Learn from WOW beginner "tutorial"

In the latest World of Warcraft patch, Blizzard reworked the new player experience. And in my opinion, there is a lot to learn from how they do it.

All the menues, systems, abilities and mechanics are gradally, and cleary thaught to you. At the start, you simply don't see everything. But, as you progress, more and more systems etc are presented to you.

In my opinion this is very good to make the game more beginner friendly. They also did it in a fun way.
For example, I played WoW all my life, and this was a fun experience for me.

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Comments

Sholer

I do not agree. That "Ogre island" just feel like a waste of time.

maouw

I fully agree - Black Desert's UI was overwhelming when you first start.
but can I add to this?

I think the best way to "unveil" new UI is by showing that they are locked and specific quests unlock them.

This is better than a tutorial that holds your hand and regurgitates a user manual - because as a player unlocking new features, I am invested in finding out what each feature that I earned lets me do.

bloodprophet

This thread is completely personal preference.

I personally couldn't even force myself to finish the starting area. Bread crumbs everywhere hand holding trash. The whole experience was not good at all. If I was a new player to any game and had to go through that I would uninstall faster then when I uninstalled GW2(I at least gave this dumpster fire a week). Makes me glad I didn't pre-order the expansion.
Personally the starting area in the latest expansion is everything that has gone wrong with the genre rolled into one giant bugger being flicked at the players. This is an opportunity to learn what not to do.

George_Black

Never played wow but as maouw mentioned BDO and some other games overwhelm the new player.

I agree with the slow reveal of functions. It should go without saying for any game that plans to delay players from reaching lv cap (was said around 6 months with steady gameplay).

L2 ( as you know by now, my go to comparisson for the AoC vision) being a slow game revealed stages of combat, crafting and other farming methods at a very good pace.

George_Black

I really hate it when in the first hour of gameplay I have 10 quests alrdy on my log, sending me here and there to learn how to X, Y, Z.

Let me be a newbie for a bit, kill some wolves, explore the first area, die 5 times and one by one show me the means to progress.

bloodprophet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxwy8kpFwZ0

Wandering Mist

WoW's tutorial is very good, but very much targeted at younger players who are playing an mmorpg for the first time. This of course means that for mmo veterans or even older players who pick things up very quickly, it can be very tedious and boring.

What I don't understand is that in 2020, so many games still insist on having a tutorial that is exactly the same for everyone, rather than tailoring it to the individual user. As a simple example, I, an mmorpg veteran, don't need to be told that W,A,S and D control my character. Give me the option the tell the game that I've played an mmorpg before and save me the hassle of going through basic controls.

ataulfos

maybe resume the tutorial and give acces to look the controls and what they do like a short introduction for veteran mmo players, but we have to be inclusive bc honestly i dont want to let outside of the game the people that is playing for first time an mmo like old people for example

Mountain King

I played WoW on and off since shortly after it's release. It has only gotten more simple as time has passed. Who the heck is the new beginner experience for? People who can't tie their own shoes?

Sathrago

The new world of warcraft zone Exiles reach is a beautifully crafted well designed theme park that will teach a player the most basic of actions such as: Move in a direction! Turn your camera! Talk to an npc! That there is a quest Icon! Attack this with your one ability!
They have a decent quest chain that leads you around the island and teaches you how to fight npcs, loot, turn in quests, sell your items/purchase items, and then ultimately leads to a 2 boss dungeon that runs with 3 dps a healer and an npc tank. There are other npcs that heal and deal damage as well.

They don't just hold your hand on this island they cut it off and drag it around just to make sure you can make it to the end.

So if we want to take ideas from them, my suggestion would be to do almost all of what they did, but make the mobs actually threaten the life of the player as well as allowing them to fail. Failure is histories greatest teacher. Maybe if it had that, I would have enjoyed that tutorial island.

Sov54

George Black wrote: »

I really hate it when in the first hour of gameplay I have 10 quests alrdy on my log, sending me here and there to learn how to X, Y, Z.

Let me be a newbie for a bit, kill some wolves, explore the first area, die 5 times and one by one show me the means to progress.

This.

Asking for mandatory handholding chores is the opposite of the sandbox mentality.

If you can't figure out a system, ask someone!

Oenanthe

I don't mind a bit of explaining on the first run through of a game, but please, let us skip it on subsequent characters. Having tooltips popping up on how to move, how to talk to someone, how to open your bags or quest log gets really annoying on the 4th or 5th character.

