New Player Experience Feedback

Thanks Snape, but I am still having the same issues!

For example, when I am on this page,

http://arkadiaforum.com/content.php?306-2.3-Manufacturing

and I click the next at bottom to read more of the guide, I get a message that says

bobbyk, you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:

1. Your user account may not have sufficient privileges to access this page. Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system?
2. If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account, or it may be awaiting activation.

Please help me, Snape!

 

Ok so I guess this is number 6. I'm headed to bed but I'll check first thing when I get on later today and see if I can access the next page. Figure I should give the system time to update. Until then...

 

I get the same permissions error and I have made a few more than 6 posts.

 

Snape, unfortunately I am geting the same message. I just tried viewing again before posting this message

 

I also failed when clicking on the "Previous" link to go back a page but in that case the problem is with the url:
http://arkadiaforum.com/content.php?305-2.2-Mining/edit

 

Thank you, Snape. Hope you can figure this out for us!

 

Okay, here goes....

Time in game: Roughly 2-3 weeks out of being here roughly a month.
Time per session: Approx 3 hour sessions, 3 times a week.

Impressions:

I had a little rough start due to a graphic glitch with my vid card and the game but Tech Support knocked it out in a week and I got into the game proper after with little problem. Did the "starter missions" and got the free gear on Planet Arkadia. I have not traveled off planet yet.

Was a bit disappointed to find I could NOT fight with my fists when the melee weapons wore out very quickly (a bit too quickly I think) and my BLP starting pistol died not long after. I was fortunate in that several (most) players helped me out with the concept of "sweating" and gave me tons and tons of advice (still do).

Sweating is very slow though due to no real groups being around during my time on Arkadia. I have found 2 good groups, seen 2 other good groups going also, in the roughly 3 weeks I have been here. Sweating gallards and carabok and the nusul puny that were added the last patch is very, very slow when every hit interrupts the sweat pull once I get it going.

I have found plants on the ground 3 times but, they have no TT value and nobody seems to want them.

I have used Entropia Partners to get about 10-15 PED so I have been able to keep going okay and I did do a deposit so, I'm still moving forward but, I can tell if I had not gotten this extra help, things would have been VERY boring and still would be. So I would recommend everyone to do Partners and make at least a small ($20 USD) deposit to help get you started. Its worth it and after all, most video games would cost you $20-$50 USD to buy anyway so figure it as a "startup cost".

If you are strapped for cash, Partners is a good way to get a nest egg of PED to help break up the sweating runs with some hunts. Just be frugal and don't TT stuff...try to hold off and find someone to buy it. Even an extra 1% is an extra 1% after all...lol.

I like the game overall. It flows well, the community is very friendly (only one or two eggheads have shown up) and I have been fortunate to get some very long time players to add me as friends and even got Niel Greenleaf Stockton to take me on as a mentor and into his society so....as I said, I am moving along.

There is still a host of things for me to learn of course...trying to figure out the auctions role in things...as a starting player, the auction fee pretty much means the only thing I can hope to use it for is buying an item I happen to need and come across but, for the most part, things are too expensive for me and nothing I have is worth auctioning because I don't have the quantity needed to cover the fees. I mean, when I have to pay .5 PED minimum...it doesn't make much sense to put something up for less then 10 PED in value, if not more. The fee eats all the profit even if I manage to get a buyer which is not guaranteed on the things I get as a new player.

Maybe adjust the auction fee down to a minimum of .1 PED?

I would like to see fists to be able to be used at some minor (minimum) damage too. I understand this can be abused though but it would be nice to be able to use them in a pinch or on lvl 0 Puny things. And I think if they did say .1 to 1.0 damage that would not be something you could easily abuse. Having a real weapon would still be very much more worth it. Just a suggestion.

Also, melee weapons wear out WAAAY to fast. And there are no clubs/blunt ones available on the TT, just blades. Again, personal opinion here which is what I believe this is for...so that is what I am doing.

Plan to be here a good while....but last note...fishing..yeah..would be good too...heh

 

Fun so far but...

Great game so far with a bit of trouble. Not a game breaker for me to be sure but after spending my gaming budget to get equipped I discovered that finding that last archaeologist was in a pvp area and my sleipner was stuck in mid-air. Down was the only way to move. No toxic shot =dead and waking up with no sleipnir. Kinda rude awakening for a rank noob on a starter mission I think. I shall give it another go when next months budget kicks in.

