C'mon Newb!

Lol. Awesome stories, it's nice to have a hot cup of cocoa and read over everything. Thanks for the laughs everyone.

Whenever I see a topic like this, I'm reminded of something that you real old-timers will undoubtedly remember.

There used to not be an Exit button on the nav window when you completed a mission. Instead, you had to click on the little "i" icon that brings up information for the mission. (Yes, this means that after you completed a mission, you couldn't get the information for it any more; clicking on the i icon would exit the mission.)

I think that buried in the bowels of the tutorial during the mission to rescue Flower Knight this fact was mentioned, but I missed it. So for a couple of weeks, I exited missions the only way I knew how--by running all the way back to the door in from which I came when I entered the mission.

Finally, I was working on missions with some teammates one night and noticed that after each mission, everyone was simply vanishing into thin air. For the first couple of missions or so, I just chalked it up to some glitch or weirdity. After noticing it happening with consistency, though, I finally asked, "Hey guys, how are you all getting outside so quickly?" Someone told me about clicking on the nav window to exit.

Ohhhhhhh!

Of course, now there's a button explicitly labeled "Exit" that's pretty hard to miss. You kids have it so easy these days.

Ooh, another. It took me a few days to realize that you can steer by holding down your right mouse button. Until then, I had been using Q and E to turn left or right.

In fact, I had a little mini-game where I would run on top of fences as far as I could without falling off. It was quite challenging, trying to get lined up just perfectly using the course grain keyboard controls... Until I found out about the right mouse button functionality. All of a sudden, my little game became trivially easy.

I kinda love this thread.

Here's one: I was on my third character ever and she was about, say, level 8? And this high level character said to a bunch of us under Atlas, hey, do you wanna go to the tailor?

This was back before the Tiki Lounge, even. Anyway, I'd never seen a tailor so I was all hell yes.

And so he put us all on a team and turned on group flight. Then after a bit he said it was too hard having us all keep up and used inertial reduction, at which point we started bouncing like mad to the tailor. He warned us that the enemies were very very dangerous.

I still remembered getting debt at level four when I first started, so I was all D: when suddenly the servers went down.

And I logged on again later, all alone in the back of Steel Canyon. I didn't know how low the enemies actually were over at the front and that I could probably make it safely to Atlas/King's Row again. So I stood there in utter terror of the purple Outcasts a bit away from me and then did the most logical thing and started going 'helllllp' in broadcast.

End of the story is someone tp'd me to the train, gave me money, and told me to have a good day.

I still remember that utter terror of higher level enemies and that I'd take the invis power pool on so many characters before realizing I was actually perfectly safe.

I'm such an experienced player, my awesomness forces newb moments.

I've got an amazing Shield/Super Strength tank, capable of taking enemies at like +2x8, and who normally plays primary tank and does damage comprable to the scrappers. She almost never falls.

Except when she does, One with the Shield is sitting there, full charged, wondering why I didn't use it to help her survive.

This isn't a "oh, I forgot that one time." Or even a "sometimes, I forget." No. She's had One With The Shield for a very long time, and I never, ever remember to use it. I remember to use my brute's Demonic Aura accolade more than I remember this one with the shield. So on the rare occassions she falls, I notice it sitting there, fully charged, and I facepalm, and I swear I'll remember it next time... And I never do.



And seriously /everyone/ does the train doors thing.

and now that I read your PvP post, I got a PvP newb tale too. When CoV came out I literally spent 4 months leveling different toons to PvP with. Problem was by the time I had leveled one everyone had figured out how to own it and had moved on to another FOTM. So like the nice little PvP newb I was, I went and leveled the FOTM. Only after I got him high enough level the same thing happened. The sad thing is it took me 4 months to realize my methods wasn't going to work. Needless to say, I realized it just isn't worth it to be a FOTM junkie.

I remember when I first ran across a Sky Raiders shield generator. I had outleveled Kings Row, but hadn't gotten to be in any missions with the Sky Raiders yet. For some reason, I found myself in a remote corner of the zone, and I see this little contraption with a huge bubble around it. Someone had apparently defeated its accompanying spawn, so it was just sitting there, all by itself, not doing anything.

I honestly thought it was something special that was supposed to be there. It wasn't attacking me or anything, so I hypothesized that maybe because there were high-level enemies (relative to most spawns in Kings Row) around, it was some sort of force field set up to help protect the players. I drew in some enemies to try to fight them within the bubble, and they got bubbles around them! I think I actually contemplated that maybe it was bugged, but I didn't file a report or anything.

