First Thoughts from a New Player

[Baeus]

Greetings all. I’m a relatively new player to FK (about a month and a half now?) and I thought I’d share my thoughts about the game thus far. Before I even started playing I did nothing but read the online help files and set up my client for three days in preparation. I’ve been playing D&D in its various iterations since 1982 and part of a play-by-post 3.5 campaign for the last 15 years. FK comes very close to that rule set. Thus, I had little problem not only passing thru the tutorial but the lowbie areas of the Waterdeep region as well. Although much of my time was spent solo, I also grouped whenever I could find those willing and engaged most of the people I came across. This was invaluable for expanding my knowledge of the mechanics above and beyond what I read and experienced on my own. Although I’m having an absolute blast here there are some things I’m not that fond of as well. I would love to see more people come to this fantastic world and so I’ll be making a similar post on TMC, as some of the reviews are less review and more biased personal rant about what an individual doesn’t like about the game. Toward that end I’ll start with the pros and follow up with cons that include suggestions:

FK did a fantastic job at melding the D&D Forgotten Realms 3.5 campaign setting and rule set with the smaug codebase. It clearly states that it isn’t a slavish reproduction of either rule set or campaign and it can’t be. Not every feature will work or translate well from table-top rules to MUD, but it comes really close to doing go. Anyone familiar with D&D 3.5 will have little problem understanding how things work.

Second, it feels really close to the immersion you get in a pen & paper session. Vision type matters and light sources either magical or mundane become invaluable to an adventurer. Without light you cannot see what’s going on in the room! Coming back to town to resupply food and water matters, you can actually die from malnutrition. Archery and shooting targets multiple rooms away depending on the size of bow is possible. Atmospheric effects such as weather, environmental queues such as wildlife noise, npcs that react to keywords also enhance this feel. Because stamina is tracked and spent more rapidly during overland travel having a mount has value above and beyond prestige, to include viable storage. Encumbrance matters, as it will greatly affect your AC and ability to defend. Yet another reason to come in, sell, restock, rest and socialize!

Third, the skill system where each is gradually improved from use is quite awesome. It ensures that there is always something for the character to do and learn throughout their career. You are always working toward improvement, even during advanced levels.

Fourth, there are various systems in place to really encourage grouping, cooperation and community building. Form what I understand there is no level limit in place in regard to experience gain. Thus, more seasoned characters can adventure with green recruits and show them the ropes, to a degree, without diminishing their exp. I dig the formation system, the bonus exp for grouping and the obvious set ups for class dependency, such as tanking, item identification, healing, dealing with death, etc.

Fifth, the combat system is quite nice and moderately verbose in feedback. The kill modes are an excellent touch and PVP is semi-consensual and slowed down to an smote blow for blow. I find myself wishing you could opt for the same paused method against mobs, if you wanted to. Although I enjoy pvp in other genres, I’m not a big fan of the feature in muds and I’m quite thankful this behavior is greatly regulated here. In MUDS, It almost always consists of a higher level bully victimizing someone they know they can beat. Games optimized for pvp consist of segregated areas separate from pve AND further categorized by level tiers. This results in viable contests, not cowardly bullying. Coin isn’t hard to come by, if you know what you are doing but there is a time commitment. Being murdered constantly by folk you have no hope of standing up to and losing days of work is an excellent way of frustrating new players out of the world quickly.

Now for the cons: First, unlike other games where you can go to a class trainer and learn every ability available to that class and level, FK works differently. Some abilities are gained only thru questing, while others are located at seemingly random distant and or remote locations. In short, you will either go exploring to find them or ask other traveled pcs for information. Then there are also stat trainers, where not only do you have to locate them but they may not be able to teach to your level of ability if your stat is too high. This is very frustrating when you finally get that level and want to train something vital to your build, only to discover that you have no idea where to find it. In a way this is also good, due to the fact that it furthers in-character dialogue and or provides powerful incentive to get out and explore, as opposed to grinding solo all the time. However, it is quite frustrating to lug around multiple stat points for several levels. I literally spent 8 hours on multiple days traveling in search of a stat trainer that I’m not even sure exists to take my dexterity above an 18. Half the fun of roleplaying games is character management and it is hindered here somewhat because you must search out the trainers, at least initially as a new player ignorant of where they all are. The primary reasons for this were explained to me by the staff, as it’s an extension of controls set in place to encourage grouping and discourage power gamers from grinding into optimal builds without any roleplay or interaction involved. However, a new player isn’t going to be aware of this fact and exasperation can soon creep in. It would be lovely for some mention of the Easter egg system to appear in the tutorial AND the help files so that there is little question as to how the environment is set up.

