have to call B.S.  

In short, start getting to know the characters and forget who the player is.

My suggestion is:

Bring back easy access associations.

The Aberdenn, the Caermyn, the Muster. You basically had to just show up and look interested and you got into these associations. Now just about every single association (except I guess the Jergalites?) requires "proving yourself" and spending a lot of time getting in.

The entire purpose of the Associations should be to be app-less and easy access so you can point new players towards them so they can have some structure and benefits without having to know the ins and outs of questing and the full setting. If the current Associations aren't meant to be easily accessible, make them into app-for minor Factions, don't confuse people.

New players really will need that structure and free benefits, because EFU:R is far far harder than EFU:M, at least for a melee PC. It's harder to get decent gear. It's harder to get decent supply. It's harder to maintain decent supply.

That's probably another thing that should be suggested to new players "play a caster class, because otherwise you're going to have a very very rough time".

----------

Related to this I'd suggest some new Associations so people can get themselves some support or direction.

- A Worminger's Guild, where they can get favour points for supplies and cheap resting in exchange for worm meat.

- Make the Oathsworn of the Society an Association, with a slow favour gain rate and a small boost of favour when an Aberration dies near them (the XP radius?)

- Watcher's Militia, make full Watchers require an app, make recruit status easy access, give them favour points while wearing their silly pot helm and maybe extra favour when bringing in bounties or doing Watcher based quests.

To be frank, i think the responsibility falls onto the playerbase to make the experience worthwhile. It's a mixture of the DM's and the players that keep this place alive. While we all love the story being told here, if it was solely the DM's that kept us playing, noone would be logged in for hours on end without a DM in game.

My welcoming experience was unique and one I will never forget. Two veteran players gave me an introduction to the server that blew me away and made me want to log in again. It was a week before I even spoke to a DM who eagerly gave me a small run down of the place and approved my eagerness. It was another two weeks before I used Irc for the first time, before I became aware that DM events took place or even how much the DMs took part in the server.

Had those veteran players not given me such a welcoming I cant say I would have stayed for that conversation with a DM, been willing to join IRC or invest so much time in learning the mechanics.

While I agree, DM incentives are nice and make you feel special. It's the players who are in the trenches with one another day in and day out. Its the players who should be inspired to strive towards creating something awesome and along that journey inspire others to do the same.

-CT

That is true. A lot of players and veterans already do that though best they can, I'd say from personal experience. And it is definitely important.

If we're talking about 'what more' can be done however, I'd like to stick by my original post.

Another addition by example of what I believe should be done more,

Ladocicea's "Tremors in the Underdark" plot is facinating for a lot of people, and attracts large amounts of indiscriminate player attention. It's great fun, and I personally enjoy being on DM quests a lot. So I guess that goes for most. It's usually the veteran players that pick up the plot though, and attempt to figure out what is going on. That's entirely natural and logical of course, being that we've grown comfortable with the idea that something more will grow out of it.

I believe there is a large role/responsibility for veterans in attempting to include (some of) the players involved in this plot sequence further into the plot, rather than playing it close to hearth. How? That's up to you. But it's easy enough to let others know that there's more coming and that you'd appreciate their help in the future.

A recurring theme I am seeing is player/DM interaction with new players.

A problem I see is how to recognize new players in a community where vets consistently use new GSIDs with every new PC.

So I am stickying a thread, helpfully titled "New Players, Please Introduce Yourself" (http://www.efupw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=84456) in the general forum.

If you see someone post there, look out for them in game and help them out if you can!

I just wanted to throw this in there.  I've been a longtime player, only "new" to EfU:R.

I believe that the best part of the server is when players can have an impact on it.

First problem is that players are too secretive.  You never know who you might cross and you don't want stomped out while you're low level if team good catches on to a team evil plot too soon.  Or vice versa.  This is understandable, but it becomes VERY difficult to involve other players into a plot if you can't talk about it openly.


Second problem (I doubt my opinion will be popular) is when DMs spend too much time "spicing" quests.  It's a waste IMO.  A spiced quest is more fun than the usual grind, but it's usually more difficult as well.  This greatly increases the risk for newer players and/or weaker characters.  There have often been times when a quest was going well until the spice came at us and I either died or had to abandon the quest.  Either way, I usually have the same thought every time.  Call me a jerk if you want, but here it is:

"Where was this DM an hour ago while I was sitting in the middle of town, bored out of my mind just trying to think of a way to move my character closer towards his goals?  I finally give up on plotting and now I'm sitting in the fugue with a dire bear chewing on my corpse.  Had I known that this quest was going to turn entirely bad without notice, I would have sat on the steps and sulked this one out."

Quest spicing should almost always be done in a manner which can somehow directly promote a character's plot.  Otherwise it's just a relief from the usual grind and only entertaining until the quest is over.  Plus, there's a balance to it.  Too little spice isn't entertaining.  Too much and the characters get killed, suffering them financial/mechanical setbacks towards their goals.

Instead, I would personally like to see DMs spending more time introducing themselves to new characters/players.  Take some time to stop and ask players what plots they might have had in mind.  I know that there are far too many of us to catch and remember everyone, but DMs will always be the best guides.

If you can catch a new player on his first day and give him some advice about his plot, perhaps even help them along the way a bit by "plot spicing", you will inspire the !@#$ out of them.  Most new players probably don't even know how far their efforts can go towards changing the server.

My advice is that any time a DM might be thinking of spending 30 minutes spicing a quest, they should first look around the middle of town for new or idle players and consider some motivational "plot spicing" instead.  If you don't know the characters or their goals, by all means ASK.  Even a discussion about a character's plot can easily inspire or perhaps motivate people to get up off the steps.

I'd suggest some way to mark new players.  I can never tell if a player is really new, or a veteran hiding under a psuedonym.  I'd like to think that I would spend more time introducing a new player to the Dunwarren if I knew right away I wasn't wasting time on a vet.  I kind of think showing new players around is fun - I get to show off all the useless but interesting lore I've collected over the last 7 months!

Also, my current main PC is level 7.  Any quest that the both of us could go on would result in their death.  Maybe insert some kind of quest that requires a new player in the party, and fill it with some of the richer mechanics to ensure that the new person's PC would get to use each and every niche skill they have.  Traps, locked doors, climbing, search, maybe some novel use for a familiar, a helpful NPC that must be healed, a scrapper that must be traded with, you name it.  The veteran player could lead the new player through and showcase the richness of the game, teach the new player how to navigate some of the obstacles, and maybe come out with some kind of reward themselves.

Just a couple thoughts.  I love the game in it's current state, although more people of the same caliber as the current population would be awesome.

I think DM interaction with players is key.  EFU:R is awesome and the DMs are active and supporting players.  What I mean though, is I think sometimes it's not the DM plot or the DM spice on a quest that makes the module so much better.  What I personally enjoy is when you see NPCs doing what they might do, if they weren't just random NPC # 456533.

For instance, it would be cool to have maybe a DM controlled Watcher go around and hassle people, search them, maybe get in their business?  Or a Spellguard Agent pop in on some dude in the Machine somewhere.  Maybe see some prominent NPCs interacting with the 'peon' adventurers or something like that.  I enjoy when the server feels more alive and you can get a feel for prominent NPCs and factions IN GAME without relying on some OOC descriptor on a webpage that someone might or might not read.

For me, long ago I saw this guy had lost his pack in the sewers.  No one would help him, the poor fellow.  Then here comes Baron Bilby who take the fellow into the sewers and gets his pack!  Things like that really make EFU appealing to me.

Things such as doing Sinister Enclave with Gaeseric & Gundahar...
.. Or Gnolls with Thrask Morv ;)

Bin Ninelives as a DM and the player floodgates will open 100%.

Quote from: Caddies;359524Bin Ninelives as a DM and the player floodgates will open 100%.

OMG Caddies

Quote from: Caddies;359524Bin Ninelives as a DM and the player floodgates will open 100%.

This server is definitely really, really hard - and the many times I've died have been disheartening - but the roleplay is also really, really good, and that's what's important. As a new player I've been welcomed by almost everyone and I already feel like a part of the community. Thank you so much everyone, honestly.

Yeah, the biggest issue for me is the difficulty. The hardcore aspect really adds a lot to the atmosphere and world, but  it also demands a kind of time-investment that can be a bit daunting.  It's taking some getting used to (thanks to my janky connection I've died to some pretty questionable situations) but the roleplay has kept me from giving up entirely.

Seriously, the DM team is fantastic and just about every player has been pretty cool - even ones with whom my characters didn't get along. I'm gonna try and tough it out a bit longer, maybe try to figure out a laggy-player-friendly character build (if such a thing exists) that remains fun to roleplay.

Keep it up. You guys are all swell.

I can see where the difficulty would be a problem for people who aren't vastly familiar with NWN mechanics.  In a way I am lucky, I spent more time than I am willing to admit playing this game since it came out.  I also played a number of characters on City of Arabel, which is arguably near the same level when it comes to being unforgiving for making mistakes or even just being unlucky (an enemy with a greataxe is guaranteed to 1 hit someone).

I've been out of the roleplaying scene in general since about 2008 and decided to try to get back in to things now that I have a bit more free time these days.  I actually spent a fair amount of time reading about the mechanics changes and what I could find about the setting before rolling a character.  There is still a lot I don't know about, but that's inevitable when joining a server with this kind of history.

One thing that has been mentioned and that I have seen before is the phenomena of a server having 30 players but only seeing about 5 or 6 of them in the town's common area.  I get cliques, and it's inevitable if the server vets have been here for a while, but it is a little discouraging because I know how that song and dance works.

I've only played for about two days, so I'll withhold any further judgement until I've given this some time for things to flesh things out.

Cliques have always been an issue since shortly after beta, perhaps even before though I didn't notice it at the time. Hard to tell people they can't hang out with their OOC friends though, and given the challenge of the server and the potential for opposing dogmas and alignments amongst PCs, cliques are to be an expected outcome for good or ill.

I thought the thing that leveled you to 6 over time (character advancement system?) in EFU:M was good. Gives those social butterflies a bit more staying power and a level 6 PC really is just barely strong enough to stretch his legs without leaving a red smear outside the city gates, either in the UD or in Ymph. Not sure what brought on the change to 3 or 4, whatever it is now, but that sucks.

New players getting some free respawns would be cool. If you're going to shell out $10 for new CD keys every week then have at it, I just don't see it being an issue.

LPFF had some good observations. Not sure I'm 100% on board with all of the suggested changes since they'll change what EfU has become (the majority of the vets seem to like it, after all). I'd probably be for anything that takes the edge off the learning curve while leaving all the vets on the plateau of awesomeness.

I thought it was funny someone else noticed the pseudo-arena thing too. Nothing for it - it should have been an expected outcome given all the elements in play.

I hope that my contribution to this thread is still relevant/pertinent, given its date of creation. I'm a "new player", currently thinking about leaving the server, and since I saw this thread, I figured I might explain my motives for doing so, since others before me might have been faced with the same problems.

Do bear in mind that the post will be extensive, since I will detail my EFU background prior to elaborating why I'm contemplating whether the server's right for me.

I first found out about EFU two or three years ago, during a short-lived attempt at returning to NWN. I found the mechanics of the server very appealing, aswell as the setting. The dungeons were very well-done and just the whole atmosphere was gripping, so it was definitly my favourite PW out of the few I managed to try. I recall that at the time I convinced a friend to try out the game and visit EFU with me... he was very discouraged by the harsh death penalties and eventually said he didn't like it. Different tastes for diferent folk, I guess. I personally enjoyed it because it sat perfectly with the server's atmosphere, a sense of hopelessness and impending doom. Sadly, time constraints got the best of me and my activity fizzled out, leaving me to come back to play early last year.

When I returned to the server a few things had changed, such as the trade building in Mistlocke having been blown to bits and the place just felt a lot more chaotic. This time around I had my boyfriend trying out the server with me (coincidentially, he had played NWN before so he didn't get quite as overwhelmed as the previous friend I brought in), and we really enjoyed it. We met a few great PCs and had a fun time discovering the server's many secrets together... I will never forget the time we inadvertently wound up in the Forbidden Forest, it was simply one of the best roleplay experiences I've ever had and I think that was when I realised that this server was something special. I recall we commented on how pro-active the players were and that there was always something going on in Mistlocke. If any server was ever close to being perfect, EFU was it, at least last year, for me. Sadly, we moved onto other things because we couldn't quite get into the loop of the server. There were so many things going on at the time and it seemed as if you had to be inside a specific group to do most things. This, along with the fact that I'm not a fan of writing applications and prefer for everything take place in an in-character fashion, led to us eventually abandoning not only the server, but NWN in general.

I learned a couple of months ago that EFU opened up its new chapter, so I promised myself I'd come check it out. Sadly, this time entering the server alone, but with a lot more time to spare and dedicate to the game. Comparing my introduction to Mistlocke and my introduction to Sanctuary, I have to admit that Mistlocke was more impressive and overall more polished. The quests at least felt easier to find and more streamlined, whereas on Sanctuary I was greeted with a feeling of being completely lost after the delivery quests were done with. I more or less knew how the server worked however so it wasn't too hard to adapt, but things did indeed get a little more overwhelming.

I was delighted to see that the areas still look magnificent, the quests are still interesting (whoever devised that puzzle room is a genius), but I now find myself faced with a very off-putting pet peeve to overcome... the community feels a lot more cliquey and way less new-player-friendly. Granted, nearly everyone here's an excellent roleplayer, but sadly I can't say the same about everyone's courtesy and conduct. There have been multiple instances where I felt completely ignored whenever attempting to interact with certain people. I'm capable of discerning when things are IC or when things are OOC; this wasn't my character being ignored, this was my attempt at initiating roleplay being ignored.

