One of the more common things that comes up on the newbie channel is "I can't find a group!", and I usually try to find a way to point out that I think it's better not to group at first, since you can learn at your own pace. The even better scenario is for the newbie to hook up with an experienced player who is willing to walk them through stuff, but we all know that doesn't always happen.

I think if you level to 11 under your own power, you're one step further from being Eastern Road Decoration. But to get there, I think you need to do it by overcoming a few hurdles, rather than turning levels 1-10 into the Special CF Olympics where no matter how you do stuff, everyone gets a trophy. You're trying to teach newbies how to play, and it's not a given that making things strictly easier is the best way to do that, especially when the 11+ game doesn't also get easier.

It's an open question as to what those hurdles should be. For example, we've tried to make navigation a lot easier with signs, tons more helpfiles, and more maps in stores. What all of those things have in common is that no matter how much information we've given you, you still had to walk from A to B yourself. If we just gave you a command that teleported you to the entrance to those areas, you'd really be screwed when that command stopped working.

Some specifics:
Also during rolling, recommend bards more heavily to new players because of the perfected lore.

The flip side to that is that bards are more group-oriented, lack concealment, and have a lot of area-effect offensive abilities, which can get you killed. But otherwise, they have a lot of versatility, good melee defense, and at least average HP, and that plus Lore is probably worth adding them to the standard recommendations.

It's also worth noting that new players frequently don't give a crap what class you tell them to play. It's a much bigger priority for me to try to make more classes "good newbie choices" at the low levels, and that's at least part of my motivation for the various low-level skills we've been introducing. At the least, we want all classes to be able to contribute to a group, and do some flashy things that will get a newer player excited about what that particular class "does".

However, the fact that you can gain levels too quickly before 11 and not learn anything is still a good argument for advertising the Inn more heavily than in the 'help newbie' helpfiles. It's directions that should probably be available in the Academy, and directing the flow of new guys to here will also as a whole:

Well, it's on the roadsigns and the helpfiles. I'm not sure how additionally helpful directions in the Academy would be, but it's probably worth more heavily emphasizing the role of the Eternal Star as a central gathering place.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com