Its not easy finding crafting tools, or any newb gear at all

So I am now scouring the gameworld for crafting tools. I need tanning knives, smithy hammers, stuff like that. I got an artisinal skinning knife for my pledge reward (yay), but I cant get solve the greater problem of no light armor to be found for sale anywhere, so I am willing to endure the current crafting system (a bit) to get myself some leather gear.

I started on the west side of the world, so its very difficult making it back to Ardoris, where I know merchants sell this stuff. None of the NPCs in towns near me have what I need. One NPC in one town will have a hoe. Another NPC in another town will have a loom shuttle. Another NPC in yet another town will have a cooking pot. All I want is a tanning knife.

The point of this thread is not about the tanning knife, but the challenge I am facing in terms of dedicated gameplay just to be able to craft the very most basic tanning item. I am now journeying across the world, and have run into 3 different access points where I got obliterated before I had a chance to cross the zone. Even in ghost mode, I cant cross, due to closed gates. My pledge cloth gear is getting tattered. This seems really hard just to get a simple tool.

Dont get me wrong, I dont mind the "siege perilous" aspects of the gameplay. However, Im thinking it should be a lot easier than this to get such a fundamental item. I mean in reality, if I had to walk across an entire continent to get some simple tool, Id just fashion some super crude thing myself out of bone or something. Its kind of crazy to make this trek to just get the basic tools I need. Dont even get me started on the fundamental, basic newbie armor and weapons (which arent found anywhere but Ardoris it seems). In addition, like ive mentioned in other threads, Ive likely waltzed right past where I need to go to get these things. It was probably right under my nose, but I missed it due to clip plane glitches, lag, other graphical error, or I just diddnt know the NPC named "Martin" happens to be the tanning knife merchant.

What Id like to ask for is better indication of how to find the most elementary things in the game. All NPCs need their tradeskill after their name, not just some of them (its fine if this happens after weve been introduced). Guards need to know how to point me towards various shopkeepers and locations. Town Criers need to know what resources are available in towns (and they need to be a lot easier to find). Even better, NPCs need to know their neighboring towns, and be able to answer dialogue questions about "where can I find an axe/knife/shovel/toothpick?" They should know all resources available within 2 town range, or at least point you towards someone else who does. Perhaps the inkeeper will give you this info if you buy an ale. Just something there so I dont have to die 20x just to get a basic newbie tanning knife on the complete other side of the world.

 

I just started playing 9 days ago and the complete lack of any kind of information almost killed it for me. Unfortunately the first vendor I ran across was a public vendor. I had read something prior to playing about the greater value of player made items in the game, but not even being able to vendor my hard won spoils of battle with out having to front a portion of the value? I didn't realize that all vendors didn't work that way until I wandered across the continent to Ardoris (due to not being able to locate that mysterious invisible caravan that supposedly goes there. And how about a map to help find my way? For the sake of the Titans, a map!?! ) Low and behold, in great Soltown there is a leading quest for the blacksmith and she wants to buy equipment from me. Aha! A chance to finally make some coin. When I return with some gear for her much to my surprise it's not a quest turn in, simply the merchant menu. I would say that I had the wool pulled over my eyes, but it's rather more like upon logging in game I fell into a vat of wool. Hours wasted due to not knowing a simple mechanic in game.

That's just one example. It seems that this prevalent in SoTA. When I press 'v' I get a list of stats. There are a few that I can deduce from searching through my other menus, but they aren't right, say 'Mining collection chance.' The problem is that it isn't your chance to successfully mine, it's your chance to get double resources on a successful mining attempt. There's a few combat & defensive stats that I would love to know what they do. How about just strength, dexterity & intelligence. What do they do? How do they affect my skills? Why do I want it?

I loved crafting in UO and that was one of the draws for me to play this game. So the first thing is to gather resources, right? Where do you gather resources from? Leather and pumpkins were easy to figure out, but what about lumber and ore? You can't get it from just any tree or rock. I had no idea what they looked like, until I had a random encounter on the road. With nothing but cattle in the zone I knew that there had to be something else to find. Wouldn't you know it, lumber trees and ore nodes. Now that I know how to find resources I can get to crafting... maybe. So believe me when I tell you at this point that I've spent more time searching the internet about how to play SoTA than actually playing. I know at this point that there are various recipes for a leather chest or a longsword. What recipe do I want and what mats do I want to make it out of? Once I figure that out, how do I find the recipes to make the materials for the recipes for the recipe to make a leather chest or longsword? I don't mind the complexity of the crafting itself, as long as I can find the information to know what to do. At this point it's seems like a better investment of time to just kill things for loot and save my gold. Then I can wait for someone else to make an item that would be good for my build and put it up for sale on that wonderful public vendor I've come to be so fond of.

