When *I* was a noob...

[jeneah]

If you've been playing DS (and now DST) for a long time, do you ever get nostalgic for your noob days? One of the things I really love about this game is that it is so layered that it keeps you busy trying new things for a very long time (hundreds and hundreds of hours later I am only just now discovering the joys of koalafant farming, for example). But still, sometimes I think about my innocent days, before I ever saw a firefly kill an entire herd of beefalo...

 

What are some of your great memories from being a noob?

 

Some of mine:

 

I started playing the game completely cold, having never watched anyone play and not reading anything about it. As such, I was completely unprepared for night on that first attempt. I was running around in panic trying to create another torch. Charlie is so terrifying!

 

The first time I went through a wormhole it took me to an entirely different biome I had never seen before, and I thought it took you to some kind of otherworld.  It was a *terrifying world* with *pigmen* and *spiders!* Go back! Go back! (I was still fighting with the interface at this point so it took me far longer than it should have to figure out that I had been transported to a different part of the map rather than a different layer of existence!)

 

The clockworks seemed insurmountable. I used to use the rook to take out the knights and bishops, and would pray that there were enough spiders or pigs nearby to take out the rook. (I was very combat-avoidant for a long time.)

 

"What's that sound? What does it mean 'something is coming'? What is that? What should I do about it? OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT--OW! RUN! OH GOD..."

 

"Holy crap look at that thing! What is it? It looks like an eyeball with legs! Is it friendly? OH GOD NO IT'S... I'm dead."

 

It took me so many tries to survive winter that it felt like a major accomplishment the first time I saw the first thaw.

[SmellyBacon]

This should go in the "Tales of Life and Death" section I believe.

 

Using the rooks to take out the clockworks is a legit good strategy, I would've loved to know about it in my nooby days. I remember my first clockwork encounter, I died. Twice. Tried to go get my stuff back when I got rezd by touchstone.  Noob life is sad.

[RalphKastro]

do you ever get nostalgic for your noob days?

nope. Those were terrible times in which I was too stupid and thought this was some kind of action game and died infinite times(to bees... Those darn bees....). Then I proceeded to ruin most of my experience by using the wiki too much. I was stupid. Past me should kill himself. 

[Asparagus]

using the wiki too much

Wiki is life... wiki is death...

something, something Macbeth...

 

the end... O__O 

[ImDaMisterL]

nope. Those were terrible times in which I was too stupid and thought this was some kind of action game and died infinite times(to bees... Those darn bees....). Then I proceeded to ruin most of my experience by using the wiki too much. I was stupid. Past me should kill himself. 

Bees? My mortal enemies are Pengulls.

Oh, the Pengulls...

[Pyromailmann]

In my first playthrough of DS, I got killed whilst fighting a crawling horror on Day 2.

 

[PandaWaffles]

I didn't know you could cook stuff.. and I was hungry so I ate every mushroom I found. They were mostly red and green ones.. not fun..

[CaptainFun]

There were days where I would build the fire at dusk because Wilson said to. Also my first death was to Charlie. Not because I ran out of light, but because I was curious what was gonna happen if I go into the darkness. Was a while before I thought to even build a crockpot. 

 

I still remember the triumph of my first winter. 

[lone wolf]

letting WX-78's mind inside my own...getting meat tubes, and using them for my purposes n stuff. my mind died long ag- wait, is this mental death or physical death?

[Enny]

Don't Starve got a whole lot easier once I figured out it was possible to use the keyboard instead of just point-and-clicking.

[ryouryou]

I just died on the first night when it got dark. 

After that, I spent a while always making a fire at dusk as soon as the character complained about it. 

I used to always spend every night at the fire no matter what, and always make a fire on the first night, pretty much never utilizing torches unless caught off-guard. 

I used to get killed by hounds a lot because I didn't realize I could get other creatures to fight each other for a while. 

I never made a crock pot for several 50+ day playthroughs. I didn't know the recipes so it didn't feel useful. I ate a lot of Jerky though. Still love Jerky.

Eventually finding and reading the wiki didn't ruin the experience for me at all. I prefer to know the pieces when I'm playing chess, it might be less novel, but the main fun of the game for me comes from making tactical decisions, and I can only make tactical decisions accurately knowing most of the parameters (e.g. numeric values that are hard to trial-and-error ingame) and I enjoy managing such things. 

 

[BravePotato]

I was once so young and naive...

 

"You think summer is easy? You simply play pass it. I was starved in it, killed by it. I didn't reach the winter until I start to read wiki, by then it was nothing to me but child's play."