The three times I answered to sendings for aid with some type of quest/plot, I was always the one left out of the group. Mind you, it's not because I steal loot, not because my character smells, not because my character's a freak; fact is, nobody present knew my character, who happened to be a fairly mundane human.
On the first instance, I was simply asked to leave and didn't take it to heart, I figured there was a full party and that was it. On the second instance, people apparently forgot to do a head-count and asked me to leave or wait once we arrived at the dungeon's entrance; nevermind the fact that I was the first person to answer the sending and that the roleplay from my part went without trouble.
On the last incident, I joined a party, assisted them in completing a quest, agreed to go on another but upon arriving at the square someone else got recruited and I was, once again, sent away.
Now, mind you, this didn't happen because they're a group IC and I'm sort of an outsider. If that were the case I'd have seen it as standard procedure. The problem for me was that most of these PCs were complete strangers towards one another and everytime I tried to join a crowded party, my PC was the one being sent off. To put it simply, it felt like their username was worth more than mine, regardless of our characters.
Can't help say things feel cliquey and in these instances discriminatory. I wish I had only good things to say about EFU because I love the vibe of the server, I'm a genuine fan of all the little details and stories in the server, it's truly a world of its own, but these happenings really rubbed me in the wrong way. The last incident specially was so discouraging that I stopped visiting Freedom Square for the most part and now opt to wander around, relying on the off-chance that I'll meet a PC that's not busy and is willing to strike up conversation.

I will be honest and say that I have started looking at other PWs, because I'm becoming demotivated about continuing to play here. I didn't want to be the person writing this kind of post, but it saddens me because I'm well-aware that EFU is the richest PW out there and other servers just don't get the same level of attention to detail. I must also say the roleplayers are very talented and that makes me want to be here, but not at the expense of feeling excluded. Mind you I have also met some great people on here who were very helpful, so I'm not aiming this post at anyone in particular, much less at everyone in general, because there's a lot of kind-hearted players out there, but I still felt like pointing this out because I do get a lot of bad vibes from a few players and it gets hard to ignore all the time.

On the off-chance that the three incidents I listed above were a mere coincidence and that I was unfortunate, I'll chime in another example of poor player conduct that I experienced today, so that hopefully people can get what I mean...

An undead invasion had just happened on the in-between ruins of Sanctuary. Once it seemed to be mostly over, or dealt with, a few of us started heading towards the staircase leading to Upper Sanctuary. Upon arriving there, the battle song kicked in, and one specific "veteran" player turned back and started running. I found it to be pure metagame but regardless, I acknowledged the behaviour IC and proceeded to run after her while yelling that it's not prudent to go back like that... She sprinted in heavy armour around the entire zone, aimlessly, disregarding my attempts at roleplay, until she stumbled into the group she was looking for, who were now on their way back. To make it more hilarious, the moment she spots them she changes to walk mode and carries on roleplaying with them, never stopping for a second to acknowledge my character.

So, that's my experience on this chapter as a new player. I really want to enjoy the server because I understand that it's great... but how am I supposed to when I'm invisible?

I am very sorry to hear this, Siren.

When it comes to polished server, much of the feeling is intentional. Naturally being quite a new chapter, where Mistlocke was continuation of a surrounding that already existed and had been worked over years, we have still much to grow in new and different location. We will keep working on it to our best effort with the time allotted to us.

I would hope I could do something to the behavior that has seemed to gone in worse direction since the new chapter, where we hoped and demanded better. Somehow it has turned to worse in many aspects. Yet, there's a lot of newer players and people that have done great work. I would like to think these incidents were rare and unfortunate cases.

If only I would know how we could encourage people to do better, as we want that from everyone. These things, though, tend to come in waves and then people see their mistakes and end up correcting them little by little. Hopefully it will improve, but before that, I am open to suggestions.

If it's something we can do to newer players, I will try with my current limited situation.

As a very brief suggestion, Siren, I would strongly recommend you seek membership in one of the factions in and around Sanctuary, or even one of the player factions. They will increase your character's exposure to the server and make it much easier to mesh into the community. EFU is often a trial-by-fire for new players because of the difficulty and the issues you have mentioned, but sticking around is well-worth it.

"Cliques" are never good and we seek to avoid those wherever possible, but as you say, some adventuring groups have trouble rationalizing bringing someone who is completely green into the underdark! I honestly hope this is more of an IC issue than an OOC issue. Patience pays off and OOCly (via tells) informing players that you are new and would like a bit of help will almost always net you positive reactions!

I hate to come out and report but I've witnessed this behavior as well. And I know of a few players, some vets, who play less or not at all because of it. I personally have decided to avoid playing in Sanctuary proper just because I get tired of the focus on supplies and quest optimization. Not that I have much of an issue with either, but when it gets to the point where it's leaving people out (and it is) then I just don't want to be around it. I personally feel that the players need a wake-up call about this very problem.

I agree with LiAIH4's suggestion. If you tend play US evenings you'd be more than welcome to join my concept, and I can assure that you'd be included in what we're doing. Here's the link to player faction post:

http://www.efupw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=88147

I am a very new player to the server as well. I only joined in late October, completely oblivious to the setting or to any of the rules or mechanics. I will admit that I totally felt the same way that you did- like players ignored me and were all going about doing their own thing. I felt like there was a very cliquey environment that lent itself poorly to new players, and I was ready to quit the server on my second day. Then, out of nowhere, all kinds of cool stuff started happening to my character just because I stuck it out for a few days. I was hooked at that point, and now several months later I am involved in all kinds of cool stuff. I really recommend sticking with it for at least a week or so longer and seeing what happens.

Quote from: LiAlH4;371796"Cliques" are never good and we seek to avoid those wherever possible, but as you say, some adventuring groups have trouble rationalizing bringing someone who is completely green into the underdark! I honestly hope this is more of an IC issue than an OOC issue.

In my experience, cliques are essential to efu, faction building and the competition between those factions are inherent goals set by efu from the get go. We are also human, meaning we find those that play for the same reasons as we do, and we stick with them. There is a very diverse crowd who play this game for extremely different reasons. Due to certain practices in this forth chapter, the competition between groups is higher then ever.

Questing, which is normally the social meshing of various peoples together, has dropped to an extremely low priority / enjoyment level for many of the vets I'm familiar with. Quests are harder, less rewarding, and far more punishing then in any previous iteration of the server. This action demands that the players be more ruthless, cunning, and selective OOCly in order to get an advantage over the other people they are, or could possible be, in competition with.

It is a shame that isolation and apparent rudeness have become common themes lately, and it's one the community should consider making big changes in order to correct.

As for the OOC vs IC of being selective, I'd wager that it's closer to 98% OOC. I can provide more concrete details to interested parties over irc at their leasure. As for players that are struggling to enjoy themselves, I can and will also provide resources and contacts that will aid you in your endeavors.

Quote from: LiAlH4;371796Patience pays off and OOCly (via tells) informing players that  you are new and would like a bit of help will almost always net you  positive reactions!

This is priceless advice, that all being said. We must actually play together to have fun, so talking to each other and getting to know people is a very good practice.

First off, I just want to apologize for the experiences that you've been having. It's not at all what any of us aim for, but I would argue that despite the best intentions the current state of the server has sometimes led to this sort of behavior. I hope you'll continue to give us a chance, because there are some pretty cool things that you can get involved in if you stick with it and I think the reward is very much worth the effort of trudging past the hard times that come with being a new player.

Cliques are good. They're a natural part of any social experience. EFU is no exception. Making friendships OOC is as important as making them IC. Don't be afraid to join groups. Hop onto IRC and ask for help if you need it. You'd be surprised by the amount of people that are eager to help out newer players. Asking something as simple as "hey, I'm a new player, my character is xyz, could someone help show me around?" might get a lot of responses. Enjoying EFU revolves around finding groups to be around IC. DM's are drawn towards crowds, especially if those crowds are filled with active and motivated players.

Applications also aren't hard to pass, and you lose nothing but the time it'll take to write one up. Players and DM's alike are more than willing to help out with applications and offer recommendations from experience. They aren't particularly hard to get passed and offer a fast track towards getting involved with things. Definitely take a look at some of the factions that are available; they all have a tendency to force a character to meet other people and get involved in server plots.

I personally don't know about the experiences in Sanctuary since I've only sparsely explored the area and the PC that I've been playing since EFUR started is a nature-based one. Nonetheless, I'd definitely take a look at Capricious' recommendation (http://www.efupw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=88147) for a taste of the other side of the server. If you're available during CST/EST evenings, there's a pretty dedicated group of nature players that you can associate with. I can't promise the mechanical experience is going to be any more merciful than the one in Sanctuary, but I can promise that the company is good.

Again, I'd encourage you to hop on IRC. I'm Fitzwilliam there if you'd like to chit-chat on a more one-on-one basis. I'm also happy to respond to PM's on the forums.

Ebok, the 'cliques' you are talking about are different from the 'cliques' we are complaining about.

When a group of players edges out another player for no reason other than "We don't trust that the player will help our optimized group win", then that is really shitty cliquish behavior.

It's a simple fact that quests are hard. So hard and dangerous that most people ooc will make sure to avoid inviting too many people because it causes frustration and they might also die, and also from an IC perspective they know times are tough so why would they want to hire more hands?

There is currently no incentive to invite more people on most quests as it jacks up the difficulty. Quests are meant to be the fun thing we all do in order to obtain exp and supplies so we may do interesting things ig, such as exploring the UD, fighting strange and exotic beasts, and it also helps to spark conflict. The last point cannot be such a big deal most times but when we've three plus separate factions (upper, lower, wilderness, etc) and there is little to no conflict because people are too scared of dying and remaking.

I will say the lower to medium quests have been tweaked quite well, making it all far more manageable to begin with, but I'm afraid it tapers off past 6-7 drastically.

Oh maybe on the topic of conflict dms could go about possessing npcs to spark ideas in the minds of people, I mean I've not seen marge in weeks :(

I can fully understand where you are coming from.  I have stood in front of various groups and tried to start a conversation, ask simple questions like "where might I find the Trading Hall?" or "I have a pie I am to deliver to X, where might he be?"  Things that would have taken someone 2 minutes (tops) to respond to. Things that should have let them know I was a new PC if not a new player. I was met with silence.. nothing was said.. not a twitch.  After standing there like a fool for a few moments I walked away.  Once I walked away the PC's returned to talking to each other.  Talk about making you feel unwanted.
 
I've played since Efu 1, and I  can honestly tell you I have NEVER felt this unwelcomed by other PC's.  If this is how our new players are seeing us.. man it's a wonder any of them stick around.

I will admit I stuck around because of a few players (VengefulSeraphim and LordofCinder) and two DMs who went out of their way to make me feel welcomed and wanted on my first couple days on the server.

It also helped that I had another new player (MaimedGod) to play along with.

Ultimately I try to be somewhat helpful, no matter what my PC would do, to what I perceive as a new player. It's somewhat meta-y, I know, but it's what was done for me and it made me stick around.

It behooves everyone in this community to be welcoming to new players.

Siren,

   Apologies :(.  Some of this behavior takes active conscious thought and effort to correct, and as human beings we tend to take the lazy path more often than not.

   Much of my time is spent in one of the more difficult and less populated locations in the server, Lower Sanctuary.  Due to low population, you might feel isolated some of the time, but I would love to be able to get you into a quest group.  We haven't had a full one in some time!  But, be prepared for increased difficulty.

   Even better, join our player faction! -> http://www.efupw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=88009

Hope you stick with it.  My handle in-game is Gracken.

What happened to Siren, is pretty awful. Sorry to hear it happened at all.  The game and this server has been around a very long time now, so Alts and secret accounts are very common, it seems to me that Players should treat any PC they meet ig as new, IC and Out unless of course you do know them. That said..it is an Ideal.  To the new Player, know that your handle does not necessarily tell any of us you are new.  As I said, Alts are really common, so are secret accounts for whatever plot is going on.  So, as it has been said here before, send us a tell.  "Hey I am new, got a second?" Or anything of that nature, I cannot think of one player on our server that would ignore that.  And due take into account if they are in combat, their is a fair chance they may miss a tell, so don't be afraid to try it again if you get no response. It's only the DM channel that ignores pleas for help--JK! They are also very responsive, you could send the same tell on the DM channel, and believe me, if one were on, some one would at least respond and do their best to help you.

On a personnel note-efuincarnate, just like the handle here, if you see me on, bug me, feel free. I would be happy to RP, show you around, or just say hello. That goes for anyone.  If I am not responding to a tell, it is usually because I am mashing keys frantically trying not to die, so try again after a bit.

I do hope your experience gets better, it took me a few months before I really started to enjoy this new iteration of our server, and I have years here..so communication and patience is the best thing I can offer, and do not let a few bad sessions taint your view?

Quote from: Siren;371790...[COLOR="Red"]the battle song kicked in, and one specific "veteran" player turned back and started running[/COLOR]. I found it to be pure metagame but regardless, I acknowledged the behaviour IC and proceeded to run after her while yelling that it's not prudent to go back like that... She sprinted in heavy armour around the entire zone, aimlessly, [COLOR="Red"]disregarding my attempts at roleplay[/COLOR], until she stumbled into the group she was looking for, who were now on their way back. To make it more hilarious, [COLOR="Red"]the moment she spots them she changes to walk mode and carries on roleplaying with them, never stopping for a second to acknowledge my character.[/COLOR]

I would say tl; dr but Siren's post was longer and we got plenty who read that! And I think maybe some of you guys need to read this, too.

