My Expectations of a New Player

[Spoprockel]

In theory this is great advice. In practice, my experience with PUGs has been the following:


I get a blind invitation to a party from someone I don't know.


I like PUGs so I accept.


We start the quest and it is a NON-STOP sprint to the finish. If I didn't have +10% speed boots, I would never be able to keep up with people. If I stop to type anything anywhere other than at a shrine, I'm spending the rest of the time trying to catch up.


No one is on mike. No one types anything except the occasional "should we do objective X or objective Y first?". No instructions. No advice. Nothing.


The longest exchange I've ever had with another player was when a 'vet' player, the leader, thought his monk was the second coming of Jason Bourne and ran off into the dungeon by himself. He got cornered by kobolds and began yelling at me to come find him and heal him.



And so on, and so forth.


We did get a brief Aranticusesque lecture about how "none of you know what you're doing!" right before he rage quit.


Not sure if that counts as advice.

That's what you can expect from blind invites.
I've long ago stopped accepting blind invites on my cleric, just because you don't know
where it will take you.
And i would strongly recommend you to do the same.

I do enjoy pugging too, but not that kind of pug you described.


If you get into such a pug, speak up. You are the cleric, you are expected to heal people during fights.
Not that it's your job or your final duty, but people expect it from the party cleric and
you're good at it, so you can aswell use some of your SP to prevent them from dying.

But if they don't wait for you (i know how slow clerics can be) they can't expect you to do anything.

Tell them exactly that: "Wait for me or you might die horribly, as i couldn't even heal you if i wanted to, clerics are much slower than monk/ranger/barb splashes!"


If they do so, fine, seems they can at least read/listen.

If not, leave them, you won't have any fun running with them and all they'd do would
be complaining.

Clerics/FvS are welcome in almost every PUG, so you won't have trouble finding a decent one.

[Aranticus]

That's great. I hoped you strive to keep helping people.

I suggest you read the re-written version of your post by Daniel (sp?). If you could learn to be 1/2 that diplomatic and incorporate 1/2 the empathy of that post in your 'teachings', you would be even more helpful to new players.

/thumbs up

i'm not teaching anyone anything here. read the title

[Aranticus]

+1 for preachin' the truth brotherman

PS What's your secret? I'm generally hated for this type of thing. hmmm...Maybe if I said I wasn't a native English speak too...I am from Texas afterall

there is no secret. i post honestly without the winny the poohs or my little ponys (not to be confused with little pwnys) or kent and barbie

one could laugh at the world better if it didnt mix tender kindness with its brutality - DH Lawrence

[MeliCat]

So I guess you buying me that drink at the Lobster is now out of the question?

Not while you're insulting people I like and respect, no.

[sephiroth1084]

/snip bunch of stuff about a poor group following a blind invite

I fail to see how your example was at all relevant to this discussion. Blind invites are an entirely different matter than PUGing, and most players I know (of) have figured out that you should generally auto-decline blind invites from anyone you don't know. As for me, if I don't know the person, I ask whether I should, or if they know me, and when they inevitably say no, I decline their request.

Put up an LFM, join an LFM or group with people in your guild or on your friends list, and your experiences will almost assuredly be better.

And as for the "Aranticusesque 'advice,'" some noob who thinks too highly of himself *****ing at you for not keeping up with him is a pretty far cry from what Aranticus posted. A vet should know his limitations and capabilities, and if he exceeds them and gets into trouble, either can get himself out, or will (often laughing) accept responsibility for being a putz.

/fail

[lazylaz]

I don't know if he was or not. He said something to that effect, but who knows.


I get blind invited constantly - I'm sure it's b/c of my cleric - to the point I have to turn off my invite option to be able to solo or do errands in Stormreach.


At this point, the blind invite is the norm for me. Every PUG has been fair to great and almost always fun. I've only been in one group so far that had a jack @ss like that monk, but after he left the rest of the group reformed and I had the best PUG experience to date.


It's kind of creepy how no one talks to each other. Sometimes I feel like I'm playing with NPCs. But I'm getting used to it.

