HemlockReaper said:None.
None would be good. Nothing like being thrown into the world and figuring out things for yourself.
With that being said I do think there should be some natural guidance implemented like where to obtain skills, how repairing works, how quests/tasks work, and how turning in items works. Again all this should be as natural as possible and not demonstrated with tutorials that seem out of place. Everything else though I feel should be left up to the player to explore and figure out for themselves or ask someone else who has figured it out.
As for why: I think that the sense of accomplishment and satisfaction a player feels when they figure out something on their own builds their connection with the game and leads to a healthier over all expirence.
crazysyd102 said:I think new players need guidance. Just think about the last Cohh stream and all the things he did not find.
I would appreciate a tutorial for the basic mechanics which can be skipped.
I don't think the fact that he didn't discover everything is a bad thing, in fact, it is probably a good thing everything wasn't discovered right off the bat as it lends to replayability.
I will say the one area that I agree with you on is the part where he had to stealth past the NPCs to hear their conversation and Joppa had to hint at this. This is a gameplay mechanic for the rouge class that should be explained or hinted at someway through natural gameplay. To be fair the evaluation build did start him off at level 20 and this may be a mechanic that is explained through the natural leveling process, but it is a mechanic that may not easily be identified as a possibility because its not a common feature in many games.
Likewise, any mechanics for other classes that wouldn't easily be identified as possibilities also need to be hinted at or explained through game play.
I think saying none is not very reasonable to be honest. You will always have players who have never played an old school MMO before (or indeed any MMO), so a certain amount of guidance really is needed.
Having said that, I dont think you need to have huge walk throughs either. Just a small tutorial showing the basic commands, movement, activating the various UI elements, where to look for help and the like.
Once that has been covered I would imagine that the newbie zones could cater for any further tutorials through the normal questing mechanics. For instance you could have a quest, say gather 10 garlic bulbs. The quest would provide a couple of options that would allow you to either start the quest or allow the player to request more details about how to complete it. The first option would be "Ok, I will go and get the plants for you." and the second option might be "How do I harvest a garlic bulb?"
This would allow the player to choose to engage with the tutorial aspect if required, or just head straight out and start the quest, if the tutotial is not needed.
When the quest is handed in, and the player had chosen the more indepth story arc, then on completion, the quest giver could then suggest other NPCs the player should go and speak to that might have information about other game related aspects, this wouldnt happen if you just set out on the quest immediatley.
This can be applied to the majority of newbie zone quest givers which would allow each player to "select" the areas that they want to learn more about. So if a second npc had more indepth information regarding the perception system, then a player who might have skipped the indepth chat regarding foraging, might choose the tutorial arc for the perception system before embarking on the quest. It doesnt force anyone to do a tutorial, however it is there as and when it is needed.
None in the way of a tutorial.
But a single button to pull up a searchable, printable help file (.pdf possibly) if somebody wanted to reference it. I would think being printable would be a plus as I assume there will be /commands and a reference paper for these is not hand holding in the game in any way as I feel a tutorial is. Easley for VR to update, easy for players to access, easy for players to go back and reference later. Manuals are the standard for Software, tutorials are hand holding.
None is a nice and romanticized ideal of the joy of discovery and foreshadowing of the challenges to come.
It is also and absolute train wreck of an idea that is doomed to massive loss of retention and player alienation. Nothing is intuitive to all players. Developers only have their own personal perspective and that of their testers to go off when designing the interface and controls of a game. Even in that small of a pool there will be differences in preferences and personal experience.
The first 2 hours are absolutely crucial for bringing a new player up to speed and integrated into the world. Many potential players will be turned off if they still are lost in the interface in the first 15 minutes of play. As it becomes more acceptable to return a game you do not like, as you can with Steam, loosing players in the first 15 minutes means a true loss of revenue.
One cannot assume that new players will be able to figure out the most basic aspect of the interface much less the more complex or hidden ones. Even as a veteran of decades of MMO play it can still take me a few hours to really get a feel for a UI setup and more than once I have uninstalled a game that was just too clunky for me.
It is fine to make any form of tutorial completely optional to the players but it needs to be available. The true cost effectiveness of a good tutorial is hard to properly appreciate but the market research has been done and can be found for the curious.