For starters, [COLOR="Red"]shame on any of you who do this[/COLOR]. If you have to, I strongly recommend you [COLOR="Red"]turn your music OFF [/COLOR]in order to prevent yourself from doing this. As the player of a character on this server, you have an OBLIGATION to act in a way that immerses not only yourself, but all others around you in this setting to the best of your ability. On THIS server, of all servers, it is a GUARANTEE that if you do it will be more rewarding for everyone, yourself included.

Now, Siren has described the perpetrator in this situation as a "veteran" player. I might infer from that that a "veteran" player has come to understand that interacting with certain other PCs is more likely to draw the attention of DMs than interacting with, say, Siren's PC. [COLOR="Red"]This is ridiculous and, if true, even more shameful.[/COLOR]

I know I'm coming on sort of hard with this post, but I feel as though if we have people using EfU as a medium for the sole purpose to running with their buds and killing things together with their fantasy-alter-ego-of-the-moment, disregarding (as Siren put it) attempts by others to roleplay in the process, it severely detracts from the quality and value of EfU. I may be a lowly player and I may be mostly unknown, but This server is MY treasure too, and [COLOR="Red"]every time someone does something like that I feel personally offended.[/COLOR]


[COLOR="Cyan"]***[/COLOR]Siren, I applaud you. I have witnessed behavior like this on several occasions myself, and to be honest, I do not acknowledge it IC anymore. If a player decides to pull something like this in favour of acting as their character might in a given situation, I no longer have any interest in interacting with them. I suddenly find their presence tedious instead of enriching.

Of course, Siren, I understand that we can't play police and we shouldn't have to and even if we tried it would just find another outlet, so my advice is to let it go, pretend it didn't happen, and distance yourself as well as you can (exceptional RP taken into consideration) from the players you come to realize cannot properly play their characters. (And this is what I see it as.)
I have no doubt that you will find people who are worth your time as an exceptional roleplayer. [COLOR="Red"]Don't feel like you have to submit to any sort of OOC behavior in order to experience the server fairly. If you EVER feel that way, we as your fellow players have failed you.[/COLOR]

I'm going to end this post now or I'll end up going on forever/burning myself out of playing here. I'm sure anyone who reads this much gets the point, and I'm sure [COLOR="Red"]I'm not the only one who feels this way.[/COLOR]

Sorry to be a jerk...


Questing has been the least fun ever so far. Really. The rewards, the quests, the variety... nothing adds up. It's just a boring grind. I'm having no fun questing. Like, at all. It's just a slog.

I'm not a master player. Really, I suck. But I know how to quest half-competently at least and even with good groups, when you barely use anything, it's just... eh.

The quests aren't any fun. With how much EfU has always enjoyed doing quests this is just counter-intuitive. All the 3-7 quests are just dull and get repetitive since you need to do them so often. The "staple" quests make me groan. Moths... yay. Mudmen... yay. Gnoll cook... yay. It's like the time you'll spend the most questing in, you have the least variety of fun quests to do. The only one I like is kobolds; it's the most like an older EfU-grade quest rather than a mob-slog. Kobolds you crush or die in, the others you just kinda groan through for questionable rewards. Yeah, rewards, but it's like... come on.

I can elaborate if you want...

I would hope to see people bring a little less vitriol to this thread with their feedback and be a little more constructive in their  criticism. This kind of aimless negativity without a clear constructive  take away does more harm than good. If you can't be bothered to put together your thoughts in a constructive and well thought out manner maybe it wasn't that important to say.

Anyone who is new to the server or feeling frustrated and trying to work out ways to enjoy the server more are welcome to PM me IG, on IRC or on the forums at any time. My in game account name is "Veteran Noob".

Moving on...(for the new guys)

Get involved with people who are interesting, try to make characters who are interested in getting involved in the setting in some way.

Some very basic ways to get involved in the server:

• Advocates of one political guild or the other (don't be shy, even political groups in real life have a wide range of opinions and competency; being a poor advocate of your political guild is just as fun as being a good one!)
• Look through the public posters forum and the introductions and group management forums to get an idea of player groups doing cool stuff. If one interests you try and contact them and ask about what they are doing and if they would mind helping you concept something up to join in on their cool stuff
• Just off the top of my head as far as player groups go: the Wayfinders is probably the best faction ever for specifically new players to jump into and see a lot of the server, meet a lot of interesting people, and get intensely involved in the setting in a manageable fashion.

The setting is amazing, crafted with painstaking love and I feel like we've barely scratched the surface of what's in store. But trust me when I say if you only aimlessly run around questing you aren't getting the full picture of why so many people passionately love EFU.

I have to say, I respect all feedback and notions of what can be improved, but as Vlaid says, some of these comments just hurt and make me depressed as part of the team.

When you say all our quests are dull, or stuff is bad and how nothing is as it was in Mistlocke, then you do not provide details or proper plans to improve them, it really feels disrespectful. I repeat it a lot, because it feels like players forget it and do not even try to show some patience with it - we do not get paid. We work to feed ourselves and do all we do, putting hours, nights and days into working things so we can all enjoy things - all during our spare time. It's a hobby.

This new chapter is only few months in, and it's a new surrounding with nothing left from Mistlocke in sense of things to do and what we could use. Mistlocke was build on efu:a , and had the advantage of making use of what was already in place in great many ways to double the content, so to say.

When it comes to quests of EfU:R, we got more quests than seemingly all of you know. Some are really dangerous, some are less so. There are more quests out there that people -still- have not reached to, and it's by design that we don't want everything to be in one place at your feet. They obviously do not number in comparison with Mistlocke chapter, but hey, only couple months have passed and we obviously did not have all that Mistlocke had last year, already when Mistlocke started.

We are adding new content, new quests, changes, fixes, polishing and detailing things, but as much as people think otherwise, at times, efu moves a lot with player force. New chapter was in the works a long time and even in that time, not everything possible could be brought in, which is given.

Some things changed as players did things, and we've had to actually make changes because of it already. Majority of efu is though in player actions and plots, rather than just questing and other things. They are obviously very important daily part, but I would expect some respect towards us, as fellow players and people alike, even if we are DM's, to have patience. Either do your best to enjoy yourself, take time and effort to seek around the setting if you feel normal closeby quests are dull, because there are more than those, or give us suggestions and ideas with detailed plans and tools we can use with as much ease and time as possible, if you wish us to make haste with something.

Greed and disrespect to work of other players and DM team has been something that has greatly gone up with the latest chapter, which unfortunately tends to shadow the great RP that has improved and created many far more "realistic" situations in game, resulting in amazing scenarios and plays. I've enjoyed improvement from old and new player alike in great numbers on many events, but the OOC attitude and way to provide feedback or request something has gone to a level of a kindengarden kids. This does not include everyone, obviously, but this kind behavior was far less brought up in past years.

Please. Enjoy yourselves. You're the only one that can make it happen in the end, no matter what content we provide. Secondly, give us suggestions as usual, and don't trash others ideas - have respect towards others and even us DM's, not because we are DM's but because we are just here to have fun, like you. We do this because we want to enjoy it, and if we stop enjoying it, then so will the progress be stopped.

More content and things will always come. We do as much as we can with time spared from our sometimes busy lives.

I know, I know. Posts like mine just cause burn-out and aren't constructive. If it's okay I'll write a post where I'll try to carefully outline what could be improved in the current quests.

I'm very much aware EfU:R is still fresh. I mean, we've been through this a few times. I know you guys work very hard, for free, so it's kind off rude to hear that something is 'dull'. And I know I can be painfully blunt.

But realize I /love/ EfU. Always have. So it's important to me, and I want it to be the best it can be. I'll go ahead and explain my concerns once I can compose a calm, rational post.

Until then, please understand, that it's still the best place to play on, and filled with amazing stories. But it's not perfect, never will be, and especially not while it's fresh from the presses, and I'm sure it'll merely continue to gradually improve, as it always has.

Peace.

I'd first of all like to thank everyone who's commented on my previous post here, whether the response was encouraging or otherwise, everyone shared their thoughts and perspectives on how to best enjoy the server. It'd be out of place if I didn't say that there's some great people here, both player-side and on the DM team, and if any were wondering, I am still playing under the handle "Snoozing Mermaid".

A few have reached me through forum PMs with supportive words and Jayde Moon was extremely kind in not only talking to me on IRC about how I could have more fun, but also in putting together a build that's both mechanically viable and fitting to my character, seeing that I'm apparently not very good at making characters efficient in combat. The server's exceptionally hard as it's been said (which is a great trait), and there's no way I could have built a character like the one I have now with my knowledge of NWN's mechanics. I believe I've learned quite a bit!

Also, Paha, I hope that my previous post wasn't demotivating in any fashion and that your feelings stem from subsequent entries in the thread. If I sounded unappreciative of the server in any fashion, then I sincerely apologise, because that wasn't my intention.

Regarding the new chapter, I think the atmosphere is amazing. I wish I could say that it's better or worse than Mistlocke, but after a while of playing here, I still can't compare the two. It feels very EfU-esque, if that makes sense, but it's an entirely different beast.

Starting with the environment and vibe of the server, it now feels less fantasy-esque (which is a much appreciated change for me, as someone who's not really a fan of FR's lore) and more "steampunk". I absolutely adore some of the areas, the machine in particular.

Regarding the quests, I don't really agree with Jasede in that they're "dull", but I think I understood what he's trying to say.
Some of them have slightly less replay value, and I will do my best at explaining why I think that is.
Going back to Mistlocke, which had the rock beetle quest where you harvested their glands and were trying to find a wizard's assistant, the dungeon would change, for example. I recall sometimes one way would be blocked off by rubble, and you would have to take an alternate route and run into a pair of scary spiders that would easily kill anyone unprepared.
Well, it basically made it so that the player's experience was likely to change the next day and even someone who'd ran all paths of that dungeon before would return and go "gah, I'll have to fight the spiders, got the worst dungeon possible" and have to adapt their strategy. It was a subtle little thing, but an engaging one at that, because regardless if it was the same quest, you didn't know what you would encounter. Also, in addition to searching for the wizard's apprentice, the quest had you harvesting beetle glands, which sort of made it so that you had two goals during one dungeon; it really enhanced the fun factor to see how many beetle glands you could harvest without screwing up and improve your reward. This, paired with the fact that money was scarce made the dungeon feel both worthwhile and rewarding, aswell as unpredictable.

Now, if we compare this quest to the Gardener's one at Starag's rest... you are also searching for someone's assistant, but the dungeon is much shorter and essentially consists of beating up a few walking mushrooms. I think it's great fun still and enjoy doing the quest, but I can't lie and say that it's as captivating as the rock beetle quest from Mistlocke.

I think that's what Jaseden was trying to say when he used the word "dull", but as he said, he loves EfU.

Another quest I used to enjoy in Mistlocke was the grainery infested with goblins, simply because of its mechanics. The dungeon felt really clever in how it had hordes of goblin archers and you were forced to either take cover or get shot down. The dungeon was just mindless fun; there were so many squishy enemies that were vulnerable at close-range but deadly from afar, that it forced you to think and use precaution. Being able to turn around a deadly situation made you feel engaged and involved; something as simple as taking cover made the dungeon a unique experience.

As a last example, the cheese shop cellar with the rat infestation... the quest was a lot of fun aswell, mostly because of the challenge that the oozes presented. They were immune to physical damage, so the player was forced to think of an alternative to bypass them... whether that was using speed to escape, luring the mob onto a separate room and shutting it in or even applying Alchemist's Fire to your sword to be able to damage them momentarily. I vividly remember running around, chased by a horde of rats and deadly oozes, trying to slay the rats so that hopefully I would have enough time to use an Alchemist's Fire and be able to deal with the oozes before it expired. Again, the consumables you found in one quest would be valuable in the other and it felt as if most things required planning and like every trinket could be useful at some point. That's what made me enjoy Mistlocke's dungeons so much, to the point where I'll say that their dungeons were better than that of any other PW or campaign I've played through in single-player. I understand that for the DM team to surpass something that was perfect is a very challeging task and I hope that EfU:M doesn't become an evil ghost that applies pressure on the people working on the server's current iteration.

Now, I've found most of the new chapter's quests to be satisfactory and fun, even after repeated runs, but I can't compare them to Mistlocke's because they feel simpler and more straight-forward in terms of mechanics. I feel like some of them have room for improvement and being reworked, if only to make them more distinguishable from one another. I wouldn't be surprised if that was on the DM team's plans, considering that EfU:R has barely just started! I should stress that I am not disappointed in any way. I am loving Efu:R for what it is and quickly growing very fond of its new atmosphere.

I don't wish to make another huge post however but I'm afraid it might be too late for that already... -.-

So on that note, I'll just suggest that maybe there could be a thread where players submitted suggestion for quests and dungeons? I would even be glad to volunteer for designing some myself (or at least their layout, seeing as monster stats may prove a challenge), if they can somehow be implemented onto the module like that.

There's something else I wanted to touch on, that I think is the most vital thing for EfU:R to improve on module-wise, but I believe the "Feedback" thread in this section might be more appropriate for that, so I think I will end my post here.

Sorry for being so extensive once more. I'm sure that the DM team is well-aware of any points I tried to make with this post because it seems we're all blessed to be under DMs who do listen to player feedback and I think that's what got EfU where it is now, with such a dedicated playerbase! Proof that they're aware of the playerbase's opinions is the fact that someone has recently just joined the DM team to help with the area design, so I'm stoked to see even more improvements! I have a lot of trust in this server's DM team after seeing multiple things that they've been able to pull off, so I'm certain that our new chapter will turn out being a very memorable one!

QuoteAre you a player that briefly tried EFU, couldn't get into it, and didn't come back? Would you like to describe your experience?

