I understand exactly where your coming from.

Mara C should be the focal jack in point again like back in beta.

Obviosly the collector trail is meant to lead the new players to areas such as mara C but surely this was more key when the game was at least medium to high population at more times than just events.

I think whoever the DEV or lead person in this game is now should make this very minor change to possibly keep some of the potential new players to this game just by jacking them in, in a populated area eg Mara C.

To be honest I ave been in this game since retail release and the though of running round Uriah still makes me YAAAWWWNNNN!

Cummon guys lets do something to keep these potential players

And as for you giving a welcome gift to the noobies! Good work dude! Glad to see you are coming up with some ideas to draw people in to the game and yur only 3 weeks old and lvl 33! well done to you sir! *Salutes*

Unnecessary imo. Perhaps if that lvl 9 was on Recursion and didn't see anyone around was because there wasn't many people to see at that time?

Of course Uriah makes you yawn, starting areas tend to become boring if you've been playing for a while. Uriah is a great place to learn about the games Mechanics from the get go and it isn't long at all before the collectors send you to Tabor (which, on Syntax, isn't always populated mind you) or the intro missions send you to the vicinity of Mara C (which almost always has one or two people hanging around) or your level greatly surpasses that of the local gangs in which case why hang around Uriah? Why not explore the adjacent areas? Is it such a bad concept to explore places other than the starting area when you've outgrown it? Mara C, probably the most populated area in all 3 servers, is so close to Uriah it makes any suggested game changes a pointless waste of the 1 or 2 Dev's time we have.

Mind you, concerning the call for making Uriah the place to PvP, I don't see any reason not to give it a whirl. It'd make a change like the occasions when PvP moves from Mara C to Tabor W, although there have been numerous attempts to permanently drag PvP away from Mara C in the past with little success. 

Still, no need to change the place as it is though, large parking lot, benches, places to run and snipe from etc.. although I very much doubt we'd see a drastic increase of new players. Perhaps retain one or two, fine but the main problem of MxO is that many potential players think it's dead before they set foot in Uriah, before they even install the game.

I disagree. I think a simple move like that could drop players right in the population alot of players from what I have found dont tend to bother with the collectors after the first one. So the collector chain is broken.

Dropping the players in a high population zone would make them see exactly where people are.

And the reason I am around Uriah is the fact I use it to Change Loadouts and Apparel Combos because it is so dead and no interruptions.

And to be honest Uriah serves no perpous now as a good place to start the game as its dead and most people probably think..... Hmm its dead back to WoW. (< Personally I hate WoW)

Anyways this is all my personal opinion and to be honest would anyone actually have a big reason why they shouldnt drop newbies at Mara even if it was mara NW?

Something needs to be done to plug the whole that the new people are leaking out of. They dissapear.

Uriah is a good starting point since the npcs are low, the whole trail starts there with informative npcs & collectors. In the last year the area has been improved to help new players.

There is a decent amount of new people coming to MxO and Uriah each day, this is not the first time I have seen someone who has been playing a whole day come into contact with another player for the first time. I think the answer in this case is a server merge.

i think a recursion/syntax server merge would be awesome, then new players coming into the game would most likely meet each other and be more encouraged to go round together, at the end of the day yes the collectors lead you to mara, but i ignored them and a month later im lvl 35, it just takes dedication, i threw myself in at the deep end and learnt faster, but other people may not be like that and quit because the game seems dead

Ra2za wrote:

Anyways this is all my personal opinion and to be honest would anyone actually have a big reason why they shouldnt drop newbies at Mara even if it was mara NW?

Yes, because the first intro mission has always (for me) taken a new player past Mara NW anyway then on past Mara C. Not only that but it's an area where the NPC's are 2-3 levels above them which would make levelling up harder, they'd miss all the starting info in Uriah and also the collector trail starts there. It makes sense for them to start right at the top where the NPC's pose no threat and their time spent in Uriah, if they're not hanging around, would be fairly short.

Forget that you're bored of the area or that it serves no purpose to you, to new players it's all new, the NPC's give them instructions on how to do stuff and where to go next. If people want to ignore the NPC's then that's their own perogative.

If anyone is truely worried about new players thinking the game is dead when they step foot in Uriah, how about changing your usual HL to hang around at to Uriah SW.

As I said, pointless change imo. Admittedly a Recursion/Syntax merge would go some way to improving the population numbers and perhaps new player retention.

Croesis wrote:

Ra2za wrote:

Anyways this is all my personal opinion and to be honest would anyone actually have a big reason why they shouldnt drop newbies at Mara even if it was mara NW?

