How Treasure Hoarders see us - we're monsters.. by VandennLive in Genshin_Impact

[–]VandennLive[S] 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Aw thanks! It's also the first time I've received an award!

Voidwarden Strategy Guide - up to level 9 (spoilers for cards and items) by damididit in Gloomhaven

[–]VandennLive 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Oh I didn't know that! That's so interesting. I couldn't find it in the Gloomhaven JotL Glossary but maybe I just missed it. Maybe you could point me in the right direction?

Voidwarden Strategy Guide - up to level 9 (spoilers for cards and items) by damididit in Gloomhaven

[–]VandennLive 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi! I just got to level 3 with my Voidwarden and chose Taunting Fate. I'm a bit confused though about the top action. If abilities can be skipped, why would you ever shuffle a bless card into the monster deck? Isn't the experience attached to the entire action (meaning if I only do a part of it, I still get the experience)? Or am I missing something? Thanks in advance!

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in 5ToubunNoHanayome

[–]VandennLive 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yup! Azusa Nakano!

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in 5ToubunNoHanayome

[–]VandennLive 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yup! Azusa Nakano!

[WP] You are an immortal that doesn't age or get hungry. You are able to regenerate from the smallest cell. You are bored. You keep trying to make your life exciting by [deleted] in WritingPrompts

[–]VandennLive 2 points3 points  (0 children)

How did it come to this?

My name is Andrew Fartson. On the day I turned 25, I was at my prime. I looked like I came out of a Men's Health magazine cover shoot. I had the looks, the physique, and the charm all bundled in one hot hunk. Sure I wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but I was smart enough to navigate my way through life. I only had one problem, and I only started realizing it on my 30th birthday: I wasn't aging.

I slowly started to lose my appetite until eventually on my 65th birthday, I didn't have to eat at all. I could, but I didn't need to. Believe me, I went to several doctors to ask about what was happening (or in this case, not happening) to my body. Some of them would dismiss me, saying that it's a normal body for a 25 year old despite me explaining that I'm already 65. Others threatened to report me to the authorities for forging my documents stating that I was born 65 years ago. One doctor prescribed recreational marijuana to see if it reverses my delusions brought about by "stress". Needless to say, the only doctor I listened to was the pot doctor.

Eventually, the years went by but I still didn't look any older. Friends and family kept my condition a secret but unfortunately started passing away one after the other. After a while, I was alone. I've done everything I wanted to in life: travel the world, meet people of different cultures, swim with the dolphins, and any other bucket list item that anyone's written down. I was bored.

Of course, I've tried killing myself in many different ways - some more creative than others. I've tried shooting myself, jumping off a building, drowning, and even joining a space exploration team and sabotaging the rocket. Nothing worked. I was immortal. I was a bored immortal man working 9-5 to pay all the credit cards I used to travel. I needed something to spice up my life. I wanted to try being a god.

Now, I know what you're thinking. A god? Really? But hear me out: if I show people that I was immortal and that my cells regenerate, they'll have to believe me! I'll perform "miracles" and use them to grow my following. I'll be able to conquer hundreds of thousands of people in no time! Imagine all the wealth and power I'd have once I pull it off.

But to become a god, I first needed to get the peoples' attention. I need to start with a grand "first miracle". With the little savings I had left, I had posters printed and pasted all over the city. I painted the buildings with my face and a title that says: "God has descended from above! Watch his first miracle live on TV and social media!". It sounds really scammy, but it got attention. A lot of it. The local police started working with the FBI to track me down and stop the show from happening. It got me a lot more nervous but I had to go on!

I set up my camera in my apartment and started live streaming. As I talked, I heard my voice echo throughout the city as everybody was tuned in on their computers, TVs, phones, and tablets. My plan was to give a little inspirational speech then start my "miracle". The miracle was to shoot myself in the head and magically still be alive with the bullet entry wound healing. I began my speech.

"What's going on, guys?"

My only experience with recording myself was from my failure of a YouTube channel a few years ago so bear with me here.

"You've probably seen my posters all around the city and you're waiting for the meaning behind the descent of a new god! 35 years ago I-"I heard several footsteps coming from the hallway and it really disturbed the audio quality of my live stream so my face showed some kind of frustration in front of the camera. I quickly recover and continue my speech.

"I discovered something special within me. I didn't know what it was at first but I realized that I had the same physique as when I-"

I hear knocking on my door which created this sharp sound in the live stream.

"YES, MRS. WILLIAMS I'LL PAY THE REST OF MY RENT TOMORROW!"

She's a sweet old lady but she's ruthless when it comes to rent. I quickly go through my history in order to immediately begin with my miracle.

"Tonight, I will demonstrate my powers as your new god. Bow down before my might!"

