Korthos Greeter

[Grandern_Marn]

Nice job OP.

The global chat channel not being world wide is one of the dumbest things in a long line of dumb things about DDO as it pertains to new players.

That said it could be surmised that players who need lots of hand holding are probably not going to be DDO players for long due to the relative complexity and D&D rules and the arcane UI of this game. Still I can't help but think a global chat channel would be better for new player retention.

getting rid of E for BB would be a big impact on finding more groups and overcoming the inertia of only ever finding Elite groups to join.

Put the LFM panel on it's own button near the AS would make the grouping options so much more visible (If I had a 100tp for every time I've seen "anyone want to help me do X" or "how do you group in this game" it's obvious that the LFM panel is not obvious enough.

making advice and trade global

making the party chat tab automatically jump to the front on joining a group (with option to disable for Vets)

publishing a new default new player area Keep on the Borderlands with level 1 through 7 content centered in the Hall of Heroes, so the new player would enjoy the more well laid out and less confusing Hall instead of Harbor then Marketplace...

Thanks Iron. Lots of good ideas, the layout of the game interface is indeed not very intuitive, or at least not by todays game standards. It's kind of like old school Nintendo game controls where you would had to do something funky like push up and press "B" to jump instead of just pressing "B" in games that are coming out now.

I will handhold in quest if someone needs help but I don't really want to so I don't want to put myself in a position where I will be doing that. Up until now any guild invitations or group invites I politely refuse and I have a roll play kind of script saying "Thank you so very kindly for your invitation. I am but a humble messenger commissioned by the adventurers of Eberron. I wish you the best in the building of your guild." For party invites I have a similar message. Besides, I am usually dual boxing with my main toons and am playing them somewhere so focused on that.

I'm not getting my hopes up for any sweeping structural changes at this point but I think what we are looking at here is pretty doable by people depending on their level of interest. Of course everyone is here to play the game and no one wants to turn their game time into "information desk" time. But even just a word of support for activities, being conscious of players around you, or stepping in to help someone with an easy word of advice is totally fine. The words of support in this thread alone are cool.

Lol does that say "Velcome"?

Great idea +1!

Yeah, "Welcome" was taken :/
I kind of imagine it like a vampire would say it, "Velcome, muahahaha!!!"
The other option would have been "Welcom" but anyway.

Really good idea. I like the LFM idea as well.

Thanks, yeah the LFM method works well and is pretty easy. It looks like there are 3 methods of varying complexity in getting the word out, that is Chat Messages-> LFM Messages -> Greeters.

[Saekee]

hey Turbine, have your GMs do this.

[Thalone]

I get about 20 minutes of AFK time before the connection times out

Hit escape to bring up the menu, hit logout, but don't confirm. So long as the confirmation prompt is up, you'll stay logged on until the servers go down*.

---

^*Trying hard not to crack a joke here.

[Grandern_Marn]

hey Turbine, have your GMs do this.

No worries, I'd like this thread to be informational and primarily for those on the Orien server so we can exchange ideas and get the word out. You don't have the default server for long so while it's on Orien take advantage of it. To be quite honest I think we'd all like the devs to keep focused on lag related matters. <,<;

Hit escape to bring up the menu, hit logout, but don't confirm. So long as the confirmation prompt is up, you'll stay logged on until the servers go down.

Sweet, that's a godsend Thalone. I was setting my cell phone timer at 28 minute intervals to switch windows and give Velcome a jiggle.

[D'arc_Tangent]

Nice idea. I have a similar toon called TheBusDriver because he guides people around Korthos. I always invite them to hop on the bus; though it has been a while since he has been out.

And for goodness sakes, it's role-playing not roll-playing. I fully understand what you are saying but new players might not.

Drive on!

[Grandern_Marn]

Hit escape to bring up the menu, hit logout, but don't confirm. So long as the confirmation prompt is up, you'll stay logged on until the servers go down.

Hmm, tried leaving the instance up over night but it didn't work for me, might be because I'm premium. I'll just keep Velcome up when I am online.

Nice idea. I have a similar toon called TheBusDriver because he guides people around Korthos. I always invite them to hop on the bus; though it has been a while since he has been out.

