Hospitallers -- Players Helping Players

Hospitaller Meeting Minutes​

ALL ARE WELCOME TO ATTEND!
5 March 2017, Sunday 11 Central Time
​

Discord Text Chat: https://discord.gg/RhXb7qp​

Discord Voice Chat: https://discord.gg/CRz8Bpn​

PaxLair TS3 Server: 43.245.163.15:10099​

Main Topics:

• Big Stuff this week:
  • Lazarus: Free Play Week
  • Temujin: New people with Free Play
  • Winfield: Free Play
  • WrathPhoenix: Free Play more visitors
  • Justyn: Free Play more visitors - having a good time - much energy

• New Attendees:
  • None

• New Player Experiences:
  • Visitor experiences - Free Play week
    • Visitors are entering through (most) Soltown (love), (some) Resolute (courage), (not see many) Blood River to Aerie (truth) - based on the intro scene tips.
    • Visitors seem to be thrilled about:
      • Try before they buy the game! Social media comments show this.
      • Ranged weapons are possibly best starter skill - Love path.
      • Expected negativity, but not so much! Possibly because:
        • Know game is in development
        • Soltown is near complete, so people can experience the near finished type of game.
        • Currently 10 visitors in Soltown right now.
        • Visitors can join guild, some have because they want to get more participation. Will still need upgrade for full account.
        • Generally, we have not seen negative comments. Visitors are wandering around seeing what they like!
    • Visitors are everywhere!
      • They are in many places in Novia. Adventure areas, and even player towns.
      • Hospitallers are helping people understand the SKULL system - seems something important at the beginning!
      • Hospitallers are taking people to Hidden Vale, but most are in Novia not knowing Hidden Vale exists. More one-skull zones in Hidden Vale.
      • Hospitallers have friended visitors and check in with them regularly.
      • Visitors ask what is best class character to play.
    • Ravalox: When do these Visitor accounts get deleted, after some inactivity?

• In-Game Support Locations or Concepts or Events:
  • Not many events focused or needed for Visitors right now. Visitors are tactically working their characters.
  • Perhaps have some more "advanced notice" to Hospitallers when Visitor Free Play comes out, then Hospitallers can be more prepared.

• Website/Out-of-Game Projects/Events:
  • SotAWiki: /sotawiki commands - improve this on the wiki - wonderful! Thanks @WrathPhoenix
    • http://sotawiki.net/sota/Commands
  • Temujin: Where do I find the recipe for? What carpenter in what town?
    • Several ways to get recipes ... from players, SotAWiki, different towns, etc.
    • Discovery and knowledge to find more advanced recipes.

• New Tech:
  • Visitor Free to Play - Offer more Visitor periods, perhaps even perpetual. Specific duration or permanently can be a visitor?
    • One month - Maybe have 45 days to see patch to patch.
    • Perpetual - allows people to see game development from patch to patch - month to month.
      • Could allow people to be social people, without buying the game, maybe not desired.
  • Patch cycle (number of patches) and amount of download are still problems for new players and old players.

Topic Deferred: Suggestion: Use adventure level to limit the number of skills one can train from @Spoon - not really discussed during the meeting. Can discuss in the future if desired.

Round the Room:

• @Berek : Telethon coming up. Future Telethon may have different name than telethon, maybe Festival - Berek can receive name suggestions. Great to have the community hours during telethon. Wants to do more Spotlights, something different - groups, guilds, POTs, stores, etc. Current "story" template for towns may not be sufficient for other types of Spotlights. Community can suggest new templates to Berek.
  
• @Lazarus Long : Yeah Meeting - Free to Play - great move by Portalarium. Little caught off guard, that's OKay, and make this a permanent thing, larger window for play session.
  
• @WrathPhoenix : Skeptical at first about Visitor Free Play, glad it has worked out!
• @Justyn04 : Initially, dreading Free to Play - but best things Portalarium has done in quite a while!
• @Mykll : Curious about how Free Trial is going.
  
• @Rada Torment : Basically trying to get the feedback of new players these days (mainly from my guild), and excited to see how this trial program goes in the future. thanks for the great meeting again.
• @Ravalox : Good meeting - Surprised about reaction with Visitors, in positive way. Expand program going forward.
  
