A new journey - what are your thoughts on the beginning player experience in MMO's?

What are your thoughts on a new players experience in a MMO world.. what have you seen from other games that worked out well and others that may not have?

Not a official story, just flavor story to go along with Discussion ideas!

Prologue:

Fuppo sits calmly on the broken wall beside a small box that contains what appears to be cookies. "I swear there were more of these. Did I eat one? No, there is mischief afoot." He nods his head in disapproval.
He feels something, a presence that was not there a moment before.
He swivels his head, looking to the west over towards the tops of the pine trees across the large meadow that spreads out before him. The glade has an ancient structure, with fallen and broken stone walls and towers. It sits rising on top of the ground that gently slopes up from the meadow's edge to the center where the tumbled stone blocks sit, jumbled in disarray but with enough structure to show the tower's grandeur and walls that once stood there.

Suddenly, he hears a noise in the distance, crashing branches and sees movement deep among the trees in the thick scrub brush that lays in dark patches under the spreading branches.

Quickly the small cat, for that is all that Fuppo is, is he? There are more profound mysteries about the feline than appear at first glance. One might be the glowing eyes, slitted with an iris that seems to burn with an inner fire that might consume the onlooker with a deluge of heat if released from the prison that traps it. Other hidden mysteries are not apparent at first glance hidden in the feline's body which is as black as the darkness you might find in a cave deep in the earth's bowels.

Bounding down from his perch, Fuppo leaps behind one of the large building stones toppled from the tower walls.
Looking again towards the treeline, he sees emerging from the deep shadows that cloak the forest edge a group of what appear to be travelers!

"Ah yes, finally," he thinks to himself.
"It took them long enough; I have been here after sneaking back through the Gateway from Verra for over a month waiting; what has taken them so long to arrive?" he wonders with a slight annoyance appearing on his small feline face. An old face, older than anyone could suspect.*

But that is not of import now. Fuppo leaves his hiding place and jumps to the top of a larger stone block so they will be able to see him clearly; one must be careful as one will not want to scare the travelers; they will have had run-ins with the... inhabitants in this area and might be slightly, well maybe more than a little frightened. "No use getting an arrow shot at me." he thinks, though that would be a wasted arrow.

"Good morning, or is it? The start of your adventure, travelers. Oh, they have no idea of the wonders and dangers facing them." He purrs... "oh yes, they have no idea."

Chapter 1: Through the Forest.

“Corruption and Walnuts, This forest is horrid! ” Zii exclaims, her high voice rising an octave and ascending from there as she continues to speak. “I said we should have taken the path towards the mountain, but no! No one listens to Zii! We have been wandering for days aimlessly through underbrush and trees in that valley and are probably lost forever! When one of those nasty spiderlings that were back there eats us all, you can not blame me. No! No! Not blaming Zii! Allu, you remember this! You remember my words as you get wound up in spider silk Alluring!” She looks over at the stout and muscular dwarf walking in front of her and slightly to the left.

“We are not lost! This compass works I know it!” says the dwarf, as she looks back over her shoulder, her long luxurious braided beard that hangs down to her knees flipping around her leather and chain armor, catching on the twin blade daggers that are sheathed in her scabbard she has on her right hip attached to her belt. Alluring, or Allu, as she is known to those that knew her before joining the company, glares at Zii, who is a Niküan Dwarf. Zii is a Tank; this is not common but not unheard of among the Niküan as they continue what they call the Great Hunt. She has thick iron armor plates on her greaves and breastplate and a chainmail shirt that hangs to her knees, fastened by a leather belt at her waist. A longsword sheathed beside her hand and a round shield of leather-covered wood underneath a cloak on her back.

Niküa are a sea-faring, island-dwelling race traditionally. “Close to the sea do our hearts be!” was a saying Allu had heard many times pass from the Niküa's lips. Zii is slimmer in build and taller as well by a hand span. Slightly duskier of complexion than Alluring, a mountain Dwarf, or as they and others call themselves, a Dünir. Dünir and Niküa are related far in the past before the inhabitants of Verra fled to Sanctus. Descendants of the mighty Dünzenkell Dwarves of myth and legend. However, Alluring can scare believe this, thinking to herself, “How can we be related at all!” as she begins to turn around to give Zii a piece of her mind.