And for goodness sakes, it's role-playing not roll-playing. I fully understand what you are saying but new players might not.

Drive on!

That's a good idea, I mean doing teaching runs like Voodu Spice and others on Youtube are a great way to get the hang of complicated raids and other quests (I turn to them regularly) but running Korthos with or without video has great value too. Thanks also for pointing out the spelling there, that's an important one!

Great idea OP! Could you put the bio text in a response in here for others to take up the task in their server? We could paste parts of it into chat to help guide people or inform them that someone is there to help answer questions.

Here is an updated version of the text Seikojin:

------------------------------------
Welcome to DDO!

DDO is a game that has its roots in the venerable granddaddy or all role playing games - Dungeons and Dragons. Many of us have loved the worlds in the game from our youth and look forward to sharing them with you.

This(very poorly named)character is a source of some initial words of advice from your fellow players!

- try to join a group or start one in the social panel
- when in group, be sure to switch to the 'Party' chat tab in the chat window to talk with your group
- let others know you are new to a quest, experienced adventurers will be happy to help!
- join a guild - or make one!

One reason we love this game is how incredibly deep it is. There is a lot to know young grass-hopper. Start on your path by enjoying the game and if you have questions,feel free to ask in chat.

Other info sources:
www.ddo.com/forums/
ddowiki.com
Youtube walkthroughs
DDOCast and DDO Players Podcasts
DDO Gamer and other blogs
A Letter to New Players - https://goo.gl/5Q

Above all-have fun!

See you in game^^
------------------------------------

Feel free to use any parts you like or switch things up and add what you would like to see in there.

[Thalone]

Hmm, tried leaving the instance up over night but it didn't work for me, might be because I'm premium. I'll just keep Velcome up when I am online.

Eh? I'm premium and it works fine. I've gone out for four or five hours and the client's still up when I come back. Back during the Great Wayfinder Bridge Protest, I had an account (I believe it was even a F2P account) logged in with that method for 9-10 hours while I was at work.

Maybe your computer is set to automatically apply updates and reboot?

[Grandern_Marn]

Been greeting pretty much everyday while online with my main toons. Otherwise have been AFK with Velcome hanging out - thanks Thalone, worked it out. Here is a little update of some interactions over the past few days.

April 6 - Taught someone how to swim, introduced someone to Portuguese guilds, explained resurrection and hires to someone.
April 7 - Helped a couple people find guilds, Talked with a vet who had some ideas regarding approaches to Sunny and Snowy Korthos. Explained to someone where they can buy pets.
April 8 - Explained to someone how to reset an instance. Explained how to get to Stormreach. Someone was asking why they couldn't see the store, helped em out. Explained the issue with "Ghost LFMs" and how to populate the lfms. Tried walking someone from snowy side to sunny side and they gave up.
April 9 - Got a couple compliments from new people. Helped a guy looking for a Polish guild. Told someone how to get to House P to collect their anniversary item.

There have been a lot of compliments overall, and I have dispatched numerous blown kisses, distance hugs and more... I didn't bother noting everything down.
Best question "How do you beat Stormreach?", well young grasshopper!

When in communication about guilds I will give people a list of actively recruiting guilds and give the name and an officer. I will give them 3 or 4 choices to keep things fair. These are only guilds that are actively sending general invitations in chat, I'll contact the officer and discuss it with them. I actively list international guilds to let people know that they are out there and how to find them.

I've added a couple chat posts to the rotation. Primarily I send them out in Korthos but will jump to Harbor and send a message in chat if the message is applicable. Here are a couple I've added:




This one is kind of a roll play style refusal I will send out if I get a group or guild invitation and I'm not AFK:



I'll add these to the top posts.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Welcome to Korthos.
Armor and Shields can be found on aisle 3; Khopeshes are behind the counter next to the Kobold Repellant.

