The Daily Grind: New player in an old game
by Rubi Bayer 
Jan 4th 2010 at 8:00AM
Filed under: Culture, Opinion, The Daily Grind
So the question arises: is it worth it? Since the "multiplayer" part of an MMO is a pretty big draw, how do you put the multi in multiplayer when you're brand new and it feels like the rest of the community dinged level 60 a year or two ago? Do you roll a class that can solo easily? Do you convince a buddy to start out with you? Do you PUG it? Do you join a guild and hope for the best? Click that handy little button down there and let us know!
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
jrgarrison said on 8:35AM 1-04-2010
I am always starting games long after launch and find myself in "lone wolf"mode....questing and grinding as fast as possible. I have only experienced a lot of help from others for n00bs in 2 games....WoW and LoTRO.....Rings is by far the best.....not only do they group with you but have had a ton of coin dropped in my lap to help further.....The communities of games is what really makes them shine.....best so far Rings..then WoW...then eq2.....worst I have ever seen in any game by far is Age of Conan....for a "mature themed" game...they have the most childish imature community....they game isnt what made me quitthat game...its the players....and I started that at launch..
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Wisdomandlore said on 9:12AM 1-04-2010
I recently jumped into WoW, and while the community is there, it can be hard to find groups for any dungeons or quests less than level 70. It definitely feels like half the game is closed off to you.
Stark1 said on 9:53AM 1-04-2010
I have the same experience as Wisdomanlore in WoW. Huge community so it boggles me it is so hard to find anyone helpful. Without my RL friend on Mannoroth, I've yet to receive any help from others. It is a hardcore PvP server and they laugh at you if you admit you are a noob when asking about some aspect of the game.
I then created a character on Gnomeregan so I could actually finish quests without getting ganked every 5 minutes. One guy asked for me for help and was sooo grateful because everyone else does there own thing. He said he had the same experience as me. No one wants to help a new player.
People were so indifferent, I had a quest in Undercity and a lone player around my level waited until I summoned the mob at the Apothecary and when I died, he fought the rest to trap the energy. No, please just let me die instead of teaming up. I did not know what he was there for until I saw him loot the corpses. I sent multiple tells and broadcasts asking for help. Eventually, I figured out the quest but I can't really say anything good about the WoW community based on my experiences.
Korand said on 9:09AM 1-04-2010
Ive been playing Everquest 2 for awhile, end game wise you'll never lack a party and the community is top notch, however, when i rolled a new character it was shocking. It was like a single player game im paying a subscription on. This leads me to the next point of sustainability from a financial point of view.
If games that are top end heavy (majority of players end game) such as Everquest 2 is then ultimately those players get bored once they have completed it all and cancel subscriptions until the next expansion or what have you. So we have a situation where the new players feel like the games dead and old players going inactive for large stretches of time.
Its not all doom and gloom, after all Everquest 1 and 2 have been around for awhile and hopefully will be for awhile more, but the inability to pull in new players cant help the situation.
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Karl said on 9:50AM 1-04-2010
I recently restarted WoW after about 2 years off, and I only played about 6 months my first time around... I joined a guild that has occasional events for lowbies, but realize I'll need to solo most the way to the upper levels. That's fine since various revamps have made it easier to level up (quest xp boosts and so on).
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Stark1 said on 9:57AM 1-04-2010
As a mage, I find it difficult to solo quite a few quests, especially if there is an Elite boss. Everyone says mages are the DPS kings but I guess that is at much higher levels(at least according to my friend who knows the game more than I do) with much better gear. Currently below 30, I could not take out a boss fast enough even though he was 3 levels lower than me.
So far WoW has been a frustrating experience compared to CoH, CO and LoTRO.
Karl said on 1:27PM 1-04-2010
I forgot to add in my earlier post, one of the toughest things I found about starting from scratch in WoW is how wealthy/established the playerbase is - this makes items not affordable at the auction house since everyone else is so wealthy (unless you already have a max level char farming for gold via daily quests or gathering ore/herbs/whatever I suppose).
In LoTRO, I got by making decent money by just questing and selling stuff. I didn't having to farm ore to sell at the AH for money to just play the game. But in WoW, it is hard to even afford bags so you don't have to stop and sell stuff every 15 minutes, much less buy skills or a few needed gear upgrades, without taking frequent breaks to gather resources for sale.
@stark1
I'm not sure about the specific boss you had trouble with, plus I have minimal experience with mages... I just go around picking the low hanging fruit of the available quests - the easier "kill/gather X items" types.
DrMario said on 10:28AM 1-04-2010
I recently gave Vanguard about 20-30 hours of playtime. Never saw a single soul.
Literally.
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Ninevah said on 12:10PM 1-04-2010
Yeah, it's really too bad 'cuz Vanguard has so much potential to be fun. Unfortunately, it was not made solo-friendly and if there aren't many people around, then they're not going to pull in new players.
