Over the years, much has been said about the difficulty that some players (particularly genuine newbies) have making silver.  I have also heard people mention that it can be difficult for new players to find their way about.

Yeah, I have mentioned this idea before a few times but here goes anyway…

Courier

This mud is pretty big and can be a bit daunting for new players to find their way about.  So, there could be an npc trader guy who ‘hires’ newbies to deliver packages for him.  These packages would be for general stores, sanctuaries, class halls and player-owned guilds (guilds would have to ‘opt in’ to the scheme).  On delivery of the package (maybe there is a time limit) the player receives some silver and perhaps a small amount of xp.  For level 1 and 2, deliveries would be inside Vesla before heading off to other cities at level 3+.

Pros:
- help people find their way about;
- guilds have a way of making newbies aware of their location;
- help people make some cash to spend - helping out the economy of pubs and smiths;
- make an alternative to all the hack n’ slash

Problems:
- people using the courier to make money, ignoring the traditional ways of processing/smelting;
- Candera, Exedoria and the Island can be dangerous for newbies during raids etc.;
- people using scripts;
- people getting too much money for such an easy job.  Perhaps put a limit on the number of deliveries a player can make in a boot?  Or maybe have the trader only available for part of a boot?

Edit: I will post this on one of the in-game boards when I next have a chance to log on.

Sounds good, as long as its limited to level 1-5 i dont see it hurting the guilds much.. another idea is just to put more items to sell and/or silver on NPC in swears and such, if newbies are really struggling that bad.  They already get a free corpse wagon, which is how i made a killing as my latest newbie.

I like the Courier idea and will consider a way to implement it.  There is already the Quest/ Task engine that allows folks to only complete a Task once in a given period of time.  (IF I can get it to work correctly ... the Exedorian dwarves cause me problems ... )

I’ll put a Courier on my To Do list.  Once I get him put together, it’ll be easy for other wizards to add new deliveries to him.

Should he go in Vesla? Or should I re-use whoever the Indel delivery-man-NPC is?

Id say Vesla, ether in the newbie area where you level and get equipment, or at the old adventurer

haha yea, once you can get the quest/task engine to work right

Vesla would be the optimum place and why limit the courier to newbies.  Just make it cost an appreciable amount for other levels to use 5-10---25 silver 10-15----silver and so on.

I don’t think it’s a question of use, but the ability for newbies to go there to obtain a task to earn money/exp/knowledge of the mud.  that’s why the suggested lvl limit.  Tasks of course should be level based.  You’re not going to pay out 200 silver for a lvl 8+ to take a package over to the mayor of Exe, etc..

I see what you are sayign and I should read the posts more carefully as well.  If you took it up to ten though and made the tasks/mini-quests more diffucult it could help those guys learn the new areas of teh mud that are more difficult.  It has been years since I played a low-level so I don’t know their struggles....

Two types of low level quests that are often found in other games is the Courier quest and the Kill X of Y quest.

Give the adventurer these quests or add a newbie questmaster npc.  Courier quests should be to easy to find people, Galen in Candera, Venris in vesla, the mayor in exedoria, etc.  Maybe even expand them a bit, deliver this wheat to the baker on the island then bring me back some of the bread, there and back missions.  Some games even have waypoints to guide you to your destination.  Maybe have the quest object whisper the direction to the newbie ‘You get the feeling you should go west here’

Kill X of Y are easy, we’re having a rat problem go and kill 8 of them for me. 

As for money for newbies, maybe increase the value of the stuff in the newbie areas or higher payout on the quests.  Or even set and open ended quest, say galen pays 50 for each rat hide thats given to him.

I thought that the courier could be located in Vesla to be helpful for newbies.
Galen would be able to provide directions to the courier.

Another idea for newbies would be some Bounty Hunter type tasks. I know there are similar tasks in other cities, but again it could help newbies explore and make some money. You could even put an extra room at the Bounty Room in Vesla?
For example, “Rogi the burglar: Wanted for theft. Rumoured to hide out in the Vesla cemetery”. This would lead the newbie to the cemetery to search for Rogi’s hideout, and in the process finding the location of the thief guild. Stuff like that. Anything to make encourage exploring and making it fun.

Courier quests for levels 1 and 2 should stay in vesla, yes.  But we want to encourage people to explore, so other cities can be included with the missions later on.  Maybe a compass that points to the target.

One way you can encourage exploring is to give something for doing it.  Galen gives you a piece of magic parchment and tells you to go and explore vesla.  You just go into each room at least once and its added to the map, you give the map back to him and depending on how many rooms you found thats how much silver you get.

To make exploring safe though you’d almost need to give the newbies a noncom cloak, a semi invisiblity where they can go into rooms without getting aggro.

My only fear is that it would make the game “too easy”

for real tho.. how many true newbies do we get a month??

it doesn’t make combat easier only learning your way around and getting enough scratch together to get by.

That is true...we are not effecting a large part of the MD population here....

And we need to do whatever we can to get new blood

Lynis - 20 March 2008 02:41 AM

for real tho.. how many true newbies do we get a month??

Few, I would imagine.

But it would be foolish to think “Why do stuff for newbies - we don’t get them”.  A genuine newbie who logs on and sees a variety of fun ways to explore and make silver is (hopefully!) going to be enticed to stick around and play the game further.  Hell, it might even help old timers who have been awol for x number of years.

I don’t think that these ideas would make things “too easy”; they just make the newbie ‘prepared’ for the big bad world of Moral Decay.

I think it is a good idea.. but not for the amount of true newbs we get.. we get 1-2 every now and then, and 90% of the time they get more then enough help for players that are on.  But it is a good idea.. would have been fun back in the early 90s when MD wasnt newbie friendly watching newbies try to race from city to city without getting pked