[Grandern_Marn]

It's been a while since I've updated the thread but I have been trying to keep up with greeting. Over the last couple weeks I have been experiencing computer problems though with my disc running at 100% with little PC usage. I tried updating to Windows 10 and have tried every remedy I have found out there including increasing the RAM, disabling Windows search, superfetch, flash, multiple virus scans, etc. I even tried the new Windows hard drive reset but to no avail. I may need to do a good old complete wipe of the drive. This has made logging in (let alone any group play) very difficult so its been hit and miss. The last couple days I have been able to tweak things to at least log on for the greeters. I have added further greeting notes below but first I have put together a greeter for Snowy Korthos, here is a look and VisitHarbor and his bio:





I will add these images to the original posts.

Here are some interactions that I noted down over the past few weeks:

April 10 - Told someone about wilderness difficulty and xp limits gained there. Explained Snowy side and Sunny side Korthos to a pair that were trying to group. Walked one of them through how to get to sunny side.
April 11 - Explained where the bank, auctioneer and mailbox are. Went on to explain shared bank space, vip and f2p a bit. Explained the difference between sunny side and snowy side korthos and how to get to sunny side. Explained how to find players of a certain class and near your level.
April 12 - Chatted with a vet who thanked me and we reminisced about AD&D days and talked about his fast growing guild.
April 13 - Explained to someone how to level up. Another question about how to level up.
April 21 - nice message: OOOO tells you, 'Its people like you that make this game, and particularly this server rock solid, keep up bein awesome '
April 22 - Gave guild contacts to 3 players looking for guilds. Through guild introductions OOOOOO started up his own new guild! They also found their first member through communications.
April 25 - helped 2 people join actively recruiting guilds. Noticing that English speakers are moving towards guilds well but non English speakers are not. French speaker popped in, I tried helping a bit and left, seems they deleted their character.
May 9 - Helped someone find the Abandon Quest key. Helped someone with locating loot stuck in walls. Received a thank you " Thank you advisor" I responded with "You are welcome player!" Got some welcome criticism, looking to follow up on it.
May 10 - got a nice compliment, lots of kisses and waves to random people running by. Helped someone work out how to examine a bio. Got VisitHarbor up and going. Got another compliment.

[Cordovan]

It's been a while since I've updated the thread but I have been trying to keep up with greeting. Over the last couple weeks I have been experiencing computer problems though with my disc running at 100% with little PC usage. I tried updating to Windows 10 and have tried every remedy I have found out there including increasing the RAM, disabling Windows search, superfetch, flash, multiple virus scans, etc. I even tried the new Windows hard drive reset but to no avail. I may need to do a good old complete wipe of the drive. This has made logging in (let alone any group play) very difficult so its been hit and miss. The last couple days I have been able to tweak things to at least log on for the greeters. I have added further greeting notes below but first I have put together a greeter for Snowy Korthos, here is a look and VisitHarbor and his bio:





I will add these images to the original posts.

Here are some interactions that I noted down over the past few weeks:

April 10 - Told someone about wilderness difficulty and xp limits gained there. Explained Snowy side and Sunny side Korthos to a pair that were trying to group. Walked one of them through how to get to sunny side.
April 11 - Explained where the bank, auctioneer and mailbox are. Went on to explain shared bank space, vip and f2p a bit. Explained the difference between sunny side and snowy side korthos and how to get to sunny side. Explained how to find players of a certain class and near your level.
April 12 - Chatted with a vet who thanked me and we reminisced about AD&D days and talked about his fast growing guild.
April 13 - Explained to someone how to level up. Another question about how to level up.
April 21 - nice message: OOOO tells you, 'Its people like you that make this game, and particularly this server rock solid, keep up bein awesome '
April 22 - Gave guild contacts to 3 players looking for guilds. Through guild introductions OOOOOO started up his own new guild! They also found their first member through communications.
April 25 - helped 2 people join actively recruiting guilds. Noticing that English speakers are moving towards guilds well but non English speakers are not. French speaker popped in, I tried helping a bit and left, seems they deleted their character.
May 9 - Helped someone find the Abandon Quest key. Helped someone with locating loot stuck in walls. Received a thank you " Thank you advisor" I responded with "You are welcome player!" Got some welcome criticism, looking to follow up on it.
May 10 - got a nice compliment, lots of kisses and waves to random people running by. Helped someone work out how to examine a bio. Got VisitHarbor up and going. Got another compliment.