• @Stryker Sparhawk : Visitor program going good, people ask good questions, people reading more with interface change perhaps. Good.
• @Temujin : Like the visitor thing. Hope it happens more!
• @Winfield : All great stuff!
• @Elgarion : (tagged in case you'd like to review)
• @Spoon : (tagged in case you'd like to review)

 

Hospitaller Meeting Minutes
ALL ARE WELCOME TO ATTEND!
12 Mar 2017, Sunday 11 Central Time

Discord Text Chat: https://discord.gg/RhXb7qp
Discord Voice Chat: https://discord.gg/CRz8Bpn
PaxLair TS3 Server: 43.245.163.15:10099​

Main Topics:

• New Attendees:

• New Player Experiences:
  • Justyn: had some conversations with @dallas about the free trial test, seems there was a lot of positive feedback and account sales
  • Elgarion: wonders what happens to all those copies of the game which come with Bundles -- some players have multiple bundles -- why can't they hand out free extra copies of the game earned from multiple bundle purchases to friends to play the game with them?
  • Stryker: hoping they wait on having a new free trial until they've added the battle camps
  • Elgarion: initial frustrations could very much be related to the default UI settings for targeting and mouse look -- why do they default to uncommon configurations that people are not commonly used to? Shouldn't they default to a setting closest to the most common MMO controls?
    • Folks stated there should be a pop-up explaining the possibilities
  • WrathPhoenix: met some folks over the stream, took some minutes about their first new player experience.
    • New mother has some frustrations with the game initially, and got her son 23 yrs old to also start up:
      • Son went on path of truth so he could be a mage. Truth is not polished, and was VERY lost. Couldn't find the dagger to get out of the zone. Had no idea about Virtues and had no concept that by looting corpses etc and stealing could be bad. So there essentially is not a primer for folks starting in the areas other than Soltown.
      • Son used to NPC conversation systems having hotkeys for each response. Grimace agreed, shortcuts tied to responses would be nice.
      • They couldn't figure out how to meet up with the game modes. They didn't realize one was in Friends Only mode and the other was in full Multi-Player mode. Temujin had a similar question in Hospitaller chat, new players not realizing that PvP zones automatically send you into Multi-Play PvP mode.
      • They didn't find any maps immediately (starter maps could be very helpful, where you pick up your first weapon, perhaps there's a map to pick up at the same time). They were told about SotAMap, but being told to immediately leave the game to use an out-of-game support item seems initially odd for a new player.
      • They had a learning curve about what's worth salvaging and what's worth selling for the crafting system.
      • Son was completely unaware about the XP pool concept since it wasn't adequately explained.
      • He did like that he was able to make money as a new player, and loved the POT concept and hopes to obtain one some day, but was excited to play again but still knows he had frustrations to overcome
      • Mother stated, "Overall, I am thinking that the intro would be better off including a much more in-depth tutorial, covering the types of things listed here, at the least. I know the goal is to reduce hand-holding (which I do appreciate!) On the other hand, too much freedom can scare/dissuade/discourage people in the beginning, especially with all of the hand-holding that this next generation of gamers is already accustomed to in an RPG. Perhaps there can be a “skip tutorial” option included for folks who don't want/need it."
      • She noticed the telethon was focused more on decorations etc, less on how mechanics work and skills -- the telethon doesn't in any way teach how to play the game in any way
    • Justyn: was there a way for the free trial players to leave feedback?
      • Folks stated that perhaps there can be one forum room that's for free trial, not $5 requirement to participate.
    • Rada Torment: I bought a second sota account (using the starCitizen promotion, really good price for both games) to be able to play from the beginning. I really want to see the coming new starter "tutorial" scenes, even if I need delete my char more than once, because right now we can't go back with our old characters.
    • City Slicker: last night i had 2 new users trying this game. and they were getting random loading screens when they werent entering any instances

• In-Game Support Locations or Concepts or Events:
  • Elgarion: will have a lot of housing to provide to new players interested in an RP-PVP experience and help build/design the stories for Kahli

• Website/Out-of-Game Projects/Events:
  • Telethon Feedback Breakout Session hosted after this meeting. See Justyn for any notes from the meeting. Send Justyn a private conversation in the forums with feedback about the Telethon as well
  • Elgarion stated there is a questionable site, SotAHelp (.com) -- use with caution until we determine if its a legit help site or a data farming site/malicious coding site. SotAHelp.org is the legitimate site, proven safe.