The second thing that’s both glorious and a nuisance is the religion system. Here you can actually commune and pray to a deity, eventually become a champion of the faith and influence the recruitment and training of the other hopeful pcs looking to join your religion! How awesome is that!? The downside to this is that parts of it are heavily dependent on staff/player interaction. I think we all know what conflicting schedules, lack of interest, leaving the game, military deployments, death and or prison can mean here. A fantastic idea when there is a large player base but it suffers when there isn’t. Some religions are woefully underrepresented, with elders that are rarely ever seen, if at all. This is very problematic when you are a priest that needs to be a full member of your religion in order to take the prestige class of cleric. In essence, entry into a religion seems to be a reward for successful role play, in-game knowledge specific to that faith, and proving yourself to be a good fit to the environment. It ensures that certain player types are culled by the process and or discouraged by having to wait and eventually give up. It’s obvious that the staff is looking for a certain level of intelligence, patience and attitude for the player base. I get it. However, you don’t need to be a Mensa member to be a good actor and have decent grammar. The current process is a hindrance to both good and bad players alike and one reason why I think some players leave for systems will less grip on the reigns. I can think of at least two priests hopeful to underrepresented deities and well into their 20’s (based on multi attack and spells I was seeing) that I used to encounter on a regular basis that have since vanished. I suspect they fell prey to the uncertainty that they would ever be inducted into the faith. Lack of membership into a religion isn’t a deal breaker, unless you’re a cleric but reading about and seeing the benefits does make it desirable.

Third is the gear system. I spent my first three days in game doing nothing but visiting every shop I could find and mapping out each ward of Waterdeep on my client. I didn’t do this to illegally speed walk, but I like having a top down view of commonly traveled areas that updates with my position as I move. As helpful as the IC maps on the website are (and yes I still use them for quick reference), this does not beat a top down, updating map that reveals mouseover notes (I love you Cmud!!!) Having said that, I had no problem finding full suits of leather and medium chain. The minute I graduated to full plate it was piecemeal time, and I had to query other players and visit a distant city to find and incomplete suit of armor. There are also other items that should be more common to find in this time period and civilization, such as crossbows, bolts, and a bow shop that also sells something as basic as quivers to go along with the ammunition. I’m quite sure a deal could be made with the local tanners union to accommodate such consignment sales. A city the size of Waterdeep should have full sets of armor and every conceivable weapon, with different locations offering varying quality levels or simply better looks. People WILL gladly pay extra coin for fluff to control their individual look.

You basically have three categories of gear that must be carefully balanced so as to not disrupt the impetus to go out and adventure to earn better equipment in the first place: stock vendor items, player crafted and lastly quest/dungeon drops. Stock vendor items should be readily available in the shops. Complete sets of metal armor in an establishment that specializes in metal armors, for example. Standard quality simply to equip folk with a basic kit of choice needs to be more prominent. I have no idea what niche the player crafted items fill right now but logic tells me this is where master crafted gear should come from. Add in the fact that you could use kismet to go for custom looks (renaming) and you have a fantastic and viable option for mid-range gear. Then there are enchanted items, which I know are recovered from quests and dungeon crawls, sold to shops and can then be purchased by adventurers. These are uncommon, as they should be and I don’t have issue with the way they are set up now.

Fourth is the quest system. Don’t get me wrong. I know that a considerable amount of time has gone into creating this huge world and I appreciate the effort put forth. It is no easy feat accomplishing something with this scope, and in your spare time to boot. However, some of the quests are straight forward and relatively efficient. They get the job done, offer variance in play and provide a chance to role play scenarios outside of a patrol or dungeon crawl. Others are so incredibly vague that one has no choice but to ask other more traveled adventurers for clues or help. This is not always a viable option for various reasons. The world is huge, as we all know. After exhausting every rational keyword on a quest giver that assigned a clueless task to be given nothing but a blank stare in response soon results in a growing collection of uncompleted tasks. At a certain point I come to the conclusion that I’m wasting my time and could be doing something more efficient than wandering the earth like Caine in Kung Fu, hoping to stumble across the goal of my task. I’m more apt to tolerate long, convoluted tasks that involve earning class skills, such as appraisal than I am the odd quest because the end reward is known and immediately useful to me.