Thanks again for your effort. Regarding your memory issue, do you by any chance have an Xbox One controller hooked up, or the driver software installed? If so, that's been causing issues for various games and computers, including DDO. The "solution" is to uninstall the driver and not have your Xbox One controller hooked up while Microsoft works on a fix.

[Grandern_Marn]

Thanks again for your effort. Regarding your memory issue, do you by any chance have an Xbox One controller hooked up, or the driver software installed? If so, that's been causing issues for various games and computers, including DDO. The "solution" is to uninstall the driver and not have your Xbox One controller hooked up while Microsoft works on a fix.

Thanks, having fun with it. Yeah, I've seen the discussions on Xbox controllers, I am a Playstation fellow myself and don't have an Xbox. The issue I seem to have looks to be something with Windows and is computer wide for me. Here is a discussion on it:
http://www.windows10forums.com/threa...persists.7416/

For the moment I am able to do the work I need to do and can limp through most activities. Thank goodness YouTube is pretty much problem free once I get things going. Regardless I will try to check out the new quests and if the desktop is not workable I'll try a quick runthrough on the laptop.

[Ague]

Thanks, having fun with it. Yeah, I've seen the discussions on Xbox controllers, I am a Playstation fellow myself and don't have an Xbox. The issue I seem to have looks to be something with Windows and is computer wide for me. Here is a discussion on it:
http://www.windows10forums.com/threa...persists.7416/

For the moment I am able to do the work I need to do and can limp through most activities. Thank goodness YouTube is pretty much problem free once I get things going. Regardless I will try to check out the new quests and if the desktop is not workable I'll try a quick runthrough on the laptop.

/offtopic on

I have the same issue, although mine doesn't persist for more than a few seconds... I thought it was just me, but I'll bed be doing some research on this.

/offtopic off

Thanks for doing this. I wish I would have had a "Greeter", per-se, when I first started playing... I ran around the Harbor repeating quest after quest until one day a friend of mine said meet him in the Marketplace... Needless to say I was floored at how large the game world was...

[Grandern_Marn]

/offtopic on

I have the same issue, although mine doesn't persist for more than a few seconds... I thought it was just me, but I'll bed be doing some research on this.

/offtopic off

Thanks for doing this. I wish I would have had a "Greeter", per-se, when I first started playing... I ran around the Harbor repeating quest after quest until one day a friend of mine said meet him in the Marketplace... Needless to say I was floored at how large the game world was...

Thanks Ague, went through your links, your doing good work too! Excellent blog and the glimpse of server data was very interesting. As I said in your thread, everything should be in moderation. I try to maintain that policy with the greeters here but with the PC problems I just am not able to do any twitch play whatsoever with my normal characters. I have had some extra work come up though so PC and intensive play has taken a back seat to making that deadline. (From now on I will open a post about the Windows issue in a different forum section)

Here are some random notes of interactions that stood out over the last few days:
May 11 - Got a nice compliment through a tell. Helped someone out with single weapon fighting feat and explained further details can be found on DDO Wiki or to look for Swashbuckler builds on the DDO Forums. Got feedback on one of the general chat messages and made appropriate adjustments. In return made a good connection with an experienced player who offered any Cannith Crafting assistance to new players.
May 13 - Lots of waving, salutes and blown kisses to new people, especially in Snowy Korthos (these emotes are only visible in the exact area you are in so wont bother people who are in quest). Helped someone with advice on the next pack to buy. Explained to someone how to resurrect at lower levels. Introduced someone to Spanish speaking guilds.
May 15 - Helped a guy find Spanish speaking guilds. Helped 2 players get in contact with Portuguese speaking guilds. Got a compliment message from someone who saw the forum thread first, yay! Helped someone work out how to level (Common question!). Explained instance resetting to someone.