I joined the server a couple of weeks back and my first impressions were good, people were RP'ing, starting up wasn't so difficult with the quests and the community seemed friendly to new players.

What turned me off after a while were two things mainly, the first being the grind.
I know NWN servers are bound to have grinds, I even expect it. But from my initial experience the grind consisted of going to the same 3-6 areas depending on which level you were over and over again (And if there's more I haven't seen it's because I could only find parties for those same areas).

The second being the seemingly arbitrary way dungeons is handled "Someone else is inside so we can't do this place" "We're one too many people for this dungeon" "One of us has done this quest before, leave the party" and others like it have been a common sight for me thus far. On more than one occasion I've had to leave a group because there were too many people for one quest, other times I've had to walk away from a dungeon or wait for a long while because someone else is inside.

It rubs me the wrong way when you effectively can't interact with other adventuring parties and need to prune who you bring with you to quest very carefully.

I would argue that the low level quests do not do justice to the server, and a lot of players who might actually enjoy the core activities of the server never get to actually experience them.

Personally I dread rolling a new character, as I find the low level experience boring. If you are new to the server, then you may not play for long enough to see the brilliance of the mid-higher level experience, or as happened to the last player I introduced to the server, you may get perpetually caught in the low levels, and repeat the same less exciting game play over and over.

My first gripe is the delivery quests. It’s not that delivery quests cannot be fun. Herding rothe across undead invested wasteland in EFU:M was a piece of inspired genius. But walking from NPC (a) to NPC (b) is neither fun nor engaging. I suppose it’s vaguely useful to be shown around the town, and some players will enjoy reading the server back story, but many of the locations just seem dead â€" they don’t have any PCs, nothing is happening, nothing is exciting to do there. Delivery quests are the bland staple of so many computer games, why would you open with them? Is that really a good ‘sell’ of the server’s assets? At least EfU:M started with a full bells and whistles mist scene, so you got a taste of the awesome to come.

My second gripe is the low level quests. They are not nearly as good as the higher level ones. This is not an indictment of the DM team, after all, the same DM’s that wrote the super ace mid-higher level quests also made the lower level ones. Rather, it is a reflection of the fact that low level D&D is pretty lousy. The gap between character power is really wide at low levels, so it is hard to strike a balance between making them too hard and too easy. Character hps are all so low that they are also much more prone to the bad luck of a few bad dice rolls than at higher levels. They are also usually done solo, because it is hard to find other low level characters, which prevents the fun of RP and team cooperation. Finally, there is something distinctly un-epic about killing a bunch of beetles, rats or worms.

Additionally, the loot seems pretty odd to the normal gamer. You get gold which doesn’t buy anything useful in shops (PC economy is great, but when you start, this will not be obvious), and a whole lot of rotten, rusted and worm-ridden trash items. The server is filled with quirky and clever loot (also usually rotten, rusted etc, but awesome), but you don’t see much of it at low levels. In EfU:M the initial search-junk-piles-for-stuff quest offered a chance of interesting/special but not game breaking loot. It would be nice if this was more common at low levels.

I started a new character yesterday, and I was thinking about this thread as I played. There were a few examples of the times where I am sure I would have quit in frustration if I didn’t know better things were ahead. On the low level 'salvage pit' dunwarren quest, I spent forever fighting the endboss. I needed a 17 to hit him, and I needed to hit him half a dozen times for him to go down. At one attack every six seconds, that is an average of three minutes plinking away at the same enemy. I rolled pretty badly, and it was closer to five. To make things worse, he walks so slowly there was no risk of him ever doing me any damage. So I had an unlosable fight that was also incredibly slow and repetitive.

Then I completed two thirds of the 'underdark exploration' quest outside the city gates, after struggling through with over 100 hps lost to falls (with tumble at max), I found I couldn’t continue because I didn’t have a shovel (none had dropped in the loot bags, and even as a vet I forgot I needed one). I then had to use the rest of my healing supplies to drag myself back over all the cliffs to exit from the start and receive no reward. Frustrating stuff.

So to summarise, I think the solo game play, the delivery quests, and the dry QAs do not sell the server as well as they could after one or two day’s play. Even though the setting is exotic, the game-play is not (at low levels). Which fantasy game in the last few decades has not begun with deliveries and solo rat/insect dungeons? Moreover, inexperienced players will often spend a considerable length of time in the low level areas, due to the higher death rate. So they can play for days without seeing the really good stuff. And once you die at low levels, subsequent levelling up after the first time is harder each time due to the number of non-repeatable quests.

People might argue that you don’t need to do these low level scripted things, you can just get stuck straight into the mid level quests and the RP. And so you can, but as a new player, tagging along with higher level PCs as a low level character is often fatal.

The last player I introduced had a terrible time staying alive. He died twice before he made it to Mistlocke (remember the holes in the bridge? Good times!). Once he found his footing, he managed to reach the giddy heights of level four. He then went on a PC led chase to hunt a high level PC werewolf (lol) and promptly used all his supplies getting his arse handed to him. He wasn’t killed, but without healing died on the next quest, then the next. He ended up falling to level 1, and quit because he couldn’t find a quest he could do (minimum quest level was 2 on all the QAs). Even as a veteran I shy away from doing mid level quests at low levels unless I have a very safe character, because the risks are so high, and the thought of dropping levels and repeating the basic quests all over again is terrifying.

 Most of the PC or DM inspired events are going to be beyond the capacity of a low level character, and are quite frequently lethal. You will be ineffective in PvP, and big DM quests often seem to have a few low levels casualties to AoE and new player enthusiasm.

However, I have a few suggestions to fix the problems as I see them.

Firstly, I think the level range could be compressed at the bottom without any loss to the core game play of the server. Currently we are accelerated straight to level 3, but I think this could be 4, or even 5, without all hell breaking loose. It would get people into the action faster, and improve the game experience for vets and noobs alike. There should also be a mechanism to keep players from falling below this level (repeatable sub 4 or 5 easy quests that give you a level, for example).

I know that some of the problems I have described are due to the current system being weighted carefully to prevent vet system rorting, but if this comes at the cost of new player excitement, it is not worth it.  

Secondly, could we have early quests that use game mechanics to make higher level PCs want to interact with new characters?

For example, a quest could provide a low level character with a lump of unrefined (and undroppable) baublium. The stuff can only be refined in a wild part of the machine, and going there will require an escort. The level range of the NPCs is determined by the levels of who guard the low level character, so it stays a challenge, and they all get xp rewards, including high level players. At the end the low level character’s player feels like a star, because they got to interact with other PCs and be the focus of an interesting adventure. The other PCs would be on the lookout to do this quest as often as possible, because a) the town desperately needs baublium and b) they get xp at any level. This quest could be a once only, and might even come with instructions on how to make a sending to ask for help in the task.

Thirdly, perhaps we could do with a 'new player' focused DM? I understand that there is some degree of specialisation in tasks, and perhaps a DM who focused mostly on the new and low level characters would be a worthy investment of time. They could focus more exclusively on spicing the early level quests and giving new players a richer experience. There are lots of fun things a DM can do with new people to town â€" in a way they are ideal puppets for political intrigue, criminal shenanigans and generally wandering around without suspicion.

Apologies for the length of this post, and I hope it didn’t sound too critical. I love EfU in general, and I think the general quality of the quests is top notch. I just think the lower level experience doesn’t sell the whole package as well as it could.

Don't apologise, Scrappa. It was an excellent and well thought out post and I felt it raised a lot of good points. I like the idea of a 'new player' DM very much, but may I suggest an alternative? Have players be on volunteer duty specifically to help total newcomers to the server and have there be some mechanism to let the newcomers make contact with them. This could be as simple as something like the "summon Watcher" mechanism built into the NPC Watchers and issue a call to all players who are on the newcomer welcome wagon team.

I myself will happily show newcomers around and if such a team is formed will be glad to be part of it. The team would then be go-to guys for the new arrivals so they would know it was always OK to ask them questions. I know they could just send Tells at random but it can be intimidating to do that on a brand new server and this way they would know it would be OK for them to bug these guys at least. Also, they would always have at least some people they could go to for RP until they have learned the ropes a bit better.

As to the rest of your post, I am going to confine myself to saying that it all sounds great and I would love to see some of these ideas implemented. Being the technical non-genius I am, I am unsure how much I could contribute towards working them out, but I would love to see it done!

EDIT: I just realised that ideally the newcomer companions should not be of too high level themselves so they could participate in low level activities. Not sure how that should be handled. Maybe they could keep an alt around at low level, for example. I am not quite sure I like that, however, for it would give the newcomers an IC friend who was not that regularly around. :/

~tOH.

Some sort of tutorial in the beginning would be great, tbh. Imagine some npc shouting for you to use a ballista to shoot back enemies before telling you to scavenge some debris for supplies before hearing the rumbling of the dread army coming, that npc telling you to use a grappling hook to get to the portal to sanctuary before he is mercilessly killed.

I would agree with scrappy totally as well as saying perhaps try to add incentive to involve lower level characters in some way, I took two low level gnomes recently on kobolds and all that did for me to increase my chances of dying and lessen my reward. It was enjoyable no less, but I need to start resupplying in order to do at again and such a result would make me less likely to consider involving low levels on the harder quests.

I would say a quicker fix to all this would be increasing the amount of quests about then decreasing the experience. From what I've seen the dms want to see the players all around the same mid level, so it would solve that issue rather well and stop all the grudges from the fact some players are better at questing so level faster.

I believe that most of the people here (or any other D&D/setting X RPG) would prefer to spend their time performing 'heroic' feats and 'epic' stuff.

This applies to myself , as well.

And while understanding the fact that characters here are flung into an apocalyptic setting, we still want to do all those above things. Save princesses from towers. Slay dragons with twenty heads.

Forcing people to remain at 'lower' levels for a longer time to perform more 'mundane' tasks, such as deliveries, errands, killing rats in a damp tavern cellar... and in fact struggling to do so might be great fun for the first few times... but I dare say that 90% of the people here have done this over and over again and not only on EFU, but in their 'RP' career, whether it's tabletop, or other computer games .. and they are not really interested to do it for the XXXXX-th time.

As I mentioned on IRC today, I'm off mind that an intro akin to the intro we had in EFU:M, with amazing narrative, that actually explains the history/lore of the server, that puts your starting character at L3 or 4, with a bag of mundane supplies that allows you to survive a mid-level quest with a party, would be a much better idea than having to do 50 errand quests for 50 XP each.

Those 'simple' low-level quests should, of course, remain, in case one's character dies horribly 5 times in a row doing something epic so you can wind back to something more 'survivable'.

And that brings us to another point, being the XP hit upon death. It's massive. And even with the implementation of the 'permanent' DM XP, it still remains massive unless you accumulate thousands of permanent XP.

People lose interest, having to grind back to a point where they actually have a dim chance of survival in the unforgivable, apocalyptic setting, by doing all the 'mundane' tasks again.

I'm personally not really interested  in role-playing the 'Oh my gawd, I'm so terrified I pissed my pants seeing this horrible Hook Horror Baby that can crush me in two blows ' part.

I really, really loved the balance of EFU:A/M when it comes to questing/XP. The supplies were really over the top, that is for sure, but we suddenly from 200% to 50%.

Which brings me to another point - with EFU becoming more and more sandbox-ish these days. While at times it may be fun to gather ingredients A, B, C, D, [...], X, Y, Z in order to get/create/have Mediocre-thing, when it becomes so stretched out that every simple thing becomes a chore, because you need to do 20 MUNDANE things in order to obtain 1 MEDIOCRE thing, and then obtain 20 MEDIOCRE things in order to obtain 1 'Good-quality' thing.... It's a bit too much.

Why? Simply because there's never enough free time to spend gaming these days. I wouldn't want to spend a few hours every day doing MUNDANE things to get that one MEDIOCRE thing, because I simply don't have time for that. School/Work/Life, name it however you want it.


All the above points, of course, suddenly become void when there's epic story stuff going on, but that happens every now and then. The time in between should be filled out with meaningful things to do for PC's instead of obtaining 'ticks' of 1-10 XP/gp.

<3


EDIT: P.S. I haven't read what I wrote as I'm at work, so my apologies if there's any typos or horrible grammar mistakes :)

You're definitely right, SN, that people prefer being heroic and epic.
 
The problem is, if players start out being heroic and epic, there's no tension with regard to death or permanent consequence.  They can just roll up another character.
 
By forcing a certain element of sacrifice, suffering, and even tedium, the idea of perma-death becomes truly scary because of all of the effort lost.
 
The trick is balancing it to a proper level.  You do make a good point that perhaps the balance is a little too far in the direction of tedium.  We don't want players planning an awesome character, staring down the barrel of what feels like a long slog, shrugging, and logging out.

I just want to mention that I'm paying attention to this thread and am working on some changes that will hopefully address some of these concerns in a balanced way. I'm aiming for more fun, less tedium, an easier time for new players but still a meaningful lowbie experience.

Stay tuned in the coming days... I promise some changes are coming.

I would like to point out that it gets harder and harder to recover a level after you lose it. The first run for level 6 will be easier than the second and the second will be easier than the third.

You got more supplies, right. But the options of quest will fade (some got limited times to be taken). You won't get the exploration XP back. You will be more and more restricted to mundane and repetitive tasks.

If you got a group to support you, then you are still in goo shape and probably you will manage to recover it in time with the help of your allies.

Although, if you suddenly are an exiled person, or you happen to have made most of the server hunt you, a regular death will strike a much heavier blow upon you than it would strike on regular PCs. It means now that you are being hunted while you are weaker and while you have even fewer ways of climbing back to prominence.