A good tutorial will include the following:
1) A step by step walk through of the different UI menus and options.
2) A basic outline and explanation of game mechanics.
3) Guided examples of unique game features that set a game apart from others of the same genre.
4) Basic game setting lore introductions.
5) A final plot hook step to get new players going in the right direction, good for maybe an hour or so of game play.
A great tutorial will also include:
1) A way to turn it back on if you reach a point you are unfamiliar with and would like some assistance.
2) A way to reference past notes and suggestions.
3) An advanced UI options walk through for experienced users who want to customize their UI.
4) An in-game tie into a knowledgebase that does not require going to a third-party site. (Why give revenue to a 3rd-party and open your players to vulnerability from malware)
Players need to get through the new player experience before they can become true players and veterans. Don’t make confusion and frustration with the most basic aspects of play be the reason that Pantheon fails.
Zorkon: Manuals are the standard for Software, tutorials are hand holding.
There are tutorials created for just about everything in existence these days and are just as standard as manuals are. I would also say that people are much more receptive to having something shown to them than having to read about it. I cant remember the last time I read a manual to play a game, probably eye of the beholder or some such. If I want to know how to do something I have never done before, I always find a visual representation is much more understandable than chapters of text. Manuals are great for reviewing but are terrible as play instructions.
Tutorials are not hand holding, showing where to go with a trail wisp or who to talk to by sticking a feather over an NPCs head is hand holding. Tutorials are a great way of introducing new players into the game, if handle correctly.
chenzeme said:Zorkon: Manuals are the standard for Software, tutorials are hand holding.
There are tutorials created for just about everything in existence these days and are just as standard as manuals are. I would also say that people are much more receptive to having something shown to them than having to read about it. I cant remember the last time I read a manual to play a game, probably eye of the beholder or some such. If I want to know how to do something I have never done before, I always find a visual representation is much more understandable than chapters of text. Manuals are great for reviewing but are terrible as play instructions.
Tutorials are not hand holding, showing where to go with a trail wisp or who to talk to by sticking a feather over an NPCs head is hand holding. Tutorials are a great way of introducing new players into the game, if handle correctly.
You bring up another good point. There are three basic learning styles. Visual (reading, standard scholastic education), Auditory (prefers verbal direction and a follow up summary, difference between a good lecturer and a bad one) and Kinesthetic (hands on approch that prefers active participation in demonstrations, often struggles in standard scholastic education).
A PDF is purely Visual only and as a strongly Kinesthetic learner it is a garbage experience. It's like telling someone to learn how to spell by using the dictionary, If I knew how to find it in the dictionary then I would already know how it was spelled!!
An interactive tutorial with actual voice dialog and text hits all 3 methods simultaneously. It will not be fast as auditory by nature can be a slow form of communication but if the option exists to turn off the voice or run it at a higher or lower playback speed it can be accelerated, but for the people that it matters to it will make a world of difference.
We are again talking about true new players to both Pantheon and MMOs in general. Old hats can feel free to skip all tutorials with no penalty but to exclude it is foolish.
Essentially what Trasak said. There should be a good tutorial and it should be optional. And, sorry for using a bad word, it should be instanced. Someone brand new, perhaps even new to MMOs in general, does not need or want chat addressed to him or her, group invitations, guild invitations or the like while trying to figure out how to move, how to set game options, how to chat in the first place, how to adjust ui elements, how to change the font so things are readable and the like.
Extra info in character create screen is never a bad thing.
But once out in the world I just need the keybinding screen and the /help command.
I'm not a 100% sure of how best to explain my view on this, but lets give it a go, since it's something I feel strongly about..
I feel it's good if the game comes with some sort of pub up / guided conversation (like Valheim does with the Hugin) where you aren't really forced to do anything, but you are able to get the information (press x to get menu y where you can see z) all in short simple information, and to give a ball park, I feel it's realistic to hold this to about 4-8 of such informative conversations. When that is done, you should have the information ready for you to find everything els you might need, so even though it doesn't tell you that you can see in your stat window how your stats break down, when you then are there, I would love to be able to get as complex information as possible, same goes for all windows and the like ofcourse.
