I am so nooooob, I can't even handle the tutorial!

Ok, I am a trial 7-day player. BEFORE I decide to subscribe, here are several questions.

1) If I supposedly made my toon a stalker, isn't she supposed to be a villain? What is she doing helping the cops like Officer Flint in Praetoria in the tutorial? Are free trial players forbidden from starting out in the villain area? Will I be able to change alignments?

2) Also, I can't seem to rescue those hostages because there are too many of them & I am only one!

3) Where is "Praetor Duncan", so I can talk about advancement points? I just turned lvl 2!

4) I joined the "resistance". Will there be a point where I can join them instead of the "loyalists"? Which brings me back to #1: Will I be able to change alignments?

So, from your questions, I infer you have Going Rogue.

1> In CoV (where the Stalker originated), it is indeed a villain, and the tutorial
is a "Break out of the Zig Prison" scenario.

However, in Praetoria, you can start with any AT, so a traditional hero or
villain motif doesn't make as much sense. To me, Praetoria seems mostly
degrees of evil, regardless of which side you play for. In that setting,
I'd think of a Stalker as a freelance "fixer" type of role.

2> with Stalkers (esp before you get AS and Placate), managing aggro is
the trick to survival. The old adage "Divide & Conquer" is your lifeline. If
you draw too much aggro, don't be shy about getting out of Dodge - the
AI will forget about you soon enough. If you're alive, you can always go back.

3> Praetor Duncan should be on your map (you may need to zoom it in). I
believe she's in the Main Square of the very First Zone (Nova Praetoria)


Hope that helps, and welcome to the game.


Regards,
4

thanks, guys, but now I forgot where I left the underground from! I got the stupid hostage mission from that Praetor White guy! Damn now I am in deep $#!*!!!! After 2 x of getting killed from not knowing how to maneuver that stupid hostage situation, I don't know WHAT to do! Oh well, my time will be up soon enough,...
How do I get back to where I went to from talking to Calvin Scott, anyway?

UPDATE: Ok, I got it, but I wish I could lvl faster & when I opened the gift w/ the stupid frostlings, or whatever, they killed me!

This isn't necessarily helpful, but I hated every second of Praetoria aside from the Bobcat mission chain. That was fun. The rest...? Let me put it like this: My friends and I rolled a team of Praetorians because we wanted to have a mixed team of defenders, brutes, etc. We got them to 19. At that point we decided, "F*** this," deleted the character, rerolled them as normal heroes and villains, and powerleveled them to 20 so we could do tips to bring all our characters to one side. It wasn't necessarily the difficulty (though I still think the Praetorian Clockwork were insanely hard in larger groups considering the level range) so much as it was incredibly un-fun for us. It wasn't boring, it just wasn't fun. Now, different strokes for different folks and all that... I know some people love Praetoria and I'm very happy that they got the chance to experience it.

What I'm getting at is that it's sort of wrong to force new players into this, I think Praetoria works much better for those that have experienced either CoV or CoH first.

In a way it reminds me of the completely-optional old Positron Task Force. The very first TF in the game used to take forever and was a pain in the butt. I remember at least one friend cursing me out for asking him to join - not the TF, but the game itself - because if that was how the rest of the TFs were then he wanted to no part of the game.


tl;dr version: The first character on a new account with Going Rogue (or a trial) should not be forced into Praetoria. Give them the choice! After all, if a person on a free trial decides they like the game and decide to start paying for it they may receive a rude awakening when they see that they can't play their Praetorians unless they purchase Going Rogue as well.

Edited to add: New players should take all this crap as just my opinion, of course. If I didn't enjoy the game I wouldn't be paying for it. It's a fantastic game with an even better community.

What server are you on? I can come hold your hand for a bit to guide you through the dangers of Praetoria

Make sure your map is active. click "M" if it is not. Unlike a lotta other mmo's (who I wont name to avoid post deletion hehe) this game allows you 'waypoints' like a flight sim sending you to one objective after another. Click Preator Duncan on the map and create your own waypoint. go to her and level up before bothering to do White's mission.

Go to the vendor and buy only accuracy enhancemnts for now. Slot them in your powers. Click Enhancements (an option on the power trays... lower right) click to manage them. Put in accuaracy to your attacks.

Manuvering... Not sure what you mean by that... CoH is a lot more user friendly then most. If it's physical it may be that whatever game you were used to before made strafe left and right Q and E and turn left and right A and D which I got used to right away comming from FPS games anyway... as CoH uses the default choices from such first person shooter games. Other mmo's I noticed always made me growl and grumble and go into control options and switch them to FPS/CoH Q and E turn and A and D strafe mode. If you've come fresh from them to here your fingers may be doing the opposite of what this gme wants and using "almost every other mmo's unnatural choice of turn and strafe" commands. In that case either practice it to get used to it or hop into control options screen from the menu in your upper right window and change those controls to ones your more used to.

That first darn mission. I don't recal if that's the hostage release tne to the roof via the door marked with stairs and rescue the main named hostage or if it's the rescue cops from the sewers one. Both have trick and the office one is definitly easier.

