When I Was a Newbie...

[Akaramu]

I'm still a newbie 

[FantasyWriter]

I rode a kank through the labyrinth.... AND LIVED!

[Fathi]

*  Had inix and kank mixed up for about two or three months, because 'inix' sounded more like the name of a bug to me.

You are not the only one. I figured if kanks were insects, they'd have 'beetle' by their name. Like 'war beetle.'

When I was a newbie, I poisoned myself by eating a Very Obviously Unsafe food item. Three times in a row. And then I ran around looking for the bastard that poisoned my food stash.

[brytta.leofa]

I rode a kank through the labyrinth.... AND LIVED!

How did you get-- I mean, the-- you can't--

New focus.

[FantasyWriter]

I rode a kank through the labyrinth.... AND LIVED!

How did you get-- I mean, the-- you can't--

New focus.

Rode all the way to the bar on the east side IIRC.

[mansa]

If I recall, there is a reason why the entrances to the 'rinth are coded "nomount"

I remember Delerak showing his account notes, and getting a negative comment for his "subdue mount/throw mount north" to bypass the code.

[Zhaira]

My first character was a little girl whose VNPC mother lived in the 'rinth, and she would go south, to get things like food and water for her, because she was sick.  I never spent much time northside, though, because it seemed too hard to navigate.

One day, while up in the 'rinth, a scary half-elf running the Guild took me to their bar and had his snaggle-toothed guard look after me (Tusk, I think?).  He told me to stay put and he would be back soon.  He logged out, and Tusk and I sat there for something like four RL hours until she just asked if she could go now and he shrugged and told her OK.

I later ran to Kroz to tell him, since he seemed important.  He took pity on her, gave her 400 coins, and told her not to go northside anymore.  She exclaimed to him that the scary guy said he was going to kill a templar!  Kroz seemed nonplussed.

I immediately ran into the bazaar and bought a black silk skirt from the tailor.  It cost about 400 coins.

Later, a Kadian friend I made took me into the desert to teach me how to fight.  He gave me a lesson in combat, and then we saw a beetle nearby.  "Hurry!" he said, "I'm.. too parched!  I need water! Run to the city and get water!".  I ran as fast as I could, but I didn't know where or how to get water.  I went through the bazaar and couldn't find any.  I eventually went to the Gaj, bought some beer, and tried to bring it to him, but it turns out the beetle killed him.

The beetle attacked me, so I did 'get all corpse'.  The beetle killed me and I got an in-game mail from Halaster:

"Do you mind exactly telling me HOW you were looting a corpse IN THE MIDDLE OF COMBAT???"

I felt pretty bad about it but figured he had a point.

---

For my second character, I made a merchant, because I thought it'd be cool to be able to make armour.  Then everyone would like me!  I fell into a hole in the salt flats.  You can imagine how this worked out.

---

The third, I made an assassin in the 'rinth.  Her name began with an 'X', which was supposed to be scary.  She was very pretty, but had a cut across her face that had scarred!  How tragic.  She was later killed a twitchy, slack-jawed man.  How rude.

---

Some time passed.  I had been unable to understand and follow the docs sometimes, because it was confusing.  I played a character who was completely mentally handicapped; this was right after there was a big storm in Red Storm that partially destroyed it.  I decided she had been some kind of great wizard hanging out there, and then the cataclysm came, and she worked a magic spell to teleport her to safety, but it fried her brain and memory.  She was a merchant, so I bought her lots of nice clothes at Minna's.  Ihsahn immediately had her work for him, despite the fact that I played her like she was retarded.

Shylon Borsail bought her from Ihsahn for a pleasure slave because she was an awful aide.  He gave her nice clothing and eventually took her up to Silverwood, where she was to stay with the other Borsaili visiting up there.  I stopped playing for a bit and when I logged back in, I discovered he and his family were dead and I was the sole survivor.  This put me in an interesting predicament, and this was the first time I started using 'think'.  I eventually stored her after another hiatus, because it was too confusing, but she was probably my first real attempt.

---

My fifth character, still about six or seven years ago or so, perhaps, I made a girl with a quirri tail who got involved in tons of plots and was eventually executed up north by a Lirathan templar on a mission for Tor.  She was my first real character.  I got a nice note about her, so I decided to special app for a void elementalist.

---

I played my void elementalist, and stopped being a newbie about two days in.

[FiveDisgruntledMonkeysWit]

If I recall, there is a reason why the entrances to the 'rinth are coded "nomount"

I remember Delerak showing his account notes, and getting a negative comment for his "subdue mount/throw mount north" to bypass the code.

epic lulz.
Oh, Delerak. I hereby dub thee, "Delerak the Kank-Chucker."

[musashi]

My ranger attacked his first gurth ... and I had no idea what to do with it when it went into its shell ... so I brought it back into Tuluk and asked someone.

[Thunkkin]

My ranger attacked his first gurth ... and I had no idea what to do with it when it went into its shell ... so I brought it back into Tuluk and asked someone.

This just made my day.

[Riev]

Did that with my first bahamet. I think I was playing a magicker, and ended up getting some help to move the "shell" for a while until I figured out what needed to be done.

Could NOT figure out the syntax.

[jcljules]

My ranger attacked his first gurth ... and I had no idea what to do with it when it went into its shell ... so I brought it back into Tuluk and asked someone.

This just made my day.

Pshht that's nothing. I put one in my pack and went back to Luirs, only to have it burst open in the middle of the Storms End.

[Archbaron]

My ranger attacked his first gurth ... and I had no idea what to do with it when it went into its shell ... so I brought it back into Tuluk and asked someone.

