Hey folks. Just wanted to take time to make a suggestion. Keep in mind that
I've been thoroughly happy with the game, am about a week in, and have spent
as much time studying guides and such as playing. I don't mind the steep
learning curve. I've completed (and read) every tutorial. However, this
post system has a terrible bug/unexpected consequence. As a new player I
wandered around early on and got killed mercilessly. No problem. my choice.
I decided to stick with newbie areas. that worked. As I was reading advice
for newbs online I saw that exploring should be high. I decided to explore
all of the newbie areas. Using the portal I went from location to location
in the newbie areas exploring. this is fine. a draw back is I had no clue
where I was when I ported. I stayed in the "baby pen" if you will because it
was designed that way. At one point I died and accept a raise and went to a
city I'd never seen. After spending an hour and asking for help to find my
way back I stopped accepting player resses. I wanted to keep control of where
I was until I learned it. However, as I explored the newbie areas when I died
and accepted the NPC ress... I would get warped to multiple cities I'd never
seen. Now, this is fine if you know how to pop around, know the archways,
know eisiris nad how it works, and ferries. but there was nothing in the
tutorials about any of that up to this point. The system is helplessly
getting folks lost. I was so furious that despite being so happy up till now
i just about logged out for good. I would suggest that either the
other-continent areas are taken off the portal list, tutorials are added about
how to use eisiris ferries or portals, or adjust ress/raise to always send <30
to newbie areas. if not a combination of multiple of these. And
especially... adjust something so that by the time the player loses the newbie
crystal portal they should be familiar with moving around the world. If
they've paid attention at least. Thanks for taking the time to read.

There really isn't any baby pen. There are some areas which are aimed towards
newbies and the newbie posts provide a shortcut to getting to them, but they
are not intended to be 'safe areas' or follow different rules from the rest of
the mud. Some of the newbie posts point to areas where only part of them are
suitable for newbies -- Diggas comes to mind, where part of it is newbie
friendly and even contains an early level quest, but there's also a section
where if you wander in as a newbie you'll likely just splat to aggro trolls.

The problem is in seeing going to the major city on a continent as an obstacle
to exploring rather than seeing it as a redirection and an opportunity in your
exploration, one which is quite frankly much more important to be familiar with
than anything else you were exploring.

Yes, there isn't a difference between how player and NPC ress works. (help
death)

This was a good opportunity to learn, multiple opportunities from the sounds of
things. Yes, learning to navigate the continents can be challenging, but it's
super core to the game.

I dunno what to tell you. Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see you ask for help
at all until you started complaining about the newbie posts. As a general rule
people are super helpful, especially where newbies are concerned. We understand
you're learning and a little help can go a long way. I know at least two other
people who often hang out on the newbie channel who probably would've even gone
to help shepherd you back to laenor/dortlewall if you'd needed it, but I
suspect with a bit direction you could've found your own way without too much
trouble.

Now we're actually to the meat of it: you're absolutely right, there's a *lot*
of room to improve how long distance travel is taught. It's an area which both
seems to have been neglected in the tutorial system and is also fairly critical
to playing with any amount of success, as you've discovered. My question to you
is: do these suggestions actually improve how a new player learns to travel or
do they just put it off?

The newbie posts really serve as a 'hook' to get you away from sitting in
Dortlewall killing pigeons and shoveling Crystite. I believe their intent was
originally to show off some of the other areas which might be appropriate for a
newbie to explore. Perhaps instead of being bi-directional they could be
changed to provide one additional 'tutorial' room with information about long
distance travel, including both ferries and Esiris, clearly set the expectation
that you're responsible for finding your way back, and drop you at the entrance
to the area. I think it would be kind to enable some way back from St. Patrics,
but I was born in the flower, molded by it. This would also deal with the other
edge case where you take a level while exploring that puts you over the exp
limit for the posts.

This would:
A) continue to provide a hook into the various 'newbie' areas
provide an intro to long distance travel at a more natural point than
cramming it into a tutorial room where it's just going to be forgotten
C) more clearly reflect that these areas are not segregated from the mud in any
way, or any kind of 'baby pen', they're just areas which are likely to be of
particular interest to newbies
D) promote some degree of practice with long distance travel, since it's a
one-way trip