new players screwed?

[NaruWhitehelm]

I'm just thinking why would someone start playing an MMO with no friends and NOT try to make some or join a guild right away? If you start playing a new MMO by yourself and make NO effort to join in-game groups guilds or make friends, you are not gonna have a good time very long. Thats true with most if not all MMO games still stands for "Massively Multi-player Online" right?

[Sunarie]

I'm just thinking why would someone start playing an MMO with no friends and NOT try to make some or join a guild right away? If you start playing a new MMO by yourself and make NO effort to join in-game groups guilds or make friends, you are not gonna have a good time very long. Thats true with most if not all MMO games still stands for "Massively Multi-player Online" right?

This game, or rather the community of this game, does make that a little hard. I tend to see hatred spewed a lot of the time whenever someone mentions they're new to a dungeon while pugging. Add to this that duty finder doesn't often pair you with people on your server, and that for the lower end stuff (if you play during non-peak hours especially) often doesn't net groups via shout remotely quickly... and that people in FATE groups rarely talk (I've tried talking to them a few times).. it can be pretty hard to make friends. Finding an FC sometimes isn't hard if you look in the right places, forums being one.. but not everyone comes to the forums, I would wager a large amount of the population skips them entirely.

Point being, it can be difficult to do. As another in this thread, and myself, mentioned.. we were late to FFXI and the community was god awful, elitist, and not helpful in the slightest. Judging from the forums, I'd say a lot of new players will run into the same things here. Yes, there are good people here and there that don't mind helping out (I certainly don't when I see someone asking for help), but those people are generally hidden under a lot of awful experiences unless you're lucky when you're late to a game.

[NaruWhitehelm]

This game, or rather the community of this game, does make that a little hard. I tend to see hatred spewed a lot of the time whenever someone mentions they're new to a dungeon while pugging. Add to this that duty finder doesn't often pair you with people on your server, and that for the lower end stuff (if you play during non-peak hours especially) often doesn't net groups via shout remotely quickly... and that people in FATE groups rarely talk (I've tried talking to them a few times).. it can be pretty hard to make friends. Finding an FC sometimes isn't hard if you look in the right places, forums being one.. but not everyone comes to the forums, I would wager a large amount of the population skips them entirely.

I Agree with a lot of what you are getting at so here's my proposal then, We just need a more fine tuned way to search for Free companies a built-in UI search for them, Then you could find your own based on what you are looking for elitist,casual,social,low level, high level, crafting, whatever. That does not seem out of the way of possibility.

[Sunarie]

I Agree with a lot of what you are getting at so here's my proposal then, We just need a more fine tuned way to search for Free companies a built-in UI search for them, Then you could find your own based on what you are looking for elitist,casual,social,low level, high level, crafting, whatever. That does not seem out of the way of possibility.

That could really work. Also, thank you for being one of the few to offer a solution to help players find a linkshell and that like. It is extremely easy for people to go "Make friends, find a free company, find a linkshell" when the game hasn't been out long right now. Having played multiple MMOs, usually the shots in towns die down quite a bit once the game has been out a bit, or a new "major city" is the hub to be at.

A lot of free companies may also stop accepting new players entirely. So, helping players to find friends and the people willing to help (like through what you suggested) is really the sort of thing that I feel would benefit the game. If you leave players to fend for themselves you just end up with what I and another ran into in FFXI. Which is a community that seems to hate new players.