So yeah, give some small basic information on how to deal with the most basic of needs, and/or information to an help/tutorial menu.
dorotea said:
Essentially what Trasak said. There should be a good tutorial and it should be optional. And, sorry for using a bad word, it should be instanced. Someone brand new, perhaps even new to MMOs in general, does not need or want chat addressed to him or her, group invitations, guild invitations or the like while trying to figure out how to move, how to set game options, how to chat in the first place, how to adjust ui elements, how to change the font so things are readable and the like.
Kicking the concept around a bit further there should be a clear distinction between a:
1) New Player Tutorial:
2) New Character Tutorial:
3) In-game Hint System:
New Player Tutorials could easily be a stand-alone instance tool that can be interacted with before even making your first character. It is just a tool to teach you about the specific title and how to go about enjoying it.
New Character Tutorials, as long as a solid reference frame was established in the NPT, is completely optional and up to a developer’s discretion if it is included. I can again see some benefit to an NCT that will ease new players the rest of the way into the game but skipped for 99% of veterans.
In-game Hint Systems are tricky. They are systems like perception, quest, logs and lore tracking UI elements. They can be both gamified as something you can develop and as tools to bridge technological and logistical gaps. Too powerful of systems and the systems just play your characters for you, too little and players are expected to makes leaps of faith without any clue of possible outcomes.
The NPT should be strong and well thought out, the NCT can be very light or nonexistent and IGHS can be as light or heavy handed as required to get players to interact with the world.
I'm a fan of none, but realize it may be necessary for the game to be financially viable. The idea of an optional starter tutorial outside of the actual game sounds good. What I know I don't want is to be dropped into the world and see npc's with banners over their heads or their names any different than any other player or NPC in in the world or on the map.
Maybe the first time you encounter a situation you get some guidance. For instance my new toon is dropped into the world. I see NPC's around me, maybe some signs over local shops. My first stop is the pub and when I talk to the bartender he explains to me how to buy and sell.
Let me discover any quests as opposed to being led to them; it's far more enjoyable to discover something on my own than to be led around by a virtual leash. And please, when I finish a quest don't give me another one or tell me where to go for the next one unless it's a continuation of that quest line.
I would like to see some instruction on the interface and how to set that up along with the chat system. Maybe videos outside of the game or linked on the start screen. Just avoid holding our hands in game as it ruins the immersion. Being mysterious and dangerous and discovering new things is what makes it fun. If someone can't figure something out, let them ask other players in chat.
I don't see a problem with new players starting of on several isles (depending on what continent they chose), not instanced. And just take a boat when you're done. The boat takes 5+ minutes to arrive somewhere else. Give them a newby chatchannel and open up other channels once they reach mainland. Not by those bloody pop-ups but by gameplay. There doesn't need to be a boat that goes to from the continent to that isle. It's purely for introducing new players to the very basics.
At character creation you get the option before entering the world, to skip the isle-tutorial and go straight to mainland.
I believe the very basic is movement, that can be poored into a track of some sort (left-right, forward-backward, jump, turning, 1-person, third person, changing video angle, sprinting, walking, crouching, swimming) Climbing can be introduced later on. No npc's or quests yet.
After that ....I like how final fantasy (don't shoot me if I'm wrong) did it. They didn't pop up all new stuff at the same time. But gradually, you came across an npc that explained you (by use of a quest or visual element) a new feature that is being introduced. Similar like eq2 did by using several npc's to explore certain elements in the game (sadly they poored into an instance). A bank can explain how you deposit, withdraw. A merchant can explain how to bring up your inventory. Another npc can explain how equip and switch out gear. All in good time. And it doesn't have to be right after each other, as it can be overwhelming.
When it comes to class abilities, nothing better to find a classspecific- npc at the correct time that explains or describes what you can do with that new ability. Or a description on the ability could be sufficient, just keep it open/vague if an ability can be used differently depending on the situation.
Important note, you can always go back to those npc's to "read up" on it again, in case you forgot.
My wife is a good example of this. She just got so blown away from all the new stuff, she just skipped it all as she couldn't remember all that 'jargon' in such a short time. And went on to keybashing and later on losing interest in the game. If a game offers me a spreadsheet to read instruction before I can start of the game. I will not thouroughly study it, so much will be lost. Why not use gameplay and content to gently introduce all those things to players? No one says that you can't present an element multiple times along the way. As with many things repetition works well in order to remember things.