A low deep voice interrupts the words that had just started to escape Allu's mouth. “Why do we not continue this conversation less harshly, friends? Is this how we treat our companions?” The voice emerged from a Massive figure, an Ork. A Ren'Kai, to be precise.

Allu and Zii both look back at the tall Orc with a giant two-handed hammer fastened on his back and become silent, though not before shooting glares at each other and making huffing noises like they are puffing air through their beards.

To Be Continued-

What are your thoughts on a new players experience in a MMO world.. what have you seen from other games that worked out well and others that may not have?

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Comments

CROW3

FFXIV was a 600 hour cutscene with some gameplay here and there. I can’t imagine a more thorough way to entirely disconnect a player from a story.

So, no - let’s not do that… 😉

Sapiverenus

Log in -> playing the game. No story early on. Please. SHOW some of the premise in a stylized way instead of WORDS AND NARRATIVE I DON'T CARE ABOUT.

If I like the game on the basis of its gameplay and the impression it gives, I will continue and enjoy the rest of it. Exposure to the game's systems is good.

A bit of style is just fine though.

Hopefully the story is good too. The opening of the game can be immersive and rich. . . but it's usually pretty bland and doesn't "intertwine" getting started and getting a solid impression of the game well.. . .
I should be using game/ combat systems that don't violate the world and story and immersion; impression of the game; so bad they need to be kept away from players so "the story can do its thing" LOL . . .

In other words the combat should look good in the game world, and the style or mood it's trying to convey. And I should be doin' something right away. Game should generate its own atmosphere by playing it.

My idea from another thread I made, which I've improved a bit:

Basically you move through the small branching map to pick your race and class. Each is like a microcosm representative of the 'choice' you're picking.

You walk into one area you transform into that. When you spawn in you look like some. . . Essence. . . form. . . something. Something lore based, basically. Energy. Whatever.

So start with male/ female 2 ways heh heh
then 9 paths/ tunnels/ hallways/ trails/ whatever leading out of the starting area to pick your race (however many there are)
then 8 paths or whatever for each class.

All of them should be like their own microcosm, think "Caverns of Time" world of warcraft except much better, much more style, and some ON POINT thematic stuff. Bit of Alice in Wonderland, Caverns of Time, even optical illusion (through the looking glass alice in wonderland) type stuff.

For each race + class, there is a safe area and a dark place to go to to fight enemies!

This permits playtesting before committing; tryout of level 10

profession type stuff existing in the Race or Gender areas, then combat type stuff in the Class areas. Game systems demonstrated in the microcosm of each selection.

Kill the enemies reach the end of the cave and go through the portal to enter a small underground chamber with a faintly illuminescent pool of water at the opposite end with some sort of arches around it seemingly chiseled from the rough cave stone! Enter the pool of water then suddenly --> the player can't move! the water turns into a solid and starts climbing up the player and dragging it down! Translucent star and galaxy speckled purple cosmic goop???? With a spinning flow [vortex] starting from the edges rather than the center?

Then: CHARACTER CUSTOMIZATION MODE!

Devs, Make the character customization background look good and reflect one's race and class choice and the fact they're portaling through the cosmos, rather than be a blank slate or simply "thematic" to their race/class.
Have the face make expressions characteristic of the race and class, and the situation they're in -> some sort of DESCENT INTO THE MATERIAL PLANE.

Then: VERRA!

Easy win, Intrepid.

Hinotori

Personally I loved the eve way.

Show me how to control my character in the beginning, show me the settings menu. Show me how to interact with quests.

After that drop me off in the universe and get to the rest of the crap later when its relevant.

Heartbeat

I think it's important for the new player experience to be a fresh, unknown experience, meaning the player should be rewarded for exploring around rather than having system pop-ups tell them what to do or where to go, minus a storyline quest giving them a slight bit of direction of course. If players, and i'm only talking about this as if the game just released full-scale for the first time, are trying to speedrun the game with guides then you'll see players burn out fast

I'm all for watching guides and tutorials if you're stuck and need help, trying to speedrun, min-max or whatever, but AoC absolutely should not launch in a post-information stage, Alpha tests and beta tests need to be severely limited in what they offer us, or else we'll have a New World situation where the game releases with tons of guides and info written and available for the player and players rush to max level and then realise that they went through months worth of content in a couple weeks.