Right, you can work towards besting the obstacle. Although, that will be often the reason you retire a PC or give up into trying to save it when you're caught. Accumulated frustrations are not rarely the reason of some of our awesome stories ending.

Quote from: Big Orc Man;372475You're definitely right, SN, that people prefer being heroic and epic.
 
The problem is, if players start out being heroic and epic, there's no tension with regard to death or permanent consequence.  They can just roll up another character.
 
By forcing a certain element of sacrifice, suffering, and even tedium, the idea of perma-death becomes truly scary because of all of the effort lost.
 
The trick is balancing it to a proper level.  You do make a good point that perhaps the balance is a little too far in the direction of tedium.  We don't want players planning an awesome character, staring down the barrel of what feels like a long slog, shrugging, and logging out.

I would say this isn't true really, it may have felt that way but I never wanted any of my characters to die so soon even in efua/m. It's awesome to hear that something has come of it, I've already wanted to quit three times after three characters died pre level 7 in pvp to players who have more time than I do to invest the time needed to become higher level and gain more supplies.

One thing that I've tried to do (but haven't been able to for as much as I'd like due to IC circumstances and level) is to take new PCs and new players out on the quests that they will be a horrific burden and danger on. This does a few things:

If someone OOCly isn't mechanically inclined, it can teach them party mechanics that may be EFU in particular OR broad NWN stuff.

If a character is ICly green behind the ears then you're grooming Pisspants McGoblinscreamer into Skullcrusher Flayerbiter by throwing him into a trial by fire.

Both of these bring our new people into the fold and give them a little push forward when it comes to the grind, and even when a quest instance goes HORRIBLY FUCKING WRONG it can be a fun play experience because of how adverse the conditions can become (like bringing five wizards into Shaggaland.)

Someone getting their butt kicked can make that become part of a character's identity, but someone getting slaughtered until they don't want to play the character anymore is not a good thing.

If you're a mechanically sound player and/or character, groom the next generation even if it makes things harder. It makes for a better server when there is intermixing between the character generations, and you don't necessarily need to have quests designed around that intermixing (even though those would be cool, yes.)

Maybe I'm one of the few who'll disagree with wanting our characters to do "epic" stuff and perform heroic feats... Part of the server's allure to me is feeling like we're all hopeless and face an enormous amount of adversities. I wouldn't really want to feel like my character's immensely powerful... I like feeling scared of leaving Sanctuary, and I am. To the point that I never ventured further than Lower on my own. Being afraid of what could be out there is such an exciting feeling...

That cliché of the baby hook horror that tears your character apart in two hits is what makes me play here rather than elsewhere. The server is always thrilling and if a monster's big, it'll probably spell the end of your character. I feel like anything different from that would be a bastardization of the server's atmosphere.

To me the quests are really engaging the way they are, I find the enemies I fight to be very fitting for the amount of power I imagine our characters having.
If I wanted my character to have the power of a deity I could play just about any other server out there, quite frankly they're all the same, full of cliché pseudo-mysterious hooded characters with insane gear and sitting on epic levels. But here it's different, I like that you feel powerful because of your allies and RP, rather than the drops and XP you get from the pixels you slay.

I play EfU a bit like it were survival horror and I love it that way. Not saying that major stuff should never happen but if everyone standing in freedom square had seen and slain dragons, it makes me wonder how immersive the server could still be...

I believe I might be speaking for a minority though, since I prefer low-magic settings and am not fond of FR by default. However, the 2 EfU chapters I played in were very satisfying, so I can have faith that as long as the DM team stay truthful to their vision of this PW I will always be a fan.

In regards to the death penalty I think that it's fine, I am not particularly bothered by having to do mundane tasks either but I definitely agree that there needs to be more of them, a lot of quests have take limits and going down from level 6 means either hours of worminging each time or days of repeating the same 3 quests to get back to where you were...

I think the content and activities that are in are very good, but there's a deficit of things to do after suffering a death penalty in my opinion!

I'm really excited to hear about changes in the horizon too! =D

What Siren said.

Alot of sound ideas here, but the one that pairs vets with new players seems to stand out.  It almost seems like it would start as an OOC thing..a list if you would on the forums, of Vet Players handles, their IG active chars, and TZ.  A new player could, once they find the forums of course, look at the list, and send a quick tell ig to the player "Hey, I am new, got a second?"  the rest could easily be handled in game.  

Doing it all ingame, is a grand idea, but I think a little OOC co ordination is necessary, to make it happen. Just to streamline the initial communication. Perhaps?...

and/or.... There could be some sort of Faction ingame? Instead of running alts, those who wish to volunteer could have chars as alts who are in game only to meet, escort, roleplay with, and interact with new arrivals?  Still an alt to your epic plot making main, but instead of logging that 20th alt when your bored...log in your  "Insert Witty name of Faction here" character.  Something you intentionally keep low level, or even chars capped at low level in the faction? So new players always have a party to draw from? Rather then DM possessed NPC's ..this would almost be Assistant DM players..in that they solely log in to interact with new arrivals, or just those getting a new main off the ground. I for one would use this as an alt, when my Main is inactive for whatever reason that day. Maybe the Faction has some perks, to make survivability more optimal, for sacrificing higher levels.? Or..not., roaming around with a level 8 when your 2, a kind of mentor, is pretty nifty as well, when done right. Just spit balling ideas here, but the whole thing seems like another way to add great dimension, give vets yet another outlet to explore, and really give new folks a welcoming hand up upon arrival.


tl/dr- OOC forum to coordinate new players to vets who are interested in helping them

DM Faction that exists solely for this purpose, giving alts an altruistic reason for being! Perks if level capped, or just some simple DM attentions to make them stand out in game to new players?

Quote from: efuincarnate;372567alts

Personally I don't think this'd be a good idea. It would be good to find a system wherein new players can become affiliated with veterans on their main (I think this is done successfully already by the likes of Vault Shrike - the Wayfinders have always been warm to newbies) - but not on alts.

Reason for this being the nature of these relationships between veteran and new player will naturally become progressively interdependent as the new player flourishes and becomes established on the server. The alt character will, over time, develop certain obligations to be online as a support role to the new player - taking the veteran's time away from their main.

Restricting these alts' ability to become involved in the story and progression of the new player beyond a certain threshold will seem extremely artificial and forced.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but I am under the impression that part of the Civil Service's role IG is to be a sort of welcoming organization. Meeting and greeting new PCs, finding at least a bit of information pertaining to the character and perhaps pointing them in particular direction in regards to where they might fit in in the grand scheme of things.

Got a burly fighter-esque new PC? Through IG and IC interactions, the Civil Service might nudge that PC towards the Spellguard Auxillary, the Society of the Ordered Mind or possibly the Watch. Or at the very least, make them aware these organizations exist and that they might have interest in the PC.

Quote from: noctem;372573Perhaps I'm missing something, but I am under the impression that part of the Civil Service's role IG is to be a sort of welcoming organization. Meeting and greeting new PCs, finding at least a bit of information pertaining to the character and perhaps pointing them in particular direction in regards to where they might fit in in the grand scheme of things.

Got a burly fighter-esque new PC? Through IG and IC interactions, the Civil Service might nudge that PC towards the Spellguard Auxillary, the Society of the Ordered Mind or possibly the Watch. Or at the very least, make them aware these organizations exist and that they might have interest in the PC.

I had no idea..truthfully, had no clue what they did, besides run messages or make sendings. My own fault, I suppose. The words Civil Service kind of dissuaded any further investigation on my point.  Just did not have the interest, perhaps this organization needs some PR?

I have read all the recent posts on this thread. I have played EFU off and on for years since the first EFU.  I have also witnessed the kind of treatment Siren has brought to our attention. Personally most of my PCs have typically gone out of their way to aid new players.  Sometimes my concept and new PCs concept are not really complimentary and often my PCs will give loot/gold to a struggling PC (especially in the current chapter) and try to 'bring them into the game' through RP etc.  More times than not, however that PC I have spent time showing the ropes to/giving loot to is never seen again.

This becomes a drain on supplies in the current setting if you want to give meaningful supplies to random PCs that are never seen again.  This becomes even more of an issue when the above is repeated several times and none of the PCs are played more than a week or one night.  It leads one to OOCly blow off the people that seem to have 'noob problems' because time spent with their PCs is usually (and unfortunatly) a wasted effort.  

This saddens me and does little to help the server.

To address these issues I suggest the following:

1) In the PC creation area somehow let new Players know that it is best to STICK WITH ONE PC.

I hate it when a player just up and quits a PC for some new concept on a whim and seems oblivious to the fact that others have invested time/energy/loot in their characters story and perhaps are even working IG to bring their PC (that they just quit) deeper into the awesome that is EFU. Wasted effort like that hardens people OOC.  

SO if you are new, make one PC and stick with it for at least a couple weeks PLEASE!

2) MOAR LOOT (stingy DMs :wink: )

It would help address this: http://www.efupw.com/forums/showthread.php?p=372453#post372453

One thing I noticed playing on EFU:M is that most PCs were not wanting for loot.  RP always came first, your PC always came first, plot always came first as loot was MUCH less of an issue.  This makes EFU better imo.

Most the times your PC died in EFU:M was because YOU the player did not use the tools at hand to successfully meet the challenge.  Many have died to simple things with a pack full of awesome potions because they are being 'saved' for PvP/DM quest/whatever.  

Loot bloat is an issue. HOWEVER: (outside of PvP becoming a potion chugging contest) LOOT IS A GREAT EQUALIZER!  Even if you are low level/a crappy build/etc a supply of loot can let you overcome some situations where your PC would otherwise be somewhat useless/dead weight/easy PvP victim.  

Also people love collecting loot, as players it brings us joy; much as the comfort of having an ale or 10 to sooth our IG booze addiction. ;)

Those are my thoughts on how to improve new player retention.

Quote from: scrappayeti;372437The last player I introduced had a terrible time staying alive. He died twice before he made it to Mistlocke (remember the holes in the bridge? Good times!). Once he found his footing, he managed to reach the giddy heights of level four. He then went on a PC led chase to hunt a high level PC werewolf (lol) and promptly used all his supplies getting his arse handed to him. He wasn’t killed, but without healing died on the next quest, then the next. He ended up falling to level 1, and quit because he couldn’t find a quest he could do (minimum quest level was 2 on all the QAs).

I'm the player in question. I've recently started an EFU:R character and today I got to the point where I wanted to quit again because I keep getting killed by small things, often random spawns outside quests. I've spent several days trying to get up to level four. Finding this thread has helped, because it's made it really clear that you guys do want to help new players have fun, and because it's helped me identify some things I can do to have a more enjoyable time. There are some things I would like to know or have known when I started, and I wonder if having a thread in the new players' area with advice on how to get the most out of the new player experience would help.

I still don't really know what to do when I get killed on my own by spawns (which happens a lot) and I feel like I'm hassling DMs when I ask for my character's corpse to be moved, since re-spawning will just get me killed again. Do I need to spawn in town and get people to help me out?

A general idea of what sort of things to hassle DMs about, how to get help, how to let other players know you're new, would also be really useful.

I think it has been a mistake to keep trying to run barbarians. I'm aware that the server is hard, but this has been difficult to manage in a role-play sense because my characters have been pretty headstrong, so running away from kobolds seems dishonest to the character, but fighting them is likely to get him killed. Perhaps a note on the role-play implications of the server's difficulty could be included? I know it sounds obvious but I think it really would have helped me.

I also think some information on how to get involved in the role-play elements would be useful. I've only just found the 'group management' section of the forum. I think a link to that would be really handy. Could it also be worth talking about the potential for affecting the world without being involved in a faction?

Also I noticed there was a list of quests for EFU:M. I'm not suggesting the same thing, but could it be worth including a list of quests that are appropriate for low level characters? It can be a pretty big ask to have to go out exploring from the word go, with all the attendant dangers, and no assurance that you'll find anything worthwhile.

I really like this server, and I mean to keep playing, probably with a new character who has a more interesting story that suits the environment better. It's the role-play that keeps me coming back, but those experience drops can really make it hard to get involved. I think for me, knowing how to get involved in the role-play, and how to avoid regular deaths, will really make a difference.

Quote from: Whim;376470I still don't really know what to do when I get killed on my own by spawns (which happens a lot) and I feel like I'm hassling DMs when I ask for my character's corpse to be moved, since re-spawning will just get me killed again. Do I need to spawn in town and get people to help me out?

A general idea of what sort of things to hassle DMs about, how to get help, how to let other players know you're new, would also be really useful.

There's no shame and it's no hassle to ask for a corpse clear from the DMs, since it can be done without even logging into the game/even from mobile phones. Just ask!

Sorry if I echo someone else's comments, I haven't read all the posts.

Retaining players can start with things we, as players, do.

Recruit for your factions, and find ways other PC's can help you. Are you an Ordinant? Post bounties on proof of aberrant kills. Are you an Alchemist? Hire people to go and collect supplies. Find ways that you can give stuff to PC's who do things for you. If you have an idea that's really awesome that you'd like to be able to get people to do, but need a DM, perhaps ask a DM for help in it. The worst they can say is "No."

Finding folk new to Sanctuary and giving them tasks to complete will go a long way to keeping them engaged and interested in EfU.

Hello Whim. I'm sorry you've been having a hard time on EFU. On a whim, I pulled up the death logs and noted where and how often you've been dying - ouch!

The problem with documenting every little thing is that a lot of our new players complain that there's just too much to read - and I suppose there is. There are some OOC guides in the starting area, though, that might be helpful. Particularly the walk-through. There are also NPCs and placeables that offer some decent IC advice scattered around Upper.

In your case, it really looks like you just got in this death-spiral where with every death you were lower and lower level and thus less and less likely to survive in the areas you were.

