Korthos Greeter

[Grandern_Marn]

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.

Good information there Faltout, thanks. With default server the population can get up to 50% more activity and Korthos is still hopping on the sunny and snowy side so that makes sense.

I guess the number that the default server comes in on the list could also depend on whether you're logging into the default server. If you are it will naturally be first, if not then the one you are logging in to will be first and the default will be second.

[Grandern_Marn]

Things are coming along smoothly with the PC after the crash and I am loving the new SSD drive, start up time and porting between instances for the game is super quick now.

Here's a listing of some notable interactions over the past few days:
June 6th - Helped someone with sound problems, got a very nice comment 'Thanks for the tips and the Welcome. I'm enjoying the game so far! Have a good day'
June 8th - Helped someone with one of the puzzle quests
June 10 - Orien veteran Floresnsa stopped by and said hi. helped someone with leaving snowy side to get to sunny side. Very nice compliment from 9 year veteran' 'You are awesome you are the first person i have ever seen do what you are doing, and ive been playing for 9 yrs Kodoes to you sir'.
June 12th - Helped someone in finding Korthos rares on DDO Wiki. Helped someone with a resolution vs. UI problem, no one had an answer for him so referred to forums, very interested in crunchy bits of the game so we talked a bit. Ultimately he was not able to fix his resolution issue, the game resolution did not go up to a level that he wanted and there was no switch where you can increase the size of UI windows combined with a super high screen resolution.
June 13th - Successfully guided one guy to Valeria with VisitHarbor and picked him up from Harbor with Velcome leading him to someone they were trying to party with on Sunny side, very thankful! Curse you Snowy Korthos!
June 14 - Been helping a couple guys a lot as he levels up, hirelings, crafting.
June 15 - Led another character from Snowy to Sunny to form group with someone. Spent a lot of time again explaining how to interact with people, form group, remove someone from group, putting up an LFM. Ultimately I just invited both of them to a group and left the group and sent them on their way.

[TitusOvid]

Geez it is pretty hard to get in contact with those new folks.

Send em a tell and they don't know where to find it or how to reply. N one seems to read the general. And Mailboxes are out until they leave Korthos.

@Turbine: A little communication tutorial would be a good idea, I think.

[QueenOfTheHook]

You are performing an amazing service for new players. I wish there had been a greeter there to help me out back when I started and couldn't figure out why I couldn't see my kids characters (snowy/sunny issue). I hope you continue this great service and I will continue to stop by and say hi as I run Korthos each life and hope to continue to run with your primaries as well.

Revillia

[Grandern_Marn]

Geez it is pretty hard to get in contact with those new folks.

Send em a tell and they don't know where to find it or how to reply. N one seems to read the general. And Mailboxes are out until they leave Korthos.

@Turbine: A little communication tutorial would be a good idea, I think.

These are some of the things I am coming away from with the project - it is hard to get into the game off the top and that is not due only to the steep learning curve in game complexity but also the steep learning curve in user interface. Game complexity is something that keeps us all here and I'll be honest, I like it that way. UI complexity is pretty counter productive and ideally is streamlined or new players somehow get the UI fundamentals somewhere.

You are performing an amazing service for new players. I wish there had been a greeter there to help me out back when I started and couldn't figure out why I couldn't see my kids characters (snowy/sunny issue). I hope you continue this great service and I will continue to stop by and say hi as I run Korthos each life and hope to continue to run with your primaries as well.

Revillia

Thanks a lot Revillia! It's always great to hear that it helps. I don't think you can express the problem with the 'Snowy/Sunny Issue' more eloquently when a mother cannot find her children due to UI complexity. From spending a lot of time in Korthos as of late I think the Sunny/Snowy Issue is the largest single difficulty in the UI there at the moment.

[Grandern_Marn]

Things coming along fine, the PC is in good condition and loving the SSD drive. Here is some highlights for the past few days in Korthos beyond greetings, dancing etc.