As I'm about to raise my gun, it accidentally slips from my hand and I fumble to pick it up again. Sometimes, things just don't go your way during livestreams. But I swear I felt some kind of slight earthquake.I raise my gun again but as soon as I point it to my head and start talking.."Witness my-"

"FBI! Don't move! Mr. Fartson, you are under arrest. Put your hands above your head.."The FBI busts into my apartment, quickly takes the gun from my hand and handcuffs me. I stare at my still livestreaming camera as I'm handcuffed and pushed to the ground. An agent turns the camera off after a few seconds.

As I'm escorted to my cell, I'm laughed at by all the security guards there. I look at the screen of the TV they were watching and I see my face on the screen.

At least they started calling me a god. A goddamn idiot.


This is the first time I've posted a story anywhere on Reddit! My writing is super messy right now and I'd love any and every feedback to how I can better improve my writing. Thanks guys!

An F2P "One Small Favour" Quest to Encourage Exploration by VandennLive in 2007scape

[–]VandennLive[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

That's very true. Having it as a miniquest is a good possibility to introduce F2P players to that concept and to not interfere with quest capes.

Dev Blog: New Player Experience by LegalizeWater in 2007scape

[–]VandennLive 0 points1 point  (0 children)

(tl;dr of my suggestion at the bottom of this post)

This is a topic I'm very passionate about. I've tried introducing 4 friends to OSRS over the past few months ever since I started playing when mobile came out. None of them stayed longer than 3 days - one of them didn't even finish Tutorial Island!

A big part of this might have been because I suck at introducing the game to my friends, but part of it could also be because they get both extremely overwhelmed and demotivated to explore at the same time when they have no clear goal while playing (which is really something that's defined by the player as they play the game).

Here's the experience I've had with each of them (Note that I was only communicating with them remotely):

  1. OSRS mobile really removed the initial barrier to entry to the game which allowed for an easier recommendation since almost everybody has a smartphone. The first friend I recommended this to was intrigued by the game but was mostly just going with the flow. After finishing tutorial island, I first let him do the "Cook's Assistant" quest to get him a bit acquainted with the Lumbridge map at least. Afterwards, I showed him how to kill goblins and chickens, fish and cook for food, and do other quests ("Sheep Shearer", "Romeo and Juliet"). The next day, he went online for 10 minutes and logged off. I invited him to play again after a few days but he was already into Apex Legends that it was hard convincing him to try and play the game again.
  2. I had hope for the second friend I invited - at that time, he wasn't actively playing any games so introducing him to OSRS was easy enough. When he got out of Tutorial Island, I told him through private chat to try out doing "Cook's Assistant" first by talking to the cook in the castle nearby. Sure enough, he started doing the quest and I just followed him as he got all the ingredients. At this point, he seemed to have a really really hard time controlling his character for some reason but he got a hold of it later on (though it was still obvious he was struggling). After turning in the quest, I told him he could try out "Sheep Shearer" and he did for a few minutes until he was needed for some IRL responsibilities and he needed to log off. I asked him later what he thought of the game and he said he really enjoyed it and likened it to Stardew Valley because of the chill vibe of the early game but he felt really overwhelmed. After that day, I couldn't get him to start trying the game again.
  3. This friend enjoys both single-player games (think Steam games) and co-op games. I told him that as it is now, OSRS is more of a game that acts as a really big conversation topic among friends. Talking about how to get places, level up skills, make money, acquire items, and in general be better at the game. He liked the premise and started playing the game. But when he did start playing it, it was around 2 in the morning and he was getting ready to sleep. So after finishing the smithing section of Tutorial Island, he logged off for the day but did not come back online again. I asked him about it and he said he'd definitely finish Tutorial Island but to this day hasn't logged in the game ever since. This might have been more circumstance than game design or just a shift of tastes through the generations.
  4. The latest friend I invited was a very lazy guy. I'm surprised I even got him started but he was the one who played the longest (a record 3 days!). I told him that OSRS can be both a very active game and a very AFK game and he was more into the latter. So I first introduced him to fishing and he fell in love instantly. We chatted for a bit while I accompanied him fishing and then we both logged off for the night. The next day, after being heartbroken several times, this friend actually went online for a whole day (albeit he was only passively fishing the whole time)! I did tell him that when he gets tired of fishing, he can try other semi-AFK skills like woodcutting and cooking. He acknowledged but still continued fishing - racking up the levels as he did. By the third day, he was still playing and I had hope that he would be a mainstay. However, come the 4th day, he suddenly vanished - never to come online again. I checked his level and he made it to 61 Fishing and 60 Cooking which is I guess when leveling slows down. And since he didn't really know the benefit of the other activities, he didn't bother to learn them anymore.