Maezriel

A lot of people in this thread seem to be masochist and want the game to be a sadist right out of the gate.

Personally, I like the idea of an instanced area that's just for new players to learn the ropes and have their hand held, but once complete players are able to skip it just like you can w/ the new Exile's Reach in WoW.

We've already seen plenty of post on this forum and on the subreddit where AoC caught the eye of people who've never played an MMO (or any PC game) before and there's nothing wrong w/ easing them into it and letting the difficulty get cranked up after they leave the safe area.

Warth

Periodic exposure to new features is known to improve the new player experience. It greatly increases the chance of new players playing for longer than a month. Even if it just helps them get settled into a new world for the first 5 mins.

the gradual exposure to new game systems /accessibility was one of the primary reasons why games like WoW, HS and LoL became as popular in the first place.

Implementing a good onboarding experience doesn't take away from anybody but helps the game grow.

I can't take anybody that's against it seriously.

Damokles

I loved the old-school wow beginner zones.
No hand holding with all mobs being yellow fodder as they did later on.
Defias thieves stealing berries, spiders attacking anything that enters their cave, demonic minions sheeming in their hideout etc. That was the sh*t in my opinion. It gave you some kind of responsibility, it taught you to step lightly and not to pull too many mobs. The whole experience showed you how to survive in the regular zones.

maouw

Consider how gen Z grew up on Minecraft.
That game explains nothing.
No "Basic Controls"/"How to open chests"/"How to trade with an NPC"
No crafting guide, no quest pointers .

The game literally goes: if you don't do stuff right now, it will be night time and you will die.
And they loved it.

However, AoC is considerably more complex than Minecraft - and I think there's an element of fear in entering an established community on an MMO that you don't get from singleplayer games. So something that provides a bit of assurance would be helpful imo.

Plus - surely you guys remember the first characters you created in an MMO? I thought it would be cool to have some Strength on my mage. LMAO. It's probably healthy to let people make mistakes early on.

mrwaffles

maouw wrote: »

Consider how gen Z grew up on Minecraft.

Plus - surely you guys remember the first characters you created in an MMO? I thought it would be cool to have some Strength on my mage. LMAO. It's probably healthy to let people make mistakes early on.

Thats a good point. I was originally going to be one of the people that said that I can't stand the UI hand holding process but it really does have it's place. GW2 had a good system where you can simply just opt out of it from the very beginning. Imagine it like skyrim where you could just check "skip" and not wake up in a wagon but instead in the dungeons about to fight a troll.

What I'm saying is never played WoW but sounds good for new players and maybe for the users that want to forgo it they can add a little checkbox at the character creation that says "skip tutorial" ?

Warth

Damokles wrote: »

I loved the old-school wow beginner zones.
No hand holding with all mobs being yellow fodder as they did later on.
Defias thieves stealing berries, spiders attacking anything that enters their cave, demonic minions sheeming in their hideout etc. That was the sh*t in my opinion. It gave you some kind of responsibility, it taught you to step lightly and not to pull too many mobs. The whole experience showed you how to survive in the regular zones.

In terms of monster, this might be true. Leashing multiple monsters by accident equalled certain death, which is something I'd support for Ashes as well.

However, at any given time, WoW gave you the next step on your path progression path. It was a very linear experience, which I wouldn't like to see in Ashes, as it simply isn't a game where its appropriate for.

Then there were game systems, which were explained to you step by step for the first couple of levels. Which imo is a necessity to not overwhelm new players. In terms of interface, new players don't need a mount tab, until they receive their first mount as an example. Keep it clean and make people unlock it step by step, that's the easiest way of giving new players an enjoyable first few hours of the game, which might very well dictate how long they play. (Also add a "skip tutorial" button, that instantly activates all the features and deactivates tooltips)

OrcLuck

some things can be onboarded better then others.

Atama

I'm good with the idea of a detailed tutorial, I often like when I am playing a game for the first time and I am walked through it when I start out. Maybe I don't need help figuring out how to walk around, but I may not know how the UI brings up the map, or how to get into every submenu of the character sheet.

As long as this is optional. I don't want to be forced to endure it with every alt. And If I have experience with the game prior to release through testing (and trust me, I WILL) I don't even want to go through it with my first "real" character either.

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