Most importantly, aside of guidance or not.. even at the beginning it needs to be engaging/fun and entertaining.
No instruction outside of the basics like others have mentioned- WASD or arrow keys, duck, jump, hail, talk, right click, left click, consider,
Massively Multiplayer / social
How do you insure this?
No individual/group isolation
How do you put social gateways or game gateways to prevent isolation while still keeping gameplay?
*prepares for the hate/prays for thoughtful consideration*
No tells- by speaking outloud you have to interact. Your source is the players around you and if no one knows, you have to discover. Character determined by what you choose to do - IN GAME- with that knowledge you find (not on a website- karma's a ***** amirite?). and by extension, no discord (except for multi-group/raid content).
With no tells and no discord, the player will have to eavesdrop on other players or interact with other players to discover the world around them, and learn to depend on players and devlop social skills to interact with players, as well as discover what social skills they express that are ineffective in attracting/keeping other players to play with.
No Instances, no shards. The "hot" spot may be crowded, if thats bothersome just go somewhere else. But isn't it nice if it is crowded, because then you can find a spot and not worry if things go south because you can get back easy as other players are keeping the nearby clear, or may even stumble on your corpses and provide aid. Plus you can shout and ask if someone is looking for something or if someone happens to be in a spot where you need something that they dont, sometimes they will have already killed it and the thing is rotting and you can scoot in and be social while they let you loot it before moving on and before looking to see if there is anything you have in your bags they might be able to use or want, just out of courtesy.
It's cool to get a alert message that you are thirsty, and then after a bit, that you are dieing of thirst!
There should be a robust tutorial available (but optional). Remember EQs tutorial? Something small similar to that, something that takes a player and gets them thinking like Pantheon by showing climates/acclimation, climbing, basic combat/resources, inventory/looting, UI info/hotkeys, Quaternity/grouping philosophy, and any other core features they should be aware of.
Otherwise maybe just a handful of tooltips in-game that players can turn off.
Onboarding is very important. Assuming everyone playing knows how to play or is otherwise experienced in MMOs or even gaming in general is a horrible mistake.
Trasak said: None is a nice and romanticized ideal of the joy of discovery and foreshadowing of the challenges to come.It is also and absolute train wreck of an idea that is doomed to massive loss of retention and player alienation. Nothing is intuitive to all players. Developers only have their own personal perspective and that of their testers to go off when designing the interface and controls of a game. Even in that small of a pool there will be differences in preferences and personal experience.
The first 2 hours are absolutely crucial for bringing a new player up to speed and integrated into the world. Many potential players will be turned off if they still are lost in the interface in the first 15 minutes of play. As it becomes more acceptable to return a game you do not like, as you can with Steam, loosing players in the first 15 minutes means a true loss of revenue.
One cannot assume that new players will be able to figure out the most basic aspect of the interface much less the more complex or hidden ones. Even as a veteran of decades of MMO play it can still take me a few hours to really get a feel for a UI setup and more than once I have uninstalled a game that was just too clunky for me.
It is fine to make any form of tutorial completely optional to the players but it needs to be available. The true cost effectiveness of a good tutorial is hard to properly appreciate but the market research has been done and can be found for the curious.
A good tutorial will include the following:
1) A step by step walk through of the different UI menus and options.
2) A basic outline and explanation of game mechanics.
3) Guided examples of unique game features that set a game apart from others of the same genre.
4) Basic game setting lore introductions.
5) A final plot hook step to get new players going in the right direction, good for maybe an hour or so of game play.
A great tutorial will also include:
1) A way to turn it back on if you reach a point you are unfamiliar with and would like some assistance.
2) A way to reference past notes and suggestions.
3) An advanced UI options walk through for experienced users who want to customize their UI.
4) An in-game tie into a knowledgebase that does not require going to a third-party site. (Why give revenue to a 3rd-party and open your players to vulnerability from malware)
Players need to get through the new player experience before they can become true players and veterans. Don’t make confusion and frustration with the most basic aspects of play be the reason that Pantheon fails.