I expect it is because you're a cleric though I've had one of my sorcs get blind invited a few times (rejected!). You should make gimp ones like me and nobody will want you. Gives you a lot of peace.

But accepting blind invites can lead to all sorts of trouble like you've had so really you might as well ignore the invites. Or ask them what they're doing first before accepting. And how they're doing it.

[xberto]

the divide between the vet (i'm not referring to the pseudo vets who think their 2 shoud runs qualify them to be an authority) and the newbie is widening and its horrifying how big this divide is at present. a lot of the misunderstanding stems from both misconception and miscommunication. this thread maybe ugly, i may get neg repped but it has to be said. if you are a new player and at the end of this post you think "boy this aranticus <insert insult> is an elitist" then you are realising something and that is the truth. the truth is honest and brutal, i'm not going to pretend that i'm some politician and be PC about it here. as to the vets, chip in with your own perceptions as well so that the new players may know what its really like out there

Well i'm a vet and my perception is inline with Postumus statement.....

One thing I have noticed on these forums: the whining from the "I've-been-playing-this-game-since..." players about 'teh newbs' is becoming insufferable. It's time to move on guys. Wallowing in virtual misery over an MMO is so 2008.

I'm wouldnt necessarily debate anything the OP said, however, his little prelude kind of made me laugh when he described the divide between vet and newbie as "horrifying" and the truth is "honest and brutal". Nothing about this game is that serious to be horrifying.

Big deal, so we have new players and vet players, so what!. Yes everyone has their own expectations of fun, this is nothing new. Growth means new people are coming in. Leveling my TR today I had to explain to a guy how to find Stormcleave and he had only been a VIP player for 4 days. Thats really cool the game is growing and we have all this new content and now finally some new Races in October. We owe it all to the new players! I personally like the influx of people since the DDO went f2p. Its way better now to log on and have 20 lfms to choose from rather than the last year when you might have 5 or 6 on a busy night.
Now the raids and epic, yea somtimes you get some newer people might make some mistakes but who knows, they might be leading the group next month. For that reason, I think everyone deserves some time to master the game.

[NaturalHazard]

I think a lot has to do with attitude, if you have a good attitude and can take advice and listen to others it helps when your new and starting out. Also not thinking you know it all because you got to level 10. When i first started I guess i was lucky I had some players who had been playing longer than me, not all of them where vets, take me under their wing and show me the ropes, how to do some quests ect. And my guild helped a lot as well.

I was also lucky to play with a group of people who all started out in korthos at the same time and there was enough of us to form our own party and stumble through quests without frustrating others, and we would share what we learnt from other more experianced players with each other.

Now my first toon is level 20 im leveling up my alts (when i get tired of grinding for gear for him) and come accross newer players like elf/drow rangers with 6 con, pure wizards with 16 int at level 10 with an Int item ect. Who can make what should be an easy quest really challeging.

Sometimes I really feel like rage quiting but i do my best to get the party through the quest while at the same time trying to give out what basic advice I can with my limmited experiance. Its when they just dismiss what I have to say out of hand,stuff like "what does he know? Im level 8 now 6 con is fine, ect. This is what really annoys me the most sometimes. And I often say to come online to the forums ect to get ideas for builds and to use the wiki.

[Minttunator]

Great post, OP, thanks!

Reading the discussion here, it occurs to me that there are two kinds of experienced players in any game and new players would do well to distinguish between the two;

Those that nurture and help newbs whenever they can and offer advice, even if they are not always kissy kissy about it - the OP fits squarely into this category. Then there's the other kind whose help and advice is limited to 'L2P, noob'. There are surprisingly few of those in DDO, though, which is probably why some might not realize how good we have it here. The few who've called the OP arrogant should perhaps take a look at the message boards of that other major MMO (the name of which I shall not utter here) for perspective.

There also seem to be two kinds of new players - those that seek to learn and get better at the game, because they find it fun to acquire new skills and accomplish things, even in a video game. I would like to count my humble self among these. Then there are those, who are destined to remain noobs forever. These are the players who think having 100% fort or more than 8 starting CON is 'badwrongfun' because everyone else does so, and they try to stick it to the man by being different just for rebellion's sake.