• New Tech:
  • WrathPhoenix: every time you leave the game, a paragraph window comes up to provide feedback OR a link to leave feedback on the feedback forum.
  • Justyn: a new methodology for new players to get in contact with Hospitallers, but problems with abuse always come into question. A tab in the social window that shows how's flagged for Hospitalling.
    • Selene brought up the idea for integration of the concept with the SotAHelp site.
    • Ravalox brought up an idea that /help questions auto-send to Hospitallers

Round the Room:

• @Berek :
  • Telethon: had a fantastic time, it went very well -- better than expected. They were quite happy with the community's involvement. Thinking about using zoom instead of google hangouts. Hoping to continue this trend moving forward. Appreciated all the help!
• @dallas : (tagged in case you'd like to review)
• @City Slicker : listening in, broken mic, I wish they would figure out somthing for AMD users crashing, Ravalox stated that Unity 5.5 is the fix.
• @Elgarion : great meeting
  
• @Justyn04 : great meeting, appreciated the data that WrathPhoenix collected from the new players shown above in New Player Experiences.
  
• @Mykll : Nothing just got here. But again props to @WrathPhoenix for taking care of the Twitch stream peeps.
  
• @Temujin : helping a new player with Rada in Discord and saw that new player had 4 more people in their new player group all asking questions, and his favorite question was, "What is a Hospitaller?"
  
• @LiquidBlaze : listening in Wonders when Unity 5.5 is going live?
• @Ravalox : good meeting, looking forward to the next livestream! Might go in person the next time around
  
• @Selene : yay meeting! Likes the idea of the pop-up survey at the end of every gaming session.
• @Rada Torment : Great telethon and excited to see new changes and specially the new player experience ones
• @Stella Moon : listening in, hoping for tutorial enhancements for new players
• @Grimace2 : exciting telethon, reinvigorated attentions towards the game. Excited to see what the next livestream and post mortem will be like at. Looking forward to all the typed out answers to questions not answered during the telethon.
• @Stryker Sparhawk : It was a great telethon, the announcement of the new Battlecamps seems like a great area to let new players collect their wits about the world and how different it is - stretch their wings, so to speak. The feedback comment section for new players/Visitors is something that could be as simple as something like the 'Bug' button, or the pop up form at the end of the session (that could be checkboxed off). - A centralized in-game experience is something that I have always been wanting, from maps to other items. Great meeting overall
• @WrathPhoenix : props on the Twitch monitoring, had a lot of fun with fellow Twitch chatters. Realizes now why so many questions do not get answered -- there are a million of them! Good meeting, appreciates all the efforts from the community
• @Winfield: (tagged in case you'd like to review)

 

Hospitaller Meeting Minutes
ALL ARE WELCOME TO ATTEND!
19 March 2017, Sunday 11 Central Time

Discord Text Chat: https://discord.gg/RhXb7qp
Discord Voice Chat: https://discord.gg/CRz8Bpn
PaxLair TS3 Server: 43.245.163.15:10099​

Main Topics:

• New Attendees:
  • @Rudyard

• New Player Experiences:
  • Laz: A new free trial player got a new account and spent $5000 for bundles and more things! Wow!
  • Free Trial schedule looks great!
  • WrathPhoenix: Positive feedback from telethon via twitch. More people interested in helping the telethon, some can be on-site.
  • New players still having trouble figuring out how to Whisper - perhaps have a tool tip pop up the first time you receive a whisper explaining how to answer back.

• In-Game Support Locations or Concepts or Events:
  • Telethon have more player instruction? Probably not... we should have more player help videos to do that and keep telethons and postmortems for current state of the game and
  • Perhaps have more live streams that go through instructions. Several streamers may be doing this. We shall look around and see.
  • Winfield: Outlander Welcome Center just outside Soltown is designed to help new players. Includes crafting stations and banker and some NPC vendors. @Bayard runs the town. Enables players to adventure, store stuff in bank, craft, etc. quickly then go out adventure again.
  • WrathPhoenix: Novian academy courses coming back. Course will involve/educate people about Virtues, Ethos, Dominion, etc.

• Website/Out-of-Game Projects/Events:
  • Grimace: Do we have a simple video to teach people how to use chat? Maybe we can ask @Lace to help with this?
  • Saladid: has people ask him questions during his Twitch stream. So he answers them right away and demonstrates as much as possible. See: https://www.twitch.tv/saladid usually streaming 6PM CDT to ?? on Mon-Thurs, then random on weekends. People watching the stream are also very helpful in helping others too, e.g. crafting methods.
  • Grimace: SotAHelp.com very different from SotAHelp.org - It is in Russian and covers basic help.
    • http://sotahelp.com
      
    • Web site is operated by Gilda Shadow People (Guild Master - Spinok TheGreat).