Yes, because the first intro mission has always (for me) taken a new player past Mara NW anyway then on past Mara C. Not only that but it's an area where the NPC's are 2-3 levels above them which would make levelling up harder, they'd miss all the starting info in Uriah and also the collector trail starts there. It makes sense for them to start right at the top where the NPC's pose no threat and their time spent in Uriah, if they're not hanging around, would be fairly short.

Forget that you're bored of the area or that it serves no purpose to you, to new players it's all new, the NPC's give them instructions on how to do stuff and where to go next. If people want to ignore the NPC's then that's their own perogative.

If anyone is truely worried about new players thinking the game is dead when they step foot in Uriah, how about changing your usual HL to hang around at to Uriah SW.

As I said, pointless change imo. Admittedly a Recursion/Syntax merge would go some way to improving the population numbers and perhaps new player retention.

but noone pays any attention to that, your right its their own perogative, but its for a reason, its boring, nobody cares about it, therefore when noone cares about something in a business, they adapt it to suit their customers needs, thats all that would be being done here, changing what people dont bother with, and introducing something everybody would use and benefit from, thats fundemental to a sucessful MMORPG

When it's based on more than one or two occurrences yes. But I've seen plenty of new players running around with the industrial collector items which seems to suggest to me that not all new players think that the NPC intro is boring or they tolerate it enough. Even so, those who do find it boring can either explore around and find their own way, like you did, or they can hang around Uriah not knowing what's going on or what to do next until they happen upon another player who'll tell them exactly what the NPC's point out. Plus the collector objectives also help the player gain some $info and a few levels very quickly.

If new players wanna quit because they can't be bothered following a dead easy intro NPC route or they don't wanna explore the short distance to Mara C to find people, let them. We don't have the population such as WoW so if it's masses of players they wanna find here, even Mara will be a disappointment to them.

My opinion hasn't changed and I've seen no real reason for it to. Besides, I doubt we'd see this happen anyway.

but its a massive city, to try and find your way to mara c is hard knowing that people are hanging out there, you could go 100 ways, thats like saying manchester is only a short distance from sheffield but if you land someone in the middle of manchester and tell them sheffield is only a short way away they arent gonna be able to walk there or find it easily without hyper jump, plus i only found out that Mara C is where people hang out by asking on the forums, and unless a player did what i did and went looking for a map of all hardlines, they are all hidden away, it isnt as easy as you say it is now to start from scratch, perhaps in the old days when the game was heavily populated but now, its a barren wasteland with no help for new players unless they either check the forums or go lookign for the 4 year old guides on what to do

plus, mara C is only populated in certain timezones, if they did manage to synch it there could still be noone there depending on their timezone, this is why you rely on player help, i synched all the hardlines in richlands in one night back when i was level 7/8, and i didnt see a single player, that includes Mara C, i had to be told by someone o nthe forums that people hang out there or Tabor Park

As far as I recall there are only three routes out of Uriah on foot, 2 of them are close to the Uriah SW HL and both go into Mara, the third is in the opposite direction, across the other side of Uriah, and takes the player to the border of Tabor and Mara. The minimap easily shows the vendors and monument so anyone paying attention would more than likely head in that direction.

As for your analogy if I were dropped off in Manchester and was told to make my way to Sheffield I'd follow the roadsigns. Boring but efficient.

Also yes I agree Mara C can occasionally be dead, moreso on Vector and Recursion so assuming a new player would get dropped off there, what makes it any different to Uriah apart from the fact that they won't have any clue what to do as there are no NPC 'signposts' there?

If new players are gonna stick around they're gonna have to get used to desolation else once again they'll be disappointed when it comes to actually realising that there are hardly any other population centres other than Mara and a couple of RP hotzones.

Croesis wrote:

As far as I recall there are only three routes out of Uriah on foot, 2 of them are close to the Uriah SW HL and both go into Mara, the third is in the opposite direction, across the other side of Uriah, and takes the player to the border of Tabor and Mara. The minimap easily shows the vendors and monument so anyone paying attention would more than likely head in that direction.

As for your analogy if I were dropped off in Manchester and was told to make my way to Sheffield I'd follow the roadsigns. Boring but efficient.