I can imagine a headstrong, brave barbarian would very rapidly be biting off more than he could chew. Particularly if he was on his own, without good friends to help out.

I'm not sure if you're aware, but (contrary to previous chapters) we have an entire area which is pretty comfortable for low-level PCs. I speak of Starag's Rest and the Worm Pits. Although in general principle we dislike MMORPG-style "newbie zones," in this case I think the Worm Pits is fairly appropriate to EFU and a decent place to hang out until your character gets stronger. Finding other PCs to help you tackle some of the low-level quests in there is a good way to make some IC friends while doing quests that are very unlikely to kill you (although the Ventilation Shaft quest is a bit dangerous for the unprepared).

For any future deaths, it's completely fine to ask for help from the DM team. Believe me, we're much more enthusiastic about helping out a new player than most of the other things we spend our time doing.

Even if no DM is online, you can pop onto our IRC (http://darkmyst.org/) channel #efu and ask for help there. We don't even have to log on to clear your corpse, but can do so with a web console.

I am also fairly sure that if you send most players (the ones that seem to know what they're doing) an OOC tell asking for help they'd be very glad to help out.

Thanks. It does sound like this situation has been pretty specific to the characters I've been running. As I said, I do mean to keep at it, but with a character with more discretion and a more fleshed out story.

QuoteThe problem with documenting every little thing is that a lot of our new players complain that there's just too much to read - and I suppose there is.

I think that the problem is not about all the things you need to read. All new setting or system requires some amount of reading. To me the great problem is finding out what you need to read NOW. I mean, what kind of info is more needed to you at that moment.

The structure of the forums is something that makes it harder to find out information than other options, like the wikis. I think that a project of grabbing all the information spread around our forums and structuring it around a wiki with decent indexing would be worthwhile for both new and old players to know what EFU is all about.

I am sure that old, more galvanized people are used to forums and have little to no issue into finding stuff. But still... there is a lot that is not even covered in our forums (including several commands available in game that could make the life of people terribly easier). I really think that everyone could benefit from a more organized and structured gathering of our produced knowledge. Not that the current isn't. It is incredible the effort put so far both by DMs and Players. But the Tools choice matter a bit in how effective the results would be. Forums were better designed for discussion. Wikis are a better tool for presenting, organizing and delivering info.

The search tool works pretty well. Fairly sure there was a wiki once and it was put down quickly once people started cataloging info that was better off FOIG. Were that to start again, I imagine you'd need a DM to police it- and why do that when we have so much stuff to read right here?

It would be interesting to know what a fresh player to the server would be interested in knowing first. Setting and mechanics would be my guess, personally.

I do not object to the creation of a wiki managed by trustworthy members of the community.

I am not willing to make one myself.

Eh... I'm not exactly a new player.

And regarding

Quote(...) and why do that when we have so much stuff to read right here?

As I told you, the "how" you access it matters. The search tool is a bit counter intuitive for the new arrivals and it took me a while to get used to it in my two years of EFU. You don't have a good indexing and easy topic access.

Also, my suggestion wasn't to start thinking on what kind of contents it would have. Just gather all that the forums provide and restructure into the Wiki.

I actually think the Wiki, or something similar, would be a very good idea. I am a somewhat new player, and I can recall being very frustrated with trying to use the forums to get my bearings when I first began. The search tool works fairly well in finding information, but often I would find posts from so long ago I had no idea if they were even still relevant to the current era.

I'd be willing to help in the creation of a wiki, if it counts for anything. I'm still a new player, but I think that that perspective might help.

Since my last post here I've been trying to come up with a new character who has more reason to be involved with other characters, as well as the life of the server. I've got a fairly good idea of what I'd like the character to do, but the problem I'm running into is that I don't really know how I'd achieve it in game (preferably without relying on DM intervention). The impression I get from what I've seen of the server is that you guys have created a huge and somewhat complex system allowing characters to do a lot of things other than combat and it can be difficult to know what's possible without extensive reading and some experimentation. New players are most likely used to NWN being combat and not much more. Could it be worth having a thread where new players can post ideas they have for characters, along with what they plan to do in the game, and more experienced players could give them direction on how they could achieve their plans within the game's system? People could also post descriptions of what their characters are doing, along with an explanation of how it's done, if they're comfortable with that, I understand that some players may want to keep this stuff secret. I think making sure new players have the tools they need to run the characters they want to run would keep us involved with those characters, and stick with them, it would also ensure we've got things to do other than questing, and better reasons to communicate with like-minded characters, so that when we do go questing, we're more likely to be in a group we've become comfortable with, and thus, less likely to die alone out in the underdark.

Like you say, posting what is happening ingame is difficult and what players are trying to accomplish is tough as people want to keep their secrets.

But there are places you can look for ideas on what PC's have done in the past.

Check the screenshots / character obituaries for some ideas of what can be done.

Check the IC public forums / bulletin boards and letters sections to get the gist of what some characters are trying to do.

Use the personal character notes section to tell the DM team or chronicle for yourself what you are up to and what you want to do.

I guess as has been said already it's tough to root these forums if you're a newbie by looking among the utter MASSES of documentation that has accumulated for this 10 year old game, but they are there, and people are always willing to help, I hope!

Not sure how things have progressed here with this thread, and I haven't been able to play efu since my personal laptop died many months ago, but I hope to come back someday.

During my time playing, I was a newbie-welcoming machine. My RP is far from perfect and my skills in NWN combat are probably somewhere below average, not quite bottom of the barrel. So I understood what to do and not to do with new players, for the most part.

Safety first!

Nothing kills interest like killing a new player, either via PVP (extremely rarely) or monsters on field/quests (extremely common). And if I have to metagame a bit to keep a new player safe, you bet I will.

For example: Doing a basic rat quest with just me and a new player. I know the quest OOCly, and I know the boss is a wererat, for which we'll need magic weapon to hurt and defeat it feasibly. As we are approaching this boss, my character might say something like "Something unnatural is causing all these rats to appear. We might need to enchant our weapons to face this threat, so keep that spell/scroll/rod of magic weapon at the ready" (or more likely, "we must be close to the main threat, let's enchant our weapons now, just in case").

That's just an example. It's all done to reduce the "bad luck" factor that can happen at low levels, that can really ruin a new player's day. Other times, I might be a bit more vague, with something like "I get the feeling the next room is gonna be really dangerous, be prepared to use your strongest potions" or "I get the feeling that there is a highly dangerous trap by that chest, so don't go near it till we are certain" (this is whether I see the trap or not). These things I only do with new players out of necessity to keep them alive, at least for a little longer.

To help, I also usually say things like "don't draw attention to the enemy too much, let me do that. If you do draw attention, try and get away, or go on the defense with invis/expertise/etc..". Of course, I tend to play with a character that takes point. If I don't, then I usually focus on keeping the new player alive as much as I can with healing/protection/etc... at my character's expense.

It's a victory if the new player survives. Whether my character dies or not matters a lot less. In fact, dying -> loses exp -> loses level -> is now closer to the level of the new player -> can keep questing with new player -> success!

What? Don't look at me like I'm crazy! This is proven stuff.


So, disregarding the slight meta-gaming, there are two problems I have encountered doing the above:

1. Who is/are the new player/s?

There should be a way to mark these players. If not automatic, maybe something optional at the OOC starting area that a new player can easily 'enable', that lets someone like me be able to tell that this character in front of me (or through looking at the player list) is the first character of a player account on this server, and take into account the IP or something.

I don't know if this is just not feasible or its not done due to something else.
I know that veterans make new accounts to hide their identity, blah, blah. But these veterans are not constantly getting new PCs, are they? Or changing their IP address or whatnot?

And even if it cannot be tracked like this, something optional at the starting area, that veterans would be wise enough not to use, would be great, I think. In theory. The DMs could always implement something and then see how it goes. And if its not good, take it away. The details would be up to them.

All I want to know is if, the character over there roleplaying pretty well (not like a pro, not like a complete newb either - because those can be somewhat easily identified as new players) is a new player 'trying', or just a regular that's trying to refine his/her RP (like I am).

I can always send a tell, as I generally used to do. But that breaks RP, and leads the new player to send me a lot more tells, and do less RP. New players are especially sensitive to tells, since they are usually trying to reach out to get a hold of the server. I prefer to use them with new players at the end of a session rather than at the first meeting ('hey, have to log out now. Been fun playing with you, and would like to do it again. Make sure to check out the forums at efu.com! Send me a tell next time I'm around').

2. Quest level restrictions  

Once in a blue moon, my character would go past level 4/5. And all of a sudden, my interactions with new players take a steep dive, since I can no longer quest with them on "safety" quests that get things going with a new player.

So in terms of questing, I have three choices:

A. Show them a lowbie quest they can do by themselves or someone else. Try to find this 'someone else' through sending or some other way. If by themselves, if the quest is at all dangerous, I could be sending them to their deaths (and I have!).

And trying to find another low-level player to accompany them is not that easy at times. And can be quite odd from an RP perspective ("hey, here's another stranger! Why don't you 'pair-up' with him to take down those nasty zombies").

And besides, it feels like a "hey, I have no time/don't want to quest with you, so do it yourself, or find someone else to do it with", even after explaining the mechanical 'whys'.

So, not my preferred choice.

B. Take them on a more dangerous quest that is appropriate for both our levels, generally with a group. Seeing as I myself can struggle greatly in this mid-level quests, I won't be able to quite protect this new player, thus quite likely leading to their deaths. I try things like "stay back, and use this crossbow." or "Here, use my shield, which is better, and take this rod of healing. Use it generously".

Again, my own character's death is not the problem. My creed is new player survives -> I win! This is hard to do, especially if its the first time the new player is doing a quest/a mid-level quest. Might as well just tell him "By the way, the monsters say 'you're not welcome!'"

Not my preferred choice for new players either.

C. Do other stuff. My other options, which are quite varied, but will likely not provide mechanical rewards for the effort. Guided tours of areas, chat at the inn, sparring matches. More interesting, but really depends on my PC's current state, is including them in some plot/event my PC is involved in currently, or welcoming them to an association (the app-less ones), which again depends on my PC's relationship with said faction/association.

I prefer not to bad-mouth any particular faction/association if I can avoid it. If I'm the welcoming committee for a new player, the last thing I want to do is color their options. What you tell them there at the beginning of the server can have lasting impact on their character (and maybe other characters!). EFU is about possibilities. If I close to them a possibility with my PC's opinion of that possibility, they might decide to not pursue that possibility simply because of the 'friend' mentality, which is very strong when they hardly know anyone else. Again, I try to avoid this, though sometimes its inevitable.

Anyways, why is there a problem with this third option? Because EFU is half-action/half-RP, more or less evenly. A new player should get a taste of both to understand this. The half-RP is the easy part. It's the half-action part that can be tricky, because like I said, the goal at this very early stage of a new player is not to show them how the fugue looks like (they'll get plenty of opportunity to discover this fascinating aspect), but rather to show them how dangerous things can be, and the lowbie quests with enemies are the best way, imo and ime (in my experience). Also, getting rewarded for the challenge is important, again something that finished lowbie quests can do fairly well, that half-finished mid-level quests don't do at all.  

Is there a solution to the level limits of lowbie quests?
The only thing I can think of is to somehow allow a player of higher level than the quest to accompany another appropriate-level character for a once-a-day kinda thing somehow. Details can be figured out by DMs of how this would work, and what limits would be imposed to prevent abuse, like no XP for higher level PC, allow certain DM-flagged characters can do this, etc...

Ignore those aspects of my post that have changed in the latest incarnation of EFU. I'm just speaking of my experience of playing in past years.

Quote from: "Gauntlet"For example: Doing a basic rat quest with just me and a new player. I know the quest OOCly, and I know the boss is a wererat, for which we'll need magic weapon to hurt and defeat it feasibly. As we are approaching this boss, my character might say something like "Something unnatural is causing all these rats to appear. We might need to enchant our weapons to face this threat, so keep that spell/scroll/rod of magic weapon at the ready" (or more likely, "we must be close to the main threat, let's enchant our weapons now, just in case").

I must disagree with this strongly. I remember when I was a new player on an entirely different server and a very talented roleplayer took me under their wing and chided me for meta gaming traps in a low level quest. This sort of reinforcement of good play, at a low level when the consequences were small, helped keep me honest later on.

The best thing a veteran player can do is take a new player under their wing, speak to them OOCly about the server etc, and teach them proper play from the very start.

Quote from: Deepdrake;377532I must disagree with this strongly. I remember when I was a new player on an entirely different server and a very talented roleplayer took me under their wing and chided me for meta gaming traps in a low level quest. This sort of reinforcement of good play, at a low level when the consequences were small, helped keep me honest later on.

The best thing a veteran player can do is take a new player under their wing, speak to them OOCly about the server etc, and teach them proper play from the very start.

Traps, to me, can be as deadly as death saves.

I don't want to bring a new player in, and die to a trap he/she didn't see, and/or he/she couldn't do anything about it. Nothing is more frustrating than dying from something you couldn't even prevent, simply due to a (very likely) first-character bad build.

Once you get into the groove of the server, it doesn't matter. But based on your example, you had at least done that quest once before (in order to be able to metagame the traps), so its past the critical stage where you're doing player retention.

I chided too if on multiple runs of a quest, a player clearly meta games a trap location ("There is a trap here. You and I cannot see it, but I know it. Its of the electrical type, and blah, blah"). That's why I use vague things like "I feel..." or "There might be....". It might seem all the same, and I'm partly teaching a bad example, but I try to cover it up under the "for the sake of new players" mantra.

Once I know a player is not new (and actually logged in a 2nd time on the server after their first day), I'm less worried, and don't take these drastic measures any more.