• New Tech:
  • New players still having trouble figuring out how to Whisper - perhaps have a tool tip pop up the first time you receive a whisper explaining how to answer back.
    • Perhaps some beeps (can an option on by default) when get whisper, party message, etc.
    • FYI: Here's the Sound Notification suggestion I made during the telethon and Darkstarr's reply):
      
      Ravalox: Would it be possible to add audio alerts for whispers in chat and Group invites? In addition; to enhance this and some other audio features, it would be A W E S O M E if the sound could be selected by the player. Options such as: <none>, <Default>, <User Selected> Where, <Default> is whatever sound Portalarium assigns and <User Selected> allows the player to select an MP3/other supported audio file.
      Darkstarr: Yes!​
    • Justin: These would be REALLY helpful... this is one of first top five things I tell people. Then "bam" they start talking!
    • Merrick Dragon: held a class on chat system and most people had no idea to us the tabs and such for different messages. So still need to help people learn chat system.
  • Grimace: Two chat windows... one right, one left, to allow us to have chat vs combat info on different sides of the screen.
  • Add chat command /help to go to the same document that the upper right icon Question Mark (?) goes to. Some people may naturally try a /help command versus looking for a button. Some people remember the "man" (man page) in Unix to learn about everything, but that interacts with the chat line, not a popup document.
    • Some people may help Portalarium with this. Help create documents or bot type scripts, etc.

Round the Room:

• @Berek : (tagged in case you'd like to review)
  
• @Lazarus Long : Another productive meeting. New topics.
  
• @WrathPhoenix : All went well. Tangents seem to lead to new ideas too. Appreciate people's time. We are making an impact!
• @Justyn04 : Meeting went well. Excited to see free to play is scheduled ... after next release R40 -- 6-10 April 2017
• @Grimace2 : Wonderful meeting glad to be here.
• @Merrik : Great meeting.
• @Mykll : We need brewery for the drunken monkeys?
• @Saladid : Good meeting. Liked all the ideas.
• @Ravalox : Productive meeting. Every meeting has been productive. Each time have new ideas.
• @Temujin : Nice seeing everyone. Liked to see free to play people staying in the game and they are asking more complex question. Love it.
• @Winfield : Fantastic meeting. Any plugs for Fishing are great!
• @Elgarion : (tagged in case you'd like to review)

 

This is the Merrik profile to tag:
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?members/merrik.171435/

@Merrik

 

thank you oh Purple one

 

Fixed to @Merrik !!

 

Hospitaller Meeting Minutes
ALL ARE WELCOME TO ATTEND!
26 Mar 2017, Sunday 11 Central Time

Discord Text Chat: https://discord.gg/RhXb7qp
Discord Voice Chat: https://discord.gg/CRz8Bpn
PaxLair TS3 Server: 43.245.163.15:10099​

Main Topics:

• New Attendees:
  • Jaath Windsong: been playing the game since the first release. Just came back after an extended break about a week ago. He's big into taming and archery, and loves the community and how supportive they are.

• New Player Experiences:
  • Jaath Windsong: in general discord chat, helped someone who was having trouble with how lots/deeds/housing works as well as how the xp pool works -- seems there's a lot of confusion in these regards still.
  • Lazarus Long: typically just before release, things slow down a bit as people are awaiting the next release
  • Jez : met a few new players this week, took them around the world. One of the common things that was confusing for them was the initial set-up of the interface and the free form combat. Finds the free form concept to be clunky. Educating new players right at the beginning that the interface can be adjusted to be more typical controls for MMO's by visiting the interface menu. Found one guy was really interested in crafting, but it was very daunting right at the beginning to dive into the direction of crafting and get a better grasp about crafting right from the get-go.

• In-Game Support Locations or Concepts or Events:
  • WrathPhoenix: was teaching people how to solo or group hunt some of the bosses in the game.

• Website/Out-of-Game Projects/Events:
  • WrathPhoenix: brought up the existence of SotAQM.com does wonders providing a shopping list for all the materials you need for a piece of armor etc. Could help new players understand how the components in crafting create different stats for the armor.

