Aenea new player centre

Hi everyone,

This is another “information gathering” post. A community brainstorm if you will. I’ve been entrusted with 5M of Aenea’s hard earned money to create a centre for new players. The centre idea has been a long-term goal of mine for some time now. Mainly because if I didn’t have the guidance and assistance of the community when I started…who knows if I’d be playing right now?

What I’m asking for are any and all ideas to be shared from here. We all have unique and important perspectives and I want to incorporate the communities ideals as much as possible.

So in an effort to not make this post too long winded lets start with the obvious first step questions.

What services should a centre for new players offer?

What crosses the line between assistance and taking away from the enjoyment of the game?

How would you ensure a new player knows of the centre and service?

What key knowledge do you wish you knew early on?

These are just some conversation starters. All information is welcome! It’s important to me to do the very best job possible!

Thanks everyone.

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Build up an ingame tutorial with all the stuff in one place. The easy knowledge, put down a beacon have signs explaining the how tos. Have portals or a section for farming an example “mining” shaft. You get the idea build up visual ingame tutorial with signs explaining all things new player might want to know. Etiquette, economy etc. included.

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For farming at least I’d recommend a portal to farm school on Alder. A wonderful and educational resource that’s already been completely built out.

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Possibly some build tutorials such as chisels and some of the tips with the gleam back lights. Those were confusing for me when I was new.

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For a newbie-friendly place, it must has:

  • Easy to access from everywhere, includes where they first spawn (which is randomly on any T1/T2 planets)
  • Showing usefull and enough guidances, links to posts…
  • Portals lead to most usefull and crowded places
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Signs advertising the center above shop stands with location tokens

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I’d take the idea of the farm school on alder and apply it to every item in game.

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If you need anymore coins for the build let me know @Spicewhale

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I started new players Academy long time ago but never had time to finish and gave up eventually.
Might share some ideas I had via pm later when I have more time.

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Everything else is assistance except giving stuff for new players.

Basic “slang” of boundless i would teach. → when people talk about “shards” they most likely are refering to oortshard that are used fueling portals

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That’s the plan!

Lighting school on grov te too

(Me and Spicey are collaborating)

We’ll probably need more coins at some point :blush: so far me and a few others have put in about 7 mil, plus spicey/aenea with 5 mil, plus some more donations coming in. Also we need builders - both to make designs and to replicate repeating parts. We’d love to have you on the team!

We’d love your input and/or help!

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All great ideas and I’m sure those and more will be incorporated! DK pretty much summed it up above. I’m super stoked at the positive feedback about this project/initiative!

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And perhaps teach yourself a thing or two in the process, hmm? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

(sorry dk, couldn’t resist!)

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Hahahahahahaha literally spat my coffee out! Evil. :heart:

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Our Guild would love to help if anyone needs help with things.
Dreyma is more game savy then me but if you point to something you need I can happily go and gather it!

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Ok, so I had this part of planned Academy For Newbies built and almost 100% ready, that was dedicated to the tutorial part of game.
Here are some ideas I had about it and how I planned to organize the teaching/helping process in different dedicated areas (each having their own set of stored/placed items, ready to use for students via permissions/locks etc.).
Maybe you will find some of it useful or helpful in your project.

I showed it to a few new players long time ago and they used it to go through tutorial faster. I also used it when progressing with my alts, also to speed up process and also to test soundness of my ideas.

The way I saw it back then (it was really first few months after full release), new players would split into three groups:

  1. Do it all myself and learn the most. Those would need only or mostly tips allowing them to avoid being stuck in parts they simply don’t understand. This type appreciates skipping through too much reading (be it Knowledge Tab in game, or forums etc.), but prefers to do all steps in game themselves.
  2. 50/50 Those players like to do some crafting, chopping or mining themselves, but don’t mind skip more tedious parts, so they would appreciate getting some basic resources needed to craft tools and machines, maybe a couple of ready tools (copper/iron) but they wouldn’t want to get too much and defo not the top tools and ready machine+coils sets.
  3. Gimme all that’s needed to complete tutorial objectives. Still wouldn’t necessarily want all top tier machines and tools handed to them, but they would want to skip all gathering of resources and crafting all machines that tutorial asked them to.

TUTORIAL SEMESTER :wink:
Thus I created a tutorial section of academy with its own set of stored maths and tools and basic machines placed as well. So players could chose whether they only pick leaves/rock/trunk or stone/timber to craft some tools and machines themselves, or use stored and ready wooden/stone tools and machines to quickly finish objectives.

Most of all - signs around the place gave them tips like “go through tutorial before you explore - you will understand more about what you need or want the most” or “most tutorial objectives asking you to acquire resources or tools, can be completed by picking someone elses items without necessarily crafting or gathering them on your own; there are few though that you must craft yourself, like beacon plotter” or even “check your Journal>>Feats to find some easy ones to complete - it’s an easy way to fast track your progress through low levels” etc. etc.

FREE RESPEC SEMESTER
Second part of Academy (never finished building that one), was about after-tutorial time and up to level 20. So the main tip there (big and first sign in that area/room of the academy) would say “you can freely respec your character up to level 20”. So it is true now. Back then it wasn’t a thing yet so I didn’t need to create that tip.

This part of Academy would have higher tier of machines and tools stored/placed for players to use to finish some objectives and test how things work (spark, different compact fuels, a few power coils). It should help students to quickly finish higher level objectives (like placing a mixer and crafting something with it; crafting first items requiring power etc.)

Some unforged titanium/gem tools to give pupils a feeling of faster mining/gathering/hunting (still within worlds lvl 1-3 maybe 4 tops).
Tips on what activities are good for fast leveling (some crafting that dont need power; hunting meteors etc) - and how free re-assigning of skills alows one to switch between those activities when needed.

Also portal networks and how to use shop scanner etc would be in that section, I think.

Important part would be examples of skill-sets for lvl 15-20 character (so mining/gathering set; hunting set; crafting set; building set etc.). Also explained and displayed via signs.

last but not least - basic forged tools that are most useful: lattice chisel for builders; liquid breaker and solidifier for explorers/gatherers; door spanner for builders

AFTER 20 SEMESTER
Proper high end forging would belong to after lvl 20 section of Academy me thinks.
Tips and tricks for AoE mining.
Tips and trick on exo worlds.
Farming I suppose as well. Basically, any main activities available in game (how to run a succesfull shop for example) would be explained via tips here, since after lvl 20 it’s about time to decide what kind of “career” one wants to focus on.

Skill pages vs. multiple alts should be shown here too (so either: "create a few more alts and repeat tutorial and up to lvl 20 progression to quickly cover different areas of game you are interested in OR build multi-skillpage character which requires time, but we can help you find best ways to level up faster).

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My biggest thing was mining. Where to find the gems and what level. I kinda know to this day. But having a sign and a good mining character load out would be cool too.

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I didn’t see this thread XD I just had this idea yesterday, but now I have time to post it on forum.
Let me know if you like this idea or not, maybe we can work together for this new player school idea :slight_smile:

Actually there are too many thing we can teach, like portal network 101, farming 204 , Business 305 , Design 656…etc

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Feel free to come up with more ideas
It’s on Kada, 10,000 plots already. Want to help? @wade44423

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I’d be down for helping set up and with the build if you guys need help. From helping laying down to physical labor and farming mats. :smiley: just let me know!

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