This just made my day.

Pshht that's nothing. I put one in my pack and went back to Luirs, only to have it burst open in the middle of the Storms End.

My character used to throw them off cliffs with his friends as part of a game.

[Is Friday]

My ranger attacked his first gurth ... and I had no idea what to do with it when it went into its shell ... so I brought it back into Tuluk and asked someone.

This just made my day.

Pshht that's nothing. I put one in my pack and went back to Luirs, only to have it burst open in the middle of the Storms End.

My character used to throw them off cliffs with his friends as part of a game.

My Bynner and her Corporal played a joke on their Sergeant by putting it in his chest in the storeroom. It broke the chest when it popped out and his things went everywhere.

Also, a guard mul creamed it.

[Archbaron]

My ranger attacked his first gurth ... and I had no idea what to do with it when it went into its shell ... so I brought it back into Tuluk and asked someone.

This just made my day.

Pshht that's nothing. I put one in my pack and went back to Luirs, only to have it burst open in the middle of the Storms End.

My character used to throw them off cliffs with his friends as part of a game.

My Bynner and her Corporal played a joke on their Sergeant by putting it in his chest in the storeroom. It broke the chest when it popped out and his things went everywhere.

Also, a guard mul creamed it.

I've always wanted to plant one in someone's pack in the Gaj.

[musashi]

Gurth ... the best practical jokes in all Zalanthas.

Bahamet are probably quite funny as well, but better placed inside argosaries or spacious aparments.

[PerpetualPatriot]

When I was a newbie, I was inducted into House Kurac as a guardsman. I found the first linkdead player I could distinguish from the NPCs and repeatedly backstabbed said person with training daggers until their untimely demise(bastards can't fight back linkdead right? Wrong. Rested that character five times between each backstab because of the ass whooping he was getting). Dragged the body across an entire training yard, attempted to hide it behind a furnace, all before heading out of the Outpost to sell the newly obtained items within Tuluk. Upon returning to the Outpost, I was made into a nice stiff, training dummy for others to practice throwing knives at until said character died.

[Gobbleneck]

When I was a newbie I:
-Played an unintentionally very coy 'rinthi assassin based in 'Nak.  Anytime I'd get questioned by Templars, I'd just be like "what basket?" and so-on because I didn't even know what I was carrying.  But I tried to play it out.
-Got blown into the desert and killed when I walked into the Gaj one time.  I thought it was IC-knowledge to know that the Gaj was magickal after that, and would always avoid it and think people were trying to kill me when they invited me to the Gaj. :/
-Got lost in the 'rinth every time I went in.  And seemed to ALWAYS end up in the same area with the same hostile NPCs, no matter if I wrote down what directions I took or not.
^This happened for at least 4 characters straight.
-Thought subdue sounded cool so tried subduing someone in the middle of a bar.
-Called Templars "Sir".
-Didn't know there were weapons in the game, so I always used my fists and thought my characters just sucked at fighting.
-Didn't know you could .c when app'ing characters.  I had at least one with two of the same long descriptions stacked together... it was ridiculous.  Would OOC: "Yeah, I know." anytime someone >looked at him because I was so pissed.
-Didn't read the docs nor the room descriptions and presumed the sky was blue, the grass green, and trees were everywhere.  Also thought his hooked knife was made out of metal.

[DustMight]

My very first pc found himself speaking to a half-giant guard and asking him if he was a PC.  He said "Does it matter?"
I was hooked.

I remember squinting at the screen trying to see through the sandstorm.  That character died quickly.

My very next character, a water mage, walked from Luir's to Allanak (without knowinga about Allanak) through the desert (the tablelands, I think) without following a road until he hit the silt road.  Chased by NPC elves, I have no idea how he made it.  I miss that character most of all.  Maybe I just miss that mindset - everything seemed new and magickal.

[musashi]

Maybe I just miss that mindset - everything seemed new and magickal.

I miss my first PC for this very reason. Everything was new and interesting and awesome and I didn't really notice "the grind" as he happily toiled in the wilds hunting gurth and tregil.

Got him fairly competent and involved in plots and the like and when he died and I started a new character ... I felt the grind. Felt it good and hard.

[Thunkkin]

I've had the opposite experience.  The more I know about the game world and the more I understand how to make the game's mechanics work in accordance with how I imagine my character, the more I enjoy the game.  Mystery is great, but I prefer to know what I'm doing.  (Though, I know most people don't feel this way!).  My first long-lived character was often an exercise in frustration and feeling stupid as I faced things that my character would know, but I did not know, and tried to do basic tasks that should be simple, but I didn't understand the mechanics yet.

[Gunnerblaster]

When I was a newbie...
- I was afraid to leave the Gaj.
- I tried to mimic the npc's in the Gaj.
- I didn't know about stats until character #6.
- I bowed to everyone & called them "Lord" & "Lady".
- Thought 'kick <mount>' was a skill used to spur your mounts onwards.
- Thought scrabs were small yellow beetles.

[Hubris]

- Thought scrabs were small yellow beetles.

-Thought "look mekilot" was a good idea the first time I saw one.  

- Thought 'kick <mount>' was a skill used to spur your mounts onwards.

-Couldn't figure out why "punch whoever" wasn't working in the bar. So I used kick.

[Chettaman]

I kicked a mekillot

[Bogre]

My ranger attacked his first gurth ... and I had no idea what to do with it when it went into its shell ... so I brought it back into Tuluk and asked someone.

I think I remember this.