Encouraging all the New Players, Solving the Lonely Levels, and Creating a Culture

[Slave_to_the_Wheek]

First of all, as those of you who recognize my name might remember, this is my only MMO. I am not interested in any other game (except DDO ironically) So I may really not make sense to people who grew up gaming or who understand the nuances of the gaming engine for LOTRO. Please bear with me.

I just launched a fresh alt. She is now at lvl 23. I have a fresh perspective of the game and I would like to share with you an idea that seems to logical that I don't get why it isn't already part of the social actions in the game.

When new players or characters start on a server why isn't there a designated group of people who greet them and offer assistance with gameplay? I mean right now new players simply do not even see the MM part of the MMO! Sure you see people running. You see high level people moving so fast you can't even click on them to get their name or try to IM them. The chat channel of "World" is a joke for new players. Bree is very active but people just don't have any reason to talk to you. Nobody has even emoted to me let alone IM or fellowship. So what if there were players, possibly each kinship with 20 or more members could have a representative inside of a "intro kin" (one that you can only be in until lvl 15) once someone comes out of Archet?

I've thought of hosting one like that but I don't think it would work unless the company sponsored it. It could be a 'recruitment' base for kins and that would be the impetus to have someone there. Of course, you aren't allowed to actually recruit for your kin, only to assist players. The players could then ask the reps about their kins etc.

My idea is simple. At say lvl 10... Make a quest where you have to go to the clerk and instead of create a kin you would "Opt In" to join whatever is designated as some kind of training kinship. You would have to prove yourself "worthy" somehow. This would ensure you have folks who are really wanting to play and who are actively seeking human interaction.

Once player has opted in, then the kin leadership would get alerts and voila you instantly have human interaction to help you get your bearings. Plus, you have other players ON YOUR LEVEL. People would level out at say 15 and then people who are not jerks could be offered to join a second sponsored kin until you get to say 25? By that time you will have met enough people that you could create your own or join with existing kins.

[Flagron]

I have found the Lotro community to be very helpful and generous to new players on all three servers I have played

and I have found that some new players get to be a little too dependent on people helping them

was talking to one fellow who was complaining that he had to wait for his Kin members to give him crafting materials.....say what?

When I had/or have questions they were answered and I learned more just from watching world chat.

you could implement something like that but I am not sure its necessary

[CoctimusPrime]

I'm new and not very experienced in mmo's. If anyone can just tell me the appropriate way to find people to team up with I would love that. The tutorial is pretty informative, but I've yet to talk to anyone. The World Chat seems to be filled with a bunch of random conversations and I don't want to interject with my inquiries. I don't even know the proper protols for interacting with other players. Is it rude to ask players if they want to join your quest? How do you find people to team up with? Is there a specific area that I should go to in order to find people to quest with? Obviously its more fun with multiple people. In my teenage years I had a group of people that I played with because we all knew eachother. As an adult, I don't have that luxury any more. Any advice you can offer would be great!

Thanks!
-CP

[Nosdracir]

I'm new and not very experienced in mmo's. If anyone can just tell me the appropriate way to find people to team up with I would love that. The tutorial is pretty informative, but I've yet to talk to anyone. The World Chat seems to be filled with a bunch of random conversations and I don't want to interject with my inquiries. I don't even know the proper protols for interacting with other players. Is it rude to ask players if they want to join your quest? How do you find people to team up with? Is there a specific area that I should go to in order to find people to quest with? Obviously its more fun with multiple people. In my teenage years I had a group of people that I played with because we all knew eachother. As an adult, I don't have that luxury any more. Any advice you can offer would be great!

Thanks!
-CP

As Yarbro stated in the other thread, joining a kinship is the best way to connect with a larger group of players.

You can also use the /lff global chat, which is designed for advertising for group play. A command like:

/lff S Barrow quests and deeds PST

Will tell everyone that you are "Looking For Fellowship to do quests and deeds in the South Barrow Downs, Please Send Tell (to be invited)". You may or may not get much response there. Kinda depends on time of day and other distractions.