But I'm not asking that anyone do what I was doing. Just saying what I tried to do, and for which I was (to my knowledge) somewhat successful.

In my opinion, traps in low-level quests should be as frequent as death saves. For almost all classes, its automatic damage no matter how good your low-level build. Automatic damage is bad at low HP levels, where you have little HP to spare. To make things worse, new players are the most likely to not be in search mode, specially once battle/dungeon begins.

If I know the new player is playing a typical rogue, I keep my mouth shut, and let them find the traps, of course. Low level quests, from my experience, have reasonable search DCs for traps to the point where a character invested in Search will have zero issues. But that usually only happens for new players when they play a rogue.

/rant

gauntlet I think your first post and intentions are very good. In this particular case I do not think traps represent such a big threat to new characters as you may believe. I am not aware of any deadly traps on any lowbie quest, and the incidence of actual trap deaths on any quest are extremely low. In this case it is indeed best to 'teach' new players not to metagame traps, as the worst that is likely to happen is a scorched foot and the use of a potion or two.

Also note that in many of the EFU:R quests where traps are used their placement is randomized.

Things like dying to traps can, for even the most puny of PCs, generally be avoided by making sure you're at full health whenever you're stepping on uncertain ground; some of them can do a fair portion of a wizard's health, but i've never hit a trap on a low level quest that could kill me outright (and i've stood on a lot)

I have only ever seen traps kill outright in two kinds of situations: one, as above, with someone already badly hurt running into one, or two, on quests, where some kind of plot important object or door is trapped and someone insists on barging up and triggering it when it is clearly so dangerous that it is all but covered with Biohazard stickers.

Traps can kill indirectly, by paralysing you where monsters can get at you or by poisoning you and the stat loss causing loss of movement, AC or the like, but in these situations you and your friends at least usually have some response time in which to undo the damage or save your hide.

Traps are EfU's way of telling you to slow down and be patient. Which is actually not bad advice in most situations.

It's been exactly a week, and I'm done.

Since you asked, I'll tell you whyâ€"but I am a wordy individual on the best of days, so it'll be long.  I'll start by telling you a little bit about myself.

I've been role playing on NWN for over ten years: I started on Aertheca, then found my home on Dragoncoast for three server iterations.  I came to EFU:R on the recommendation of some of my DC friends, but I do want to establish clearly that I had almost no IC contact with them (maybe we exchanged nods once).  I wanted to judge EFU:R on its own merits.

When it comes to RP, what matters the most to me is the lore and the characters.  Because of that, I have no problem reading massive amounts of information before even rolling my character.  I am, frankly, not interested in joining a server that DOESN'T require me to read server lore before I start.  So I was initially very pleased.

I want to address the concerns of others in this thread as far as elitismâ€"I completely disagree.  I had no problems finding interactions with other characters, even though my character (as a druid of Talona) was not the sort of person most characters would want to interact with.  I very much enjoyed the interactions with Granny and TheIceQueen's characters, in particular.

Despite all the information that I read, though, and all the searching I did on the forums, there were many things that I could not find, or had far too much trouble locating:

• Instructions on how to use the ingame server-specific crafting systems, such as cooking, herbalism, fishing, etc.  I realize that you want the recipes to be discovered ingame, but there was literally no information on how to even start.  I had to ask a DM for help to understand how to fish.


• How to use the EFU skill system.  The command “/c efuss help”, which is what is recommended on the board, doesn't work.  It claims the syntax is invalid.


• How the poison/addicting substances system works mechanically.  I took a drink of wine, and my character rolled a poison check.  I had no clue if that was related to the wine, or if the person who gave it to me was trying to poison me.


• What the laws of the city are.  In the House of Governance, there is a short summary, but it says one of the laws is to follow the Directives, and the Directives are scattered all over the place.  It's like a game of hidden object to find laws your character is expected to obey.


• What the level cap is.  If it is (as I heard though my friends, and not through any of the posted server information at all) level 10, then that is something everyone rolling a character should know.  Multiclassing becomes much less feasible, for one thing, and some class abilities are never attainable.


• And most importantlyâ€"I found NO information in the extensive amount I read that tells you that dying will de-level you if your XP in the current level is low enough.

That last point, for me, was the straw that broke the camel's back.  It's one thing to say that you want death to be harsh on your server, it's a whole new level (if you'll pardon the pun) to change the way it works from the main game without making that information available for anyone to know before it happens.  I work a very demanding job, and the weekends and about three hours on weeknights are all the time I get to myself (not just the time I get to play NWN, but all the time I get to myself AT ALL) and I've spent most of today trying to get to level 5, with the assumption that I would finally have wildshape and I could focus on exploration and meeting people outside the city without having to worry too muchâ€"I could deal with not advancing in level for a long time, which was what I planned to do.  But to lose what amounted to basically all of today's free time?  No, that's not acceptable.

I want you to understand the argument I'm making here.  I wasn't leveling for the sake of leveling.  I was leveling because I felt I needed to get that level in order to properly play my character.  I'm a DRUID.  I needed level 5 in order to be able to travel outside the city.  Living in the city and hunting rock worms every day doesn't fit with my character.  I feel like I'm being limited mechanically from effective RP.

I feel like I have a pretty good idea of what your response to this is: it's the way the server was designed, and it's supposed to make death meaningful.  I shouldn't feel any kind of security in leaving the city, ever.  And I hear what you're saying.

But you're trying to be too many things as a server.  You're trying to maintain a high level of RP, but you don't want people to act rudely to new players.  You're trying to encourage people not to powergame, but you've made a set of rules so harsh that that feels like the only option.  You cannot be everything to everyone.

While trying to be somewhat modest, I will say that I think I am a very good roleplayer, and I liked the setting and lore the server had to offer.  I think I could have contributed to it significantly, and I was looking forward to playing out many of the interesting psychological problems my character was faced with, such as how to balance druid neutrality in preserving the balance of nature that's been mostly destroyed, while opposing the use of the Machine.  The thing is, not everyone has the same strengths when it comes to RP, and while mine lie in character development and dialogue, I'll readily admit that I am not good at leveling, and not good at staying alive, even on an easier server.  I have never, ever, reached the level cap on any server I played on.

When Howland talks in his second post about the “right” kind of new players...maybe I'm just not the “right” kind.  I would call myself creative, mature, and fun.  I think I would add to the world.  I'm just bad at the game itself.  Maybe the truth is just that EFU's elitism extends to how well its players can play NWN.

I could make a probably weak attempt at trying to answer some of your concerns, being a new player myself.

Quote from: EmeraldFalcon;379813

• Instructions on how to use the ingame server-specific crafting systems, such as cooking, herbalism, fishing, etc.  I realize that you want the recipes to be discovered ingame, but there was literally no information on how to even start.  I had to ask a DM for help to understand how to fish.

When I first begun, I had absolutely no clue how to do this either. I learned it by asking another character IC-ly, who took time to go through how herbalism and alchemy works with my character. At the moment, my character, Narvis Naerfaine, has been carrying on this baton and had already taught more than half-a-dozen player characters how herbalism and alchemy works IC-ly. If you'd follow Matteo example here  (//%22http://www.efupw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=90441%22)to publicly ask for aid regarding it, my character would generally be pleased to reply  (//%22http://www.efupw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=90443%22)here to offer aid.

• How to use the EFU skill system.  The command “/c efuss help”, which is what is recommended on the board, doesn't work.  It claims the syntax is invalid.

It is /c efuss --help. It confused me greatly for a minute at first, too, until I tried multiple variations and figured it out.

• What the laws of the city are.  In the House of Governance, there is a short summary, but it says one of the laws is to follow the Directives, and the Directives are scattered all over the place.  It's like a game of hidden object to find laws your character is expected to obey.

That was a problem I noticed IC-ly early on in the server, and my character took steps to remedy it IC-ly. He has made a public poster available to all citizens which collected all the Order Directives he know. The problem is IC-ly addressed here (//%22http://www.efupw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=89569%22), and can be assumed by your character to be known IC knowledge.

• What the level cap is.  If it is (as I heard though my friends, and not through any of the posted server information at all) level 10, then that is something everyone rolling a character should know.  Multiclassing becomes much less feasible, for one thing, and some class abilities are never attainable.

It should be here (//%22http://www.efupw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=346%22).

• And most importantlyâ€"I found NO information in the extensive amount I read that tells you that dying will de-level you if your XP in the current level is low enough.

It is here (//%22http://www.efupw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=346%22), under Death.

Zilya poked off on some of the mechanical things. I'll throw my own opinions into it to try to soothe any wounds in as meek a fashion as I can.

-A wilderness character is probably one of the worst possible things to start as as a new player to the server, and because of how dangerous the wilderness has been it usually does require a mechanical proficiency. Even with level five you would have trouble surviving

-Grinding worms is probably one of the worst ways to get experience unless you plan to do it for hours, and it is definitely something that no sane person should enjoy doing. The solo quests also give very small amounts. The larger experience hauls are gotten by performing the various static quests around the server.

-In regard to mechanical aptitude- It is definitely needed. Besides #efu on IRC being a madhouse, it is also a good place to ask mechanics questions. There is a -big- difference between character building within the mechanics and power gaming. Playing the game and understanding the mechanics are definitely something that has to be learned, and (at least in my opinion) approaching EFU with a roguelike mentality helps out. Powergamed builds generally don't do too well because of how badly their glaring flaws get exploited; generally the most effective characters are ones who are able to cover all of their bases without costing themselves too much in one or another.

-Being rude ICly is much different from being rude OOCly. You could have someone's PC trash talking yours in the square while at the same time asking them stuff through tells to try to help you out in understanding something on the server. Most of the community tries to encourage new players to do new and exciting things.

If you want me to try to convince you to stay- You've plainly said that you aren't good at levelling, staying alive, or becoming the incredible hulk. If you aren't good at any of this, and you don't enjoy doing these things, then make a social character that hangs around the city proper. Make a total greenhorn newbie city slicker that doesn't understand a single thing about adventuring ICly because you OOCly don't have a great grasp on mechanics. That'll do two things for you-

First, you can actively learn stuff OOCly and ICly. Learn from the mistakes you make. Maybe running down the hallway first when you have no trap finding wasn't a good idea? Maybe running onto the bridge covered in kobold crossbowyers was a bad idea? Maybe punching GLARGFORUBOUX OF THE FIFTH LAYER in the face while naked and without magic was a bad plan? As the character makes these mistakes he can learn from them, just like you are!

Second, if you decide to hang up your pair of adventuring boots and never leave the sanctity of the bar again except to get more money to booze around with, you now have an IC excuse to call adventurers idiots and play the political side of things. There is literally a political group IG dedicated to keeping people from leaving the shield. You can feasibly play a watcher or a black guild member who tries to keep people from going outside, and still hit all the intrigue that an adventurer would be having (or more.)

I'm pretty sympathetic to Emerald Falcon on the point of exp loss on death, as it's been the only thing to really make me reconsider this server as a new player. I'm not the guy who first started playing Persistent Worlds 9~ years ago. Free time is finite, EFU competes with other time sinks and more importantly responsibilities. Even someone who really enjoys the setting, lore, and is a competent roleplayer is going to ask themselves after losing several days of progress "What is the opportunity cost here? What else could I be doing that has a better fun/time ratio? Is this really worth the trouble?". That's a completely rational calculus to make that betrays no lack of maturity. Quite the opposite.

Ironically for all the talk of avoiding attracting people who treat things like an MMORPG, a hardcore raider's schedule and/or mentality is more likely to have the inclination to put up with that stuff.

So basically what I think I'm saying is that the number one obstacle to new player retention is probably real world time constraints and I doubt there's much to be done for it. There's a lot of electronic entertainment out there, the calculus of opportunity costs is a harsh mistress.

Ouais...

... newbie in the server and druid is something quite hardcore.

Lucky you that you met the most awesome granny around. Me. <3

Still, I wish the wilderness hub had some safer start like the Lower and Upper have. With all the previous knowledge I already have (dirty metagamer) it's hard enough to survive the wilds, I wonder how troublesome it can get for someone with little knowledge of the server. Do not worry. EVERYONE here suffer with the death penalties. Not only the newbies. It is something that haunts every single PC with few exceptions (you cheaters).

Keep on searching the wildling PCs. You arrived in the most perfect time. Wildlings are all sprouting like weed in the garden. Use the stuff I had shown you. Seek for the people of the wilds. Stay quiet and hidden. Prefer to be in Lower Sanctuary than to be in Upper and slowly walk away from there to the wilds. From there, you'll be better.

Now, if you decide to stay in Upper, the Worm Pits are awesome for a Talonite (not so much for a druid, but still...). I rolled a PC there some time ago and it was nice. Befriend the worms, dance among them, help them grow in number and get stronger poison... help people to get infected, because that place oddly doesn't spread any disease... do all that needed jazz.

Yeah... I am crying here that I ain't rolling that Talontar Hag to guide the Young Venom around the marvelous world of EFU: Talona Edition. I hope you find your way and have tons of fun. Everyone knows that there is no better Goddess than Talona

As a guy who's died a LOT I can say this, its actually a boon. Lots of easy gold and supply quests are lower level! AND if your concept requires levels to be fun your going to be heartbroken at times, believe it or not the death penalty used to be even more hardcore and we are even blessed with exploration xp not being affected by death.. your a druid? Explore! Now I know it doesn't compare to questing or cold blooded grinding but you can discover a lot of cool server things through it and still get stronger. I know its dangerous but caution of course is a must. Druids also get the patrol quests which if you didn't know there is a nice amount of them about if you search. Levels are a nice thing but I find there's less to do at higher level. Invest in some more rp, and value supplies over levels. I've played a few nature pcs and even though I didn't get many levels I had a blast. I understand the hurt for the wildshape but efu has many custom things to it to easily fill the druidic coolness. I hope you stay, its a great server and if you really need a break take a week off and think about it. ALSO pure rollplay, it sounds like your a very skilled rollplayer and DMs will reward that, and sometimes with permanant xp. I'm sorry you seem to not have found all the information you needed.