June 16 - Been helping one guy periodically who is up to level 5 now.
June 17 - Helped 2 people group again, Explained how to get hirelings to rest
June 19 - Helped a couple guys with opening Hard difficulty, answered questions on reaper difficulty and the use of a knock spell, Helped someone with information on character vs quest levels, Helped someone out with how to get out of stuck situations. Jessburns came through on a TR run, announced he was doing Korthos content on elite in chat and I followed up with a recommendation there, he had a good group of 4. Xeltox stopped by and said hi.
June 20 - New player who I helped a few days back looking for a guild got in touch. He found a guild, great! He had a question about using a rez shrine so helped him out there.
June 22 - Mikewazowski came out with a great idea and did a 10k plat giveaway for the first person to find him and open a trade window. It turns out he gave 3 people 10 plat. Kudos! I have a couple fellows who will drop a line for information regularly, Ill help them out and I actually joined a group with the 2 in the same group! Surprise!
June 24 - Nice comment in chat from Titusovid "a little hint for new ones. there is a toon called welcoe to ddo standing in krothos village. read his bio. best tipps ever"
June 25 - Manually led someone in Snowy Korthos to Valeria so they could group with their friend in Sunny Korthos

It seems like a good number of regular players on the server are aware of the greeter toons and say hi or pitch in somehow. Its hard to say if people were or were not pitching in without the greeter, I imagine people were but its always good to see people helping out!

[Grandern_Marn]

Getting busy with RL stuff this month but keeping up with the greeting activities. Here's a play by play of notable moments:

June 26 - Got a cheer from someone, thank you! WelcomeMatt is a new character who is communicating and helping new people on server, he has sent a message but I haven't caught them yet as we are not on at the same time with a probable time difference. Looking forward to getting in contact. Nice message from Xovin 'Keep up the Good work!'
June 28 - Someone in chat couldn't find their friend because they were on Sunny side, I wasn't around to help out at the time.
June 29 - Left a message in the Titan channel about being the default server and got a GREAT response from a few players, 'for sure, thanks for your efforts to help new peeps out!', 'sounds like a plan', 'i am in', 'I will help be
part of the welcoming party =)'. Thanks to everyone for pitching in!
June 30 - Helped someone with a search/spot skill point question. Helped someone else with a warlock spell energy boosting question.
July 3 - Nice comment from Sesi 'man, thank for doing this!'
July 4 - Thanks for the comment Xfancypantsx 'good job'
July 5 - Compliment to VisitHarbor from Juona 'nice beard'
July 6 - Thanks for the comment Dkk 'nice bio'
July 7 - Karadon tells you, 'There are currently between 40 and 50 unguilded level 1 or 2 players in Korthos / Harbor. Many of thse must ne new. You are providing a needed service and as a 10 year vet I salute you.' I think I got a repeat message from Revillia 'howdy velcome', probably another TR, nice to hear from people each time they TR and to see how regularly some people TR. Gotta get my mains happening!

I've put together a few more comments that I use in chat so will add a couple of them with this post and include them with the text in the original post as well.

[TitusOvid]

I started to send 100er stacks of pots to new players, mostly cure serious wounds but heroism and restoration are good, too. About half of those mails are coming back. and half of the other half write me back and i engage them in a conversation, giving some advice to start.

works better then ingame chat.

[Grandern_Marn]

I started to send 100er stacks of pots to new players, mostly cure serious wounds but heroism and restoration are good, too. About half of those mails are coming back. and half of the other half write me back and i engage them in a conversation, giving some advice to start.

works better then ingame chat.

Wow, that is an awesome idea TitusOvid!

In Korthos I've seen a lot of new players saying in chat 'How do I check my mail?', when a message comes in for them. Usually someone will explain that you have to go to Harbor for that. Getting out of Snowy Korthos means you can interact more with experienced players, group with them, join a guild and really start getting into the game.

You could go through the Who list, look for 1st or 2nd level players who are not in a guild and are in Korthos (ideally the Snowy Korthos instance - Korthos Village: 1) and send a stack of heal pots. Follow it up with a tell saying something like "Welcome to DDO, having a stack of healing potions is always handy in game so I sent you some to your mail, come to Harbor and check your mail to pick it up!". This will get new players out of Snowy Korthos and introduce a real basic survival concept in DDO - it's always good to have a stack of heals when in a tight situation, especially if you're just starting out.

Now, by sending pots to 1st or 2nd level people in Korthos who are not in a guild, you may be mistakenly sending pots to the alternate character of an experienced player or the new players may give up before even getting to Harbor and never pick up that stack so this process may not be perfectly efficient. At least the stacks that aren't picked up come back to you and can be sent out again.

Keeping a count of how many stacks sent out and how many return to you would be some very interesting data. Could you explain a little more about your technique TitusOvid? I'm pretty sure it takes 2 or 3 weeks for mail to return to sender if it's not picked up so you must have been sending out 'care packages' for a few days now, do you send a message to the new player before you send the care package?