Also yes I agree Mara C can occasionally be dead, moreso on Vector and Recursion so assuming a new player would get dropped off there, what makes it any different to Uriah apart from the fact that they won't have any clue what to do as there are no NPC 'signposts' there?

but you dont have roadsigns in mxo lol "11 miles to mara" or whatever so thats not the point, as im saying if you were in an mxo situation its hard to find its way there, and yes there may be 2 routes there but its not direct, theres tons of streets to encounter to get there, you have to go up steps etc and go running round all sorts of corners to get there, so for the route there, theres probably 15 side routes that go elsewhere

and as ive said, this would all mean you would have to know with prior knowledge, that Mara C was the main hang out, new players how are they going to know you all hang out at mara and they have to go there? for all they know you could all hang out in Kedemon, theyre gonna have to go round every hardline in game before they find the place people hang out at?

Droppign them at Mara C would just give them a much much bigger chance of people being there, as Uriah is permanently dead, any new players spawning will have people at Mara C who can help them rather than having to try and find out where everyone is before getting there

ZarlakQUAM wrote:

but you dont have roadsigns in mxo lol "11 miles to mara" or whatever so thats not the point, as im saying if you were in an mxo situation its hard to find its way there, and yes there may be 2 routes there but its not direct, theres tons of streets to encounter to get there, you have to go up steps etc and go running round all sorts of corners to get there, so for the route there, theres probably 15 side routes that go elsewhere.

and as ive said, this would all mean you would have to know with prior knowledge, that Mara C was the main hang out, new players how are they going to know you all hang out at mara and they have to go there? for all they know you could all hang out in Kedemon, theyre gonna have to go round every hardline in game before they find the place people hang out at?

Droppign them at Mara C would just give them a much much bigger chance of people being there, as Uriah is permanently dead, any new players spawning will have people at Mara C who can help them rather than having to try and find out where everyone is before getting there

Heaven forbid new players should explore around a bit. The NPC's direct you where to go next, so yes there are 'roadsigns', all it takes is one to say a large number of operatives can occasionally be seen near the Mara monument (identifiable on the minimap). Out of the two routes into Mara one leads directly to the church, the stairs lead either to Mara NW between the buildings, or again to the church following the road with locations of Mara C's vendors easily seen (again on the minimap). Couple that with the intro missions taking you very close to Mara NW and C very quickly anyway.

Still, whatever. Relocating PvP to Uriah is a lot better idea than changing the first entry location and it's the only one I think with half a (small) chance of happening.

ZarlakQUAM wrote:

Croesis wrote:

As far as I recall there are only three routes out of Uriah on foot, 2 of them are close to the Uriah SW HL and both go into Mara, the third is in the opposite direction, across the other side of Uriah, and takes the player to the border of Tabor and Mara. The minimap easily shows the vendors and monument so anyone paying attention would more than likely head in that direction.

As for your analogy if I were dropped off in Manchester and was told to make my way to Sheffield I'd follow the roadsigns. Boring but efficient.

Also yes I agree Mara C can occasionally be dead, moreso on Vector and Recursion so assuming a new player would get dropped off there, what makes it any different to Uriah apart from the fact that they won't have any clue what to do as there are no NPC 'signposts' there?

 

but you dont have roadsigns in mxo lol "11 miles to mara" or whatever so thats not the point, as im saying if you were in an mxo situation its hard to find its way there, and yes there may be 2 routes there but its not direct, theres tons of streets to encounter to get there, you have to go up steps etc and go running round all sorts of corners to get there, so for the route there, theres probably 15 side routes that go elsewhere

 

and as ive said, this would all mean you would have to know with prior knowledge, that Mara C was the main hang out, new players how are they going to know you all hang out at mara and they have to go there? for all they know you could all hang out in Kedemon, theyre gonna have to go round every hardline in game before they find the place people hang out at?

 

Droppign them at Mara C would just give them a much much bigger chance of people being there, as Uriah is permanently dead, any new players spawning will have people at Mara C who can help them rather than having to try and find out where everyone is before getting there

Back in early release you were actually dropped off at a number of random lowbie areas, like Camon, Applollyn NW, Mara C, Achan, etc.  A the time the districts didn't flow low to high like it does now as you go south.  Thats why you still see little info guys welcoming you to the Matrix at random places like Appollyn which you wouldn't expect a level 2.  Then I think in late 2005 early 2006 we had a district "reflow" and reset the NPC levels from low to high as you went south, with the intro Uriah missions added.

I know people do the Uriah collectors cause occasionally I do see ppl farming keys.  Plus, at some point you will do a regular mission, right?  I don't see how you could miss Mara.

So I don't think they'll rollback the district reflows, unfortunately.  But, I see no reason why an NPC can't advise you to go to Mara to let them know that's where most redpills congregate (its even a funny line in one of the old critical missions, I remember seeing a mission NPC when seeing a lot of people saying, "What is this, Mara Cenral?"  hehe).

Also, server merge.