[Trexmaster]

The new player experience in Korvara is very hit or miss. The game's been going on for nearly 9 months now so competing with characters who've been established within the first few months of launch is very difficult, in terms of getting RP over others wanting to focus on their long-term RP partner(s). There's a lot of hurdles to jump through to see success starting out, and telling people to 'just rp' to get RP is disingenuous.

It's honestly worrying that people are dismissive of these concerns because they're able to get RP, so why can't this new player? As someone who's been playing Korvara since launch and hardly taken a break from it, I can safely say the experience of not getting yourself involved deeply with any of the factions leads to being dismissed very quickly. New players face the same issue, but now it's even harder to break past the initial struggle of gaining clout and finding a place you enjoy RPing in the environment of as most factions have their cast of popular/longtime characters who will take priority over newbies.

To make this more succinct I'll list out what I see as the current major issues new players face in trying to get into the RP of Korvara.

1. Finding RP.

This is a multi-faceted issue Korvara has, where not unlike G6, it can be very difficult to figure out where everyone even is on Korvara. The map is massive, even more so now with the addition of the new exterior areas following the First Disastrophism. Even once you master the map it takes a non-negligible amount of time to scout out public areas where people are like to congregate for RP.

I did a run around myself prior to this post with 86-89 players online, after about 15-20 minutes I'd looped the original circle of Korvara and found about 22 people. About half were either idle or clearly engaged with someone else or just doing business at an NPC vendor, so not who you'd generally want to approach for RP unless you knew them prior. So realistically about 12 people openly available (probably) to RP. Then you have to factor in "How would my character approach this person and WOULD they even approach this person?" as unless you're making a social butterfly who's the embodiment of extroversion your character isn't likely to start bothering every person they meet on sight. There might be nations your character may not want to go into, further restricting your options on top of all of that.

So if you're factoring all of that in, you might say, only want to RP around one nation, and perhaps not want to engage every single person for one reason or another. So you're likely left with about 3 people, if that. In my past experiences it was not uncommon to have literally nobody in the nation I chose to idle in for weeks at Korvara's launch.

I did not include dungeons in my run as let's be real, most people just want to grind in dungeons and standing around doing long RPs is a good way to get ganked. I watched a dude get vaporized before my eyes by a Spatial Corrupter back attack because he was trying to type at me. Don't RP and grind, kids. (this is a joke, I'll expound on this in another point).

I also excluded restricted interiors, such as prisons, barracks, leader homes, and other private areas that exist in game. This is likely where the majority of players typically are, but I cannot accurately assess this, so I can only go by who I can observe in areas a character with no special clearance is allowed to be.

2. The Lore

It's everywhere and nowhere. The massive nation lore docs (accessible on Discord™) can help get a character started via background hooks and provide guidance as to where to drive their character from creation. The accessibility of said docs depends on the Discord™, which the game nudges you towards on launch, at least. I'd honestly suggest providing a link to said lore when you select a certain nation at character creation. That way people are less likely to miss it and feel more prepared to make a char that meshes with whatever nation they want to make in.

Knowledge about recent events is more difficult to attain. It requires a lot of scrolling through Discord™ or bugging a very nice person to fill you in on relevant details of where you may be starting from, so you aren't totally lost.

The problem with trying to figure out how everything works in SL2 lore-wise in general is a larger scale issue, and more something that's been slowly rectified with the newer wiki. You have to ask a lot of questions to understand what you can and cannot do in SL2, and this can be daunting for newer players. Not much to be done for now beyond asking a GM if you're ever unsure.

3. PvE

The Grind. The main progression and what makes SL2 a game mechanically aside from beating on people. New players will be contending with this on top of their struggles to integrate into their area of choice. A lot of people are more than happy to guide newbies through the process and provide builds that can comfortably clear most PvE encounters.

The problem is its integration into the RP of Korvara. Most people simply want to focus on grinding, thus won't actively try to engage newbies wandering around PvE areas. It is of course not unheard of for people to want to jump in on other's fights to help or RP at anyone they can find in dungeons, but for people who've had to deal with PvE in their attempts to get that 9* they want from the 50+ pool of possibilities among other lengthy grinds, they usually want to kill the monsters and be on their way.

Most dungeon RPing is performed among groups of people who were already RPing prior to entering the dungeon. Since the first few months of Korvara's launch active RP in dungeons is far less common. This makes for another cause to the low number of people available to RP with in Korvara. If they're off grinding in a dungeon, you won't be able to RP with them, or it'll be extremely difficult if you can't weasel into their party somehow.

