New Player Questions

Hi all, I didn't see a new player forum to post these questions in so I hope this is the appropriate place. I did my best to find this information, but there are quite a few forums here.

1) This is the first time I've ever played a game pre-release. I find myself lacking motivation to really play/learn my character as it will eventually be wiped. Does this just go hand in hand with playing games pre-release?

2) Is there anything I retain or hang on to after a character is wiped? Anything besides knowledge that is?

3) Is there any ballpark estimate as to when the game will be released..... or more of what I'm concerned with, when the last wipe will be?

4) Is there a new player forum here? I'm looking for any tips or tricks to help a beginner out.

 

1) yes, and that's normal unless you're really motivated to test.
2) nope, if it's a full wipe, your character is deleted, along with everything it had, outside of pledge rewards.
3) 2016 at the earliest, although personally, I don't expect even beta before 2017.
4) not that I've seen. The instructions for each release are about as 'official' as new player info is, at the moment.

 

1) Honestly there are two things we're doing right now. Testing (finding bugs, offerings suggestions for improvements) and building relationships; those go a long way towards speeding up release and making it more enjoyable.
2) Pledge rewards and a few in-game rewards (the World Tour rewards) will stay with you
3) Soon(tm) The game has, each release gotten better and better and at a faster pace. There's no telling on timeframe, but I suspect it'll be much fast than we expect. (As long as it's ready we're good)
4) Best bet so far is to just read what you can, and ask if you don't know.

Don't fear wipes. They don't happen AS often as they did (one is impending next release for instance), so they do occur. But don't let that discourage you. The restarting will offer entirely new ways to look at the game (for instance I restarted on this release because I wanted to see the new character stuff, and test out how quick skill gains are). There are good and bad reasons for it all. We'll get there eventually. And the last thing you want to you do is say "I was in the prerelease", and someone new says "yeah, then why don't you know where the lake is?" You'll feel silly. <This is a personal anecdote for me...just trust me.>

 

^No worries. I still plan to say this come release. *looks at name*

 

2) Also you can retain the hat of the every release especial quest!

 

Welcome Naistruction!

The next wipe will be on October 29th, and yes, it is understandable to lack motivation to invest too much in one's character. Very many pre-alpha backers don't bother to play or only log in at the beginning of a new release to see what's new and complete the Tour Guide quest to collect the rare hat available in each release.

On the other hand, it is quite possible to have fun testing the game mechanics such as combat, crafting and skill leveling with a view to giving feedback and thus having a voice in how the game progresses.

One of the most satisfying results of playing regularly is being knowledgeable enough to help new players

Feel free to add me to your friends list in-game. Questions asked in these forums never remain unanswered for long either.

 

My turn..,


1
Yes.
Lots of people get alpha burn. Lots of people only visits once every third month or so. Lots of people only do the hat quests and nothing else.
Some people even want to keep the story and exploration fresh for when the game finally releases.
2
The only thing you get to keep that are earned are the Grand Tour Quest rewards which gets tied to your account. Usually those are to visit 4 or 5 scenes and find the automaton tour guides. If you do a search on
@Envyco Gaming
Then you will find vids to help you through.
(We have also sometimes got to keep some XP buff but that is only alpha to alpha. )


3
No official one.
But my guesstimate is April 2016.

4
Friend people in the game, in chat write
/friend Spoon
or whichever name of friendly person you see then use the f key interface to see if they are online and to right click their name tag to whisper to them.
Feel free to sende any questions you got and I will answer to the best of my ability.

 

Welcome Naistruction,

Make sure to get the release rewards. Other than that, don't burn out. Alpha is looming, but 6-8 months is my guesstimate.

 

Welcome Naistruction!

 

Hi and welcome from me also Naestruction. Well not everyone burns out. Each new release is giving us more and more to do. We have welcome quests to show players around, in fact there will be one Saturday if you do a search. The town I live in is on the list and you are very welcome anytime to Wizards Rest. Also as mentioned each release there is a hat or mask that you get that is account bound. Many community members will gladly help you out, me included anytime. I am majoria in the game.

Also your friends list does not go away when there is a wipe and you access it with the 'f'' key in case you don't know that and add the name you want and hit enter key then you can also right click the persons name for options to whisper etc. If you see another player in the town and did not get a chance to speak to them try right clicking them and you'll get options to adde to friends, trade, ect.

The 'j' key is for your journal that keeps track of things for you. Talking to all npcs gets you quests to do, asking their name, and typing help will get them talking. Also the 'o' key is for emotes that are available. If you lose your chat window hit the enter key and click on the little push pin on the upper right corner of the chat window to keep it from going away. Really there is a lot to do, like we are planning for our visits from the welcome quest people and town members all have something to do if they want that is, like build a graveyard, play music at the event, decorate the town, craft items.

