Excelsior

Hi fellow excelsior players (excuse me for my english as it is not my native language), some of you may know me (Roksta ingame), but you probably don't as I am quite new to this shard (bit more than 3 weeks). I gotta say I love it and got good help from players when I started back then and I'd like to do it now myself.

I think new players should be helped and supported so they want to stay on this shard. I saw Bunneh do something great a couple of weeks ago with her auction with money going to new players and it gave me an idea.

What I did is prepare a lot of ''New player welcoming boxes'', each containing (for now), a set of leather armor (+12 dex), a headband of power, Good jewelry, 1 weapon of each type, full spellbooks (necro,bushido,ninjitsu,magery,chivalry) and a ''Tips'' book (will also try adding spellcaster's rings with regs already in).

This is where I need your help, as experienced players you probably have more tips to give than me and I'd like to put the best ones inside the book (obviously not the easy tips you can find on the wiki as the books already redirect them there).

What I have so far :

-Tips on where to start training along with explications on the rat killing quest, where to read the wiki, forums, and item insurance.


Thank you for your time.

get in touch with the youth coordinator and talk about them who's in charge of that anyways again? is jack penny? they are the ones who put together welcome gift boxes with gear and stuff like that. glad you like it here. been here a couple years and still playing

Welcome Rocka87 and thank you for post. I've been trying to brain storm some suggestion for helping improve and maitain new players. I would love to hear more from you on your initial impression of Excelsior shard. What do you think to the following;

1. what was your initial impression of the shard?

2. what attracted you to the shard?

3. Did anything confuse you when you logged on for the first time?

4. What made you stay or want to stay?

5. Any suggestions that would better improve your Excelsior experience?

Feel free to expand. and you will love your stay here. So many of us do

-Kenekeo

ps, would love to hear more feed back from any player if you can remember your first impressions

Kenekeo wrote:Welcome Rocka87 and thank you for post. I've been trying to brain storm some suggestion for helping improve and maitain new players. I would love to hear more from you on your initial impression of Excelsior shard. What do you think to the following;

1. what was your initial impression of the shard?

2. what attracted you to the shard?

3. Did anything confuse you when you logged on for the first time?

4. What made you stay or want to stay?

5. Any suggestions that would better improve your Excelsior experience?

Feel free to expand. and you will love your stay here. So many of us do

-Kenekeo

ps, would love to hear more feed back from any player if you can remember your first impressions

Well after a grand 7 days on the shard, I feel I can answer these for you.

1) Initial impressions were good, people talking in [c, usual array of banksitters and trade spammers - all good in my book!

2) I used to be a hardcore (ish) PK player back in OSI days, sadly now with the onset of age, and 10 years away from the game, I thought getting back to playing Reds (and kiddies attitudes to PvP centric activity I have seen on other shards - aka leet speak and general tardedness!), would be too much of an uphill slog, so I though I would go back to being a blueberry

3) Oh many things, but that's mainly bespoke systems like Exex, and the whole relayer/leveled weapons still do!

4) The people! After getting a hello in [c before even speaking, and generally finding nice people on to talk to. Community = all in a sandbox like UO.

5) More people selling full spell/necro books :DFinally found a vendor selling them, but it seems a lot of the vendors in the TH, on the gate, and also out and about are pretty dry

It's been almost a year, but I still remember some things. I was a complete UO newbie when I arrived, so essentially I was overwhelmed upon appearing for the first time in TC. Took me to 2 weeks to learn the basics on my own (too proud to shout "ned halp plox! me noob!"). So I'll exclude the 2-week setup period from the answers.

1. What was your initial impression of the shard?
"Wow! Everyone's so helpful and friendly!" Whenever I needed help with something there was someone with an answer. Unless I was asking about some completely obscure knowledge, but even then I sometimes got an answer. Also "everything is so expensive!"

2. What attracted you to the shard?
No skill cap - I'm the kind of jack-of-all-trades (here I can actually be master of all) player so this was a good thing. No PvP was good too - in my opinion in most games it's limited to "wham-bam-you're dead-start over" so didn't want any of that. Advertised friendliness was a + too - "I can learn to play this game and not get my head bitten off".

3. Did anything confuse you when you logged on for the first time?
Everything, as posted in the beginning.

4. What made you stay or want to stay?
Well, it was fun. Joined a guild, met some friends, wanted to be a good player just like them.

5. Any suggestions that would better improve your Excelsior experience?
The default starting kit should contain the book with the basic info (as supplied in the care package). Period. Info about wiki, forums, the rat quest, noob champ, exex, other basics. Forget putting about stuff realyers, levelling, etc. - no new player actually needs to know that, TMI. I got to know about the noob champ on my 29th day here.
As a side note - many people leave because they don't have the patience (or perhaps other mental faculties) to learn everything (anything?!). Nothing you can do will keep them here, as they find the game to be boring, lame, stupid or whatever derogatory term you can think of. But that's not Excelsior itself, that's the way UO plays in general.
EDIT: It'd also nice if everyone would not assume that the newbie has any experience in UO. Many who come here are UO vets, sure, but some are complete noobs who don't even know how to equip armor.
And also, this would be a plea to +Colibri - the ticket thank you period could be longer. I mean - less then 2 hrs of playtime? I gave a few tours that lasted longer than that. At the current rate I would need to ask for the ticket in advance.