Advice is not always bad, even if it's harshly worded (which the OP, in my opinion, was decidedly not) - experienced players often speak from, well, experience. Going your own way and making all the painful mistakes might be fun for a while, but you lose the right to complain when the 'vets' outlined by the OP don't invite you to their groups because you have 0% fort and 200HP at level 20.

[NaturalHazard]

minnutator

+1 for saying what i wanted to say so much better.

[NeutronStar]

PUBLIC NOTICE!!!


Aranticus' OP is right.

Anyone who disagrees with it is wrong.


PUBLIC NOTICE!!!

[noinfo]

That's a lot of hot air OP.
There are plenty of us "vets" that still play to have fun and "stop and smell the roses".
Your post offered some advice but I feel it was more doom than encouraging words.
To quote a recent EPIC run:
Other Guy (#6 spot): "YOU MUST HAVE THE PROPER GEAR TO COMPLETE EPIC QUESTS OR DONT BOTHER.
GAME: QUEST COMPLETE
ME: "Well none of us have the "proper" gear and we just completed the quest, so what does that mean?"
So what you are purporting as some sort of "truth", that to have fun one must:

• Stack numbers
• Know what your doing or don't bother
• Have the "proper" gear

All of the above are unneccesary to fully enjoy this game.

Once again your opinion is wrong.

Perhaps you need to re-read the OP. There is nothing wrong with your opinion of fun, but be aware that many other "Vets" have a very different opinion of fun as can be generally reflected by support of the OP. Infact you own post reflects the divide, you were in a group with noone with the right gear and it appears you all had a good time. Great.
Now if one of you were in a group with more powergamers it would likely to have been far less fun for you and them as they would have been wondering if you were actually going to kill anything and why you were there in the first place, they would probably be slightly frustrated at wasting the space, not for fear of not completing but for the fact that they want to complete faster and waste fewer resources.

This is EXACTLY the point of the OP. People have different values of what they consider fun.

[Visty]

In theory this is great advice. In practice, my experience with PUGs has been the following:


I get a blind invitation to a party from someone I don't know.


I like PUGs so I accept.


We start the quest and it is a NON-STOP sprint to the finish. If I didn't have +10% speed boots, I would never be able to keep up with people. If I stop to type anything anywhere other than at a shrine, I'm spending the rest of the time trying to catch up.


No one is on mike. No one types anything except the occasional "should we do objective X or objective Y first?". No instructions. No advice. Nothing.


The longest exchange I've ever had with another player was when a 'vet' player, the leader, thought his monk was the second coming of Jason Bourne and ran off into the dungeon by himself. He got cornered by kobolds and began yelling at me to come find him and heal him.



And so on, and so forth.


We did get a brief Aranticusesque lecture about how "none of you know what you're doing!" right before he rage quit.


Not sure if that counts as advice.

noobs cant give good advice yet you think its the same as aranticus did

We owe it all to the new players!

no

[Stitch78]

I get a blind invitation to a party from someone I don't know.


I like PUGs so I accept.

Humbly, this is strike one and two. Some of the best advice a new player can get is that blind invites are not cool, not polite and not usually going to lead to a fun time. The only time I accept a blind invite is to tell the other members of the party, "Hey, leader just blind invited me. Good luck." And I do that because if I join a LFM and the last one or two people join and say they were blind invited, I know to drop. No need to go any further - I'm sure there are a ton of posts on blind invites you could search for and read about.

If you have a cleric, you ESPECIALLY shouldn't need to accept blinds, because there is usually at least two or three parties that would love to have you if you apply.

[*Edit: I just re-read this and it sounds kinda aggressive to Postumus. That wasn't the intent, as I think I understand the points he is trying to convey in this post. But blind invites (to a party or a guild) are the devil.]

[donnala]

This morning I re-read this whole thread again. It seems to me this Community is very divided. There is a 'old school' concept of how to play and a another concept of how to play. [I could be wrong though.]