[TitusOvid]

i am doing this for about 5 weeks now. i increased my sendings as i got back the first mails with thank you notes. i do this on a regular basis for rogues/rogue splashes for about 1 year now. i send them +5 tools starting with lvl 5 toons. so i just broadend my addressee.

i am checking the who tab and send mails to toons from lvl 3 to about lvl 7. i got roughly 20 mails in circulation i guess. i try not to spam those people. that can get annoying, too. i jot down some namens here and there but doesn't keep data, really. it would be a good idea though, because i can't follow my send mails.

no, i don't send extra tells. i like to get a mail back so i can engange in longer converations, if they want too. mostly where they can get some more pots. i donate some plat and send them to the marketplace or house k pot vendor. and that way they have that mail in storage for some days to get the information right.

[D'arc_Tangent]

Good job guys/gals/anyone in-between!

Turbine really needs to get over it and put a mailbox (and a bank) in Korthos and have a tutorial to teach them to use it similar to using the store. They could deliver one of the starter bags via mail instead of talking to an NPC. Plus, with all the TRing going on it would be helpful.

I mostly agree with these ideas; I too send out +5 tools to new rogues. I'm not fond with the idea of taking them away from snowy side if it is their first time - it breaks the immersion. Seeing the difference in Korthos upon my return from Misery's Peak gives me a sense of victory. I feel like a hero. And if they are with a buddy or two, they inadertantly lose the ability to group with them unless their buddies go to Stormreach also.

If you want to teach them survival: teach them to run Cannnith Crystal twice to get a set of spear bane and axe bane bracers. DR/3 is significant at starter levels for new players.

Some good ideas all around here in this thread.

[Grandern_Marn]

i am doing this for about 5 weeks now. i increased my sendings as i got back the first mails with thank you notes. i do this on a regular basis for rogues/rogue splashes for about 1 year now. i send them +5 tools starting with lvl 5 toons. so i just broadend my addressee.

i am checking the who tab and send mails to toons from lvl 3 to about lvl 7. i got roughly 20 mails in circulation i guess. i try not to spam those people. that can get annoying, too. i jot down some namens here and there but doesn't keep data, really. it would be a good idea though, because i can't follow my send mails.

no, i don't send extra tells. i like to get a mail back so i can engange in longer converations, if they want too. mostly where they can get some more pots. i donate some plat and send them to the marketplace or house k pot vendor. and that way they have that mail in storage for some days to get the information right.

Wow, legend in the shadows TitusOvid, that's some long term commitment to sending out gifts! I remember a few months ago taking a group member I was playing with and physically bringing them to the potion shop in House J and buying them a stack of heal potions once but sending them is a very friendly way of doing it. Being aware of how many messages are being sent out is something I experience too, you want them to be helpful but not an annoyance.

Good job guys/gals/anyone in-between!

Turbine really needs to get over it and put a mailbox (and a bank) in Korthos and have a tutorial to teach them to use it similar to using the store. They could deliver one of the starter bags via mail instead of talking to an NPC. Plus, with all the TRing going on it would be helpful.

I mostly agree with these ideas; I too send out +5 tools to new rogues. I'm not fond with the idea of taking them away from snowy side if it is their first time - it breaks the immersion. Seeing the difference in Korthos upon my return from Misery's Peak gives me a sense of victory. I feel like a hero. And if they are with a buddy or two, they inadertantly lose the ability to group with them unless their buddies go to Stormreach also.

If you want to teach them survival: teach them to run Cannnith Crystal twice to get a set of spear bane and axe bane bracers. DR/3 is significant at starter levels for new players.

Some good ideas all around here in this thread.

Good points brought up D'arc_Tangent discussing issues in an effective direction.

A tutorial would be good but I really believe that if we are investing our time in this digital space that we call home it should more and more be on the inhabitants to make the place we call 'home' a welcome place. The classic game paradigm is to look to the game maker and think 'Make this for us, we want it! There is demand for it!' However, as DDO reaches maturity as a game we more and more see the finite limits of game resources. If we get an updated tutorial, we don't get new quests or a potential concept on the horizon like sentient weapons gets delayed or even mothballed.

A mailbox in Korthos would be convenient but the handy thing about having the nearest one in Harbor is that it gets people out of Snowy Korthos. You raise a good point with the immersion factor of Snowy Korthos, I just wish there was some way to group with all players in Korthos and not arbitrarily divide them according to instances. I wish there was a way to invite new players into a guild who are in Snowy Korthos so they could get some direct help from experienced players. This instanced division of Korthos may have helped with gold sellers back in the day but as the game grows and changes it has become a significant obstacle to experienced players who want to reach out to new players. It also acts as a kind of 'digital prophylactic' where new players enter the game, are confounded by this artificial barrier and give up. In the months that I have spent monitoring general chat with the greeters this is one phenomenon I have seen countless times and it sucks to witness.