 

I started on Calypso and in two days, I quickly found my way to Arkadia.
"I wish I had started on Arkadia."

In my new player experience:

Arkadia starter missions:

+Positive

1. Rewards are mechanically superior. You get a hoverpod!!
2. Mining missions on HOW TO mine are clear and understandable.
3. You get to use your hoverpod and experience the convince of vehicle travel.
4. Abundant IFN kill quests.

​

+Wish List​

1. 
   [*=1]Introduce me to manufacturing. ( I learned the fundamentals on the Calypso tutorial )
   [*=1]Show me how cool it is to manufacture and use a texture from Arkadia. That way, when leave, the rest of the universe will know of Arkadia! Besides the cool Hoverpod of course!
   [*=1]Billboard Ads. Personal branding in a sandbox game is a beautiful thing. A newbie welcoming/introduction board as part of a quest would be pretty amazing. It would be a good information pipeline for mentors and discples also. To offset the 'free' virtual ad space, just run a mentor/society ad board near it. Props to Kikki KJ Jikki & SFE to taking advantage of the branding opportunities players have. I know where their shops by their in-game branding and advertising.

*Thoughts and Opinions

​

• 
  [*=1]IFN resource gathering/manufacturing missions equivalent to the IFN hunting missions. There must be something in the story-line that needs supplied. I was very confused with the fact that I must gain Anatomy, Engineering and Geology as a disciple except all missions in perspective of in-game content point to Hunter/Anatomy.

Low level wave events. I stress this one pretty hard, in-fact it's getting its own bullets! I've traveled to find the wave events listed on Entropedia. Not happening anytime soon, unless I drop a much larger initial investment. Huge barrier to entry for a hunter on Arkadia. To me, it's detrimental. It's the reason I leave to go to Caly. In my experience; The Diakiba(sp?) Stampede near Camp Icarus is a monumental staple to being a noob.​

• 
  [*=2]An entry level wave event is a strong social aspect for hunters.
  [*=2]Align with a long IFN grind.
  [*=2]You get to see what weapons/armors other people are using.
  [*=2]You get to experience shared loot globals, an incentive to invest to go farm your own globals solo or to do more damage to get more out of the shared loot globals.
  [*=2]A way to desperately try to earn ped as you learn efficiency. :surrender:
  [*=2]There are societies/websites/Ped-Sites that host weapon/ammo events for noobs for these wave-events. Not having one leaves Arkadia exempt from that player traffic. It's a really good incentive for new players.

Celeste Quarry >Twink Peaks+Camp Icarus ​

On Ark, It's tough to move inventory outside of a TT monster. This is not the case on Calypso. In my experience on Arkadia, the main ped pipeline is through knowing people and the auction. That's not a bad pipeline at all. This pipeline is introduced in Celeste Quarry. I feel Celeste Quarry is partially optimized for this and it could have the potential in the future to be a trading/player experience epicenter with a few tweaks. It has a lot space travel taxis(taking people away ), traders, sweaters and a few hunters & custom player vendors.​

• 
  [*=2]A nearby wave event. This is from Camp Icarus concept.
  [*=2]What creatures spawn near the camp and their levels are conflicting with low level progression. New players in this area must hunt Carabok, Gallard(Do people actually kill those?), Lv4 Ostelok. Gallard: No comment. Carabok are puny and serve their purpose, The lower maturity Ostelok spawn is the only other option in the area.
  [*=2]Hides seem to be a good mover here and the textures unique, which is why a texture manufacture mission would be applicable.
  [*=2]As a new player, the high density of mutated creatures in this area are a pain and do not feel very conducive to progression when you're counting peddies and ammo and learning the game.
  [*=2]As a noob, I would prefer to see a more diverse lower level creature population, IE Halix, Faren, Oro, Jori versus the Lv 4 - 8 Progression of Osteloks/Hadraada. The more distance a new player is from the Quarry area the more he misses the opportunity to trade and socially interact. In my opinion, if there was a more new player-friendly hunting opportunity(to include a wave event) local to this area, we could see some growth and ped-flow.
  [*=2]It would be really beneficial to learn what low level Swunting is from the ecosystem around the Quarry versus having to discover the Celeste Outpost and get lucky with a group Swunting.

In summary, positive experience, eager to see the planet prosper. Would like to see the "New Player Experience" optimized for game play proceeding the series of good quality introduction missions.