There is no question that people seem to want to help people who are new like me. It also seems that if the new player does not play as they are taught then there is a conflict. I am not sure but there might be many ways to play and none are really incorrect.

In real life we start to learn a little bit at a time and as we understand what we are learning more is given to us to learn. The thing is when the teacher is trying to teach us to draw in between the lines and a young child brings his drawing to the teacher, all smiles and happy, thinking they did a great job, should the teacher say it is bad because it was not drawn in the lines despite how well it was done?

For me as a new player trying to find a patient person to teach me how to do something is difficult. I ask questions in main chat and mostly get ignored. For example: Can someone teach me how to swim? This is a basic concept for many but I am struggling with it.

Back to the child who drew the pretty picture. If the teacher criticizes him he will say school stinks. If he is told what a great job he did, school will seem fun.

There is a great deal to learn here and it has to be fun or people will not bother. As for me, I think the game is pretty so I enjoy spending time exploring. I am in no rush to get a quest done. So once I clear a room I do explore unless it is a timed quest of course. I think it would be most difficult to find others who would play as I do so I am trying to solo. This way I will not ruin anyone's fun and I can enjoy it also.

The only issue with this is I will not make any friends and that saddens me. It no longer is a multi-player game at that point. It becomes a fear of chatting with others because you never know who is nice and who will say announce to the DDO world that I am a complete idiot.

All I can say is my picture is pretty and I worked hard on it.

Donnala

[Crann]

Great post OP, and much needed, judging from some of the reactions.

Your dissenters are making your points more clear than your intitial post did

It isn't one game with the same goals and enjoyment for all. Each gets something different out of it, respect that, and you will find your own enjoyment much greater.

And as someone else said, for what it's worth, welcome back.

I owe you, and many other Vets here who have taken their own time to author guides, and answer questions, a great deal of the enjoyment I receive from playing this game.

Anyone put off by the attitude of the OP, coming off as elitist, may want to re-consider their own definition of elitism.

[NaturalHazard]

PUBLIC NOTICE!!!


Aranticus' OP is right.

Anyone who disagrees with it is wrong.


PUBLIC NOTICE!!!

I generally agree with aranticus's OP, but I wouldnt say that anyone who disagrees with it is wrong, its a big post im sure there would be parts of it some people might be in disagreement with. One of the most important things is *how* they state why they disagree with it.

[Crann]

All I can say is my picture is pretty and I worked hard on it.

Donnala

If you think your picture is pretty, and you are happy with it, then that is all that is really important.

If you care what everyone else thinks about it....and are going to be upset if there is someone that thinks its ugly, then you are going to have problems.

There is no right way, and wrong way to play this game when you are playing for your own enjoyment, and are playing with others who feel the same way.

There are, however, better ways and worse way to go about things.

[Steiner-Davion]

That's a lot of hot air OP.

There are plenty of us "vets" that still play to have fun and "stop and smell the roses".

Your post offered some advice but I feel it was more doom than encouraging words.

To quote a recent EPIC run:

Other Guy (#6 spot): "YOU MUST HAVE THE PROPER GEAR TO COMPLETE EPIC QUESTS OR DONT BOTHER.

GAME: QUEST COMPLETE

ME: "Well none of us have the "proper" gear and we just completed the quest, so what does that mean?"


So what you are purporting as some sort of "truth", that to have fun one must:

• Stack numbers
• Know what your doing or don't bother
• Have the "proper" gear

All of the above are unneccesary to fully enjoy this game.

Once again your opinion is wrong.

How did you get that from the OP? It was pretty clear that the OP was not advocating this in any way, shape or form. His whole section on Perspective blows your comment right out of the water.

[Steiner-Davion]

I don't think that, but when you phrase statements like this:

Originally Posted by Aranticus
take negative feedback positively. it helps a person grow.

You conveniently snipped that comment right of of context, giving it an entirely different meaning. His example right after that, puts a whole different light on those 9 words.

Sure any small part of anything anyone one says can be taken to mean just about anything the listener/reader wants it to mean, but that is only true for the small section of the comment. The true meaning of most comments is not found until it is taken as part of the whole, and not as the whole.