Below is some adjustments to the chat comment data I added to the OP, I still have other comments which I use and I will add them in a later post.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
This first comment is a general one that I will use when there isn't much discussion going on and I'm at the computer and have time to answer a question or two:



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For those new to DDO, welcome! If you have any questions you can use the advice channel (right click on 'General' tab in chat window) and ask any questions you may have. For tougher questions try the DDO Forums 'New Player Advice & Guidance' section.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

When I see a couple players trying to meet up or organize a party meeting point through general chat I will add this comment (thank to Faltout for raising this point below):



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For those new to DDO, welcome! Remember there are 2 Korthos instances, ultra-beginner Snowy side and more general Sunny side. All quests are the same on both sides and you can reach Sunny side with a quick trip to Harbor and return. See you on Sunny side!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

If someone asks in general chat if anyone out there wants to go do a quest together and doesn't have an LFM up yet I will use this message:



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Greetings to all new visitors to Eberron! The best way to get people to join your group server-wide is to make a Looking For Member message (LFM) under the 'Grouping' tab in the 'Social' panel. General chat will only allow you to talk with people nearby.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

When a player is in a group already and trying to communicate with their party through general chat I will post this comment in general chat:



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For those new to Korthos, welcome! Remember that when in a party, switch to the 'Party' chat tab. If you are communicating in the 'General' chat tab everyone on Korthos Island can hear you and your party may not see your communications.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

From what I have seen over the last couple months, players that I have contacted and added to my friend list those that join guilds stick around more often. I have started sending out this comment as well, particularly if someone asks about how to join a guild in DDO:



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Greetings to all new visitors to Korthos! If you are looking for a guild, you could try asking in general chat in Stormreach Harbor or Marketplace. Recruiting guilds will send messages too, contact them to find out more!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is a message that I will only send out from VisitHarbor from Snowy Korthos and to not overuse the yellow text 'Advice' form, I will comment from him in the standard beige color:



-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hear ye, hear ye! If you want to check your mail, access your bank, the auction house or hire level 2 hirelings, a visit to Stormreach Harbor will broaden your horizons! The trip is very safe and you can return to Sunny Korthos to finish adventures here.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

[Grandern_Marn]

Appreciate the spotlight through the DDO Chronicles, DDOCast and DDO Players, I added links to the OP.
With some very attractive prices I registered a new guild for Greeters and anyone else who would like to participate in activities - Stormreach Outreach! If anyone on other servers is considering the same, feel free if you like to use the name where you are. I would love to keep the guild at level 1 forever however this may be an impossible dream.
I added some new pics of the greeters to the OP:





I would love to add Visitharbor to the guild too but you cannot join a guild on snowy side Korthos! I guess the only way would be to exit Snowy Korthos, join the guild and the only way back to snowy side would mean TRing.

Here are some notable communications over the past few days:
May 16 - Whoa, server veteran Luckystryk stopped by on his TR train ride to say hi and was looking to help some new players run thorough the Korthos content. I wasn't around when he did that but I hope it went well.
May 17 - Lots of salutes and waves to people around town. Got a couple compliments tells. Explained the varying layers of crafting crafting to someone with focus on Cannith Crafting.
May 18 - Chatted with someone about the greatness of the D&D 3.5 rule set. Someone stopped by and said hello. Helped someone with a question about multiclassing Cleric and Monk.

[Grandern_Marn]

Update on the Greeter Project, my desktop has finally croaked or at least starting up the PC takes 30 minutes and kind of opens to a Safe Mode type of screen without my lovely DDO background (kind of out dated background but I still keep it up there). I wasn't able to open any files to start removing the important stuff from the hard drive. Needless to say this week has been kind of a write off as I don't want to be playing extended periods on my laptop which is a MacBook Air and runs pretty hard. Before getting my game speced desktop I was playing on a different laptop, constant gameplay did the laptop in pretty quick and going back to a laptop from a high performance desktop is not an enjoyable gaming experience for me. Besides that most of my free time this week has been occupied with some game translation work I was doing.

With the work deadline met and with some free time here, I was able to crack the PC case, got the HD out and am successfully removing data to separate HD via my laptop at the moment. Including a complete wipe of the HD and reinstall it should take a couple days but hopefully be back in business by Saturday or so and the greeter(s) and normal characters will be back.

