Are There Any Genuinely New Players Around Anymore?

I remember when I first began and the starting cities were a nest of newbies with a few scattered 75's here and there. I remember being helped out by a random high level stranger who taught me the ropes of my craft when I still a lowly level 1 red mage without a subjob.

For the past few weeks I've wanted to do the same for someone else, to grant them a bit of assistance and to generally just help them out. Unfortunately, the starting cities are usually empty except for a few mules who stand around or low players who are already experienced leveling a new job. I no longer see the shouts or local questions asking for assistance, no longer do I see the random newbie running around blind unknowing of where to go.

I wish to offer my assistance, but have no idea where to start. Do I go ahead and just shout in town? "Any new players need assistance?" Wouldn't that just be bait for newbies who are just seeking gil and nothing more? In a way I wish to teach an "innocent", someone who honestly needs help but may be afraid to seek it out or may just not know how to.

True, we have the Mentor status thing, but what good is it when people don't really seek you out? I'm sorry if it seems as though I were just rambling, but it's just that I wish to offer my assistance but know not how to.

~~Thank you.

well on pandemonium there seems to be a handful of new players ^^ i seem to meet them in dunes parties. we have a few on our LS that ask those kind of questions and our other members always ready to help~ haha we have a BLM on our LS, knew him ever since he was a weeee little BLM in the dunes. Now he's a pro soloin' BLM60!

Dunno if that helps, but that's my story. :]

I see dozens of players wearing askar pants or amir boots so id have to say yeah there are still alot of people who are new to the game.

There's new people out there still, just not as frequent as it used to be back in the day. I miss those days too when the cities were flooded with new people and Jeuno was the get-together place long before Aht Urgahn kicked in :-P

As for seeking out new people to help out there's a couple of ways you can do this. If you wanted to for starters you could make a new LS dedicated to helping new people out and if you have friends who want in on mentoring that's a bonus too. A buddy of mine has done it and is doing rather well. I usually lend a hand when I'm able to help him out.
If you already have an LS of course you can always see about inducting new players onto it. You'd be killing two birds with one stone that way; new players would have tons of people helping them out and in return you'll have more LS members.

You can do what you mentioned also, doing shouts in the towns or waiting for someone to shout's of their own. Even sending a random /tell to someone that you may see as a new player works too. I did this when I saw someone that I figured was a new player when I was farming in one of the zones where you can do your RSE quest. Turns out he was doing his quest but didn't know what mobs to kill or where the chest locations are. So I showed him after I helped him hunt the key.

Personally, nothing is more gratifying than helping someone out, especially on a hard working game such as this one. It's good to see folks like yourselves who share the same feeling as I do.

We get newbies in the LS from time to time. Got 2 in the past 2 months, actually.

no

no

{Mentor} {You can have this.}

I often find the best place to find new players is in the dunes. Find someone without a sub job and offer to help them unlock it. Simple way to find newer players and might make the game better for them.

Happened to me when I first started. A JP player offered to help me get sub items and explained about the tele-crystals as best he could in auto-translate.

Now, if I happen to be passing through the dunes when I'm not doing anything real important, I attempt to pass along what was a real game changer for me.

Another bad thing about Odin being shut off is that there is no new players, even the dunes are empty these days.

There are a few out there, and you can usually spot them doing weird things that older players wouldn't be doing, ie. soloing in a zone far longer than a person should. But it's fun because they're pretty trusting, and easy to bribe. ^^

I found one on a random run through S.Gusta, Lvl 15 killing anything that moved around the Fumaroles. Offered her 50k to tell me if she saw Leaping Lizzy and I got the claim. :3

its a myth they are all my mules :p

Funny, on my server I find n00bs in the dunes...(which I hate the dunes...required that your IQ drop 10 points on zone apparently) anyway, found 2 guys with no sub...offered to help them unlock it and was told they didnt need a sub job...LOL

Tried to explain the importance and neccessity of a sub job and got blown off...by a couple of n00bs...pffft..w/e

A month later they both begged me to help them...when of course no one would pt with them because of not having a sub...LMAO

n00bs...gotta luv em..

You indeed notice you don't have a lot newbies anymore these days.
However I must say that I contacted by them a lot more since they added those starting NPC mini-quests/tutorials that explain the game a bit better. Somewhere in there they mention stuff on how to contact mentors for helping you out. And well I guess it works as I'm getting way more requests over the last year or so, than the years before that.
Still only like 1 or 2 / month, but it's more =^.^=

So I'm guessing, less newbies, but more intelligence overall ?

First off the post about odin being shut off is all too true, I swear this server is standing stagnated water anyway moving on~ As anyone who has played this for a number of years knows FFXI doesn't get the market attention like it used to :( (not that it got much) I am glad to see someone decided to jump in and say what I was thinking though I have been a bit of a forum spectre recently since I came back to ffxi not really dumping my 2 gil in but this one I had to. I remember the times San 'd oria was full of the little red question marks I used to send a /tell to the <random magic job whm/blm>'s and hatchet wood in E/W Ranfaure and craft the HQ Ash staves and Ash poles XD (carried extra just in case NQ this was back when they were 10-15k for HQ) and they would all (almost all) go bonkers screwing up the emote syntax trying to thank me I used to love it. They only way we're going to bring back the bright eye noobs and the allure of the red "?"s is to try to promote the game to as many people as you can. It's an awesome game really is - beats wow in my opinion any day of the week Most of us like me don't know others who would even play an MMO but hey it's better than wishing they were back, proactive = bring them here they'll likely stay, I watched WoW for about an hour friend playing... yeah... the entire time I was thinking WTF is the appeal??? That and watching 1st grade spelling attemping anal joke spam in their public chat channels thinking yeah.... FFXI this would have been Ban Hammer before the text had cycle ended.

sorry small post turned into text wall XD Why not make a new Post on Experiences as a noob in FFXI who helped you? Who taught you the tele points got your sub job items... I think there are some interesting stories to be heard across Vana 'diel, you're right all in all we're all more or less "older" players now and like the poster above some are trolls who want 5 minutes of check me fame on the site here for saying something negitive - but most of us inside are still the bright eye little red question marks running through the starter zones and staring at the trees - being perfectly happy not knowing about Sea Sky Dynamis what CoP stands for or what it means to earn a relic or that someday we would be trying to figure out the math of how to floor AV and PW (and what those accronyms stand for) for us now it's all about the memories well not for us.. it's just how I feel I can hope you all feel the same make the years here well spent.

I am in a linkshell that is for returning players but we do get alot of new ones too on pheonix.

PS...I am returning although i created this fresh new character 3-4 months ago