FK is using skills/spells/feats to move the player base from place to place and to a lesser degree gear, which is largely and individual goal, at least for low level players. In this regard it deviates from table top play and roleplaying games in other genres, which use quests and rumors as the main reason for travel. Quest models that have worked beautifully for other games would work equally as efficient here as well. Consider the following:

Efficient quests that appeal to explorers, killers, and socializers alike have easily recognizable aspects:

Quest Hub System – Think of a centralized location that consists of a series of concentric circles that push players further away based on level and perhaps completing prerequisite quests. In the case of Waterdeep each ward could cater to a specific level range. It makes logical sense that taverns and inns would function as these quest hubs, which FK has done to a certain degree. However, I think this should be more prominent, with multiple quests offered not only by the innkeepers, but patrons as well. As the quests are completed and the level range reached you would start to get feedback to the mobs to the extent that, “Perhaps you should check Ward X. I hear they have use for a seasoned adventurers such as yourself.”

Clearly Defined Goals – I like the keyword programing feature of the mobiles in FK. I really do. However, it isn’t a substitute for clearly defining the quest. This does not mean simply telling the player what they are supposed to go and get/kill. Included in this dialogue without prompting should be obvious hints on where to look or search to complete the task. Some might call this handholding but I see it as efficient conveyance of information so that a player can go and get it done and move on to other things in a reasonable amount of time, such as getting another quest or returning to socializing. If the concern is that it should encourage grouping and interaction for further clues this can still be accomplished by appropriate feedback from the quest giver, who could elude to the fact that it is highly advisable to assemble a group for completion. In table top, I know for a fact that there is certain content that cannot be overcome without the presence of magic and or casters to provide wards or overcome damage resistance. However, this is probably more of a mid to high level concern. Dependency is something that can be revealed and hinted at within the dialogue.

Risk vs. Reward – This isn’t just an issue of danger being appropriate to the reward offered. Time is also a risk to a player and just as valuable a commodity as coin. Some have more time on their hands than others. If I have 4 hours to play, wandering aimlessly on a vague quest string and accomplishing nothing in that 4 hours cannot feel anything less than a wasted session. Following the concentric circle aspect, a single quest is something that optimally can be accomplished within perhaps an hour, with longer more complex storylines being broken up into multiple parts but still fitting within that hour time frame per part. A vague quest with absolutely no direction of where to go, does not fall into this category.

Difficulty Indication – I swear that I’ve seen some quests that have OOC information on who should attempt it and or that it is group oriented, but cannot remember specifics. I love this idea. It saves valuable time and doesn’t risk the resources required to recover the corpse of the outmatched, which may or may not be online to save them.

In short, FK is an immersive RP enforced world that caters to certain maturity levels and attitudes. It is incredibly fun to me and captures the feel of a table campaign. If you lack patience, detest exploration, or all you want to do is run about and pvp, it’s not going to be the optimal environment for you. I suspect there are a few things that chase away a lot of people away. For example, It in no way shape or form caters to instant gratification players that only want to grind, get max level and then run out to victimize as many lower level players as they can find. New players cannot visit a single trainer and train every skill or ability available to them as they level. Skills must be sought out and traveled to, in some cases. It also isn’t a direct conversion of the 3.5 d20 system to a MUD, which annoys people familiar with the original system that want it to be. Some basic gear that should be readily available is incredibly difficult to find and may include substantial travel. Furthermore, it requires you to stay in character, and outlaws self twinking and multi gaming.

Keeping the population low with some of these features may be by design. It wouldn’t be the first time that I’ve come across hardcore role players that felt it’s better to have an in-character, immersive environment with few people than a disruptive one bursting at the seams with players. It takes vast amounts of psychic energy to manage that type of chaos and I cannot imagine it being much for the administrators. However, there is a fine line between establishing and maintaining the integrity of your environment and micromanagement to the point where the player feels too constricted. I’m having an absolute blast here. Even though certain aspects are frustrating to me I’m willing to deal with it. Many of the players here are also remarkable role players and are just as important as the staff for maintaining such an amazing environment.

Thank you folks and I’ll see you in game.

[Harroghty]

First and foremost, welcome to the game. Secondly, thanks for a very detailed post about your experiences; feedback like this is essential for staff and builders because it helps us to decide about what to sustain and what to improve.

A few short notes off the bat in reply:

• Are there essential skills or stats which are not available out of the gates?
• All that I can say about religion is that it is a "harder you work, the luckier you become" kind of thing. There is a dedicated faith administrator who reaches out to those bereft of an active faith manager. Generally, if someone is waiting beyond level 20 to join a faith it's because they either leveled like the devil was behind them or they are just not reaching out to display their interest.
• I agree with you about the gear. Right now there is a myriad of gear available, in particular armor varieties of different types, around the game world. The motivation to make new types for flair purposes kind of died with the random loot table because everyone (just about) will default to wearing the masterwork or magical armor instead of plain armor regardless of how attractive the latter looks. Complete sets of armor should be more available earlier on though; Mask and I have been working on the best way to do this during character creation or the early newbie life first, with an eye to then apply that method to the hometowns for general purposes, too.
• Typically it is only quests aimed at a newbie-type or lowbie-type demographic that have a lot of OOC chatter before hand to ensure that they understand. Personally, I try to make the notice less blatant when the target population for a quest is more seasoned, expecting them to pick up the clues. For example, the NPC quest giver might invite one to gather comrades rather than the PC receiving an OOC message about forming his or her group.

