Talya (Leanon)
Depends on the newbie - every human being is different. I don't really like to ask stuff ingame. Back in 2008 I didn't even get any answers when asking my first question about the game on the Universe-chat at primary time...*snip* Apart from that, the customer retention IMHO is better when newbies are guided *into* and *within* the game and enabled to experience Atys on their own.
Why don't we try to learn by studying the old "newbie forum"? Like the german one: http://forums.ryzom.de/forumdisplay.php?f=89 This forum had 3,568 threads (!) since 2004. Does this look like an "useless" forum to you? ;)
* you could find important informations (how to contact the support, don't give out passwords), "tutorials" and/or "tips and tricks for newcomers" in there. It was a place to find a lot of useful information about the game - stuff that wasn't covered on the homepage - easily at one glance
* experienced players would use the forum as a way to talk to newcomers, offer their help and tell them about stuff they thought important
* some newbies liked that forum as an opportunity to just say "hello, I'm new" or "hello, I'm back"
* some newbies gave their feedback about their first impression of the game there or stated their opinions to threads and topics in the main-forum where they weren't allowed to write at that time
* and of course newbies DID ask questions at the time the old forum was still active - masses of questions
- they asked about technical problems, like with installing and starting the game. They weren't able to ask about that ingame because their game didn't even run yet. There's a Linux- and a Mac-version too today so there might be even more questions about technical issues. Okay, I know that non-registered players can use the technical forum - but will the newcomers themselve realize this? MMORPG-experienced newbies might be used to go to the "new-player-forum" to ask about technical problems...
- there have been questions in the old "newbie-forum" about the size of the community, about how many players would engage in PvP (which cannot be described on the homepage of course), if this or that kind of feature was ingame (but maybe not listed on the homepage), what about this or that they've been hearing about, which kinds of actions would be allowed, about what skills they should learn first/soon, about the Ryzom Ring (R2), about events, treks, prime-roots, crafting, harvesting, roleplaying, when would be the best time to leave Silan, and hundreds of other common questions
- and of course they didn't only ask about facts but also for the opinion of others like "is this game worth a try for a player-type like me?" - it's rather common for some people to ask stuff like that before even starting to play. Everyone knows that descriptions on the homepages will try to make the game look as good as possible - but this is never the whole truth ;)
EDIT: sorry for editing so much, my English isn't so good and I can always find some more errors *sweats*
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