First Impressions or A Beginners Guide from the Confused

Not sure which forum to put this in, but this seemed the most appropriate. This is a long, rambling and potentially incoherent post that I don't have the energy to edit into something shorter having typed it as it came to me.

First of all I was mightily confused and quite lost. No surprise. Then I had a few minutes where I lapsed totally and forgot how early days this game is.... finally I realised that it's Pre-alpha, donned my old school mind set and stared at the chat. Everyone was speaking in brief code, and seemingly not with each other!

So I amble up the road and approach a guard and say Hi. He threatens to kill me. Shrugging I carry on a bit more, wander around and find some crafting stations. At this point I don't know who is a player and who an NPC and nobody has a name above their head. The chests are all empty and the crafting stations appear to need tools. I go back and read the google docs release notes. Discovering I do not have what I need and there's seemingly nowhere to buy it I carry on wandering and end up at the Tavern.

In the tavern I observe another player talking to NPCs and twig I need to do the same (the brief code in chat from earlier now makes sense). Asking the bar keep a few questions I realise I should talk to the lone guard on the bridge I ignored on the way in... back to the bridge. I also purchase a torch, it seems wise.

Things start to click now but I am still without suitable adventuring attire. Anyway I head, heeding the guards instructions, towards the guard tower to the north of the market and speak to the injured guard. He has a different name to the one the original guard mentioned. I assume it was repeated blows to the head.

Someone in chat mentions sotawiki. I read that for a bit, but don't find a 'Beginners first few minutes' or anything of the sort; so head back into the game. I speak to everyone in the guard house, saying "Hi" and "help" to almost everyone in there, including the odd PC. The guard behind the desk mentions herbs from an alchemist to the south. There I find my alchemist, obtain the herbs by saying "help heal" or somesuch. I also discover a meat cleaver and a cloak in a chest on the end of a jetty.

On may way back I worry about bandits so have another attempt at crafting (and kill a rabbit with the cleaver purloined from the pier). This time I realise the old UO stand by of "Vendor buy" and have somehow hit a key that puts titles above peoples heads (I have no idea what key did this). I now can identify the vendor and purchase a Harvesting Axe and a Pickaxe. Still no idea what to do next somebody mentions R for crafting recipes and I discover I have not what I need, but the previously empty chests around the crafting stations now contain since spawned items. I take two of the molds and am told they respawn so I shouldn't worry about returning them.

I leave town and head to a bandits nest, all the violent bandits are blue and I cannot fight them, though they seem as miffed by this turn of events as I am. They are a grumpy lot. Heading deeper into their nest I find a barrel full of iron ore and some other trinkets. A grumpy necromancer and some red creatures that are even more grumpy complete the menagerie. They won't fight me either. Well now I have ore and healing herbs so I head back to town.

The guards seem chuffed, exchanging the herbs for a potion I give to the injured guard. He relays a report to me which I repeat to his captain. Then I feel I about to be off on another quest... in main room of the guard house is a weapon rack... idly I try to take one, it works so I take a Founder's Cutlass and a Snake Sword. Equipping the cutlass I head south to another dungeon. In there fighting lizards and kobalds I discover I may well be immortal. I am dead, yet am reborn!

That'll do for now.

If anyone made it that far... erm.. sorry you can't have your time back. For the 4th release, and the first I've played, this is all looking OK. Sure it's buggy, a lot appears to be place holder but there's stuff there and it is kinda working. I'll certainly be trying again.

For the total newcomer though? It's frustrating as hell and very opaque. Keep trying and ask for help though, this is really really early access and normally nobody would get to see and play a game in this state. It's interesting and there some promising stuff in here. Let's keep helping to shape this game, for my part I'll try to keep an open mind and not get hung up on UO of old (The big things I miss in modern games from old UO? The sense of adventure, the risk/reward, the spell system, the skills and of course the treasure maps).

So tl;dr for the newcomer:

Run ahead, speak to the lone guard on the bridge. Head into town and find the raised open walled bit with all the tables and chests. Check the chests (if they're empty come back later). Click on people then type in chat to interact with NPCs. Just past there is the tavern, north of that and up the hill through the wall is a market square, on the northern edge of that is guard house... here you can take some weapons at least from the rack.

Somewhere, whether on the wiki or in forum post a stickied "Here's what to look for in your first hour of sota." would be awesome. If it exists already and my search foo is dim, can someone link it here?

Hopefully someone will read the above and find something useful.

Thanks to the developers and all the now nameless people in chat that helped me out.