• New Tech Suggestions (for Forums, Discord, Game which might assist new players):
  • Ravalox: hopes for more lfg options in the game
    • Elgarion: SotAHelp.org has a lfg option
    • Jaath: hoping for in-game lfg chat channel
  • Ravalox: SotABot for Discord is done! Waiting on UltimaCodex for one last bit of help. The Hospitaller !signin and !signout for Discord is finished, and is in final testing/bug testing. Sent a note to UltimaCodex, might be online today! Should be completely operational shortly. Next feature will be the FAQ feature for the Bot. It will work like this: when a Discord user types in a particular command, will do a Google search of the SotA Forums and post the results in Discord. The actual command syntax is still yet to be determined (for FAQ).
  • Jaath Windsong: free play week coming again in R40 for trial users
    • Justyn said they're tracking the exact moment trial players quite and do not continue with the game.

Round the Room:

• @Berek : (tagged in case you'd like to review)
• @dallas : (tagged in case you'd like to review)
• @Elgarion : hasn't been super active in-game of late due to retirement and job hunting for his second career. He'll be back in full swing soon! Great meeting!
  
• @Justyn04 : been working with Laz and some new people, been lots fun playing with new players who are enthusiastic
• @Jez : finds newer generation people seem to have more problems with the complexity of the game and the steeper learning curve. Made having new starter zones should really help. Found it took 9 hours for him to craft a high end armor piece if considering the gathering time frames.
• @Ravalox : week after next week's meeting should be crazy since it follows another free-to-play trial.
  • Elgarion: let's focus on supporting these trial users, use next week's meeting to strategize our best ideas for support and events during the trial week.
  • Lazarus: let's start advertising the trial to our friends and start planning events now and spread the word now what you have planned ( @Berek might want to really advertise events in overdrive during the trial period so they see how active the community is )
• @Grimace2 : since he isn't dev+, still waiting on release notes for R40. Noticed Elder Scrolls Online is being compared to SotA, feels its an unfair comparison. Noticed that a lot of games are released with bare-bones feature sets. Should see a LOT more features added after launch as the game deviates from the bare bones yet complete status for episode one.
• @Stryker Sparhawk : hasn't been on a lot this week, thinks there should perhaps be hours per crafted item data. How long does it take craft item X if I gather and refine all the items themselves. Items gauged too high could be recommended for adjustment. Looking forward to the new starter zones.
• @WrathPhoenix : good meeting, FYI, might not be around next week with new job stuff coming up.
• @Jaath Windsong : finds that the number one way to expand the player base, is people getting their real life friends to start playing. If they have a good initial experience, they'll invite others to play expecting them to share a similar experience.
• @Lazarus Long : great meeting, glad to hear about all the ideas and content coming from the group. It's been a quiet week, and been busy in QA seeing what's coming. Loves the free trial concept -- free is golden! Yay meeting!
• @Winfield: (tagged in case you'd like to review)

 

Looks like another greeting meeting, thanks for tagging me!

 

Hospitaller Meeting Minutes
ALL ARE WELCOME TO ATTEND!
2 Apr 2017, Sunday 11 Central Time

Discord Text Chat: https://discord.gg/RhXb7qp
Discord Voice Chat: https://discord.gg/CRz8Bpn
PaxLair TS3 Server: 43.245.163.15:10099​

Main Topics:

• New Attendees:
  • None

• New Player Experiences:
  • Temujin: deck explanations have been required more for new players (and old) since now you have to go to a trainer to unlock the deck. This visit to the trainer teaches you about unlocking the deck, which seems a bit vague.
  • Jez: wants the deck window not to be invisible as a new player, there should be some text available to explain what it is and that it'll be unlocked at a later point. Thinks unlocking the combat bar for a fee is "stupid". Other explained its just a money sink. Justyn stated lets wait to see what the new tutorial zones will be like, 3 will be added to help new players relate to the game.
    • Jez thinks there should be an in-game window showing all the instructions for the game, which can be navigated by categories etc (like a wiki). Justyn suspects the help window that takes you to a browser (Question mark at top of game window) for help is likely not the finished state of how the help file will be presented.
    • Grimace brought up that backers will receive a physical copy of the game book, and suspects a pdf will be available to other players who were not original backers. Justyn suggested we find out about the help button and resulting browser interface and if its in its basic final state/concept. Jez agreed it could be improved.
    • Grimace said there are in-game books, one made by Lady Kate, another by Port which provides full instructions for the game. Grimace wonders if these books are updated each release and are they deletable? Do older versions of these books get updated automatically if they are in old character bags or do only new players receive the newer versions when their characters are created? Grimace also suggested the titles can include the Release #. Thinks perhaps the Oracle can provided updated copies as well.
  • Grimace: people asking about what happens if they restart their character -- are extra bank spots and gear kept? Is what is in the bank kept? Laz stepped in, stated anything that can't go to the bank must be held by another player if you wish to keep it when deleting then restarting a character. Grimace brought up that multi-accounts also allows the same player manipulate the items for safe-keeping when deleting/restarting

