Interactive Backyard Guides

[Mharc]

Here's a thought...

We all know the guides in the backyard, right? They're not very bright, really. They wouldn't survive long outside of the backyard themselves and as such, they're not really fit to answer questions from newbies.

Then there are the greeters. They are very helpful, but whenever I go to the backyard to help out, I rarely see them. I don't even know if the greeter program is still active...

My idea consists of the following:
People that are willing to help out can sign up for "guide duty". Whenever a newbie asks a backyard guide a question, that question is passed on to a player that has signed up for guide duty, is online and has indicated he's available. That player will then answer the newbie's questions, through the backyard guide. Should he, by any chance, be unable to answer the question, he should be able to pass on the question to another player with a simple command.

This way, the newbie will think AO a very cool game and its programmers geniuses for writing such brilliant AI
It will take some burden off of the ARKs and will make many newbies' first steps much easier.

Of course, there would have to be some rules of conduct for the people on guide duty. I would imagine they should adhere to at least some RPing rules. Probably sign some sort of agreement. I don't know how this works for ARKs, but some similar agreement would probably be in order.

I know I would sign up straight away if this were available. It would give me a chance to RP some more, as well as help out new players.

Oh well... Let's see what everyone thinks.

[Darkbane]

An interesting idea, but probably too much work. The guides themselves could be better mind you. For example, the guid in the backyard and the one in the traning area have the same spiel, which seems to be written from the point of view of the guide in the backyard. This can lead to terrible confusion when you ask about the training area and are told how to get to it as if you were in the backyard, and not in fact standing in it...

With the swishy new npc chat interface, the guides could be more like mini interactive online manuals for the game, its just a matter of building the dialog. I'd suggest they post the guides dialog on the site an have a period for player comments before implementing it.

[________________Seid]

How about a more library like guide as I suggested here :

http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...threadid=62063

?

[Darkbane]

You could simply implement this by having a 'library terminal' which would just be an npc like the guide except it would be terminal shaped rather than guide shaped. EDIT: and be immobile obviously...

The guide would cover the basics of the game and intrface and your initial surroundings, the library terminals would be found in basic stores would cover more advanced topics and contain suggestions for each profession on useful skills.

[Animosity]

Helping n00bs is something I do on a regular basis. I usually pick one of my low level characters, and go help people out. Its difficult to do it with a high level character as they run too fast. I don't give any spoiler information nor money, and only save their butts during combat, not fight for them.

In my guild there is also opportunity to do higher level mentoring.

I would hate to be part of a formal system though, as I would be constricted in what i could do, amount of time to serve etc.

One of my main motivations for this though was when i logged into AO, a greeter popped up and gave me a 45 minute guided tour. It really really helped me.

THANK YOU TO ALL THE GREETERS OUT THERE.

ani