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Tutorial?
Caez
Member, Alpha One
Do you guys think that there should be a Tutorial in game? Just to show some basic stuff about it.. I saw some streamers lost cause they didn't even know stuff and it would be a good thing too for those new players in the MMO comunity any time in the future(even if the game realesed months/years ago)
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I’ll take any chance to build and keep a community of players instead of the devs spoonfeeding folks.
What you are seeing from those videos is the alpha one. This was a true alpha one and simply a systems test not a content test. All content in A1 might change.
I don't see them launching with out a tutorial of some sort talking about the base systems.
Hopefully they don't go to into detail and give away everything. Keep it as broad strokes and allow people to experiment and figure out the details.
Basicly (Solo tutorial)
enter tutorial
Here how you move
here how you fight go kill those few mobs for me
here how to gather
here how to craft
and this is how u progress a node (makes a portal when node increases
goes through portal gets put into proper game
It told you about mining or gathering but you still had to find the mats to craft a sword.
You were given quests but no exact locations.
There were collections and you could roam the whole island at your leisure, if you ran into the boss camp before you were ready you died.
I'd say that's the best way to do it, give people a rough guide but also give them the freedom to explore and do it at their own pace alongside that guide.
Having on-screen indicators that force you to click through every menu, press WASD, move a skill onto your bar, kill a dummy that doesn't fight back won't promote the "hardcore" ideals the game has and is too much, forced training wheels don't help the person trying to learn and won't prepare them for gear/item loss, xp debt, long grinds etc.
The content should follow a similar fashion throughout and that includes any tutorial.
Would be kinda cool to select between something like "An old soul" (veteran player) and "A newcomer" (newby). Then you could have just ashes specific stuff like the crafting or other unique things explained/ a way to read back through.
I totally don't click through the tutorials and then realize I should have read something later, haha.
A tutorial needs to show people how to interact with the world (movement and controls). It should act as if this is the player's first game, but keep experienced players in mind. It should show people how they can interact with the world (killing monsters, accepting quests, advancing nodes). It should describe the 'what' and 'why' of the world. A good tutorial should be an enjoyable experience, and a player should have some idea of what they want to do once they're done.
Anecdotally, BDO is a perfect example of why a game needs a good tutorial. I've tried to get into that game on three different occasions and failed all three times.
Exactly this!
I loved the introduction tutorial in GW2 and ESO.
I’m just over the cliched approaches to introducing characters into a world. MMOs aren’t new so why treat players as if they haven’t seen these UX elements at least 10-20 times before?
If Ashes wants to help innovate the genre, why not start right from - well - the start?
Edit: Here’s what I’d propose
- Provide concise, well-written contextual tips that players can toggle on or off when players are doing something new such as crafting, or speccing your character
- Add NPCs that can offer guidance, again contextually, the injured carpenter, the retired guard, the ragged pet master etc. Err on the side of immersion over exposition
- Allow other players to flag themselves as advisors who can be contacted in game for specific topics (Dear Nagash, I need to resurrect my undead carrot, what’s the best way to do this?)
- All of this can be done whoever the character starts the story without doing the same old, tired cliche of being conveniently shipwrecked on an island devoid of danger, filled with supplies, and populated with just enough experts to help you and every other ‘hero’ just like you to miraculously escape. 🧐🙄🤢🤮
A small team with 6 hours, 3 dozen donuts, and a pony keg can come up with 10-15 solid alternatives to the starting experience. So, let’s not settle for 1997.
Not that I have a strong opinion on the matter.
I personally think they don't necessarily need to add a new zone or quests to show people to play, they just could add a character in third voice who explains stuff but they could also add some npc or make that guards help you with those stuff,we could just ask to a guard stuff like, how do I get a quest and they just give you and answer like, the npc´s with green(I think that´s the actuall color) will give you quest, adding exclamations mark would break a little bit the inmertion
We know little of the Tulnar, their story, how they start, any of that. But I imagine that they could be emerging onto the surface world as pioneers just as the people from Sanctus are entering through a magical portal.
As far as a tutorial regarding movement, skills use, advancement, and all of that stuff, I am always in favor of that as long as you can turn it off. I don't need to be walked through WASD movement and how to swing my sword on my 4th alt, thank you.
I like that you expanded on this, seeing as earlier you said "nope" to a tutorial. It seems to me that you're tired of shitty tutorials- the ones that we've seen hundreds of times before. My personal belief is that every game should treat its player as if their player has never touched a video game before. I think that can be accommodated without frustrating veteran players.
What I think is interesting is that you basically proposed the Vanilla WoW tutorial. In my last post, I was pretty close to describing why I think the original WoW tutorial is best, but opted not to. I'll do so briefly here.
The original WoW tutorial is...
- a skippable cinematic on the background of your chosen race's origins. This lets interested players pay attention, and uninterested players skip through.
- Some concise tooltips on game mechanics and controls. They show up once you encounter those mechanics. When I was a kid learning the game, I looked forward to those popups, as they meant I found something new. They're also non-intrusive, so you can keep playing.
- Very simple quests that start very basic and slowly get more complex. This allows people to learn how to play without telling them explicit instructions
- complete freedom from the very first second, allowing people to explore if they want, or just leave right away if they have other plans.
I think that a similar tutorial would work very well with Ashes, as that kind of tutorial puts the world in the focus, rather than some pre-scripted experience.
Imagine there's a short cinematic specific to the race you chose. It does a quick flythrough of that race's civilization on Sanctus, with a narrator describing their core values. It shows your character, along others, going through the Divine Gate, and the narrator describes the significance of Verra to your people, and encourages you to go forth and conquer. You're then given control of your character, with a concise tooltip showing controls, and it directs you to your first quest, somebody who was waiting for newcomers. This questline will slowly introduce game mechanics to new players, but players are allowed to leave right away with full access to the game's mechanics. Tooltips will show up when new systems are encountered, and can be turned off at any time.
Well, there are starting zones and there are tutorials. They aren’t the same thing. Some mmos blend the two such as ESO, some mmos have starting locations like WoW, and some have tutorials like Neverwinter.
WoW 1.0 didn’t have a tutorial, it had a place to start do quests then go (to do more quests) like every other theme park. It had tool tips, but you had to figure out spell ranks and combos.
A tutorial walks you through keys and buttons while explicitly and specifically explaining their purpose. Move forward toward the Apple by pressing W, now target the Apple using your left mouse button, now press E to eat the Apple.
So, no - I don’t think a tutorial is necessary.
I also wouldn’t write the starting zone for players totally new to video games. In fact I would ignore those customers entirely, for a very simple reason: it’s such a small segment of your player population, it wouldn’t be worth the investment or worth dumbing down the first impression of the game for the VAST majority of players who have gaming experience.