• In-Game Support Locations or Concepts or Events:
  • @Bayard @Stundorn have a new german guide for the game available at the Outlander Welcome Center near Soltown, yet another new player help offering at the Outlander Welcome Center.
  • Grimace - welcome quest occured yesterday, @Duke Gréagóir 's event tought people to fish etc and was highly successful. Justyn wondered if it could be run again during the free trial week.
  • Justyn brought up @Stryker Sparhawk 's Happy Hour which could be a great event for free trial players to attend during the trial week.

• Website/Out-of-Game Projects/Events:
  • none

• New Tech Suggestions (for Forums, Discord, Game which might assist new players):
  • Jez wonders if mechanics can be created to allow players to create tutorials for the game, something beyond just books.
  • Jez raised the topic of global chat, folks expressed mixed feelings about global chat which is typically the sentiment of the community about its existence. Elgarion raised that zone chat is likely the closest we'll get, Grimace brought up the availability of Discord.
  • Saladid: a button for Outlanders which could teleport them to a centralized training point, a place where Hospitallers are available. Justyn said perhaps the /friend list could also show a list of players with the active Hospitaller tag showing, so they know a list of folks to message. Justyn brought up that any special privies given to Hospitallers has the potential to be abused, so there will always be caution in regards to any tech to assist Hospitallers with new player support.
  • Grimace : thought it'd be handy to see /ignored / blocked players, a text field for the player to populate to explain why they blocked them as a reminder, could be handy. Perhaps it could be the same text field for the friend list.

Round the Room:

• @Berek : (tagged in case you'd like to review)
• @dallas : (tagged in case you'd like to review)
• @Elgarion : nothing to add, great meeting!
  
• @Justyn04 : (missed final portion of meeting)
• @Jez : wants full loot pvp
• @Ravalox : bot is up and running for Discord, so contact him with any questions, comments or ideas. A tutorial is coming which will provide a list off all the sotabot commands.
• @Grimace2 : highly recommend any new players or hospitallers should attend this meeting. Also a great place to let off some steam.
• @Rada Torment : nothing to add
• @Saladid : likes the idea for new players and hospitallers to go to an off-world site specifically for training, hands on, using temporary resources etc.
• @Lazarus Long : wants some definitives on a lot of these questions, and yay meeting!
• @Temujin2 : looking forward to cleaned up explanations on how to do things as things change in game.
• @Winfield: (tagged in case you'd like to review)

 

@Grimace2 Just use list of blocked players (H) and right click them and click View/Edit note, then you will see the note when you mouse over their names.

 

I would contact Oracle Oasis on the fishing. They did a great job in getting everyone a fishing pole, taught everyone how to fish (access it from your toolbar), and had GMs available to speed level gaining up. I contacted Zethgrim to get the ball rolling for that Welcome Quest host town.

 

Thanks for linking us!

 

Hospitaller Meeting Minutes
ALL ARE WELCOME TO ATTEND!
9 Apr 2017, Sunday 11 Central Time

Discord Text Chat: https://discord.gg/RhXb7qp
Discord Voice Chat: https://discord.gg/CRz8Bpn
PaxLair TS3 Server: 43.245.163.15:10099​

Main Topics:

• New Attendees:
  • Scar Face: found the meeting on the calendar, hoping to get more tutorial videos out to the public -- here's a link to his tutorial videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHaJtTffuLWz33z6OBtbhhA
  • Thorn: just listening in

• Top 5 Questions to be Presented During Berek's Weekly Livestream
  (More Listed So @Berek/@DarkStarr can pick 5):
  • New Player Questions:
    • Justyn: How do I use the chat system? (/l /local is not common or intuitive)
    • Justyn, @Selene : How do I find and gather resources?
    • Many: Where do I hunt? Where is the best place to hunt?
    • Stryker: How often will there be free trials?
    • Stryker: Will quests be reset or is there an option to reset quests if I so choose?
      
    • Grimace: Now that we are persistent, is there anything that might still be rolled back? Do I risk leveling a skill to have it greatly changed later, making it less desirable for me?
      
    • Grimace: Is there incentive to stay within the same guild? Is there a penalty for guild hopping?
      
    • Temujin: How do the deck mechanics work? How do I unlock the deck?
      