Hamsammach

So, i'm someone who will be fairly new to the mmorpg genre when this game comes out. I've played them before, but not extensively. I'd like to see a couple things.
* I'm not a huge fan of "WASD to walk" Type things. When i'm thrown into a world, i want to be immersed. I want to look around and see what there is to see, without it feeling "gamey". I 100% vote for the menu selection of how new you are to the genre/video games. Most of the mechanics as a gamer i can figure out myself because i have a backlog of other games i play that pretty much follow the same rules. I'd lean towards struggling to figure those things out vs being handfed all the information i need to play the game, as long as it's not impossible. And if i don't figure it out in time, maybe that would warrant a pop-up.
* I'm a big fan of the thing that guild wars 2 has, where there are little puzzles to use the game's mechanics in different ways, i.e rolling backwards with iframes through a laser gate. If you can't make it so that i can naturally use the mechanics without being explained, at least make it so you don't have to explained what their used for. If guild wars didn't explain that the roll had iframes, i would have been able to figure it out, and felt a little more clever for it.
* Make sure the pacing is correct, and don't throw incredible challenges when most people will be on autopilot for a good portion beforehand, even if that challenge is arbitrary. Again, a guild wars 2 reference (only mmorpg I've played recently), i got thrown into a boss fight when right before all i had been doing was watching story clips and such. There has to be a weaning into different ways of engaging with the play. If I'm in "story mode" and abruptly get put into "paying attention to boss fight cues" mode, even if the game gives you time to prepare, if it isn't communicated directly to the player in some way, I'll feel lost when the game throws things at me and all the sudden I have to pay attention to things i didn't before.
* The problem that all this has is if i make a goal for myself that I'm going to do this jump puzzle, even if i have never done a damn jump puzzle in my life, it has to be communicated through the world (or the dialogue, but the world as much as possible) how I'm going to get there. If people are confused as to how to get there, or don't have the tools to get there (i.e i don't know how to jump) then they're just going to leave. I think if you're going to do the story justice, it needs to be done through the world as much as possible. All the gameplay stuff can be communicated, but do it as little as possible so people don't feel like the conclusion is obvious. Tutorials can be challenging if done right, and it means the information will stick more because they had to work to get it.
* Overall, I just don't want another mmo experience that i have to auto-pilot through the first 50 levels. If you can do that, i'll be happy with the system.

Sapiverenus

@Hamsammach
lol Guild Wars 2 starter bosses weren't difficult but when the majority of the game is going to be at a lame boring pace I'd rather start with whacking boars with a stick and maybe get used to dodging by having the boars be rather lethal and regen be dogshit.
Making the character 'epic' day 1 is kind of bad for getting into an MMO with tens of thousands of other players told they're also "so epic bro".

Guild Wars 2 starter zones were bad. UI and sound effects were grating. . . you could have just slaughtered a bunch of people and your mum could have just died and things would jingle like cheerful bells and meters would fill, yippyyy!
Visual scale was always off in some way and the ways they try and make you feel important (and require you do the chores for XP to leave the area) is obnoxious.

I like a ramp up. You might appreciate the 'game' stuff if it were more immersive to move through and do stuff in the game, by having. . . variable inertia on the character perhaps? Where you accelerate in a direction and decelerate before changing direction or stopping?
Which has extreme relevance to how combat plays out and opens up room for more challenges/ skill checks by allowing the devs to offer more nuanced movement options, especially for those with the attributes or perhaps skills.

If playing the game is not creating its own 'story' then the game is simply arcade BS.

Every MMO is a grindfest but its basic combat is often boring. Its movement is boring. Its systems are boring. They aren't grounded and break immersion.

GW2 is conveyor belt of chore trash into small cramped Zones, into a somewhat small open island. . . It doesn't handle things well. It's generic. It's lame. It's obnoxious. I get a new weapon every 10 - 30 minutes because tiny upgrades through easy content is necessary I guess? And I'm buying it off random people I did chores for?
The starting experience was not good and not immersive despite their attempts.

If it's a living world that responds to player actions, with intelligent AI; with good skill checks, exploration, movement, and progression; it will stand tall on its own and make the story look bet ter.

I wish world design was a bit more vertical too. Hopefully that happens.