[Baeus]

First and foremost, welcome to the game. Secondly, thanks for a very detailed post about your experiences; feedback like this is essential for staff and builders because it helps us to decide about what to sustain and what to improve.

A few short notes off the bat in reply:

• Are there essential skills or stats which are not available out of the gates?

Essential? No. After figuring out that I needed to explore or gather information as to the whereabouts of some trainers, as a fighter I had little problem surviving the content I was meant to be engaging at my level. Important skills to my build such as expertise and weapon finesse required short jaunts outside the city proper. Then there are of course the statistic trainers, but you have already explained why its difficult to find one that will advance you past 18.

[Treiste]

How did your search for 18+ stat trainers go? My character's stat points are piling up trying to find dexterity trainers. I'm considering placing points elsewhere to represent the difficulties she's overcome looking She's asked around IC to several people, and it doesn't seem to be working out. Suggestions are either wrong or exceptionally difficult, and in either case scant. There's also the racial disparity probably coming into play (why does this game hate halflings?) I spent 20 or 30 hours tirelessly typing "train" at every NPC I could find in every city I could reasonably find until I read on these forums that they're not in cities.

I suggest a system where hints are given in the respective helpfiles to where to find these trainers for new players. I don't mind working on my build, that's part of the fun.

[Rhangalas]

There are also other items that should be more common to find in this time period and civilization, such as crossbows, bolts, and a bow shop that also sells something as basic as quivers to go along with the ammunition.

Agreed. There seems to be plenty of standard bow stuff, but crossbows and accessories barely exist.

Complete sets of armor should be more available earlier on though; Mask and I have been working on the best way to do this during character creation or the early newbie life first, with an eye to then apply that method to the hometowns for general purposes, too.

It would be cool if it was like tabletop where your PC is awarded X amount of gold based on race/class and then are transferred to an OOC buffer area with shops that carry basic gear for all classes. Maybe have a buffer room for each hometown that is available, so the gear can have some local flair. I used to build for an RPI that used this method and it was very effective, about the only stop-gap we had to introduce was a cap on how much could be bought in certain shops (armor, weapons, and crafting materials mostly), but that was only because the game owner didn't believe in items that couldn't be sold or traded.

I suggest a system where hints are given in the respective helpfiles to where to find these trainers for new players. I don't mind working on my build, that's part of the fun.

Maybe hints to find basic attribute trainers, but not those that are able to train above 18. These are meant to be obscure, because having an 18+ (epic) score in an attribute is supposed to be rare and difficult to achieve.

[Treiste]

I suggest a system where hints are given in the respective helpfiles to where to find these trainers for new players. I don't mind working on my build, that's part of the fun.

Maybe hints to find basic attribute trainers, but not those that are able to train above 18. These are meant to be obscure, because having an 18+ (epic) score in an attribute is supposed to be rare and difficult to achieve.

I don't think anyone would have problem finding stat trainers <=18, but it seems harmless precisely because of that reason.

As far as 18+ is concerned, the degree of difficulty you mention is a judgement call - i.e. is up to the DMs. I'm not suggesting a detailed description of how to get to 18+ trainers, or even a quest, but something vague. On the other hand, if it's supposed to be so rare that even a hint is not wanted, then a huge warning should be posted in helpfiles and/or character creation to avoid disenfranchising new players.

This is additionally in the context of the existence of the trainers being suspect, and the fact that some obvious moderately difficult-to-find candidates for 18+ trainers aren't actually 18+ trainers.

[Rhangalas]

As far as 18+ is concerned, the degree of difficulty you mention is a judgement call - i.e. is up to the DMs. I'm not suggesting a detailed description of how to get to 18+ trainers, or even a quest, but something vague. On the other hand, if it's supposed to be so rare that even a hint is not wanted, then a huge warning should be posted in helpfiles and/or character creation to avoid disenfranchising new players.

A warning would be good. These trainers are all quest related in some way (even if you manage to find one, you still have to convince them to teach you) and finding them is supposed to be the first part of the quest, thus they are in remote locations or they wander. If I had to guess, I would say that it is intended to keep min-maxers (i.e. twinks) at bay as you are usually required to role play with other PCs to learn of them.