Exactly This. All of it. Particularly the underlined sentence. There's no rational argument to be made against this, as long as it's entirely optional for those who want to 'go it alone'.
I don't know if it's pride or what, but I'm not much of a "tutorial" guy. If a game is running me through the "gauntlet" of "this is what this does, click next!" and "Now, this is what this does" etc, I end up just clicking through it as fast as possible so I can get to what I was originally wanting to do. The key is having a way to see what a particular item in the UI does, or a search function in the ESC menu that allows me to find out how to do something. Forcing me to go through a tutorial at the beginning is just tedious to me. Having little help icons through the UI for me to use at my leisure is something that I know I'll utilize even years after playing a game. IF I have to go through a tutorial, I want it to seem like I'm actually advancing my character and learning it, not some predefined section of the game that I have to go through before even starting to really play my character. Make playing my character the tutorial.
Jothany said:Trasak said: None is a nice and romanticized ideal of the joy of discovery and foreshadowing of the challenges to come.It is also and absolute train wreck of an idea that is doomed to massive loss of retention and player alienation. Nothing is intuitive to all players. Developers only have their own personal perspective and that of their testers to go off when designing the interface and controls of a game. Even in that small of a pool there will be differences in preferences and personal experience.
The first 2 hours are absolutely crucial for bringing a new player up to speed and integrated into the world. Many potential players will be turned off if they still are lost in the interface in the first 15 minutes of play. As it becomes more acceptable to return a game you do not like, as you can with Steam, loosing players in the first 15 minutes means a true loss of revenue.
One cannot assume that new players will be able to figure out the most basic aspect of the interface much less the more complex or hidden ones. Even as a veteran of decades of MMO play it can still take me a few hours to really get a feel for a UI setup and more than once I have uninstalled a game that was just too clunky for me.
It is fine to make any form of tutorial completely optional to the players but it needs to be available. The true cost effectiveness of a good tutorial is hard to properly appreciate but the market research has been done and can be found for the curious.
A good tutorial will include the following:
1) A step by step walk through of the different UI menus and options.
2) A basic outline and explanation of game mechanics.
3) Guided examples of unique game features that set a game apart from others of the same genre.
4) Basic game setting lore introductions.
5) A final plot hook step to get new players going in the right direction, good for maybe an hour or so of game play.
A great tutorial will also include:
1) A way to turn it back on if you reach a point you are unfamiliar with and would like some assistance.
2) A way to reference past notes and suggestions.
3) An advanced UI options walk through for experienced users who want to customize their UI.
4) An in-game tie into a knowledgebase that does not require going to a third-party site. (Why give revenue to a 3rd-party and open your players to vulnerability from malware)
Players need to get through the new player experience before they can become true players and veterans. Don’t make confusion and frustration with the most basic aspects of play be the reason that Pantheon fails.
Exactly This. All of it. Particularly the underlined sentence. There's no rational argument to be made against this, as long as it's entirely optional for those who want to 'go it alone'.
I don’t disagree with what Trasak said, but it seems to me that people have different ideas on what guidance is.
Guidance to me is hand holding, it’s often in the form of the tutorial that forces an explanation on what buttons to use to move, jump or shoot and wont let you progress without pressing the button.
Having a directory of information, a sorta in game wiki with all the information necessary in either written or video form is fine. Even the optional tutorial is fine, But There is most certainly a difference between providing access to information, and forcing someone though a Guided tutorial that usually spoils the game because I like to figure the game out for myself, even if it means I die a lot.
HemlockReaper said:I don’t disagree with what Trasak said, but it seems to me that people have different ideas on what guidance is.
Guidance to me is hand holding, it’s often in the form of the tutorial that forces an explanation on what buttons to use to move, jump or shoot and wont let you progress without pressing the button.
Having a directory of information, a sorta in game wiki with all the information necessary in either written or video form is fine. Even the optional tutorial is fine, But There is most certainly a difference between providing access to information, and forcing someone though a Guided tutorial that usually spoils the game because I like to figure the game out for myself, even if it means I die a lot.
I THINK this means we are in agreement. I'm sure you noticed my sentence "There's no rational argument to be made against this, as long as it's entirely optional for those who want to 'go it alone'.