 

I figured any extra newcomer feedback can't hurt, so here's my starter mission on Arkadia. (from the time on my previous avatar)

(Warning: lots of beginners babble, most hurdles mentioned have already been cleared. So it's just a dreary long account of how I experienced my first steps on Arkadia. And perhaps a nice reminder for myself in years to come.)

I have to agree here:

First Mako sword received in starter quest lasted for exactly 2 Caraboks; after that I had to run until death. Which was a bit of a bad omen: "I know this game is called 'decay', but if everything breaks this easy, it's going to be a very expensive game."
Especially after seeing in the TT that Mako costs 15 ped: = 7,50 ped per mob?
Of course it was explained later by other players that the TT Mako sword is not the same, and would have a longer lifespan. But that's not obvious for the starter who hasn't made contact (yet) with the community or mentor. Or that's just me...

Also, when looking at past threads here, there used to be Arkadia Advisers at the starting points, to welcome newcomers and help them on their way. In fact, this is still mentioned in the starter mission, and you are told to look out for their distinctive vests.
I don't know if this program is still running, but I didn't see any distinctive vests anywhere. Even up until present time, though I must admit; I have no idea how they are supposed to look.
If it isn't active anymore, it might be better to remove this expectation from the starter mission.
I know you can find who the advisers are on this forum, but not every newbie automatically comes to a forum. So far I have met two (very kind) advisers ingame, and that's mainly because my big mouth on the forum. Still for any non forum using newbie it would not be strange to be completely oblivious to the practical existence of Arkadian Advisers.
There were no players around at the start point, and hardly any at the follow up locations (fire base academy and IFN supply), maybe because it is spread out, and the population is smaller. I just noticed that on Calypso you make landfall at one busy location, where players from all levels are mingling with the starters.
But that may also be due to the fact that Calypso has a separate gateway, while here you start start right on the planet itself.
It's of course not fair to compare a new planet to an old one, but it would be nice to have (the announced) somebody around to 'catch' newcomers. Even if it was just as a welcome with the standard practical starting tips. (Or alternatively, remove the mention of them in the mission.)

I didn't miss a crafting mission, as it would probably have encouraged me to try real crafting before it would be smart to do so. Maybe later on a crafting mission would be useful, but for starters it might just make them broke and frustrated before their time.
Though the sweating could have received a little bit more attention, especially (the mention/explanation of) group sweating, as that will be the main activity for starters for quite a while. And it will be the easiest way to make contact with the community.

The mining mission is well done, it's clearer and much more complete than the Calypso one.
With my newbie mind I did spend a long time trying to find a non- existent claim. Since it said " your claim will show up on your map" I looked and saw one, so I swam all the way back to the island to find that claim I 'missed'. It took me a long time to figure out I had accidentally made a waypoint, and thought that was pointing towards an unclaimed find.
So that goes to show you: no matter how well a mission is set up, some silly punter (like me) will always be able to mess it up somehow.

I really liked the given pants and boots (especially in my situation).
Together with the armour they make a useful and nice look; it makes you feel more of a 'real' colonist than the oj that Calypso has you run around in.

The hover pod is very amusing, and it's useful to receive it so early.
It gives a good impression of the distances you can expect on this planet.
Unfortunately I didn't realize that mobs would damage it that badly, just by flying through them, so it was almost completely decayed in one trip. Which is a shame because it's really funny.
This new one from my new avatar will be kept far from any mob.
And that it's a hover instead of a car is really handy for us newbie drivers: by following rivers hovering over the water, you can avoid those savage mobs who are after your sparkly newbie ass. So yay for the hoverpod!

I got a bit confused by the TP's. There is a message when you enter a new area, that it is added to your map. So I thought a similar message would appear when you added a TP.
Since that didn't happen, I wasn't sure if it was added or not. It states you have to visit a TP for it to be added. So first I just stood on it: no dice. In the end I wound up using every new TP to go back and forth, just to be sure it was added.
(To be complete: now on this new avatar, I do get the 'TP added' message pop up, and the TP appearing on the list, so it might very well have been a bug reserved for that avatar specifically)
But it's very handy that this planet's introduction includes TP's all over the map. Even leading you past useful spots like the shops and busy places like the quarry. (Btw: absolutely great that there are so many of them: getting tragically stuck on outposts is much less likely here.)