I don't recal having to escort anyone in the office building one. They are or were mercifuly "Rescue and release" style hostages... that but If it's been changed that you are then functioning with "Non combative walk my dumb npc outta this mission or to an objective" mob AI. CoH escort mobs are generaly dumb. They need you to moove slow or you risk loosing them. Also they can't see you if your stealthed... at all. Now your on a Stalker running hide and my fav character runs Dark Miasma's area coverage stealth... Guess what we both have to do just to escort them? That's right. Yah gotta turn off the offending toggle stealth power. (something I wish the De'vs would adress since doing this hurts our defences vs any ambushes on the way... although I can see why a regular joe/jane couldn't see somebody super invisible. Catch 22 I guess.) If this is the mission with the office workers and one MORE hostage on the roof... I say MORe because he wont even spawn btw unless youve rescued all his fellows below. Then I'm pretty sure you just rescue him and wail on the named foe up there an you are done. They wall the place such that you can't even fall off the roof. So that's pretty safe. If your functionaly having trouble 'moving' it's likely key choices are not what your flying fingers are used to as mentioned above.

The sewer Escort though... That's gotta be the Keystone Cop rescue from the sewers. If I recal that mission the only cop that matters for getting him out alive is the Seargent dude. I don't even recal being given a special badge or making any extra herobucks saving all of them like I did on my Dark misamist. (yay AoE heal) Also these are what I call "Battle-escorts" which may or may not mind you keeping your stealth on. I think these didn't mind but I might be wrong. It's been a while since I did them on the Dual Pistols/Dark Miasma corruptor (which started Loyal then went resistance and then Hero when out of Preatoria... also a Originaly Villian AT like your Stalker) As for the mission... It's doable but they get caught on things. Particularly that long stairway with the rail. Grr.... That is in no way your fault. Everyone has trouble with those jokers on the stairs. If it's not the Sarge... just leave them behind. There's nothing you can do for them that doesn't involve PURE LUCK.... so unless you have the patience of a yoga master just leave em.

Most importantly I would say, don't do that misson alone. It's doable but fustrating. Ghouls are a pretty rough mob for those early levels... More terrifying then Vaz zombies if you start hero side.

Mainly make the controls what you feel will suit you via switching control options and religiously use the map and waypoint system. Don't forget to set your active mission just in case some other misson thinks it's the active one and you get to your planned door to get the message "Complete your active mission" first before doing this message. hehe

Good luck and also if your new, I'd offer this... Be sure your on one of the more active servers so you will at least be someone there to answer a quick call for help/advice in Broadcast channel. The command "/whoall" will show you who is in a zone and not in a hidden state. I'd suggest Freedom as the other big server is nice but has a lot of roleplayers and some of them strict in their roleplayin'. They might not answer unless you phase it like your character is asking the question.

Cheers!

The reason why Trial accounts have so many restrictions is because they were being misused by gold sellers and power levelling services.

I'll also put in my two cents. I played many a trial account that started in Praetoria, and it really is more difficult than the regular Hero and Villain starting areas.

I routinely got thrashed by Ghouls if I tried to stand and fight, regardless of AT and powersets, and I somehow managed to get killed by the first group of enemies in Praetor White's first mission while I was playing an Earth/Earth Dominator (and that was hardly my first character, or even my first Dominator). A similar Earth/Earth Dominator in Mercy Isles was much easier to raise.

Keep in mind that, as a Stalker, you don't have to fight everything that moves, especially in the tutorial. Just Hide and run past anything you don't need to fight.

Maybe try a less fragile and more straightforward AT for your first character, like a Brute or Tanker? (Then again, my first two characters were a Blaster and a Mastermind, so I might not have room to talk)

Thanks guys, I hate Pratorea too, so I deleted that char, & made a new stalker. This one is working for Arachnos, but I imagine it would be more fun to do the freelance missions w/ the newspapers, right? I might make my next girl a brute.

Well CoV side is a mix of story arcs and newspaper missions that will give you a contact (3 missions + a bank job will unlock a choice of contacts).

The CoH side of things was originally structured as a series of contact chains that may have a story arc or not, the police scanner (CoH version of the Newspaper) was added later to provide a way to get short missions on demand.

Well, when do I get the paper missions? I just started a new toon, she's a brute. I just lvl'd her to 8, but so far it was first that Burke guy, then he sent me to Dr. Creed. She could not get out of that 1st diseased guy mission alive though. It's just fighting snake ppl, diseased ppl, & gangs, and depending which side you're on, Arachnos, gets rather tiresome. It frustrates me that my toons can't mug a citizen, I thought you could.

You can start paper missions as soon as a character reaches level 5 and leaves Mercy Island.

Take the ferry (It's marked on your map) to Port Oakes and you'll be given either Mikey the Ear or Drea the Hook as your broker contact for that zone. Go to the Broker and he will unlock the Newspaper contact. Then just choose one of the three paper missions.

Every few paper missions you'll have to return to the broker to get a Mayhem mission. At that time you can choose to do it or decline and continue more paper missions.