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1

General Discussion / Re: My first battle on Layonara

« on: April 10, 2006, 01:20:26 AM »

Thank you GMs for all your comments. I certainly had no intention of blaming the Project team or GMs for the difficulties I experienced. I thought it might be useful for you to see it from a confused novice's point of view.

VGN, you are absolutely correct, this is my first online game. I have wanted to try one for a long while and on a couple of occasions actually used NWN screens to try to join various games with zero success. It always appeared that I was expected to have a knowledge and understanding that I didn't possess (and that I didn't know how to acquire). It was an exclusive club from which I was barred.

I knew from the detail, your Forums would contain everything I needed. Indeed the sheer scale of the information available is extremely impressive. However for a newbie it also appeared daunting and was hard to determine what information I needed and where on the site to find it.

Like all impatient people, I just wanted to see what the game was like first. For years, I have played RPGs in the same style - load it, try it out for a little while, stop, read every bit of information provided - then play it for real. Once I know to what it is refering, I find the documentation more understandable and easy to follow.

I do appreciate that Layonara is hardly a suitable environment for doing this. Without active GM intervention, it would be chaos - all credit to you.

Really my suggestion was for a Newbie corner - not just a Q & A - more a "follow this steps to success". (The Idiot's Guide to on-line gaming).

Leanthar, I hadn't realised that your email links took me to an out-of-date page. I used your email link again and again to access the Downloads and thought it led to the same version of the page as the Downloads link Main Page top-right corner. I am glad that I only have to manage people who write the company's Intranet!!

Anyway thank you guys again - assuming I can find any time to play, I look forward to being beaten over the head by you as I crash around your world leaving chaos in my wake.

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General Discussion / My first battle on Layonara

« on: April 09, 2006, 04:18:15 PM »

Hi guys – I am finally able to play on Layonara – fantastic!!

Firstly my thanks to Dezza and Leathar for their patience and the help they gave me as I continued to struggle to get into that world

It may sound as though I am over-critical but really I had a terrible struggle to find the information necessary to join your merry band. I thought if I wrote down some of the problems I met, it might be of use

Once I entered the forums I was totally overwhelmed by the amount of information that was made available to me. It was very difficult to know where to start. After looking at other player’s comments on the boards, I am not the only stupid “grunt in the village”

The new player’s main aims are
1>   Create a suitable player character
2>   Get that character approved by the GMs
3>   Download a string of files necessary to play the game – placing them in the correct NWN directories
4>   Read and understand the Rules of the Playing Environment
5>   Access the Server to which they have been allocated
6>   Start to play

I stumbled repeatedly at every step

My first issue came with the different usernames and passwords. I thought the original email username/password would give me access not only the forums but the server as well. I didn’t appreciate these two concepts are quite separate.

I could not readily find the info on creating a character – so I copied the style of another player. After a GM interrogated me about deities, it was obvious that my first attempt at a Paladin was too superficial. I knew I would have to spend more time studying these areas – so I chose another character - the easiest of the lot – a grunt.

I think it would be helpful for a new player if there was an online form with simple instructions to follow. Pointers could then link the player to the more obscure points.

After several false starts, I hadn’t realised I had finally received approval because I thought the GMs had deleted my thread.

The right-hand panel of http://www.layonaraonline.com/downloads.asp is out-of-date. This meant that I installed the earlier version of some files which caused me to fail when I finally got attached to the server.

The rules for D&D Version 3 could be a University Degree course in their own right. Add to that the local rules for Layonara and a new player could spend a week trying to take it all in. Again it would be most helpful if there were a high-level “The essentials you must know”

After my character was approved I hadn’t a clue what to do next. I thought the DM probably had created the character for me and saved it on the server. But how did I connect to it?

For a newbie “The connection with the server” should be spelled out clearly. The Layonara Loader provided with the software does not work and caused a hang-up. With NWN there are so many pitfalls trying to get through their entry screens. Even when I finally saw the server, I repeatedly got told I had used an invalid password. (This was because I had pressed the option DM Client button on the first screen).

Now that I am finally on Layonara my next problem will come in using all the character functionality that remained unused on the single player game. Ideally I would have liked to stay in a practice area to familiarise myself with it before I met the other players.

I was tempted to promote my lowly Fighter to Samurai and fall on my sword “Sayonara” – but hopefully I will persevere!!

I hope this may have been of some help