Anyway, good points made, we all want to see people getting into the game we enjoy so any other ideas out there, feel free to post them here!

Ah, and here are some greeter highlights during the past few days:

July 7 - Helped someone with how to find groups.
July 9 - Finoria spent a LOT of time helping people out with advice and answering questions. Good on ya!
July 10 - Helped a guy with the wilderness rares, helped someone else leave a group that they never realized they were a part of. Helped them to start communicating with group members by clicking on the party tab. Helped someone with a question about clickies and how to activate them. Kitnik was helping out a new player in Korthos, sent him a thanks.
July 12 - Good on TitusOvid and his gifts sent to new players! He will mail +5 Thieves Tools to new Rogues and stacks of heal pots to other new players. Legend in the shadows!
July 13 - Seeing a few more regulars on helping people in the Korthos area, people stop and say hi, good to see people out there!

[TitusOvid]

This pot mailing strategy works out splendidly. I upped my pot circulation to about 100-120 pots (in 2 weeks) I guess and I rarely get them back. And most of the time there are followup questions about joining guilds or general advice. And we got some new, nice and well mannered people. Keep em coming

[Grandern_Marn]

This pot mailing strategy works out splendidly. I upped my pot circulation to about 100-120 pots (in 2 weeks) I guess and I rarely get them back. And most of the time there are followup questions about joining guilds or general advice. And we got some new, nice and well mannered people. Keep em coming

Great! Yeah its good when you can get people to join a guild, there is so much to know about the game having someone who can help you figure things out is so important. Sorry I missed you in the Titan raid the other day too! My July is always super slammed with RL stuff, I'll have plenty of time and be looking for you in August Titus!

Here is a log of recent notable greeter activity:
7/17 - Helped someone with the useful points of guilds.
7/18 - Tried to help 3 people who wanted to form a group, 1 was on Snowy Side and the other 2 were on Sunny Side. The one on Snowy Side would not talk to Valeria and gave up to continue questing on their own. I announced that only people on Snowy Side would be able to join their LFM and none of them ended up joining a group despite the efforts put in to communicating and reaching out to each other.
7/20 - Got a hello from someone and was talking with someone else about game play. Got another recommendation to have a greeter on Snowy Side when VisitHarbor is already there so I updated Velcome's bio (who is on Sunny Side) to include information about VisitKorthos being on Snowy Side.
7/21 - Got a nice message from Oddbaell, 'gj on helping the new people'. Thanks!
7/22 - Helped someone with details regarding the extent of the reach of general chat in Korthos vs. other areas in the game.
7/23 - Helped someone with a few questions about where to find info on the game, the use of gems as well as crafting. Talked with a few people about the differences and similarities of DnD and DDO.
7/24 - Tried to help someone move from Snowy to Sunny Korthos. They got cold feet. After lots of back and forth explaining what it's all about someone finished with (General: [xxxxxx] Gotta wonder why they thought snowy/sunny korthos was a good idea. Hmmm
7/25 - Helped out someone who had a lot of questions about what is a good build and the game in general. Pointed out to everyone that someone was running through Korthos on elite and for F2P players you wouldn't have to run quests 3 times you could just run it once. One person did join the LFM but it seems like a lot of people do want to take the game slow off the top and figure things out or don't really know what is what and prefer to play it safe to figure things out on their own.
7/26 - Nice compliment from Chronxx, 'Nice work on that bio'. Thank you!!
7/27 - YES!!! I helped a Spanish speaker find a Spanish guild with my super crappy Spanish!!

From 7/28 I am going out of town so will be shutting down the computer during that time. That means no greeters but we'll see how we go when I get back.

[Grandern_Marn]

Alright, I'm back.

[Grandern_Marn]

Update on the greeter project for the last week or so, things are coming along, not seeing very many guild recruiters in Korthos, I may reach out to them and see how things are going. I made an alteration to one of the messages I use to include the hotkey shortcut:



I'll add that to the top post. Here are some notable moments in greeting this week:

8/13 - Haydyn, back after 8 year absence was helping a number of new people a lot by answering questions in the chat. Kudos! Some people are desperate to join a guild, not many guild invites in Korthos. Helped someone with how to trade items.
8/14 - Helped someone join a French guild with my crappy French! Yes!
8/15 - Incandessa spent a lot of time just explaining game mechanics in the chat (favor groups, how to enter a quest etc) Kudos!
8/17 - Got in a conversation with a few players in Portuguese, let them know there are Portuguese guilds on server
8/19 - Helped a couple people find Sigmund Bauerson and also pointed them towards the DDO Wiki. Helped a player from Venezuela and let them know about Spanish speaking guilds on server.
8/21 - Was able to confirm the among the players that I spoke to about guilds in Portuguese a few days ago, one joined a guild - not Portuguese speaking guild