Since all of my notes are on the desktop I will save any greeter related updates for a future post. I figure the slow overloading of PC processes was a virus but don't really know for sure. I had shut off my Avast virus protection a few months back because of the super annoying pop ups interfering with game play. I was regularly doing manual virus scans and did a number of them during the weeks where the PC was experiencing serious slow down but they came up with nothing significant. I kind of wonder if having my PC operating constantly with the Greeter sped up the corruption of the operating system but regardless, not having complete protection is on me. Nothing lost though, just personal downtime. I have found other ways to pass the time with Baldurs Gate and the last instalment of Acquisitions Incorporated.

[Grandern_Marn]

Update: Velcome and VisitHarbor are back in action!

Been back for a couple days now and it's good to see increased activity in Korthos, people helping out new players, new players asking questions and every so often a compliment and feedback to the greeter characters. They are saluting and waving to all new players they see like the saluting and waving freaks they are (when I am there to prompt them).

The resolution to my PC crash was with a little help from a friend. About a week ago I went down to Akihabara, Tokyo with my computer wizard buddy and got a kick butt SSD drive and another HDD drive with triple the memory capacity of the last one (3TB) - came to about 150 USD. When we got back to my place and tried installing it all, the PC wasn't recognizing the boot media we tried using from USB or CD so we had to leave things there.

On Saturday I took the PC over to my buddys, plied him with beer, food and tobacco and left it there for the night. I made the trip over on Sunday again, renting a car this time as lugging the PC on train and bicycle was a pain and not really too safe for the hardware. He had worked things out and it seems the reboot problem was because we were trying to use boot software for the latest Windows 10 version that I had on my PC although it had started out as Windows 8. He tried making a Windows 8 boot CD and that worked out in the end. The only slight problem for me is my friend is Korean and he installed a Korean version of Windows with English overlay. Although Japanese Windows is not a problem at all, I am at a loss with Korean and find myself staring at the characters when they pop up from time to time and feel amazed at how 'bubbly' they look. I think to myself "I wonder what that character means..."

Although I backed up most of my data from the old drive and should be able to salvage the HD for use it down the road, the notes file I was using for the Greeter characters didn't save properly and I am not yet able to access that material. It's a good thing I have been posting the generic chat messages I use in this thread here, I just copied those and I was back in business for the most part. There still are some messages and data I'd like to access so I'll see what I can do about getting back into the old HD.

Anyway, kind of a long and winding road but a part of the Greeter journey I figure as leaving the game on 24 hours a day for an extended period of time will put all sorts of stresses on the PC.

[Mindos]

Update: Velcome and VisitHarbor are back in action!

Nice to see you back! My first thought when reading your post was, WOW is he taking the train?
Sadly it appears Orien is no longer the Default, but I think you are doing a still needed service.
ps, language packs should be installed...

[Grandern_Marn]

Nice to see you back! My first thought when reading your post was, WOW is he taking the train?
Sadly it appears Orien is no longer the Default, but I think you are doing a still needed service.
ps, language packs should be installed...

Yep, living in Tokyo the train system is super saturated, you can get everywhere you need by train. It would be like downtown New York where having a car is just not convenient for most stuff you are doing during the day. In this case though a car made more sense with my computer wizard friend living on the other side of the city and being a car person I look for any excuse to rent. Renting a car can be cheap, 25 USD for a day, owning a car can be super expensive.

Language packs are installed but the characters in the Korean language are different, can't read the language itself even with the pack.

Been keeping an eye out for any announcement of the default move and have not seen a thing. The announcement is sometimes hidden in a thread on a different topic, can anyone confirm where the default server is now?

[Faltout]

Been keeping an eye out for any announcement of the default move and have not seen a thing. The announcement is sometimes hidden in a thread on a different topic, can anyone confirm where the default server is now?

To find out beyond any doubt, you just have to remove your last login times from each server.

Go to the file UserPreferences.ini and delete the lines from "WorldName_1" to the end of the section. Then when you get the launcher again, the default server will be highlighted (since the launcher no longer has your previous login information).

(And by doing that, it seems Orien is still the default)

P.S. Some have said that the default server may also be the 2nd server to appear on the list. First the last visited server and then the default. This holds true right now (orien is the second server after Khyber), but don't know if it's luck or not.