EDIT: quite a bit

Hamsammach

Sapiverenus wrote: »

@Hamsammach
lol Guild Wars 2 starter bosses weren't difficult but when the majority of the game is going to be at a lame boring pace I'd rather start with whacking boars with a stick and maybe get used to dodging by having the boars be rather lethal and regen be dogshit.
Making the character 'epic' day 1 is kind of bad for getting into an MMO with tens of thousands of other players told they're also "so epic bro".

I wouldn't go so far as to say i want to start off getting wrecked by everything, but i get your point. The easy to learn, hard to master concept works find in things like moba's where the challenge is proportional to the enemies you face, and can be further enhanced by matchmaking. But i think it's a shame that mmorpg's took up that stance as well, when a large portion of the game is spent early/mid game and pve being your primary source of content leveling up, i think it's better for a games longevity for there to be some challenge be added to the leveling process because most people have better things to do with their time then sit through endless cutscenes and scurry about collecting meaningless items for npcs that don't matter. The game should be fun to play in all areas, and feeling like a champion for even getting to endgame should be prioritized over getting to endgame in the first place.

Sapiverenus

Hamsammach wrote: »

I wouldn't go so far as to say i want to start off getting wrecked by everything, but i get your point. The easy to learn, hard to master concept works find in things like moba's where the challenge is proportional to the enemies you face, and can be further enhanced by matchmaking. But i think it's a shame that mmorpg's took up that stance as well, when a large portion of the game is spent early/mid game and pve being your primary source of content leveling up, i think it's better for a games longevity for there to be some challenge be added to the leveling process because most people have better things to do with their time then sit through endless cutscenes and scurry about collecting meaningless items for npcs that don't matter. The game should be fun to play in all areas, and feeling like a champion for even getting to endgame should be prioritized over getting to endgame in the first place.

Okay then let there be a choice between beating up a tree (hanging corpse for Charr? Who knows), small boars, or large wolves or something.
Those fake cutscenes from the getgo are pretty obnoxious though. Poor voice acting. Maybe save that for something big Anet lol.

The sense of scale, pacing and progression is always pretty bad in MMOs and games in general. I'd even appreciate a training mini-game that amounted to spamming a button, and hit a tree to progress; because there are big wolves in the forest or whatever and I need to get through it. It would be nice to see players 'training', dueling, and organizing, so they can tackle tougher challenges. That makes it feel like a 'world' and 'epic'. . . not 'JINGLE ding ding dink Level Up! You helped Farmer Dan Milk His Cows! Now you can beat the shit out of Demon Giants!'

Linear zones with progressively higher difficulty is pretty bad though. . . bad for story even. . . maybe the forests outside of the starting zone are tough but it's easier and you have more options once you get past them. Like. . . a real world, of sorts. . . devs. . .

A 250* hour grind is already planned for the game LOL so why not?

Anyway I don't really think a difficult encounter early on is bad, but the GW2 starter boss was not difficult so I'm not sure if that was really the issue for you or if you thought the entire pacing and scale and systems of the game were off-putting, and immersion breaking.

Balrog21

I've always thought, that about a week before launch you have a dedicated web page with tutorials about certain aspects of the game be it a new player or veteran.
This way you experience the world and you don't have to worry about learning stuff as soon as you step into the game.

Dizz1

I’m a person prefer there are NPCs introduce me some information about the place I am plus the world and nodes are constantly changing so I feel that NPCs help me as new player with world and near nodes information will be very useful like where is the big city can buy something very useful like a mount or what I will see if I choose travel to ESWN at least these 4 directions that offer some interest information to me and let me and my team to choose which direction we want to start our adventure, and I hope there will always a NPC like a scout or guider who maybe roaming around near node or the main road between nodes or a sign on road side to help me update information about the world without I need to constantly check on map to update information, I’d like see the things in environment to find my way instead of constantly checking map.

Caww

OK, so I'm a bit slow and prefer to have the actual mechanics of the UI and game play explained in a "User Manual" style, which could be as easy as a comprehensive in-game tab which explains what steps need to be performed for a given activity. I know that the Wiki will provide a lot of information but a solid, readable description of "things" would be helpful.

Sapiverenus

@Caww
A physical User Manual sent out to people would be good.
If the player spawns near a 'Training Ground' I can see some NPC prompting the player to ask if they want a tutorial.

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