There really should be something at character creation that says:

"EFU is not very easy for those who wish to be based outside of the main city. Druids and other "exile" focused PCs are not adviseable for your first PC unless you are very confident in your NWN skills."

EFU is a hard server. Sanctuary based PCs have the easiest time of it. Lower the second easiest. Followed by wilderness PCs. Hardest time is of course villain PCs based out of the shittiest places.

It doesn't mean you can't manage to be a Lowersmen/Wilderness/Villain on your first PC, just that it requires a significant level of mechanics knowledge and EFU is decidedly different in feel from many other servers.

Hello EmeraldFalcon,

QuoteMaybe the truth is just that EFU's elitism extends to how well its players can play NWN.

Oh I wouldn't deny that at all, EFU is very mechanically challenging as a server and tends to reward those who have been playing here for years and years and years and have finally mastered the game. I don't dispute at all that it is a server where mechanical ability (inventory management, reflexes, calmness under pressure, tactics, etc....) are important factors in a character's success. But they're certainly not the only factors. In the true sense of the word, I do think EFU is an 'elitist' server in that players are encouraged to be elite roleplayers, elite mechanically, elite creatively, etc.

You've pointed out areas for how EFU could improve upon its documentation. I'm particularly astonished that in three years nobody bothered to point out that the "/c efuss help" command listed in the forum is actually "/c efuss --help".... but it's fixed now, so thanks for that. And if you or anyone else have any other ideas for how to improve our documentation for new players, it's a project I'd pursue with some vigor. And I do think our community is fairly helpful to new players with asking questions, and it's always OK to ask questions.

In fairness I don't think the fact that dying can make you lose levels is something that isn't well documented (as well as being a fairly standard feature in most NWN RP worlds that I'm aware of!). Our mechanics change listed fairly prominently that total XP is reduced from death, and there are constant references to this in our various new player guides/etc. scattered about. At any rate although I respect any player's preference to not play in a world where failure can lead to XP reduction, it is an essential and much beloved feature of our world.

Alchemy/Herbalism aren't systems really recommended for new players. I will add a New Player guide in the starting area placeable that describes the basic mechanics, though.

I don't think new players really need to worry too much about Spellguard Directives. The feeling of Upper Sanctuary is frankly rather that of a police state (with players more than welcome to pursue life outside of it!). It's an important theme in EFU that is often explored in various ways, the balance between safety/oppression and freedom/chaotic danger. Most Spellguard directives relate to things like.... WATCH OUT FOR ENEMIES IN OUR MIDST, or are really just information about a specific thing it's next to (i.e. if you go out this gate, be careful!),  etc. Believe me, no one OOC'ly expects you to worry too much about them unless you deliberately roll up a freedom fighter/anarchist that wants to bring down the system.

Others in their responses mention that playing a druid as your first character is possibly an unwise proposition. It is interesting to me that new players often choose to roll up a druid (nevermind that druids are more loners that pursue a life in the far more harsh wilderness outside a town; at any rate it's a problem I'll have to ponder). If you want to continue playing a druid, I think it is pretty much essential to find other wilderness characters/players who can mentor and help you both IC and OOC.

As with any new player, you do have access to special mechanical help from the staff if you want it. All you need to do is ask.

I have improved upon (http://www.efupw.com/forums/showpost.php?p=379888&postcount=3) our documentation relating to EFUSS.

I think everything's documented pretty well, if something's not clear in-game, then there's a lot of knowledge compiled here in the forums. I never had an issue with that, but I kind of had other people's help, so maybe I overlooked the issue...

It seems that EmeraldFalcon's main problem with the server are the death penalties. Honestly, I know how frustrating it can get, specially in the case of "cheap" deaths, with enemies being lured next to area transitions and other misfortunate things... however, I think it's a much needed "evil" to the server.

Deleveling is frequent, if not almost unavoidable. I won't be a hypocrite and say that I never got upset towards a character death and that you learn to live with it; on the countrary, it hurts. When I had a steady PC, close to level 8, then died... I was so disheartened that I started crying. That's rather normal for me, however, I've always been a crybaby, but it's definitly not common for a videogame to upset me like that.

My point with that is to say that I don't think EfU is "for all audiences". It's really not, I think you need certain traits in your personality to appreciate it. While I'm admittedly a whiner and a crybaby who blames everything and everyone except myself, I'm also ridiculously stubborn and a bit of a perfectionist about things I get invested in. This makes me regard the leveling side of EfU as a challenge and when I die I just come back, even more determined to get what I want. If you like challenges, then you will appreciate EfU's difficulty... if you're easily discouraged and unwilling to tolerate bad feelings from a videogame, then I think you'll just find the server frustrating. If, on the other hand, overcoming great challenges makes you feel better about your accomplishments, then you'll like it here.

I don't think EfU rewards those who spend a lot of time in-game, unlike other less hardcore servers. It's very easy to obtain XP, you can easily get level 5 or 6 (if you search for a group) in one sitting. Within an hour of creating a character and strictly playing on your own, you can find yourself nearing level 5. Then you can either find a group to run one quest that'll cover the missing XP or come back the next day to get the level on your own. Of course, as a new player who doesn't know where the quests are located and where to go, obtaining level 5 by yourself can seem like a chore, specially if you've just been hanging around the worm-pits.

I won't give you the "it's just a game" arguement and tell you to get over it. That's the stupidest, most condescending piece of "advice" one can give. This is a hobby, something you've invested time and ability in. If you fail and get punished, you're obviously going to feel let down, unless you totally don't care for the game you're playing... in which case, why would you be playing it?
Being upset when you "fail" is human nature, not "obsession". The fact that it's "just a game" means absolutely nothing once you start to dedicate time and effort to it, so I hope we don't see "illuminated" minds tossing it around here, as I've seen on IRC whenever someone gets upset about dying. I think what EmeraldFalcon and other people in his/her situation need is to be remembered that it's happened to all of us. We've all taken a blow and we all know how much it hurts... it's really natural to get frustrated.

It "kind of" gets better, if that's any encouragement. :p
No, really, if you keep playing, you'll delevel again. Just be prepared for it. It'll hurt as much as it did before, but you'll find it easier to make back what you lost. You learn enemy abilities, you learn where quests are, you'll progressively improve your gear, you'll have better supplies... it just works.
If it's any incentive, I find level 6-7 to be the levels you'll spend the most time in. Not 4-5. Once you're past those levels, you'll likely not drop back to them, so you can take your wild shape for granted?

To finish my long post... I think that the harsh death penalties heavily contribute towards the server atmosphere. They force everyone to RP being afraid of dying; if you want to be heroic, you'll know that the risks you take are real. Being a "hero" is not easy. And by "hero" I don't mean the players sitting on their level 8+ statue-characters inside Sanctuary, I mean those who  actually risk their necks to venture into dangerous places, it's not for the faint of heart! Takes real courage to have courage IG, and that's one thing I like about EfU...

Also, I'm sure that if you stick around, EmeraldFalcon, you'll greatly appreciate the tension that stems from walking around the Underdark alone. Few would probably survive, but I'd advise any new players to do it on their own, at least once... It's like playing a horror game, you'll genuinely feel scared! I know I did it a few times on my first character and always payed for it. =P

I've been following this thread, and until now haven't really felt the need to contribute, as most of it has been covered.  However, I'd like to address something EmeraldFalcon & Howland touched on.
 
Yes, the death penalty here is harsh and somewhat hard to deal with for some players.  I know that alone has caused a myriad of troubles for some players.  I guess it's a feeling of a death of any sort is akin to a failure or a bad PC.  So then that whole frustrating mindset becomes an exercise in frustration.  The PC loses something for you.  Or you feel like you have to always be in the "right" group.  Or that you're having to play catch-up to some imaginary place.
 
Death /will/ happen here.  Even the most mechanically elite players have experienced PC death.  It is simply a fact of life.  Sometimes, yes, it is ridiculously frustrating.  Especially when you've got limited play time.  Having come from years of tabletop and console games where death is easier to avoid, or basically without consequence, it was a hard lesson for me to wrap my head around.  I still sometimes have issues with it, depending on the type of death.  All that being said ... if you can come to grips that it is a fact of life, and sometimes does become a boon instead of a setback, it'll make the going a bit easier for you.

As for the "elitism" of our server.  Well, yes and no.  Will you do better if you're mechanically sound?  Absolutely.  That's just a basic fact in any video game.  Do we cater to a certain type/level of player?  Probably.  But as one of the weakest mechanical players here, I can also tell you, if you bring other skills to the table, it can be worked with.  Maybe your forte is brilliant RP, maybe it's weaving a hellacious story, maybe it's the ability to attract a group.  Maybe you've got just enough of everything that you can pull your weight no matter the situation.  Yes, it's all a form of elitism, but one that can be worked with.

I'm probably a bit biased.  EFU was my first online server.  It was my introduction to the world of online gaming outside of play-by-post.  I'm not going to blow sunshine up your butt and say this is a utopia.  There's been times I've been so frustrated and angry and disgusted with EFU as a whole, I've wanted to tell the entire lot to go to hell.   BUT ... time after time I come back.  I've found my niche here.  I've tried other servers, but for me they just weren't the same.  We take some getting used to sometimes.
 
If you're time challenged, a week isn't really a fair test of us as a server.  Trust me, I understand time constraints.  There's times I'm happy to be able to log in once a week.  Other times I can play every day.  Give us a bit more time.  For our flaws, we also have a lot of strengths.
 
Maybe at the end of the day we aren't the right server for you.  And that's okay too.  We're not the right place for everyone, and not everyone is right for us.  That's not really elitism, that's just a reality.  But I hope you give us a bit more time :)

I want to add that the server is more than it seems. If you are a great RPer, that's all you need to be. You'll learn the rest of the "necessary" skills on the way.

Some people above may say they are bad at the mechanics of NWN. Trust me, they are not as bad as me. And I still find (ahem, "found") plenty to enjoy in this server. I used to really, really suck early on, dying multiple times some days. Losing weeks of leveling progress frequently. But I learned. I went from really, really sucking, to just generally sucking, which is enough of an improvement, and I know I can get better.

Of course, the crux of the matter here is that your RP might be based/focused on an ability you can only start using past level 4. Like some have said, level 5/6 is quite reachable, but there's no denying that, if you suck as much as me, there will be periods of time when you are level 4 (or lower).

But you say yourself you are good at RP. Well, RP this: your struggle surviving in the wilderness, your difficulty learning how to transform into an animal, etc... You can summon other animals to observe them and imitate them in hopes of bettering your transformations! You can look for a druid teacher (other experienced PC druids) to help you with survival! And related to that, the most important thing is to RP with and adventure with other players. These makes leveling enjoyable!

Heck, even when losing a level, the IC bond that can be formed from questing with other PCs can make it all worth it. You lose exp when respawning (and maybe a level or two), but you don't necessarily lose the work you've done from RPing.

And I just want to finish with this: DMs DO REWARD GOOD RP. Most importantly, if DMs see you do great RP, involving others, and notice you struggle on the mechanics side, they DO swing things your way from time to time through some loot here, some mechanical benefit there, that makes surviving quite a bit easier. And of course, DM XP is XP Forever! No respawning will ever take that away from you.

I'd just like to comment here and thank the Scrappers, Hounds and Zooks for help, both getting involved with things ICly, and also with advice, etc.. OOCly. They're pretty damn cool guys, but the main one I want to give a shoutout to, is Gracken. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have made my scrapper and I'd likely have decided it was time to move on from NWN.

Couple thoughts to add, I didn't really read every post so forgive me if they have been mentioned. New PC's should definitely be encouraged to visit the forums. One thing I can also mention about the forums, at the dawn of EFU the PM was rare, now it seems like the go to. This is to avoid people metagaming, but in the old days, use of the public forums was a great way to let others know your secret plots and plans and hook people into them.

Secondly, new players need to be reminded that this game is tough as shit. Excuse my language, but there is no other way to say it. You don't play EFU to "win" you play to lose, so to speak. You are going to be battered and beaten, you are going to lose lvls. If you want to level up and gear up…play diablo. The greatest part of EFU is the challenge of it. The worst part of EFU is the challenge of it. I know it took me 10 years to accept this and in the end, learn to love it. XP loss just is what it is, a set back, a hardship which makes you stronger.

Thirdly, nothing will get a player to stick around more then DM attention. I know that this is rare enough even for vets and people heavily involved in plots. But if you can hook a player as PC into a DM plot/event on day 1, new players are seeing the best of what EFU has to offer. It can be easy to think, this server is about collecting rock worms. Those of us that know its not can tell players otherwise, but nothing will do it better then showing them that.

I wanted to add a little bit about the dm attention part. While it's nice to have spice and stuff added during questing (which more often than not ends in death >_> ) it's nice to sometimes have ambiance around places to make things seem lively.

And I actually noticed yesterday a dm was doing this, which was awesome to see. Hearing the npc's chatter a bit among themselves, having one guard spin his baton and then drop it, causing another watcher to scold him. That was really nice to see, and something I hope that continues.

It can be daunting starting a character and trying to fit in no matter the concept, I think player retention is extremely important and would like to bump this :), I have been playing again a couple of days now and have already had some awesome experiences with some new people, they bring freshness to EfU for sure. xo