I did read the back-story before landing on Arkadia, but even without it, the storyline was nicely explained in the starter mission.
Though it did leave me wondering: "What about those Oratans?" Since I didn't see any at all, even though they are mentioned so often. I expected to have to fight them at the end of the mission. Or even better: have a beginners event that includes Oratans in some way, which might also help to introduce team play to us newbies.
By the way, just saw the Oratan Exodus announcement: (So that's what they look like?? First time to see them; I had pictured some sort of big viscous beast in my mind. But they are some sort of creepy human/alien mutant form? That totally changes how I imagined the colonization to have gone.)
Is this an event, or the anticipated continuation of the lore?

Only technical mishap that occurred: I did get stuck inside the shooting range, literally inside, I was trapped between the moving targets. And even had another newbie start using me for target practice. Which was quite amusing. On the upside: while being trapped, I did find some fruits next to a target.
Luckily an friendly soul reminded me of the T button.
(Btw, my new avatar could walk through the glass on purpose, so I guess it's a general thing.)


So all in all, the starter area was a positive experience.
Lot's of background story, nice freebies, good instructions on the game mechanics, well spread out over the map, and easy to follow.
For a total beginner in this game it made for a good start.
It especially gave a specific planet feeling; on Calypso it felt much more generic. But this one really made it clear: you are on Arkadia now.

It may have been just coincidence, or because of higher headcount, but during the Caly starter mission I did get accosted by a 'free ped' referral peddler, female unfriendly comments, and beg/ped requests. So I'm glad none of this happened on Arkadia, it made for a much more friendly atmosphere to start in.

And more general:
I have to agree that for a starter the AH is virtually useless. It's probably a reason to push you into depositing, but still, it would be nice if there was a 'learn' period.
For example, if a starter gets the possibility to post maximum 10 sales on the AH for a reduced fee (like 0,10). That way they can get used to the AH, and have the feeling to participate in the economy. If those 'newbie sales' are marked as such, or are even in a separate section, it would benefit all starters by being able to buy and sell on the AH, without bothering the more experienced players.
I don't know if this is MA territory exclusively, and there will be a risk that people with alts can abuse it (hence the limit). But it would be a great addition to keeping players longer interested. It can even be introduced as a mission/achievement.

Not sure if there is anything useful in this looong post, but if nothing else; it's at least a big thumbs up for the A team for this "new player experience". View attachment 8251

 

I just started playing yesterday and finished the beginner missions today. I think these were a great way to introduce the different aspects of the game and I like the fact that you could just take your time and do whatever you wanted in between missions. I find this game really interesting and I've recently started swunting using the beginner tools and just taking things at my own pace. I'm really enjoying this game, the graphics are really good and I look forward to trying new things as I progress.

 

Great experience so far!

I am a fairly new player, been in EU about a month and a half. Started on Calypso but didn't get any of the Gateway missions, so it was a bumpy start to figuring everything out.

Arkadia sounded like the "newer, fresher" place that was trying to grow its economy, and it had appeal there for me. I want to take up mining but missed the Gateway missions on Calypso, and heard Arkadia's mining missions were great. After a few weeks of playing I bounced over to arkadia.

First impression was absolutely wonderful. Missions were as straight-forward as you could get, got a hoverpod, weapons, and got some basic mining training. I really appreciated getting some equipment to start out; I realize this is a real cash economy and even though the items can't be TT'ed they are returning value to me (from loot from the items and mined ores). I absolute loved the new player experience here, and would recommend anyone else to start here, based on the two beginning planets I have experienced.

My first poor impression was trying to find any mining missions after my newbie missions were complete. I figured there was surely something where I could mine lysterium and get a small amount of skill or something after a few hours of playing, right? Well, it seems there are only missions for what, one or two ores/enmatters/treasures, and you have to hit larger claims for them to add up. To put it in perspective, I was chugging through rewards and goals with missions on a minute-my-minute basis when I started. With my rookie finder I hit lvl I-III claims, which have a fraction of a chance to get 1 point, and I need 100 points to reach my first goal. Ug, guess those are out of reach for a long time. It feels like those missions are for mid-skill players that just popped onto the planet, not something I can use my training mission gear to work towards. I keep thinking of something like puny missions for miners as what I was hoping for, and was disappointed to not find.

I found it a little frustrating to find out the top NW zone had a giant PVP region. On Calypso such areas on are the in-game map, but I didn't know it until I was flying around trying to get TP's and was killed. Not the end of the world though, the map is clearly labeled PVP on Oceanic and the like.

I'm still pretty new and still learning the ropes, and really appreciate all of the hard work I see in place on Arkadia. I hope to call it home for a long time, keep up the good work.