[XirmiX]

Oh, yeah, my first attempt was up to day 17, I clearly remember that. I had watched Markiplier's playthrough and learnt a few things. When I started off I thought I knew enough about the game to be a fairly decent player. Turns out I wasn't. I couldn't even figure out where to get flint! It was dusk already on the first day and I hadn't found a single flint. I forgot how to craft completely until I went back to Markiplier's playthroughs. I loved chester so much that I was desperate to find him. I then found him like on day 12 or something. What lead to my death was my utter idiotic mistake that "If you have a spear and log suit, a small amount of common monsters won't kill you at all!" So, I went to a tier 2 spider den, attacked a spider, 3 more spiders and a spider warrior came out, which later lead to my death. From there on out, I learnt how to kite :3

[00petar00]

Lol most of you guys are slow, i became a great player in a matter of days, i am quite stubborn, before i got the game, i watched youtube playthroughs and read tons of wiki, when i started i made mistakes like saving up wood, took 7wood logs to kill clockwork monsters, used them all up and forgot that i didn't have more, so i died (it was winter), I think that my first death was big reeds farm trap, i didn't see it on youtube, and at that time i focused more on youtube instead of wiki, after that i started reading everything on the wiki about don't starve, though it was funny how i was so greedy to not wait a second and thing about if reeds were a trap or not, i just blindly ran like a bunny that sees a carrot lol.

[rezecib]

before i got the game, i watched youtube playthroughs and read tons of wiki,

 Then you missed the entire game...

 

 

Edit: Yikes this conversation got way more adversarial than I intended. What I meant was that the game is designed around the experience of being caught off guard, dying, and then trying to surpass that obstacle on your next attempt. As I see it, the real charm of Don't Starve is when everything goes to hell and you get totally owned, and the myriad of ways that it can happen (before you know about darkness... before you know about lightning... before you know about hounds... the list goes on).

 

My intent was to respond to the "lol you guys all sucked and were stupid to play it that way" attitude that 00petar00 exhibited, by pointing out that he's just as (if not more) vulnerable to such accusations.

[ryouryou]

I only spend a lot of time researching a game before I buy it if it's multiplayer and other people are going to be relying on me. I have serious social anxiety and absolutely can NOT be "that person," though. I tolerate others who don't research as long as they watch and learn and ask question.

At the time, Don't Starve was not MP, so I went in blind for a while.

I progressed to looking at the wiki for only things I directly encountered and had a question about (for a while, until I was getting through all seasons on RoG, etc), and then eventually I kind of just sat down and read it all. I have never been a person who had things "ruined" by knowing more about them.

I prefer to play optimization games, which means that it isn't about whether or not you know the values involved, but how you decide to use them. Don't Starve combines this with a random-every-time map, and especially at the start of the game, you are going to be reacting and optimizing based on the inputs it gives you. Everyone who has been playing this game for hundreds of hours can't deny that that is part of the major fun of the game, or else we would no longer be playing it.

Looking down on people who prefer to do research and play a tactical game in which they understand the parts is basically just playstyle elitism. But I suppose that is found in every community. I personally gravitate towards games with a lot of depth of mechanics and hundreds of working parts, which mean that there is a lot of information involved. Researching that information is fun for me.

Maybe I am just a nerdy kid, I *enjoyed* college too, because the idea of learning about something that I like so that I can be even better at it and understand what is going on to a greater extent is incredibly fun for me. I like to understand everything. I spent a bunch of my time just taking every available science in all fields, never got a degree, and I don't feel like I wasted my time. In real life, when I see something happen, I go "Huh, I wonder how that microwave/cloud/cat/psychiatric disorder/plant/birth defect/rock formation got there, what it's made of, how it works, and how that applies to the greater system underlying such things," and I don't prod it with a stick, I look it up. I LIKE READING NON-FICTION, OK, I'M A NERD, SOME OF US ARE NERDS.

When I played Pokemon, just "playing" it was never enough to stimulate me, I figured it out on my own, whatever, it was a little fun. It started getting fun when I dived into the statistics elements, got into competitive play, went further, got into save editing, got into the data structures of the game, started working on ROM hacks, and basically became such a gigantic nerd that I still can't talk to other people about Pokemon without feeling like I am a huge dork in comparison to the kid being like "I LIEK CHARSZARD."


we're nerds ok ;-; don't pick on us

[00petar00]

 Then you missed the entire game...

 

I didn't, i just skipped dying like a total noob that doesn't know a bit about the game, this game isn't that easy, either you play it and die 40-50 times till you figure it all out, or you do it the smart way i did when i started, i liked the game and i liked watching it too, i didn't miss on anything, i still died a couple of times when i started, like 5-10 (mostly when i wasn't thinking and focused on other things, after 50-100 days) times, after that i didn't die anymore, it may happen, i am not saying that i will not die 100%, its just that i play DST and my friend can revive me, i kinda disagree on easily crafted revival items but at least there's a penalty.

[jeneah]

I don't think it's very constructive to pass judgment on other people for how they chose to experience this game.

