Something to aid first time players...

[Eye-fire]

Ok, I've been thinking about something to help first time players who want to come here, but are inexperienced in writing their applications. I saw that saphirebreeze did one here...

sapphirebreeze.livejournal.com/177805.html

From an admins point of view. I was thinking about something from a players point of view about what they've found works and what the most common pitfalls are when writing an app. So I've written up something similar.

I've done something similar, going through it question by question, but I found myself unable to give an opinion on everything.

I spoke a bit with Jess on chat, and she suggested maybe other players also give their own advice for each question. I liked the idea.
I've got the piece that I've written should anyone want to see, but I thought I'd see what everyones opinion is first.

[Lynn Deanna Payne]

I like this idea!

[Injector]

I too find this a good idea.

[Windcharger]

I did find this enormously helpful when completing my app.

I have a suggestion/question: a post/thread for tips for new players - not just ones completing their first app, but for those who have got their character and are just getting started.

As a get-the-ball-roller, a question from my own perspective - where do we start? What locations are available to stage our materialisation into the Deadzone universe? I've seen the thread in the Gillanan II subforum with several locations listed there, and the Space sub-forum (which presumably pretty much consists of the Autobot and Decepticon ships, but I'm not quite sure), but it would be very handy for newbies to have an easily-accessible list of available drop-off points.

[Victoria Raines]

Since we've left Gillanan II behind, no PC arrivals are happening there at this time. We will revisit it at some point, most likely. All arrivals now are either happening on the respective factions' ships: Event Horizon for the 'Bots and Ship for the 'Con's. For sanity's sake, 'Con's aren't arriving on the Event Horizon and vice versa, unless they are dead. >_>

Most arrivals for new-to-game players at this point are what we call modified Season One. That is, you rp out the actual arrival, but the security interview is done off screen. If you have reasons for your interview to be on-screened, you can include that in your app or PM a mod to see if it can be worked out. Otherwise, the mods encourage Season Two style intros- Lo! This character has been around in the background for a few days! You just haven't seen him/her yet! However, a new-to-game player can have an S2 if the mods agree to it, or a seasoned player may have an S1 if their situation warrants.

In reference to a multi-drop point setting, once an app is approved the mods will usually give you a list of available drop off options. For example, we avoided having 'Bots show up in the Mines drop point on Gillanan, with a few exceptions.

[Windcharger]

D'oh! Somehow I completely missed that e-mail. Time for an eye test, methinks.

[Hook]

I think we've reached the point of automatically assuming people know where they should be arriving. Not necessarily a good thing, especially as we do still get new players.

Besides arrival points, is there anything else you guys think new players ought to know about?

[Windcharger]

Not much I can think of at the moment, but I'm useless at coming with stuff like this on the spot anyway. I'll give it some thought, and see what I can come up with.

On the whole, I found it reasonably easy to get everything done. Though maybe the "Read Me First" thread could use a little rearranging, just to make it a little easier to digest the info that first-timers are going to need.

What happens with the wiki? Is it just edited by a handful of staff, or can we create or modify pages (like our own character pages) ourselves?

[Hook]

*makes note about the Read Me First thread*

It's edited by a handful of staff. I'm catching up on the influx of new characters still, so it's somewhat behind the current cast as far as character pages go.