Making the abilities acquisition more beginner friendly

[Kent]

My character in-game just now encountered a new player with an oft-repeated experience I am sure we have all run into. As the game is now, someone new will try to take up some trade like mining or blacksmithing, and they will get an unhelpful message to the effect of

"You don't know the first thing about Mining!"

and then that new player is left hanging and confused.

To make it worse, if I am not mistaken, the game will even allow the player to pay for lessons in forging or mining and then turn around and deny him the ability to swing a forging hammer or a pickaxe.

In addition to changing that to making it so that the character first has to have the Apprentice of the Land ability before he can take the lesson, I recommend making the user experience more friendly by making the above-mentioned message work like this:

"You don't know the first thing about Mining!

If you would like to acquire the Ability 'Apprentice of the Land' that will then enable you to mine, log, fish, and farm, type YES CONFIRM now. Or type ABIL SHOW for a list of all the available abilities and to get more information on them."


And then incorporating this suggestions into other ability-dependant activities, like lapidary, knapping, etc.

[Jirato]

I was actually halfway through working on something like this when you posted. It's not going to be automatic like that, unfortunately - too much work for now, but it will be far less ambiguous.

[Maina]

On a similar note to being a little more beginner friendly, is there a reason for ability "show" and "desc" to be two different commands? I kept having to look up the commands as a newbie, and I still often try to use "show" instead of "desc." Perhaps "ability show 1" should show the description, either instead or in addition to the current setup.

[Kent]

I was actually halfway through working on something like this when you posted. It's not going to be automatic like that, unfortunately - too much work for now, but it will be far less ambiguous.

Ok, that's the next best thing, so thank you. At least the newcomer will be now pointed in the right direction.