I've noticed people getting faster and faster on the uptake - slinging a pack nobles and killing balrons on the first week is becoming the norm. I believe it's because of all the 'tutoring' the new players get, I think everyone who would stay does so. The rest move on to WoW.

Ive been here almost 2 months (after 14 years or so on Great Lakes) and would like to participate.

1. what was your initial impression of the shard?

Friendly. Im a chatterbox and I love hearing people talk in global. Whether its about a mob, armor or what they are making for dinner, doesnt matter. I love the social aspect.

2. what attracted you to the shard?

First was the no skill cap. Im a crafter and hated the fact I needed 4 toons to be able to really craft well. The other 2 main things were [exex and [c. As a new player I found it easy to get get a little quick cash by mining and selling direct on [exex, bought my keys that way.

3. Did anything confuse you when you logged on for the first time?

More things then I can mention.

4. What made you stay or want to stay?

+Colibri. I opened a ticket on my 2nd or so day and he popped by. He didnt just fix my issue but he talked to me and gave me a young player bag. He really seemed to care that I was here.

5. Any suggestions that would better improve your Excelsior experience?

Lets ease up a tad on the macro response of "Check the wiki". While the wiki is chock full of great info sometimes people just want to get an answer from a person. It enhances that whole social/community feeling.

Figured it might help if I answered my own questions to encourage more response.

1. WOW, what is up with all the neon and why am I not in Haven

2. It based off of Ultima Online, which I missed sooooo much because of the different level of creation vs. kill mob and lvl up. I really missed having a house and being able to customized it.
--a. It was free to play and I was tired of paying a subscription to play. That monthly payment made me feel like I had to play to get my money worth.
--b. No pvp. I been playing pvp based games for a long time and I justed wanted a break from worrying about being ganked while resource gathering or afk. But, I do missing pvping sometime. There is no AI that can match playing against another person.
--c. I checked all the free UO available and decided that Excelsior would be the one worth downloading and trying. The rest of the free shard didn’t seem as professional, updated and have a high player count

3. Everything confused me. Again, I wanted to go to Haven. And when I went to Haven, it was a dead city. No players were there. I couldn’t get into the Haven castle to access the UO new player dungeon to re-acclimated myself to UO again. I was even looking for the lizardman spawn to start training again, but those were gone too. I completely felt lost by that point.
--a. All the chat and pm were totally new to me. I actually closed the welcome menu so that I could see the global chat. So I totally missed the welcome menu. And then all the pm I got, I didn’t even know what there were and closed those out just so I could see all the Neon vendors at the Town Center. I felt like starting in the middle of the Town Center is like dropping a country teenager in the heart of NYC. Way too much for me
------i. To be expanded on in another post, but maybe start players out in the East side of Town Center by the new player donation portal or in the new player donation room instead.
--b. Then I went to Brit bank and felt out of place due to all the Neon players. In the old UO, being a Neon player meant you were one of the vets and rich. And here I am with a Young player tag and an ugly green helmet. Those tags made me feel like the stupid noob that I am in need handouts and weak. Totally, did not like that.

4. What made me stay was the guild I was in. A player called “Grim Reaper” ( I miss you man, I wish you come back : ) ) Totally took me under his wing and showed me the rope. I wasn’t even carrying my token ledger until he explained it to me. He showed me where the training room was, spellcaster ring, Escort quest, new player champion spawn, exex, and how to bond a pet. Those little things really made me slowly start my love affair with Excelsior.

5. My full suggestions will come in a more detailed post. But I want to hear from more people so that I have a better understanding of how to keep newer players.

1. what was your initial impression of the shard?
After few years of playing "modern MMO" is UO world on Excelsior like return to home ( i played UO few years ago for long time). Nice living UO world with a lot of friendly people and opportunity to do a lot of various things.

2. what attracted you to the shard?
As i wrote above, nice living world with many possibilities. No skillcap. I like to do various things, not only killing. Sometimes i like fishing, gathering resources, crafting, house building, ... Here are a lot of nice customs things.

3. Did anything confuse you when you logged on for the first time?
I read about right patch needed, else i cant see few thing correctly, so i did it. But on first login i saw people only in strange colors (really strange) on brit bank. I thought, that i did something wrong, so i patched again. On second login it was the same, so i thought, what the ... . Later i saw, that those strange colors are normal here. I dont like it much, but i can live with it .