    • Justyn: How do I manage/wisely choose my skills?
      
    • Brazen Spirituality: Why are new or young players forced to fight the xp pool (seems to always be in low/at zero) while playing in level appropriate areas? Can the XP Pool be better explained in-game? How to more efficiently kill creatures? When to upgrade the difficulty of the creatures? How can taking too many skills hinder my Pooled XP Growth?
    • @Bayard : How do I make money? How do I buy a house?
    • @Stella Moon: How does one play a musical instrument and where do I find sheet music?
    • @Winfield: How do I fish? Where do I go fishing?
  • Veteran Player Questions:
    • Stryker: I'm back after a long hiatus, what are the major changes? Are there any more wipes? What major changes are coming?
      
    • Elgarion: When are alliances coming our way? How will this mechanic be executed in regards to guild wars and chat?

• New Player Experiences:
  • Woftam: ran into two brand new players were stuck in sieges, couldn't figure out how to get through the siege and he escorted them through.
    • Elgarion stated to watch Friday's livestream with Berek, Starr presents a solution to this.
    • Stryker and Lazarus discussed Starrs response about a possible level 20 or less bypass for sieges.
    • Lazarus wonders if they could instead get a walkthrough version of a siege, like a siege tutorial for these low level players.
    • Grimace brought up this forum discussion he found: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/sieges-of-starter-towns-is-stupid.85685/
    • Stryker: brought up that sieges are being utilized as common adventure zones for gathering wood by killing engineers
  • Stryker: grouped with a relatively new player, explained that they wanted to see housing examples, sent him to Hometown.
    • Justyn stated the ones inside the castle walls are the available homes.
  • Lazarus: got positive feedback from new players as to how surprisingly helpful the SotA Community is -- props!
  • Saladid: taught 3 people about the deck system using the Hospitaller chat in Discord, and while he was streaming on Twitch.tv -- after they were trained, they immediately moved to more difficult hunting areas just because they understood the deck system.
  • Merrik: had to help a new player getting Emma's quest working. Something doesn't seem to be working with the quest.
    • Justyn said she'd use her alt lowbie to test the quest to see if there is a problem.

• In-Game Support Locations or Concepts or Events:
  • Lazarus: reminded folks about NBNN News (www.NBNN.info)
  • Stryker: Happy Hour helps out and enjoys attendance of new players.

• Website/Out-of-Game Projects/Events:
  • Elgarion: here's the link page for SotA Support sites on SotAHelp http://sotahelp.org/#links/
  • Search for Saladid on Twitch.tv -- a great way for new players to find out about the game
  • Lazarus reminded folks about: http://shroudmusic.com a great source for music while playing the game

• New Tech Suggestions (for Forums, Discord, Game which might assist new players):
  • Ravalox: upcoming feature for Discord SotABot
    • Discord users will now see automatic links which pop up when there's someone streaming SotA on Twitch.tv -- links will appear in two new channels in Discord, with documentation coming. Arriving soon! Just need some love from @Berek to get it working.

Round the Room:

• @Berek : thank you for great discussion. Will be asking questions on the community livestream each week.
  • Post Mortem, Tuesday, 3PM Central.
  • Promoted some community events on the site, hoping they went well (Bookstore opening and Race). If you have events you'd like posted, be sure to put them in the R40 or Reoccurring events area and tag @Berek that you'd like your event highlighted
  • New email format for the weekly update, wondering what the community's feedback is with the black background and summarized entries. Said the new format is getting a higher open/click rate than the old email format. Now that the email is summarized and shorter, there's more room for community events to be advertised!
  • Summer Telethon (keeping the name Telethon after all) is coming! Be on the lookout for requests from Portalarium to the community for ideas about what to include with the telethon (events etc). There will be a community hour, so community should let Portalarium know who/what to spotlight. Folks who can attend in person to assist with the telethon are always welcome
• @dallas : (tagged in case you'd like to review)
• @Elgarion :
  