You will find as we progress this game will give so much to do, but what you choose to do is up to you. It may be pvp matches, we will get seiges also, if you enjoy pvp more and more will come in for that. if you prefer fishing, gardening/agriculture is coming, house deco, or community or guild events there are plenty of things to do. We even have gustball tournaments, pvp tournaments, mazes, plays, and music just came in if you like to play instruments, we have two instruments so far, but many more are coming and it is the first iteration of music so more coming in it. I love it and did not expect to love it so much. lol So again I'm happy you joined us **cheers**

sorry for typos, hopefully I got them all

 

1....... Same. I login, get the Quest hat, maybe look for a plot if needed, refresh my house, log out. The only reason I played longer than normal this release was because of the awesome new music feature. Many possibilities with the abc files compatibility. But all in all it's hit and miss when it comes to pre-alpha/beta releases. For the past 17 years I've been a part of dozens and dozens of big name pre-releases and only a few stand out as being really extraordinarily fun. The loading screens aren't so fun but perhaps it's something else. The funnest early release games I've played would be;

This MMO from 1997 I can't remember the name and no one can either it looked 3-d cartoonish, kind of like Ultima Underworld II-ish, very cool game. I tested it, grinded killing rats to get rat tails to sell for currency which were pebbles of some sort. Bought a red robe, took many an hour to get that red robe. I log out, log back in, no red robe! So I sent in a bug complaint and they said sorry it disappeared and as far as I know 2 weeks later I check back and the game is wiped off the face of the earth like it never existed. But great game, great because of the detail in the town. The attention to detail was extreme. It was 3-d, yet cartoony 3-d, hard to describe.

The Odyssey; super corny, super cheap, yet very fun, due to the fact that the game itself didn't care how crappy it was, lots of active players, dumb quests to get the best loot, the best part about this game, you could put gold in the bank, but only gold, no items, when you died you lost *everything*, so full-loot, full-loot-loss, which resulted even on a micro-scale a very fun game.

Another great game I'd consider early stages unfinished would be Dungeon Runners, amazing game, again, short lived. It was released but they constantly were saying how they were going to 'finish this and that dungeon' and never got around to it. Still a very fun game.

Best testing experience I had with MMOs was Ultima Online 1997 beta phase 1 & 2, it was the most state of the art MMO in the world at the time, everyone was clamouring to play it, everyone was playing it, $5 for the disc, well worth it. The new-ness of it, the mass amount of players, the new ways to manipulate this new world was so new with so many people playing which gave it an epic feel.

Asheron's Call, I beta tested it, it was really fun, really liked camping the chests to get green armor pieces. Enjoyed kicking butt in the new 3d landscape. I remember watching Wild Wild West w/ Will Smith and then playing Asheron's Call beta I remember watching a few players die gruesome deaths to which I exclaimed they ventured too far into what I liked to call the wild wild west.

Beta/Alpha tested many many other games, most pale so not worth mentioning. Games like Silk Road were fun for a few weeks, the fun thing about Silk Road was the extreme length it took you to walk from town A to town B, and no loading screens.

As far as SotA. Perhaps the age and perspective really is a huge factor. If this is your first beta/pre-alpha you'll be more prone to present tense nostalgically enjoying it. Loading screens and zero quests keeps me away. They need to build the questing system, show it to us, not ruin the plot of the game, but show us a questing system more complicated than the Grand Tours. My dream version of the online multiplayer won't be the same as everyone's but what I'd do is have both dynamic NPC quests and static NPC quests, show all the quests to us in multiplayer mode. After watching various interviews it seems they're trying to tackle the challenge of an NPC saying "Thank ye for returning my one of a kind family heirloom" to 10 players at the same time breaking immersion. That aspect of immersion is less important to me than a lack of quests. UO had zero quests, but I don't believe UO was meant to have zero quests. So if I have any concerns, it would be, please make multiplayer quests a reality, show them to us, we'd like to see them. When we can start to see the multiplayer quests, and when the quests start to blow players away in their awesomeness and puzzleness, creativity and uniqueness apart from other games, then at that point will the online NPC quests bring the players to the testing stages of the game, then it won't be boring. Right now you're seeing a quest-less game. The grand tour quests should not be representative of anything other than a mechanic, but I'd hope I'd be a simple mechanic, and I'd hope to see many many complex NPC quest mechanics in the multiplayer mode.

Too long winded of an answer to get to question 2, I'd be surprised if anyone reads through all of this I type quickly no time was spent typing this out.