 

The reason I started this thread was to hear from folks who, like me, really enjoyed being naive and running around dying constantly. Especially since I started playing on vanilla DS, I had nothing to prove to anyone else by being knowledgeable. Instead, I deeply enjoyed the learning curve and discovering all the special ways the game had in store for me to perish. It even felt like a parallel to human history: first I survived by eating what I found on the ground, then I figured out how to make simple tools and fire, then I figured out how to make combat weapons and became a hunter, then I learned how to farm and settle down, etc. etc. For me, the comedy gold was how every time I thought I was getting the hang of things the game would let me know different: whether from ignorance or inattention there is always a new way to die.

 

For people like me, then, it is a little sad to learn that other people didn't get a chance to enjoy that. Not in a "my way is better than your way" sense, but in a "I'm happy when other people are happy and so I'm really sad you'll never get to have this amazing experience that I had" kind of way. After all, everyone who plays long enough will learn a lot about how the game works, but once that innocence is gone it can never be regained. 

[CaptainFun]

I didn't, i just skipped dying like a total noob that doesn't know a bit about the game, this game isn't that easy, either you play it and die 40-50 times till you figure it all out, or you do it the smart way i did when i started

In other words, skip almost the entire learning process in what is supposed to be a game that forces you to learn through adversity? You can play the game however you want but I wouldn't call that the 'smart way' especially when the alternative is actually figuring things out for yourself. 

[ryouryou]

Not in a "my way is better than your way" sense, but in a "I'm happy when other people are happy and so I'm really sad you'll never get to have this amazing experience that I had" kind of way. After all, everyone who plays long enough will learn a lot about how the game works, but once that innocence is gone it can never be regained. 

Your amazing could be someone else's terrible. This is basically the argument that people give others about why they should have children that they don't want, or other naggy "mom"-type things. Just because something was fun for you doesn't mean it would be fun for someone else. 

"I'm 'really sad that you'll never get to have this amazing experience' finding jesus/having a baby/joining the peace corps/playing high school football/anything you don't want to do, son. "

I know you're not trying to be condescending to anyone, but you have to realize that you ARE doing so when you assume you know better than they do what would be enjoyable for them. When you say that someone else "missed out" by doing what they want to do instead of doing what you would have wanted to do, you are basically saying that your standards of what is fun are superior to theirs, and that you are sad that they just can't "see the light" and do it your way. Even if you say that's not what you're saying, it is completely negated when you go on to say that they've missed out. 

You can't make decisions about if someone missed out or not in their stead. It is up to individual people to decide whether something was fun or not, and whenever you go "I'm sad for you" at someone who is clearly happy with their life situation/gameplay choices/anything in life, you are being condescending whether it is your intention or not.

[00petar00]

I totally agree with ryouryou, we like to learn stuff, especially the things we like, I prefer reading wiki before playing a game as hard as this, entering the game for first time as hard as this one means over 40 deaths before you figure it all out, dying on every boss, i don't really believe you, if you go and tell me now that you didn't watch a single youtube video or tried looking at the wiki for food or at least used console commands to see if you can beat the bosses and adapt to them.

 

I am not saying that my way of doing things is superior, just smarter.Look at it this way, this game is hard for new players, you can go ahead and keep on dying till you get sick of the game and quit or force yourself through first 10-20 days for how long? 

There are a lot of things in this game, going blindly would've just made me play it less then i would like, since dying and starting over is not as fun once you do it 50 times without going to day 100 at least.

If i played like that i wouldn't be able to play this game 2-4 hours a day since i got the game, i'd simply be bored of dying and doing same things and figuring it all out on my own, do you know how hard food recipes are? i don't believe that you figured them all out if you didn't use wiki or get help from other players, how much meat for pierogi,meaty stew.

 

It would simply take months to figure it all out, when you can just go ahead read the wiki learn the recpies and everything about the game after that it comes down to your choices and the game is as fun as it can be.

[jeneah]

I can't agree that it is condescending to wish joy on other people, and as I said, the point is not to judge or belittle people who made different choices but to swap stories with those who made similar ones.

[Valinth]

I managed to kill myself with a boomerang once, before I figured out how to catch it.

[applebottom]

@ryouryou, please don't be offended by the original post. She was just reminiscing about her noob days. She wasn't throwing shade at those who checked the wiki. :')

 

If you read all the posts, you will notice the "hate" for wiki-reading is directed at that one poster who said something like "you guys are all slow, i was a great player in only a few days".

 

It wasn't fair for that person to gloat and call non-wiki players slow-learners, implying they're not great players just because they refuse to read and watch spoilers.

 

Like you said, everyone prefers a certain playing style. Some prefer to get in and get good immediately. Some prefer to go blind and die every other day twice a day to a new horrible concoction by Klei. In the end, we're all just random spawns in a cruel world, trying to befriend Pigmen to feed them monster meat and murder them for the skins of their butts. It doesn't matter how you chose to figure that out. As long as you get your own pig butt.