In general, meeting people is similar to real life. You walk up to someone (so they can see your character) and just start chatting with the /tell command. This can work quite well when you see someone else out in the wilderness where you are questing. A simple

/t <other players name> Hi. Wanna group up?

when you're in the other character's field of vision courteously breaks the ice and makes the grouping/fellowship offer.

Hope this helps.

[RazorShultz]

Hello all, another newb here. Firstly id like to say this is the only mmo i have ever enjoyed walking around the world questing. Even in WoW i just spammed dungeons to level up. My main worry is whether i will get to enjoy late content given the game is 10 years old and very few mmos survive such long periods of time. i would hate it if they just shut it down soon

[Olgomil]

Hello all, another newb here. Firstly id like to say this is the only mmo i have ever enjoyed walking around the world questing. Even in WoW i just spammed dungeons to level up. My main worry is whether i will get to enjoy late content given the game is 10 years old and very few mmos survive such long periods of time. i would hate it if they just shut it down soon

I started playing LOTRO in 2012, and from this year to now I saw people saying "this year is the last year..."

My personal opinion? Enjoy the game, nobody knows the future...

Sergio :-)

PS: And welcome to Middle Earth!

[CoctimusPrime]

As Yarbro stated in the other thread, joining a kinship is the best way to connect with a larger group of players.

You can also use the /lff global chat, which is designed for advertising for group play. A command like:

/lff S Barrow quests and deeds PST

Will tell everyone that you are "Looking For Fellowship to do quests and deeds in the South Barrow Downs, Please Send Tell (to be invited)". You may or may not get much response there. Kinda depends on time of day and other distractions.

In general, meeting people is similar to real life. You walk up to someone (so they can see your character) and just start chatting with the /tell command. This can work quite well when you see someone else out in the wilderness where you are questing. A simple

/t <other players name> Hi. Wanna group up?

when you're in the other character's field of vision courteously breaks the ice and makes the grouping/fellowship offer.

Hope this helps.

Thanks Nos! As usual, very helpful. I saw some LFF's go out on the chat and had no idea what ppl were talking about. Its hard to know the lingo when you are a total noob! Very imformative! I appriciate it!

[Stage541]

Game was bought by a new studio ( Standing Stone Games) last year. They would not have bought it if they intended to shut down soon.

[Slave_to_the_Wheek]

I also recommend going to the "Hall of Fame" and printing out the thread that details out all the different acronyms and gaming terms for new folks. I actually started it many years ago because I was so lost and frustrated. Even after joining a very wonderful kinship, I still had to come to the forums to try to figure out what all the stuff they were talking about in chat... here is the link to that thread:
https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...MO-terminology

I'm over on Arkenstone, and have returned after several years. I am playing on an old laptop so I can't really take part in any serious game-play right now, so I just do a lot of crafting and leveling my brand new alts who are in their 20-30s. As of the last 6 weeks, I have YET to have a quest that requires fellowshipping. I never see anyone looking for fellowships in the low levels mainly I'm guessing because the old-timers starting alts already have their kin/friends and the new to MMORPG players don't even know what fellowshipping is or how it works. They just kind of putter around like me.

When the game first started you had to fellowship early on as soon as you came out of Archet practically so you met many folks who were also new or who were doing alts and had a great chance to level with them and meet others. Unfortunately, between the push by solo players and the low server populations they seemed to have phased out any kind of contact with other players which is really lame to me..because I chose an MMO so I could meet other people who liked to play the same games!!

So everyone is like..."join a kin" except...kins are a complicated thing. Especially on a low-populated server. I don't know how populated Crickhollow is, but Arkenstone I'm told is the most populous, yet after the last several weeks I've tried a couple of kins so far but both had people who never showed up to play. That is the challenge, finding people who play when you do and who are playing at your level as well. That is why I miss having to do fellowshipping at the lower-levels. I had a random invite to a fellowship once in the North Downs. I don't think the guy spoke English because he didn't reply or speak to me in Fellowship chat at all, and he didn't have the in-game audio turned on so we just kind of were running solo quests together for an hour or so.