[Nuclear_Elvis]

Kudos to the work you're doing on Orien. At times, I'm practically a one-man band attempting the same on Wayfinder Server, with similar challenges especially when international players start into the game and I either bring them into the guild knowing we'll have a language gap or refer them out as best I can. We have a tremendous number of new-to-game players in DDO, that in many cases only spend 30-60 minutes in the game before deciding whether to stop playing or continue on, and much of the influence toward that decision is whether they perceive they are in a Social Game, whether there are other people to interact with (along with many other game-knowledge issues many of you have discussed).

[Grandern_Marn]

Kudos to the work you're doing on Orien. At times, I'm practically a one-man band attempting the same on Wayfinder Server, with similar challenges especially when international players start into the game and I either bring them into the guild knowing we'll have a language gap or refer them out as best I can. We have a tremendous number of new-to-game players in DDO, that in many cases only spend 30-60 minutes in the game before deciding whether to stop playing or continue on, and much of the influence toward that decision is whether they perceive they are in a Social Game, whether there are other people to interact with (along with many other game-knowledge issues many of you have discussed).

Hey Nuclear, just figured out that you have been stopping by and saying hi, much appreciated! I haven't been able to get back to you as I am online at different times. Amazing work starting up a guild and already having 40 people in it. My own guild is a private group of friends who run together and we too have been bumped up to medium guild status with an influx of new members. With the default server you can see that active recruiting in Korthos and beyond will attract people who want to learn more about the game. I've noticed fewer recruiters recently getting out to Korthos and leaving a comment but I think I've seen your messages so you deserve the new activity. I am interested to see how greeter activities have impacted server population but I think that if there is someone willing to hold the mantle in greeting people to the server then that server should be shown deference for being the next server. Wayfinder too should have that opportunity. I think if someone is visibly out there it has an influence on others on server and others will step up. It has happened on Orien and I think it can happen on any server.

Again, a greeter is surprisingly easy. Set up a separate account, create a character with a name that catches the attention of new players (I would recommend an indicator of checking the bio, most people don't know there is a bio for each character right off the top). Then park it in a visible place. That's it. The only thing is you have to leave your computer on for extended periods of time but I leave my computer on anyway. Then you just check on it every once in a while, scan the chat, interact with people, wave at and salute when people are standing around. If there are a bunch of people start a dance party, post comments periodically in chat and answer some questions when people ask and if you have the time. A lot of the time people are just wondering if there is anyone around at all and with the instanced nature of DDO a comment in chat will only reach people in the Korthos area. I agree that just having some activity and knowledgeable people in Korthos can go a long way.

Here is some of the more notable activity over the past week or so:

8/22 - Xovin came by for a dance as a bear - smooth moves! Someone asked about how to get unstuck and I told them the /stuck command, they were happy! Kind greeting from Yamantau.
8/24 - Nice message! (Tell): Carmaer tells you, 'thank you for the welcome
8/25 - Nice compliment from Dkkd tells you, 'your a nice person to have a bio like that to help new ppl', thanks! Helped a couple people in directing them towards guilds.
8/28 - Yamantau left a greeting again saying he started up a new guild that has 40 members now, mostly new players, wow great work at getting people involved in the game!
8/29 - Been regularly posting comments in chat but have noticed a lull in general chatter over the last few days, perhaps due to the holiday season.
8/30 - Yamantau has again stopped by and said hi to VisitKorthos a couple times now, I just put 2 and 2 together and I guess that is Nuclear_Elvis who commented above. Great work with everything!

[Tscheuss]

You might want to mention the need to go to the Who tab first to populate the Grouping tab with names. Seeing a bunch of LFM's without any names could be unpleasant for new players.

[Grandern_Marn]

You might want to mention the need to go to the Who tab first to populate the Grouping tab with names. Seeing a bunch of LFM's without any names could be unpleasant for new players.

Yeah I think I had that in one of my messages before my PC crash a couple months ago but haven't added it back in the comment list I have on the OP of this thread. We are limited with the number of words we can put in the bio and in chat comments. The question is what information do people need to know first before anything with the word limitations that we have in chat and the bio.

My call is before game glitches I want to tell people that there is a Grouping Panel and where they can find it. From there I want to get people information on how to find guilds on their own, you join a guild and you can get all the information details from someone in the guild.

But that's just my take on things, when the default server changes I totally welcome people to copy and use the information in this thread or add information that they think are a priority.