Another confused thing (little frustration) has been pet system. I mean mostly imps and little breeding. While i like breeding, having dragon and chicken (both maxed) with the same power is ... strange. I played tamer on other shards and used Dragon + Nightmare and later Hiryu. My first few days i didnt see any player with dragon, or hiryu, so i was confused. No skillcap shard (so everyone can have taming skills) and everyone talking about pets, but no one using them . It last few days and a lot of my questions for understanding how that works here. I was little frustrated after this, because i would prefer hunting with majesty dragons, not stupid small squirels . But again, i can live with this.

Btw, from start i didnt know, that a lot of players have got godly items (mean relayers) and they mostly dont need pets for to be deadly .

4. What made you stay or want to stay?
Friendly people and living UO world. I still have a lot things to do and i believe, i will have a lots of thing to do for long time . And still there is no better game for me than UO.

5. Any suggestions that would better improve your Excelsior experience?
Would be nice to have better dungeons, than like simple custom OSI version. I like to do dungeons, exploring them, finding treasures, etc. Now dungeons are mostly "hole in the earth" with weak spawns without any puzzles (mostly) and treasures not worth to open it (except rare chance to oints and remove traps training). Classic (feluca / trammel) dungeons are too easy and can be soloed with one players easily. I know, that we have peerless, but i am missing something for "mid level players". Would be nice to have dungeons with various things, like locked dors, puzzles, special door guards, where we should use "all skills" to get to the end and treasure was worth to do it.

1. what was your initial impression of the shard?
logged in someone said hello in world chat and told me how to do so. what the deuce is world chat? weapons have stats now. o.O gear has stats. :O all in all mass confusion. (haven't played since pre-aos)

2. what attracted you to the shard?
you can donate to get things. yeah i admit in the beginning donations was purely on what i wanted. it interested me because i do not have a lot of time to play. work, everyday life, and things around the house comes first. i figured i could sell those eds for something; cutting my time down on hunting.

3.Did anything confuse you for the the first?
yes, how come assist don't work and what is razor? how come my computer isn't allowing me to use razor. how come it's not working. :O stupid vista 64 grr. breeding/bees/flowers (now there are more explanation today from 2 years ago). what are elvens/eds/gold/silver (silver?). what is ninjitsu/chiv/druid? in other words it was a whole new game for me

4 what made you stay or want to stay?
met some good friends, the ability to donate and make 55 mil in 1 day. you could trade and sell everything increasing marketable items (yeah i know that's changed). quests are all able to be solo'd (yeah i know that's changed).

5. any suggestions that would better improve your excelsior experience?
a trade channel in global, fix aquarium glitches, stop moving me when i'm at brit bank. (you see i like to sit at ground level so i can cast heal on people going for a res. or help retrieving bodies. i'm not always afk at the bank. sometimes i'm answering questions via pm's, and my bank would be open. when you move me my bank closes and then i have to run down stairs/teleport down if someone needs help retrieving their bodies. in fact lately i just sit next to my bank in the training room. hm.. what else would i change if this was my shard (i know it's not though) net rewards after 2 years. different peerless loot tables (less scrolls/reagents/gems).

ok, after trying to writing something simple as a suggestion soon became a 3-4 page outline of many things that would only complex things. So I took a step back and decide to not re-invent anything. My main suggestion (which is actually already done, but needs twitting) is a video tutorial.

As mentioned above, we already have a few videos made of Excelsior shard, but not one that is quick and easy to follow. Templayer video titled "Ultima Online - Excelsior - Gameplay/Videonhravky CZ/ENG" is great, but without a voice commentary its hard to stick with. Also since there are 4 pieces, the full series is a lot to watch without actual references.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaRM80U4Mcs (video)

Anarchy's video contest are also great, but its made mainly as a promo. We need ones tailored to new players complete new to the UO experience.

Personally, before I do anything that is new to me in life, I YOUTUBE it, lol. From how to work a stumpgrinder, trying a new video game, or even how to pick a lock; its all on Youtube. We just need one that +Colibri would be ok with posting on the homepage.

Sorry, I am not verus in making any video guide, but I'll would be happy to reward anyone that would try to make one by form of ED of course. Let me know what you guys and staff think.

Suggestion template:
just like Templayer video but shorter and with voice commentary.

-Kenekeo

I think that would be a great idea but,

Will new players watch it? Most new players I see don't even know the existence of the wiki and/or forum. It would be better if there was some way to redirect them like maybe links on the welcome page (Maybe already one I don't remember) when you log into the game or put a stone in the newbie area with links to the wiki/video tutorial.

Also we have a youth center run by players, who run that? There's a book with explanation in the room to the right inside the building, would be more viewable if it would be on a table before entering the building (maybe next to the white book)

Well I DO have experience in making video guides and the like. Only issue I have is that my recording software wants 3D graphics to hook to ^^
Once I find a decent app to screen record well, I'll get on it!

The Youth Center is run by a player named Jack Penny, though I personally never seen anything happen there apart from auctions (which are for mid-range players rather than youngs). Maybe they help without advertising it, IDK.