[iHoolian]

Idea

As many already know, helping beginners is a bit of a pain, and takes a bit of our own resources to help.
Well I've come up with an idea where the "Beginner's Survival Center" will rid us of all those small, yet slightly annoying tasks!

This area will provide all the newcomers with the required items for them to begin on their own quests without the aid of us oldies.( At least not as much)

Items In Mind

-Stone tools(Possibly Iron tools)
-Leather Armor(Or Iron if possible)
-A few seeds for wheat
-A Bucket
-A crafting Table
-Bread and/or Melon Slices
-Torches
-A Single Chest

Feel free to leave some suggestions along the way. I'm open to any and all!

[Prodigy9]

If the items are donated by players, then that's all fine and well. But I don't think we should start spawning items to make "kits" for new players.

[iHoolian]

No no no. I meant have items NEAR spawn; not SPAWN items.

[Prodigy9]

That's what I figured you meant, just wanted to make sure
The only issue would be getting people to distribute the items--players who are regularly online and would be willing to leave what they're doing at the drop of a hat to grab the items and bring them to /spawn when a new player logs in.

Alternatively, some method could be provided for distributing items without much input from other players. One option would be to have dispensers near spawn, but this creates the issue of players taking more than they need and quickly exhausting the available supplies (not that most of this stuff is particularly valuable, but it would then require someone to come back to refill it).

Another idea that might work, if someone near spawn agrees to dedicate a realm to the cause, is that the realm owner could ask Intelli to make the realm add permissions to all new players as they join (so that it functions like a public realm, but nobody else can purchase it); then tree farms and cobble generators could be set up, and new players could make their own basic equipment. This would, in theory, require absolutely no input of effort from the realm owner after the initial setup. This would also have some downsides though--it would require someone to basically give up an entire realm for public use (rather than just a few dispensers, or some other small component of a realm), it would require additional coding on Intelli's part (to make the auto-add realm), and it would make the beginner's area vulnerable to griefing.

[Cannabin0l]

Don't have time to read the whole thread / discussion, however I am definately for this idea.

I personally would supply a wide variety of items, such as iron tools, and basically anything you listed.

The only problem:

We could be blindly giving out items to players who aren't serious in any way about the game, or who only plan to log in once, grief, get banned, etc. I'd love to help all the new players out, but over 20% of the new players aren't going to be daily Minerealmers, let alone contributing positively to the server.

-sigh-

I wish there was some way to automatically sort out the goodies from the rif raff.

[Prodigy9]

We could be blindly giving out items to players who aren't serious in any way about the game, or who only plan to log in once, grief, get banned, etc. I'd love to help all the new players out, but over 20% of the new players aren't going to be daily Minerealmers, let alone contributing positively to the server.

-sigh-

I wish there was some way to automatically sort out the goodies from the rif raff.

True :\

How about this change to the items list, to make it less of a commitment by the players making donations and minimize the loss due to players taking items and leaving before using them:

-Stone tools(Possibly Iron tools)
-Leather Armor(Or Iron if possible)
-A few seeds for wheat
-A Bucket
-A crafting Table
-Bread and/or Melon Slices
-Torches
-A Single Chest

-Stone tools
-Leather Armor
-A few seeds for wheat
-A crafting Table
-Bread and/or Melon Slices
-Torches
-A Single Chest
-A sign

By eliminating the iron tools / armor / bucket, there is no iron required in the beginner's kit. All of the items are therefore derived from easily renewable resources--cobblestone, wood, leather, seeds, bread, and charcoal. Including the bucket would be a nice optional component, since it requires only three iron and is very useful for starting up a farm. I do think any armor provided should be leather rather than iron though--a single set of iron armor requires 24 iron pieces, which is too much given the risk that it could be quickly lost by death / ban / leaving the server. Adding the sign is intended to give players a very quick way to mark their first dirt hut as being a claimed territory, and is derived from wood, an easily renewable resource.

[BSGSamuel]

Everyone who is one the server regularly at the moment was able to their own resources. New players should be just as capable of doing so. If they really lack the intellegence or will to actually play the game, they shouldn't be on the server in the first place.

So no.

[Cannabin0l]

Everyone who is on the server regularly at the moment was able find to their own resources. New players should be just as capable of doing so. If they really lack the intellegence or will to actually play the game, they shouldn't be on the server in the first place.

So no.

Fixed.

Also, Samuel, you're missing the initial point of this.

Due to the high amount of players, most of the realms around Spawn City are already purchased and built on. This makes mining harder to get started with instantly, because most of the immediate area is already mined out, and beyond that some players don't know what fun awaits and just instantly assume that it's not worth the walk all the way out to public realms just to get started, and leave long before even reaching that point.

To be completely honest, you're likely thinking "If they don't have the will to walk that far just to get started, they shouldn't be here," but that's not how it is. Looking through the eyes of a new player, it's not worth it to spend that much walking time on a game that is otherwise supposed to be for fun, not just holding w for 2-5 minutes before getting to the already sketched out public land.

So, in synopsis, this is a highly soluble idea, and I support it.

[BSGSamuel]

I understand where you are coming from but I still disagree. There are still new dedicated players joining, even with the way spawn is now, and I think it's better to filter out the lazy players from the dedicated ones.

[hippoface]

If this does get passed, I'm all for it, I'll be one fo those people that gives out their stuff.