Maybe the SoTA team is concerned about too much readily available info in the game ruining immersion, but having to spend hours googling things about the game is even worse for immersion. It wouldn't even be so bad if the information was perhaps posted on the SoTA website?

 

@Mysticvermin First off, welcome aboard! Another UO fan in the community is always a good thing.

Secondly, a lot of what youre experiencing is intentional. A lot of is is also because this is a "pre alpha" (or pre-release, or whatever theyre calling it these days) game, and much of it is still in dev. Many quests arent complete, and for that reason, I havent even bothered with questing yet. Many people do the quests though, I just enjoy killing mobs too much I guess. Some of the stats youre reading may be from a previous release, they may pertain to this release, or they may pertain to some upcoming/incomplete game feature. I could be wrong about that last point - i dont follow the dev blogs - but in prior releases, some stats in that list were leftover artifacts from systems they removed. Im just pointing it out as an example of incompleteness.

Thirdly, you have to be really dedicated to the spirit of the game to get past the difficulty of "not knowing what to do." Its not meant to be a race to the top, a non stop grind to level 50, like many other games, so really its not such a big deal if you spend a few days before you realize "its the brown trees that can be felled for wood, not the green trees!" etc. Ive been playing since Release 10 (2014 sometime?) and I am still very lost in the game, though, personally, I do enjoy this challenge. I think it would be far easier if I were more social in the game, but my life often leaves me with several weeks on end where I cant play games.

In any event, I agree, some information should be easier to find, however, if you read this forum enough (fun fun I know...) you will find just about everything you need to know. If you dont, just post a question, nearly anything Ive ever asked was answered within a day or so, often within like 4 hours. The dev team has acknowledged many times throughout the releases that there arent enough resources to help new players get adjusted, and it will be addressed soon. Its likely that before this summer's wipe, there will be many more resources available to guide players. This game is HUGE (and the content is no where close to complete), extremely feature rich, and highly detailed. It also follows its own path, and thats what makes it great - deviation from the norm.

So basically, tell youre self that as a pre-release player, and someone who just now got started, youre playing at the highest level of difficulty possible. The reward will be having the cutting edge knowledge once the game actually has a final release candidate, so do the proper karma thing and pass your experiences on to new players . A lot of your instincts are on par anyway, and if you have a better perspective on how a game mechanic should work, or what should be included and what shouldn’t, then help us all out in the feedback forums. Knowing exactly what pitfalls a brand new player faces is helpful. Like I said Ive been on here since R10 and I am still figuring out some basics.

But yeah, again, itd be great if we could all just chat with NPCs and figure a lot of this stuff out. Google is much better at finding information for me than this forum's search engine (like most websites...). Id rather talk to an NPC to know what tree to cut down than to search for it on my other screen.

 

This post deserves a lot of attention because it highlights what a terrible new user experience people are having who, after creating their avatar, don't choose the path that let's you end up in Soltown. It might be better to continue to funnel everyone to Soltown until the infrastructure around the other starting points can support a new player in an equal fashion.

 

Alot of this stems from people having played other MMO's that do a ton of hand holding for extended periods of time. The paths are well beaten and easy to discern - giant yellow exclamation points dot the zones and constant heads ups from the UI give you everything you want to know. BUT -

That is what is so great about this community right? The starter links post that has been put up is huge - and so is the Quick Reference Card.
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...-little-before-you-jump-in.43436/#post-482679

This is a game of exploration more often than not - and a little bit of preparation - making a few friends when you stumble onto someone along the road - those things go a very long way. We're all here to help one another, and if you ever catch me in game just add me. Verdic Aysen. I will gladly offer all the help I can spare.

 

Check out sotamap.com for a really great dynamic map that is searchable!

 

I do wanna state that I am an experienced player, having joined around Release 9, so I know the gameworld well. I am glad I started near Highvale, as the NPC towns and other zones around here rock (I find the zones around Ardoris really boring, but that could be due to constant repetition from prior releases). If I were a brand new player, Id be completely lost, and wondering why I cant go to any town due to these access point gates. However, I also probably wouldnt even know what tanning is to know I need a tanning knife!

And also I use sotamap.com regularly. I hope they never implement an in-game map, using external resources makes this feel very old school RPG!

 

Here's a map link, the best map I've found, thanks to a Backer: http://www.sotamap.com/

PS: crafting tools are always by the crafting tables, the vendor there will have all you need, plus supplies to craft like coal, creasol, etc. If you buy them out, just reopen the menu for more...

 

The issues I see here is that the majority of testers are starting with a lot of extra equipment due to backing.

Now, the average backer won't have all of that which makes even the most basic things harder. Seeing as these should be the norm of new backers it is a good idea to test heavily with these types of players.

 

Welcome both stratigos and Mysticvermin!

There are lots of people who are willing to help (new)
players ig. http://www.sotawiki.net/sota/Phc
Or ig. type in chat box /sotawiki phc