Eventually, I noticed that it was targetable, so with a bit of trepidation, I tried attacking it. *whiff! I tried again. *whiff! More. *whiff, whiff, whiff! Nothing. It was very purple to me.

It was probably at least a couple of weeks or so later that I finally encountered the things within a Sky Raiders mission. OH!!! THAT'S what that thing in Kings Row was!!!

I don't even know if those high-level missions still spawn like they used to. I also remember wandering around Kings Row as a tiny little level 10 or so and running across this wrinkly, shriveled up thing on a fire escape while I was trying to get to the top of a building to clear out some Thorns. I had just enough time to target it, notice it was a level 50 something called "Rikti," and letting out a brief gasp of surprise before being thorougly faceplanted with one shot.

*pew! ...And now I'm dead. Meanwhile, he went right on about his business as if I were just a squashed bug not even worth throwing into the trash.

Not long after I started playing, I got onto a PuG that was running a mission on an office map. Partway through, the leader decided he wanted to do a different mish (or maybe he just wanted to raise the difficulty, I forget), and told everyone to exit. Everyone else made a beeline for the door, but I somehow got turned around, and for the life of me, could not figure out how to get back to the entrance. I was running around in circles while the rest of the team was going "Pls exit so we can reset". I was too embarrassed to admit I was lost, so I finally just said "Gotta go!" and quit the team. Eventually, I found my way out.

There is one little bit of thing that happens all the time to me...

I normally group a few temp powers together on a power tray...

So... sometimes... when someone asks for a card, I reply with:

9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
BOOOOM!

In the old Tutorial (Outbreak) wondering why I was getting XP for defeating NPCs.

For a while, I had no idea you could replace any TO/DO/SO by placing a new one on top of it. I thought I was doomed to be stuck with TOs forever... until about lvl 23.

First newb moment for me was seeing a mob with a pretty color name, can't remember if it was red or purple, and thinking "I can take it." Not my best idea with a new low lvl blaster.

The tram door almost got me, but then I backed up and noticed the main door.

hmm.... now that I think about it moment number one still happens..... should stop trying to be a scrapper with everything.

SD=Self Destruction its a 'Nuke' like power. Aiming for the Blaster Nuke got the Self Kill Nuke.

Not sure if this counts but.. Leveling my First toon. My Main a INV/SS tanker. Early 40's still on So's I was Super jumping through Peregrine Island heading to another mission.

I had forgotten I hit Unstoppable in my last mission against Arachnos.

Mid Super jump it crashes de-toggling me and draining 90% of health..followed by me being KB'd by a Crey Sharpshooter ...in mid fall landing down below in a spawn with hardly a sliver of health.

Needless to say I had to make a walk of shame from the Hospital to my next mission

Moral of the Story? Don't forget if you've used your T9 when you have one with a major crash. It'll totally bite you in the rear when you least expect it.

Not so much a newb moment as a humiliating defeat.

Way back in 2004, when the game was new and I'm on my first character - an elec/elec blaster. I've just entered Crey's Folly. First thing I see is a trio of Crey Protectors (those are bosses if you don't know). They con green. I'm thinking, "eh, green. Easy enough."

What I didn't know is that they have a "freeze ray" power that puts you to sleep (along with a very low amount of damage). And the sleep lasts longer than it takes the power to recharge. And this is in the days before break frees existed: we had an inspiration called discipline that you had to remember to use *before* you ever got mezzed. And I forgot to use it.

I got off one attack. Then I was asleep. I have no idea why, but all the three Crey Protectors ever did was fire off that freeze ray. Over and over again. So I stayed asleep constantly, taking little snippets of damage.

I kid you not, it took them something like *ten minutes* to finally kill me. I would literally get up and do some chores, then come back and check to see whether or not I was dead yet so I could go to the hospital.

To this day I don't know why I didn't think to just log out, wait two minutes, and log back in... (maybe *that* was the actual newb moment).

EDIT: Oh, and I did think of one of my true newb moments. My second "favorite" character was my Invul./Axe Tank. I'd be embarrassed to admit the number of times I ran into a large spawn to "gather" them for my blaster partners to destroy, and *totally* forget to turn on any of my toggles. Death would come quite swiftly after that...