Adventurer's College
From LSWiki
The atman who started this topic seems to no longer exist. Despite this, the idea could be revived.
Welcome to the Adventurer's College Project page. The purpose of this page is to describe the planned Adventurer's College, detail my progress on it, collect feedback about it and, when it's done, put up spoilers.
Overview
The purpose of the Adventurer's College is primarily to teach first-time mudders the basics of mudding here at Lost Souls. A secondary purpose of the zone will be to provide some benefits to those still in the Adventurer's Guild so that being unguilded doesn't totally suck. (A planned but separate intermediate area, the meteorite crater, will be directed to those who have graduated the College or who already have some experience mudding.) No one will be allowed to enter the area who is not a member of the Adventurer's Guild.
The area is a peninsula with an exit to the LH Adventurer's Guild (Ashe) at one end and water all around. There are trails between important buildings and to the LH exit. This will be an 11x11 room zone with full 3d, and will also include a couple of buildings.
Summary of Important Rooms/Buildings
At this stage, these are concepts more than plans. I do not think all of these are necessary in the College of Adventurers--especially with Losthaven right next door--but some will be there and some will appear in the Meteor crater. (Some won't appear at all.)
Incarnation Entrance 0,0,1
This is where players who take the default character will incarnate. There is a plaque here reading, "The journey is the destination."
The Dispensary
You can get the standard services from Eleanuir at 15% discount, plus limb regeneration.
Broman's Savings and Loan
Broman teaches ownership and finance. Bank deposits are at 15% usury. One of Broman's guards is a pickpocket.
Thestis's Shop
You can buy, sell and view equipment here. Fast talking and haggling do not work. The base prices of items for sale is at a random +/- 10%.
The Gaping Maw
Sell your corpses here and get back random stuff (about the same value as stuff you could buy with that amount of cash from Emilio's). Items on corpses are eaten without recompense. Items would come from a subset of "useful items"... No trash. The knives would be decent knives, etc. The maw would select an item and then disgorge the item when enough food was put in. Therefore, in order to get the stuff from the maw, you have to keep feeding it until it spits something out. Otherwise, someone else might come along and put in an orc's pinkie and get that lovely gray-enameled longsword. On the other hand, this is beginning to sound like it would take a fair amount of work, so there might just be a class that explained where Emelio's was.
The Class of Rules
Basically, this is a room where you either have to read the rules for the mud or indicate that you have already read them and understand them. I am thinking that this should be right next to the incarnation entrance and that there should be no way out other than to answer that you understand and will abide by the rules. (Required) The player can then opt to skip the rest of the College or proceed to Administration
Administrative Office
I'm thinking that this should be the third place every student goes, directly after the Class of Rules. Here, a professor will outline the basic curriculum, define which are required and which are electives, and define the criteria for graduation. This is also where one goes to get a diploma once all requisite coursework is complete. (required)
The Class of Interaction
This will be a one- or two-point quest that involves going around a building, finding out things using the "look", "info", "count all here", "say" and "search" commands. There will also be a small fight or two. This class will probably be the first class after the administrative office. (Required)
The Class of Teaching and Training
Three trainers (misc survival skills, combat weapon skills, language skills), a small smount of training credits and a big mouth in the wall (that gives instructions) comprise this room. The player must "teach me all" to the survival skills, learn two combat weapon skills, learn a little literacy and spend all remaining credits to pass this section of the course. (optional)
The Class of Aliases
To complete this class, you will have to enter several aliases. It won't matter what you call them, but the aliases have to be entered exactly as specified. I.e., you can type in "set shared alias dl to determine location" or "set shared alias loc to determine location" and either would work, but "set shared alias loc to determine location;hp" would not work. The class would first explain what the command does, then suggest an alias statement (that could be cut/pasted) for it. (Optional)
The Class of Advanced Combat
This should teach the various combat modes, the strike command and wimpy. I'm not exactly certain how to go about doing this in a CAI sort of way, but that's the goal. (optional, maybe for the meteorite area)
The Class of Communication
This covers "say", "tell", "newbie", "ooc", reply, the use of languages and ways to cheat using emotes while explaining that it's cheating. (required)
The Class of Light and Darkness
This covers use of torches, lanterns, lanterns of darkfire, why you can't look into the next dark room even though you have a lit torch, etc. (required)
The Campus Resurrection Altar
All adventurers who die on campus will be resurrected here. All level 1's will be resurrected without costing them lives. Under certain circumstances, an adventurer's guild member can die without costing a life. (Indeed, there will also be a "death" room that will help them learn what it means to die. Dying there, no matter what level, will not cost a life. I am also thinking that an adv guild member of up to level 10 who dies ANYWHERE will bring them to this altar for resurrection and won't cost them a life.)
