Remove the Tutorial NPC

[The_Piper]

Lets have a school for newbies on Isla Prima. Just a simple house which has several rooms.

 

When a new char is created, the first hint displayed is "If you want to learn more about the game, visit the school for newbies. To go there, just type #school."

 

#school = just another #beam me command, which takes you to the front door of that house.

 

This school has several rooms, with exactly one door. When you finish the "class" in that room, you can move to the next one by clicking on a door.

 

In the first room is a NPC which says in local chat:

 

"Hello, welcome to the Eternal Lands Newbie School. I am an NPC, a Non Players Character, run by the game. All characters with a blue name are NPC's. To talk to them, just click on them, when the cursor looks like a comic bubble".

 

When the player clicks on the NPC, s/he gets a dialogue which says "congratz, you know now how to talk to NPC's. Click on the door to go to the next class".

 

In the second room is a NPC behind a desk/counter and there is a flower pot. The harvesting tutorial. The dialogue of the NPC says "This is the harvesting class. To harvest something, move the cursor over the resource, in this case the flower in the flower pot, until the cursor looks like a pickaxe, then click and you start to harvest. Just harvest a few flowers now."

 

After the player harvested like 4-5 flowers, the NPC says in local chat some more infos about harvesting. Like needing a pickaxe/leather glove to harvest some special stuff and such and the player can move on by clicking on the door.

 

Third room, there is a NPC and a rabbit respawning after a few seconds. This is the fighting tutorial. The NPC tells the newbie how to kill the rabbit. After one rabbit is killed, the newbie can click on the door and move on.

 

4th room, the diner. Some bags are on the ground with fruits, veggies, bread. A NPC explains how to eat.

 

5th room, the alchemy class. There is an NPC who gives informations about how to make fire essences and some bags with sulfur, red roses and red snapdragons, which will respawn quite often. When the newbie made at least one FE, s/he can move on by clicking on the door.

 

6th room, the magic class.

When you click on the NPC there, you get the sigils you need to cast heal on yourself for free and a few HE's and mana pots. The npc explains, how to cast the heal spell and gives some more informations.

 

7th room, the kitchen. The NPC tells you, how to make fire, there are some bags with logs, FE's and a rabbit for the meat. When the newbie has at least cooked one meat, s/he can move on.

 

8th room, the adventurers room. The NPC gives informations about how you can find hidden stuff. The door to the next room is hidden behind some plants or such.

 

9th room: and so on, and so on, and so on.

 

Players can always leave, walk back through the rooms or just beam out and take the next class, when they want to do so. Or, even ignore the school completely.

 

The newbie could just walk back through all the rooms or just #beam out, but continue classes. Classes been finished can just be stepped trough, of course. The NPC's there might repeat their last hints/infos, when you click on them. So nobody is forced to finish the whole school at once, if they dont like it.

 

To avoid abusing the school, you cant enter the school, when you have one skill at level 20.

 

If the newbie havent done all classes before s/he reached one level at 20, bad luck then.

 

One idea about another way newbies can learn stuff besides Tutorial NPC and Newbie Island.

 

 

Piper

Edited May 2, 2008 by The_Piper

[Gildrig!]

How about they have a "How to use a bot" tutorial in one of the rooms as that was one of the most confusing things i learnt about the game,

it would go something like this:

"Now you will learn how to use a bot, one of those players with the purple name, theres one here."

There should be two bots in the class, Mr_Bot1 and Mr_Bot2

Mr_bot1 would have the /mr_bot1 buy 1 bread command

Mr_Bot2 would have the /mr_bot2 buy 1 #1 command

It would explain the INV and WANTED commands as well as BUY and HELP

That way n00bs will make more than 1gc per rabbit fur and be able to sell bones.

To prevent abuse (though i dobt there will be any) the bot will only listen to people in the room.

 

The tutorial npc should be renamed "Henry the healer" He should sell the heal spell,sigils, Hes and health pots, he would also still have the "Heal me" command for n00bs.

 

Good idea The_piper, this idea really impresses me.

[conavar]

One question .

 

If the npc answers in local chat .. if the room if full of new players wont it all get a little spammy ?

[Isenwolf]

I kinda like this idea... i would make a new character just to try it out lmao

[daiske1]

i like this idea too.

not many newbies though cause remember not everyday u find a noob that will stay in game. Most just give up.

Anyways nice idea!

[Rehdon]

Excellent idea, that would surely be a great introduction to the game for total newbies. Just a couple (or more) of suggestions:

 

1. make the "school principal" NPC stand in the hallway, instead of one of the rooms, so that he's the first one the new characters see as soon as they enter the school

 

2. have his welcome message appear not in local chat but as one of the usual green messages you get when you enter some places (like the "Holy cow! you discovered etc." message in evtr), so you don't "spam" local

 

3. limit the rooms to half a dozen or little more, to make it look simpler (and not that you need a sort of degree to play the game): you could have a "Basics" class (harvesting, eating, cooking meat), an "Alchemy" one, a fighting one, and the like; no need to introduce all of the game skills, especially since some of them (tailoring, engineering) are advanced level ones

 

4. don't make the school sequential: let people choose what they want to learn first, because it could be frustrating for people who have already figured out classes 1-3 to have to go through them anyway to get to 4.

 

Rehdon

[kailomonkey]

The idea of a school is interesting but personally the setup within seems too slow and closed. True though that most newbies don't even try the Tutorial NPC and perhaps a School would be more approachable as part of a newbies exploration.

 

In that case I would have it disguised even more as a place of voluntary access throughout and reward. In other words a more open format of a handful of NPCs all accessable from the start, and each with some open quests that give small prizes. And named to avoid the word newbie or tutorial such as 'School of Survival and Success' or 'School of Life and Riches'.

 

Such a format of specialised NPC's could even be used to give some longer-term goals / direction ideas after initial 'graduation' of reaching certain creatures, serving any god to a certain rank, making or mining something that requires alot of reading...

[Jaxbot]

One question .

 

If the npc answers in local chat .. if the room if full of new players wont it all get a little spammy ?

 

Most likely only the one client will see the text, like when you enter a room, only you see the "Welcome to bla bla" text.

 

I like the idea though. Make it a exiciting class!