 

Anyway, yeah. Love and peace.

 

-From a fellow wiki-reader (because fook that ****, I ain't dying 10x a day to frogs and killer bees, Klei. No, siree.)

 

[ryouryou]

@ryouryou, please don't be offended by the original post. She was just reminiscing about her noob days. She wasn't throwing shade at those who checked the wiki. :')

 

If you read all the posts, you will notice the "hate" for wiki-reading is directed at that one poster who said something like "you guys are all slow, i was a great player in only a few days".

 

It wasn't fair for that person to gloat and call non-wiki players slow-learners, implying they're not great players just because they refuse to read and watch spoilers.

 

Like you said, everyone prefers a certain playing style. Some prefer to get in and get good immediately. Some prefer to go blind and die every other day twice a day to a new horrible concoction by Klei. In the end, we're all just random spawns in a cruel world, trying to befriend Pigmen to feed them monster meat and murder them for the skins of their butts. It doesn't matter how you chose to figure that out. As long as you get your own pig butt.

 

Anyway, yeah. Love and peace.

 

-From a fellow wiki-reader (because fook that ****, I ain't dying 10x a day to frogs and killer bees, Klei. No, siree.)

Spoilering reply 'cause it's huge like this forum's mom

It's not really the original post, more of the placating "I'm not superior I'm just sad because you did it a worse way and can't be as happy as I am" that I see as rather divisive. I recognize that OP does not mean offense so I am not offended, I just legitimately figured that people don't understand why it seems condescending, so I explained. The person they were replying to was also being condescending though, so mixed feelings, not really declaring anyone "right" here. 

I also probably had some thoughts on the topic already from seeing a ton of hate directed towards anyone who didn't learn the game "right" in a lot of other threads, such a a newbie advice thread that popped up a while ago in which most of the advice eventually ended up being "screw you, figure it out, learning from other people/asking for help/reading the wiki is the WRONG WAY 2 PLAY LOL." 

Typically, no one speaks up to defend people who rather enjoy learning from others or learning from research sources instead of learning through trial-and-error (or who simply want to learn game mechanics to a depth that simple trial and error would take months or an eternity of statistical analysis to achieve). When I notice that no one typically speaks up for a completely defensible position, I defend it. Whether the original proponent of said position was being a jerk usually doesn't factor in since it's the position and not any specific person that I feel the need to argue. 

Noob experiences are noob experiences, regardless of if they consist of "died to standing in patch of evil flowers all night," "got slaughtered, read wiki," or "saw that this game was hard/complicated, decided to research what I was getting into beforehand."

My own personal one (see p1) is kind of a mix of those things. I mean, I fully admit I died to the darkness. Probably not even just once, either. I typically read less out of difficulty frustration and more out of having a lot of curiosity about underlying mechanics that are rather difficult to trial-and-error and only really revealed because people have mined the files. (How exactly DOES the game decide if x spawns or not? What is the exact numerical value of this aura?) 

My forums presence is a difficult thing for me at times, because I am lengthy and often people on the Internet have the expectation that lengthy post = "RLY MAD" but for me it's mostly out of thoroughness. You are all still in the range of huggability as far as I am concerned. I am a pacifist. I don't even usually quote anyone when disagreeing because I consider that too confrontational, unless they are a direct response to me in the first place. No one should worry about offending me as I am roughly as likely to be upset by a forum post as I am to be upset by a rock. A rock, that exists, and isn't moving, and is in Finland, and no one I know has ever seen it. Unless that forum post kills my family or something. 

WE'RE ALL LEARNING ABOUT EACH OTHER TODAY AREN'T WE.

That being said, just for a tidbit of on-topicness~

I may be romanticizing my early days on the game due to nostalgia, just having been that it was so long ago. I wonder if other people are, too. 500+ hours later it is pretty hard to remember the exact feeling that things brought you. I am mildly curious if amount of total hours played/time since you began has any correlation to how positive you feel about your particular start and methods chosen. 

I will also put out there that I felt like a bit of a "noob" again starting DST compared to DS. In DS/DS:RoG, I never had other players nearby to compare or contrast playstyles with, or to see the efficiency of certain techniques that I wouldn't have tried. I've also become more ballsy and less combat-avoidant compared to my very conservative playstyle that I usually stick to when alone, such is the influence of other people. I've learned a lot just from seeing other players, even if we're not actively playing together. 

Comparing myself to myself just a few months ago, I was still a noob. I think that, in a few more months, I will be able to look back at now and I'll think that I was a noob. Maybe I'll have gotten myself un-addicted to just sticking to 1-2 characters. I'm sure a bunch of things I'm doing right now will seem silly. That's just how life seems to be, and Don't Starve is kind of like life. Or at least it consumes life. You are what you eat?