Arkanaloth said on 10:40AM 1-04-2010
WoW easily has one of, if not *THE*, worst community I've ever experienced in an MMO. I've noticed some of the smaller games tend to have more helpful people. For example the Runes of Magic community is rather helpful which in turn makes people want to help others as they get higher level. Sure you get the random person screaming "n00b" but not much after that they get panned for being a jerk and the person who asked for help gets help (if anyone can help them). This is a radical shift from WoW where asking for help is a sure fire way to get nothing but grief.
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DrMario said on 11:17AM 1-04-2010
Now that would be an interesting poll for Massively readers: Best and Worst MMO Communities.
Pingles said on 11:41AM 1-04-2010
I'll give you the results of the poll:
The winner is whatever game told their players to come to Massively to vote
GaaaaaH said on 3:51AM 1-05-2010
Pingles,
So, runes of Magic again?
Diaz said on 11:56AM 1-04-2010
This is an interesting topic to me as I converted to LOTRO not too long ago after playing WOW for years, a 1 year stint on WAR, and after trying Champions and Fallen Earth. To answer the questions posed by the OP:
Do you roll a class that can solo easily? Enjoyment comes first, but since the ability to solo adds greatly to that enjoyment level I will say, 'yes'.
Do you convince a buddy to start out with you? Usually no. I tried that in WAR and it didn't work out so well. When I quit after a year my by-then-diehard-WAR-friend didn't take it easily. Thus I decided to leave my RL friends out of Middle Earth.
Do you PUG it? When I have to. But in general I find PUGs to be a drain. Courtesy does not exist in WOW so I gave up on them after years of trying. PUGS in WAR were not-so-bad since they had an open party system. PUGS in LOTRO have actually been a blessing and people actually seem to want to help noobs (like myself).
Do you join a guild and hope for the best? Yes. Guilds are a complete toss up. I have been in small guilds of RL friends, small pvp guilds, and large raiding guilds... and really did not enjoy any of them. When I went to LOTRO I decided that I was there purely to enjoy the sights and surprisingly there was a guild that found me that doesn't mind that I would rather look at waterfalls than farm radiance gear.
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ewingmaestro said on 12:04PM 1-04-2010
Alas it is a tale of woe i spin on this post, so pull up a seat and wait as i prepare the fiddles, and remember to capitalise my 'I's' for the remainder of this comment.
I didn't used to mind hopping into new MMO's, something I do regularly in the search for a perfect, but i was always with my brother on our ventures, so i always had a partner and never suffered from top heavy games. We were an instant hit in guilds the pair of us, so always managed to find a place, and of course playing games with a mate is always more fun.
And then he sort of lost interest in the genre, and i was left to try these games myself, but it was never the same QQ
Trying to get him hyped about Allods, and I think its working, i got us both in the beta and we were both very impressed, so although older titles are more outreach now i can get us hooked on some new ones :)
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Goonja said on 12:43PM 1-04-2010
Interesting topic,I was asking myself whether to go back to LOTRO after almost 2 years.But after reading various threads on both NA & EU forums,it looks like LOTRO has the best and most helpful community in an MMO.
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danarchy said on 12:44PM 1-04-2010
Being a new player carries allot of stigma in many online games. For the majority if the game has already been out a couple of years people will not reply to tells as they fear, since your low level, your a goldspammer or something.
When I was getting bored with wow I tended to hang out on my shaman down in stranglethorn vale and attempting to help them out. It was incredible how few actual "New" players there were! The majority were using heirloom gear or crap green weapons with crusader on them. I think while sitting on the road near the bridge with the "Surprise Murlock!" I actually ran into one noobie. Managed to save him from a panther mauling and murlock poison. Any other noobies I offered help too usually responded with "You recruiting for a guild or something?" or "Get lost Pedo-Bear!"
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Khai Mann said on 1:02PM 1-04-2010
That is yet another reason why EVE online is so great. You can be a new player and still feel like you got a change at beating older players since what matters is skill, not the number of years you've been playing.
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Pingles said on 3:26PM 1-04-2010
As a new player in Eve I don't think I have EVER felt such a feeling of isolation in a game.
Even in games where the starting area was an instance (like LOTRO) I felt as if I was working my way TO the community.
I remember when I first got to a Space station in Eve and saw that there were others there with me I still felt very isolated and alone.
I understand that Eve is a very popular game but I couldn't hack it. I kept thinking of that line from the movie Alien: In space noone can hear you scream.
shockologist said on 2:49PM 1-04-2010
Me, I have a toon named Shockologist in almost any MMO you could name. I figure out what is the ranged dps and go from there. There have been a few games I regretted using my main name first on though (Aion springs to mind....thought spiritmaster would be like a shammy boy was i ever wrong). Ive found for the most part that quest stacking is quest stacking in any game and if I always stand out of the fire Ill be just fine
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