The Class of Basic Movement
Covers the directions, how to read "compass-ne/e", walking, running, hobbling, crawling, flying, swimming, drifting and using the #direction commands. (required)
Losthaven Landmarks
Covers where and what is available in Losthaven that *everybody* needs. (required)
Cimbra Geography
This would list the locales in Cimbra and describe them and how to get to them from Losthaven. (optional)
World Geography
This would detail the continents of the world and ask a few questions that could only be answered by referring to the wiki. (optional)
The Class of Guilds
Overview of the guilds. (optional, maybe for the meteorite area)
The Class of Associations
Overview of associatins. (optional, maybe for the meteorite area)
Matriculation
To graduate, you have to take all of the required courses, take a specific number of electives, pass an easy, short quiz and pay a fee. On graduation, they can get:
- an xp challenge of frailty if they want (one-time deal)
- a free horsey
- illuminated
- a chaos infusion for their primary weapon
- a commission to kill five giant rats for a 500g reward
- a voucher that you can turn in to any trainer in LH for a some free training in 2-3 random things
plus whatever else I can think of that Chaos approves. Suggestions wanted.
Goodies for the Adventurer Class
A healer who can regenerate limbs
This should be free for up to level 4, I think,
an alumni association
You might need this to get entry into the meteorite area. Maybe a graduate gets to summon a torch whenever they want. They have their own chat line. Or I might totally blow this off.
some basic knowledge
That's the main purpose of this whole thing. Hopefully, some people will get some use out of it.
Players' Thoughts and Suggestions
Give them A pack that they cant lose until their level 15, and the pack could be like a portable hole, but it already has a few basic items in it. like a torch (or lantern of darkfire), a pibrit or 2, maybe some lenses. Just nice little things like that, and when they use it all up, they can put coin in there and get 'credit' then they can go to ashe and redeem that credit for the various items. also you could put them, not in a company, but like a group, and make it so when they team up, they can get increased XP. but this should only happen when with other newbies. So 2 newbies kill mouser and they both get like 10% more xp because they used teamwork. this would help them level and encourage them to work together. and maybe make a personal 'credit card' like item, where the can access a simple shop where they can buy basic items, compass, rope, lens, ect, ect, ect...and they can increase their 'credit' at ashe. but if they go under their limit, they get money removed from their bank of they get some other bad thing. also don't give them death effects before level 10, that's all i hear them complain about after a rat kills them. --Vet
It would be nice for there to be some way for the Wardens to gain 'kudos' and possibly even more tangible benefits from donating gold and or other items to the college, which newbs can then have access to.
Equally there should be some information and or access to the Wardens that is separate to the neophyte channel.
Wardens could 'adopt' or mentor a new player for a short time and receive 'benefits' for certain outcomes
Nemesys 10:16, 11 September 2010 (EDT)
Quick point: You need to put movement quite early, unless you plan on moving them from room to room until they learn to actually move around on their own. I've seen people who have no idea how to move around. --Rifheln (Atman : Kex)
Have the exit in Stillwater, perhaps? And add a bit more on to Stillwater that's useful to newbs. --Rifheln (Atman : Kex)
After they pass you could give them a choice of items that give different bonuses, until they get to a specific level of-course. Like a Vial that will replenish their SP by like 1/4th or 1/2 every 30 minuets. Or bread like from the lord of the rings, where they eat 1 bite and it fills their hunger. Or you could offer them a portal to any specific area and back, like a guild hall or something. Or you could give them a custom made piece of equipment that they wont lose if they die, until they hero or something. They could chose the color of the equipment and i minor enhancement for it, so they could make a yellow sword, that does minor fire damage of whatever, not enough to 1 hit something though. Or it could be a suit that gives them +5 to a attribute of their choice. You could also make the reward based on how well they do in the College itself, the better they do, the better reward they should get. --Vetallas
Have them rezz in a set place for a set amount of time or levels, is my suggestion. When a newbie that can't fly or swim very well ends up in Quet, that isn't a good thing for their willingness to continue playing. I don't think the vial is worth it. I also suggest giving them a map of Cimbra with coordinate of major places. --Rifheln
Depending on their performances in the college, psychic races (and even non-psychic) should get a wild talent. It could be just a strong chance for psychic and moderate chance for other races, or be like the power potion quest. It makes sense due to the player taking time to broaden their horizons in a learning environment, instead of rushing right into the game. Perhaps there can also be an advanced class at the meteorite area detailing how to use Kurd's services, many new players have no idea that you can change races during the game, and this is a valuable piece of information. Perhaps after they learn of this they are given a coupon for a single free change to any of the races they are allowed to use. (Which would probably just be the basic ones) Sofiel 05:32, 18 September 2010 (EDT)
Here's something I really wish I had many times as a newbie - a 'teleport home' to the Adventurer's guild in Losthaven for very low level players, in case you manage to wander into some dark pit somewhere or through some pretty-looking portal in LL. Another thing that would be great would be having the option to attune to an 'adventurer's altar' for low level players only, so they can always revive themselves in Losthaven. I'm also a big fan of giving newbies some decent equipment - I couldn't even kill rats as a newbie without an Artifact weapon someone left in LL - the 'go to the sewers' suggestion just got me killed a few times. Heh. --Wolpertinger 23:16, 20 September 2010 (EDT)