• @Justyn04 : good meeting, liked Grimace's Discord idea below
• @Ravalox : meeting is worth getting up early for, SotABot may soon explain how Discord works to new visitors (in answer to Grimace's idea below)
• @LiquidBlaze :
• @Merrik : wonderful meeting, loved it as always
• @Grimace2 : good meeting as usual, great to invite new people. Had a last minute idea about Discord, perhaps a Discord tutorial as to how the SotA Discord is set up and how the SotABot works
• @Rada Torment : Great meeting like always. I have been a bit off last three weeks but we got two new guild mates this month, and once they understood the basics, they are happy and enjoying more the game now.
• @Saladid :
• @scroda :
• scar face: giving a shout out, happy to me here
• @Schneider DragonFang: lovin the new trial system for new players, veteran player
• @Saladid : good meeting
• @Stryker Sparhawk : good meeting, loved it, lots of ideas, looks forward to the post mortem and what the stats are
• @Lazarus Long : new player weekend seems to be working well, lots of compliments coming from the new player base. See's a lot of accounts getting activated -- yay meeting!
• @Temujin2 : happy to be here, helping a lot of players after a long hiatus
• @Winfield: (tagged in case you'd like to review)
• thorn:

 

During a live stream, demonstrate to viewers how to join the #hospitaller text channel to ask questions and how to rejoin #general chat to win a prize @Berek

New players who have not joined a guild have no experience with how guilds work in SotA. Some new players may delay a decision to join a guild from fear of the unknown.

New players may not understand what persistence means. Outlanders may fear their earned XP/skills/gold/items will be deleted prior to "commercial game launch".

 

Why would any guild wish to restrict or penalize any player's right to anything within our game, or the right to choose any guild they wish, or any guild to choose to leave from.​

Guilds are no prisons and through leadership in fellowship they survive, or become those prisons ruled by tyrants!

~Time Lord~​

 

Not just the guilds that put restrictions, but the game mechanics. Are there cooldowns before you can join another guild? Do you gain guild status by doing stuff in a guild, and then lose all that when leaving, and have to re-do it all? I'm not saying SOTA has these, jsut that other games, with guilds, have implemented similar, or one, or all, or other things, so people asking about guild hopping like this, may not purely be asking about the guild leader aspect, but the game mechanic aspect. I dunno. Maybe.

 

~Treachery & Skullduggery~
There was allot of controversy when the subject was first mentioned here in our forums within a thread addressing the possibility of players being able to be in multiple guilds. Some opponents had some good views and questions raised there which still would effect such restrictions being needed (in their view). But the controversy mostly centered around war guilds and how that would or would not work and any needed restrictions they may need to prevent the Ninja Styled attack or treachery.

There were some good comments on both sides and may be worth while to check out what all was said there on the subject to get a more clear picture of all the concerns expressed.
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...ets-talk-about-stones-and-being-stoned.10388/

This is a link to another game Lord British had great influence on which is still popular here in Asia "Lineage" and how such things they imposed on guilds;
http://www.lineage2.com/en/game/the-library/clans/clan-levels-and-ranks.php

~Good controversy is always a key to understanding both sides of anything~

~Time Lord~

 

Grimace was just mentioning the question has been broached before by new players. There wasn't a discussion about the merits of such a system at the meeting, just mention of a player asking if we had one in the game THOUGH, I certainly find the discussion interesting -- I'm a sucker for clever game mechanics if they can be implemented with reasonable amounts of fairness.

 

Gaming Mechanic Merit Guilds,
I would like to see war guilds at some time within our development be something more than normal guilds. That's not to say I'd rather see them and only them separated or restricted from having wars, but something of a merit faction would be something special and thus far, SOTA is shaping up to be just that! Very special in every way and everything they've done here thus far. We can complain about the place holder, but what replaces them is always something of special quality and depth. That's why I'd like to see what they could come up with and how those merit guilds could be different, but entered into with a challenging game mechanic that has a challenge within them through game mechanic all it's own! Autonomous and separate from any player's decision, or by popular vote!

I can't think of a way for guilds other than war guilds of achieving merit through gaming mechanic, but I'd be very interested in what could be came up with indeed!

Though that maybe good subject for another thread
To hear any such interest should do our Hospitalers well to consider within our future and how they may best craft such a guild to have a place for their own craft in the ways of SOTA teaching.


~Time Lord~

 

FYI guys, scar face (new attendee from our latest meeting) aka @skeggymedia has a growing list of tutorial videos. I've linked the 5 tutorial videos below in a playlist, but if you look at all his playlists, there are even more videos to share.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLw9-ukIjQVaTnAHMemJnhcwzNb3k2hwPs

I know I'm behind on posting vids on SotAHelp but I plan to reformat the vid section so it'll be less work for me to maintain. Soon, it won't show individual videos, it'll be a listing of playlists containing tutorials for SotA. I hope to have it redesigned within 2 weeks. I'll be out of town and get back into the swing of things just before our next Hospitaller meeting.

Cya guys soon!