[Baeus]

As far as 18+ is concerned, the degree of difficulty you mention is a judgement call - i.e. is up to the DMs. I'm not suggesting a detailed description of how to get to 18+ trainers, or even a quest, but something vague. On the other hand, if it's supposed to be so rare that even a hint is not wanted, then a huge warning should be posted in helpfiles and/or character creation to avoid disenfranchising new players.

A warning would be good. These trainers are all quest related in some way (even if you manage to find one, you still have to convince them to teach you) and finding them is supposed to be the first part of the quest, thus they are in remote locations or they wander. If I had to guess, I would say that it is intended to keep min-maxers (i.e. twinks) at bay as you are usually required to role play with other PCs to learn of them.

I have found one such trainer while playing with my warrior as I happen to be wandering thru a certain area. Once I acquire the items requested I plan on either enlisting the aid of a ranger or divination using spell caster to help me locate them again, as opposed to wandering the countryside. The trainer system can be a bit frustrating but it eventually comes down to mind set and whether or not this annoyance is offset by how much enjoyment you are getting from the game.

Honestly, I'm kind of over it. We are talking about a single point modifier between 18 and 20 (perhaps 2 if you have an enchanted item bolstering your stats). Not a deal breaker for me and something I can work around and plan for, but I wish I had known before literally wasting days searching for a stat trainer that was not only inaccessible thru the same static locations as trainers from 10-18 but may not even be reachable without higher level adventurers or a group of them.

Keeping disruptive power gamers limited in their advancement was the primary reason I was given as to why certain skills and higher level statistic trainers were dispersed the way they are, with the more powerful abilities put in locations you have absolutely no chance of going to without the aid of some powerful, seasoned and proven members of the community. This Easter-egg system gives those players an opportunity to gage an individual and decide how much help they are willing to give towards making them more powerful and a potential threat to the community. To put this into context: I have heard several in character stories of mentors who have aided pupils into positions of power thru training, only to have them commit heinous acts that disrupted the atmosphere maintained here.

I do agree that there should be something said in the help files or even within the in-game newbie tutorial that clearly states that certain advanced skills and high statistics above 18 are in remote places that a new or even mid level player may not be able to get to without assistance. From what I've read there is a cap on statistics as well and you cannot get above a 20. I had to dig to find any of this out. To vets on this server this may all be old hat but it wasn't intuitive to me as a newbie because I hadn't encountered any control systems like it before in 22 years of gaming. It takes some getting used to but once you wrap your head around the concept I think its worth the fun I'm having.

[Rhangalas]

From what I've read there is a cap on statistics as well and you cannot get above a 20.

Yeah, 20 is the cap for natural scores, but you can get a 21-24 with items/enchantments or sometimes even higher if you can polymorph.

I guess the best way to look at it is, in a mostly static world where the time limit of your session depends on you and not a DM that ends that portion of the campaign, you need control, or there will be chaos and overpowered characters everywhere. It's happened before...

[Raona]

I tried adding something about this to the TRAIN helpfile. Please correct me if what I say there is incorrect. (Though I have played this game a long time, this is not something I've dug into...which may be why my PCs are relative wimps, mind you.)

[Baeus]

I tried adding something about this to the TRAIN helpfile. Please correct me if what I say there is incorrect. (Though I have played this game a long time, this is not something I've dug into...which may be why my PCs are relative wimps, mind you.)

* Trainers for ability scores become increasingly difficult to find
at higher training capabilities, often being embedded in quests above 18 and
essentially non-existent above 20.

Sweet. Please tell me this is something new and that I just didn't completely miss it when I first read the file. If that isn't the case my apologies. I think part of the problem is that there is so much information to take in at first I didn't even register the importance of that statement about stats, as it wasn't relevant to what I was doing until after a few weeks in game. Lesson learned. When there is this much information available about a game and you are having difficulty even after asking around in character, attempt to find and re-read a relevant help file before burning too much time.

[Raona]

Please tell me this is something new and that I just didn't completely miss it when I first read the file. If that isn't the case my apologies. I think part of the problem is that there is so much information to take in at first I didn't even register the importance of that statement about stats, as it wasn't relevant to what I was doing until after a few weeks in game. Lesson learned. When there is this much information available about a game and you are having difficulty even after asking around in character, attempt to find and re-read a relevant help file before burning too much time.

Yes, this is new - I just added it to the helpfile. It's a fine suggestion to mention it, provided it is right! (I don't know it is, for a fact.)