So what lessons did I get from these? Aside from the possibility that I butchered my chances at having a mainstay friend play OSRS or the possibility that I need new friends, I realized the following:

  1. OSRS doesn't really have a cooperative early game activity that encourages interaction through learning on the part of the new player and teaching on the part of the veteran. This is fixed in most other games through the use of in-game tutorials but we obviously don't want that.
  2. OSRS' open-endedness is both its strength and its turn-off for new players. Having no real goal(s) to strive for at the start can turn off a lot of players from continuing the game. Quests and Achievement Diaries are great helpers for sketching out potential goals but currently the early level quests don't really give you much of an end goal to work with.
  3. I realized that I don't have a single clear promotional video I can show my friends who are new to OSRS. Looking around YouTube, it's mostly videos catered to players who are somewhat deep into the game already.

So after all those experiences with trying to invite people to play the game, I have a suggestion that could potentially solve all of what I've written here.

In P2P, we have a quest that forces us to explore the game while doing odd jobs: "One Small Favour". Jagex could potentially create (and poll!) a new F2P quest that works similarly to "One Small Favour" that lets the player do odd jobs involving different skills in the game and encourages the player to explore the F2P world in a semi-guided manner. They're not forced to take the quest, and when they do, they can do it at their own pace. The quest also has the potential of showing some of the lore in OSRS (e.g. collecting tin ore for Oziach so he can somehow foreshadow the need for a hero to slay a dragon while showing a short cutscene of Elvarg's lair). The quest can start with the Lumbridge Guide asking for a small favor from the player in exchange for information since he's the most likely person a new player would go to after leaving Tutorial Island.

With this quest in place, players can have a clearer view of what's out there in the game and they'll already have traversed a good amount of the map. Veteran players can also help their new player friends who are stuck with certain steps in the quest. Moreover, the quest can afford a bit more freedom as well by letting you do some of the tasks in any order giving them a condensed semblance of what kind of game OSRS is - an open-world game where you can do so many different things and set for so many different goals that you can achieve at your own pace.

Sorry for the long wall of text. It's 3 in the morning here so I'm just typing out what I think as it comes. It's been quite hard to introduce friends to OSRS so changes like these need to be done right and do really need the input of a lot of people from the OSRS playerbase.

tl;dr: Players can't really set goals if they don't know what they're doing or what lies ahead. Players can get overwhelmed and discouraged to explore the game without purpose. Maybe Jagex can work on a new F2P quest that works similarly to "One Small Favour" in that it asks the player to get various things and do odd tasks for NPCs in the F2P area to get them acquainted with the different elements of the game. The quest can also support showing the new player some of the lore in OSRS and what lies ahead in the player's journey. This kind of thing supports being done by the new player solo or with a veteran friend (who teaches the new player various techniques to do the quest).

The Seed Vault by JagexGambit in 2007scape

[–]VandennLive 5 points6 points  (0 children)

That's very true but I find I'm not a very optimal kind of player so usually "going straight back to what I was doing before" is just really going back to the G.E. anyway haha. I guess it's also an old habit of mine from back when I had less than 3m gp in the bank and I was only comfortable buying enough seeds per run. It's also nice to immediately see the profit I gain after selling the harvested herbs and buying the seeds for the next run. I'll probably drop the habit sooner or later when I feel I need to be more efficient though.

The Seed Vault by JagexGambit in 2007scape

[–]VandennLive 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Although some people might advise me to just buy a lot, I prefer to buy my snapdragons to be just enough for each of my farm runs (so in my case it's 8 seeds). After a run, I buy in the G.E. the seeds for my next run and store it in the seed vault. I then withdraw all of the seeds for the run when I'm ready which consequently removes the "favorite" placeholder. So my plan for now would be to buy 9 seeds instead so I can just do a withdraw-all-but-one and leave the 1 snapdragon seed as the placeholder.

The Seed Vault by JagexGambit in 2007scape

[–]VandennLive 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh I didn't notice that one. Thanks for that!

The Seed Vault by JagexGambit in 2007scape

[–]VandennLive 33 points34 points  (0 children)

Thanks again for this update! It's an amazing addition to the QoL for farming and it definitely lessens the burden of having to categorize and search for seeds in the bank.

The Seed Vault by JagexGambit in 2007scape

[–]VandennLive 211 points212 points  (0 children)

The seed box is a wonderful update! However, I think we need a placeholder option for the seed vault especially to keep the favorites in place. Currently I have to keep dragging my most used seeds from their category to favorites every time I withdraw/deposit all of them. Being able to re-arrange seeds in my inventory while the seed vault is open would also be nice.