My own kinship that was the best? It was a group of folks who fellowshipped together in the Barrow-Downs and just decided to create a kin with the 3 of them. I happened to randomly fellow with them and they had the patience to deal with a complete noob-chick. As we leveled we learned and as we fellowed with others they would sometimes join us. Those were fun days -but now it's just me who has returned.

One thing you will want to get around to if you haven't already is to make sure you have a gaming headset of some kind and download and set up discord. Sometimes you'll need to use the audio in-game in order to get through a quest. So make sure you figure out how to turn it on and to use it BEFORE you start trying to fellowship on a hard quest (for some reason it isn't working on my laptop and I can't figure out why)

Most kins now have a "Discord" server and require you to participate that way, being able to chat with your fellowship/raid group and your kinsfolk is really the only way to play the game. As the game gets harder after level 50, and more complicated you simply can't do any seriously fun gaming without some way of talking to your group/raid/kin. You can't play and type questions when things are flying lol. I did not really get into the game until I set up the audio.

[CoctimusPrime]

I also recommend going to the "Hall of Fame" and printing out the thread that details out all the different acronyms and gaming terms for new folks. I actually started it many years ago because I was so lost and frustrated. Even after joining a very wonderful kinship, I still had to come to the forums to try to figure out what all the stuff they were talking about in chat... here is the link to that thread:
https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...MO-terminology

I'm over on Arkenstone, and have returned after several years. I am playing on an old laptop so I can't really take part in any serious game-play right now, so I just do a lot of crafting and leveling my brand new alts who are in their 20-30s. As of the last 6 weeks, I have YET to have a quest that requires fellowshipping. I never see anyone looking for fellowships in the low levels mainly I'm guessing because the old-timers starting alts already have their kin/friends and the new to MMORPG players don't even know what fellowshipping is or how it works. They just kind of putter around like me.

When the game first started you had to fellowship early on as soon as you came out of Archet practically so you met many folks who were also new or who were doing alts and had a great chance to level with them and meet others. Unfortunately, between the push by solo players and the low server populations they seemed to have phased out any kind of contact with other players which is really lame to me..because I chose an MMO so I could meet other people who liked to play the same games!!

So everyone is like..."join a kin" except...kins are a complicated thing. Especially on a low-populated server. I don't know how populated Crickhollow is, but Arkenstone I'm told is the most populous, yet after the last several weeks I've tried a couple of kins so far but both had people who never showed up to play. That is the challenge, finding people who play when you do and who are playing at your level as well. That is why I miss having to do fellowshipping at the lower-levels. I had a random invite to a fellowship once in the North Downs. I don't think the guy spoke English because he didn't reply or speak to me in Fellowship chat at all, and he didn't have the in-game audio turned on so we just kind of were running solo quests together for an hour or so.

My own kinship that was the best? It was a group of folks who fellowshipped together in the Barrow-Downs and just decided to create a kin with the 3 of them. I happened to randomly fellow with them and they had the patience to deal with a complete noob-chick. As we leveled we learned and as we fellowed with others they would sometimes join us. Those were fun days -but now it's just me who has returned.

One thing you will want to get around to if you haven't already is to make sure you have a gaming headset of some kind and download and set up discord. Sometimes you'll need to use the audio in-game in order to get through a quest. So make sure you figure out how to turn it on and to use it BEFORE you start trying to fellowship on a hard quest (for some reason it isn't working on my laptop and I can't figure out why)

Most kins now have a "Discord" server and require you to participate that way, being able to chat with your fellowship/raid group and your kinsfolk is really the only way to play the game. As the game gets harder after level 50, and more complicated you simply can't do any seriously fun gaming without some way of talking to your group/raid/kin. You can't play and type questions when things are flying lol. I did not really get into the game until I set up the audio.

SO FREAKING HELPFUL (regarding the mmo chat guide) and the other stuff was great as well! Thank you!