As it stands PvE in Korvara's dungeons promotes more asocial behavior, as not only do you want the monsters dead faster, you're actively competing with everyone else for limited spawns per 15 minutes, as well as chests that can possibly contain extremely hard to obtain otherwise if not outright exclusive materials  (Dragon Remains, Mushrooms, Wraps of Poultry/Beef, etc). So you want to be faster than the other guys and that means not stopping to bubble up at them, unless you're wanting to be nice and party up (if there's room). So new players get left in the dust here if they aren't being shepherded by a more experienced player.

The second and third issues would require a massive overhaul/undertaking to properly address, so I'll just focus on the first.

How do we make it better for new or yet to be established players?

All I can think of is making a more streamlined approach to creating a new character for newbies (via a step by step guide and help channel(s), and making more integrations to lore docs/notice board posts being made available in-game as opposed to only the Discord™.

[Autumn]

I'm not gonna chime in to say much, but I do think that I agree with Trexmaster in that telling people to just 'find RP' is very disingenuous and there are better solutions, for instance I believe it is more of an obligation to think of what is important to the environment more than what is fitting to your character at that time, sure if you're engaged in roleplay with someone else then yeah, by all means continue at that. 

But mostly what I speak of is that it falls to veteran players to reach out to newer players and help establish that link, as getting over that hurdle is simply daunting, and at least knowing 1 person in a whole crowd of people establishes your presence in an area and may even branch out into further links.

For example, a party in DnD might find themselves obtaining a new member to the party midway through the campaign and in that party of isolated loners, at least one person needs to reach out and say hi, find any reason at all to establish that connection, for it is important to the roleplay environment despite any OOC debates about whether your character might do this or not.

As for everyone else's opinions in the thread, please do try to draw sense from them, though SL2's community is obviously very 'for SL2', many of the people here do mean well as well, roleplay is a community that we need to partake and co-operate along with.

[MegaBlues]

Personally, I still remember my first time trying to play SL1. It was at night, and I ran into a gigantic fence that I couldn't get around while only being able to see two tiles out, and quit.

I also remember my first log-in after trying to reintegrate in Korvara after being in on hiatus for years. After finishing character creation, I was overwhelmed by being put in an unfamiliar place where I felt like I would be judged, and logged out pretty much immediately, only to come back and try roleplaying a few days later. And if I hadn't received plenty of help to make a profile and encouragement to come back, who knows if I ever would have.

As veterans, I absolutely think it's your responsibility to reach out to new players, players without profiles, players who might not roleplay fluently, etc. Trying to get started without a foundation is extremely difficult and getting snubbed once can make someone leave for good.

[1starbob]

As veterans, I absolutely think it's your responsibility to reach out to new players, players without profiles, players who might not roleplay fluently, etc. Trying to get started without a foundation is extremely difficult and getting snubbed once can make someone leave for good.

I don't think it's anyone's "responsibility" to reach out to new players. I think the people who do so are great. But it's not anyone's responsibility to specifically go out and find new players. It is however everyone's responsibility to not ignore each other- as this is an RP game, and it's not fun if you say something and just don't get a reaction. However at the same time- it's also everyone who wants RP's responsibility to go out and try to start some. If they get ignored? Then there's a problem. But if there isn't even an attempt- then it just comes across as whining.

[ItsSomeone]

As a new arrival how am I supposed to get into Korvara?

People are very spread out, there are fewer mechanics, fewer hooks to get players interacting with each other, not to mention that the crystal-hunt thing rewards solo exploration. The factions are supposed to all have a nationalist feel as a unifier but there's no mechanics to get you attached to any one group. The overuse of player housing and "dont touch this" signs only gives less reason to get invested as the early days where you could influence things are already over. (also a problem with Sigrogana but to a much lesser extent). Currently the roadsigns are still half-frozen. I want to see this insane frozen wasteland but that event is long past

And I tried to get into it. I wanted to like Korvara but if I end up aimlessly wandering around while watching others doing likewise I have to question what is the point of playing. There are just not enough hooks to get people interacting with each other. And I went through all that effort brainstorming an aquamancer/water druid and writing up a decent profile! like would the GMs even notice if i moved my aquamancer from korvara to sigrogana its not like i had more then one meaningful interaction ("oh crackers that jam just mauled the kraboid"). dunno maybe i should have done a tourist rp where i go around annoying everyone with a photography camera until the GMs tell me to stop~

I'm guessing that you guys asked for a more pure RP experience but without thinking about what you might get or how it might split the playerbase? It really is a case where people need to be careful what they ask for

Hrm? Redesign Korvara? well I would try to create a urban fantasy (yes, with sigrogana races) that takes inspiration from superhero comics and children's cartoons where absurd tech is everywhere and daily life is so often interrupted by monsters. Instead of a large empty sandbox dev time would be spent creating a densely-packed environment where player regularly run into each other and every event and location is backed up by mechanics. Rent an apartment, work a temp job, fight the government, buy a car and crash it, hide from the fifth zombie apocalypse, take good care of the environment and carve out your own niche in a world that has long sense stopped making sense. I dunno if it would be any good or if you lot would like it but in my mind its a better vision of what a second shard should

I disagree. Korvara is doing fine and I have seen plenty of new people get into it. Hell, one of them is a well respected player now. If you are having problems interacting with people on a basic level, I recommend you improve your social skills.

[caliaca]

I don't think deciding on parents and combining their traits is particularly required for creating a character.

I think Korvara is doing fine. And yes, there is more complex things than just telling people to 'just RP'.

There is something to be said for it though. I joined Korvara as a completely new player to byond several months after it started with only knowing a single person who played the game.

I saw some of the same stuff with having it difficult to RP or find people, but... I did just sort of 'just RP'. To give reasoning for why I think this worked for myself and why it may be difficult for others is that only a specific bit of character archetypes really work for when you're just getting into things. Characters that are broody or edgy will often get some chafing and push back at first, as well as not really giving you a reason to engage with others. Outgoing characters can cement yourself within the setting and help you make friends so that you can make other characters as well and have them more readily embraced.

The hard example I'll give here is that the first character I ever made was a simple bird girl who walked around and gave people flowers. She had more going on than that in her backstory, but this proved an effective way to get to know people because she was always seeking out conversation with others. Focusing on them, asking questions about their characters as well helps out a great deal because everyone likes talking about themselves. This kind of character archetype is really strong in breaking into a new RP environment because it allows others to shine, something they'll always enjoy and lets you talk to as many people as possible since you have a motivation to. She missed a lot of details about the world because she came from a secluded place in the woods as well, so I was able to discover the lore in an organic way, something that's also quite helpful and stops ya from getting overwhelmed.

From there, I made friends, made more niche characters and those friends helped me play them and it's been fantastic!

I wanted to chime in here specifically cause I did deal with what you had to do, and now one of my characters leads one of the nations. I also didn't know about the discord at first, also didn't know about any of the lore docs. There's a lot we can do better there and I've been considering different ways to get around it, things like signs at the entrance to the major nations with a link to the lore doc and a quick primer, or better, more consolidated lore but the most immediate advice I can give is to be careful with what kind of character archetype you go with. It makes a huge difference at the beginning for getting used to the experience.

Trex is right about this too, of course, I don't mean my post to contradict anything they said, but merely add to it and offer potential help.

On that note, I'm the acting lead of Geladyne at the moment. If you want or need RP or want to get inducted in the military, feel free to hit me up. I'm available to RP pretty much every day.

[Aleccia Rosewater]

Given this fanbase's glib behavior I think I will just leave you guys to your pirate-free island adventure

[Kiss]

Given this fanbase's glib behavior I think I will just leave you guys to your pirate-free island adventure

[Balor]

Firstly it is true that it is on any singular player to take accountability and responsibility for their experience, and set their expectations for their roleplay. However it is also on the part of the community to make it easier for someone to integrate into the setting, and find their footing.

When I first started playing SL2 if it weren't for well established players I would not have had any meaningful interactions or a desire to stay in G6, let alone Korvara. While there were issues with their complaints and suggestions. The fact that the unilateral consensus from some was "I'm having fun, why aren't you?"

Is disappointing. You're not being the neighbor Mister Rogers believed you could be.

[Rexan]

As a person who came to SL2 as a flat-out no one, no links to the community before hand, no real experience baring maybe, a days worth of play a year before I really settled in for the long-haul, me staying or going ABSOLUTELY depended on those two-three people who picked the nervous wallflower out of the crowd and pushed them to break their, well, wallflowering a bit.

Is this the exact same case one-for-one? No, not really. Should every player feel some weighing obligation that they NEED to help new players? Of course not. Especially when you consider how casual some people play SL2. But the way I see it is, if you're in a position where you can give a new player RP--even if it's using say, your role as a leader/semi-leader to give them a inane task for them to push towards. What's the harm? We certainly don't want to be seen as a community who leave their new players floating adrift in a sea of unfamiliarity, are we? Everyone can say 'Well I did just fine when I joined' but the point should be clear that you aren't them. And that's fine. But people have to be a little kinder to new players, rather then simply turning a nose up and essentially telling them to 'get good'.

I won't say I agreed with EVERY point that was made, but I also don't think writing it off as a nothing-burger is so very productive to this thread's purpose, either.