The new tutorial (is this done?)

[Brash_Endeavors 4,735]

 I had a family member run through it yesterday. They had gone through the old one several times over the years, using it as a "refresher course" for the game. They said the old one "was okay" but the new one "was terrible," I went to watch over their shoulder for a part of it -- I did not get to see the entire tutorial so it is possible what I saw, was not a good representation.

 

 

All the "hands on" activities were gone -- where you chopped down a tree, made a mallet, dug up some clay and made a little bowl.  Trudged through gravel, lit a lamp, made a campfire, etc etc.    Instead, now you march past hundreds of signs and click on them for little  tips about the game.  My daughter was bored to tears by it -- and she actually enjoyed the old one.

 

I will have to run through from start to finish  to see if it is really all that way, but I seriously cannot imagine anyone willingly  clicking on  hundreds of boring little signs, and everyone  just skipping the entire thing. 

 

 

Anyway I am going to go now and  try the entirecourse.   I hope others here will also roll up a test character and see what they think, so we can have a good discussion.   Maybe others will think this is perfect and just what the game needed.   (I imagine a lot of the regular Wurm players rolling up new Xanadu characters, were eager to get to the new server and skipped past the tutorial, but perhaps some ran the entire thing and have already formed impressions.)

 

 

 

[Amber 337]

Heya Brash! Long time no see. 

 

I went through it before going to Xanadu on my alt and I thought it was WAY more informative than the old one. Of course, I just closed a lot of the text screens as soon as I got an idea of what they covered so I didn't read each one. All that reading may indeed turn some people off but at least now the info is there for those who choose to take the time to read it. 

 

The option to totally skip past the tutorial was a nice addition to I think. 

[RockyBalboa 565]

i pass them last time with reason....  

[Nephilim 26]

it would be nice to have some hands on like the old system, but i do like the new tutorial. maybe add some hands on to each area via a portal or something to practice what they have learned.

[Ruger 610]

The new tutorial reminds me of a spawn on a minecraft server with hundreds of little signs or computerscreens(if on a modpack server) with all the  rules and everything.

 

It sucks.,,

[Nicrolis 980]

This one is definitely more informative, but not every one can learn by reading. I went into the new tutorial thinking it would be like the old one, with less/easier to understand text.

 

I do like the freeroam though. It was nice to go around and discover things, just wish i could of actually done what I was reading

[Brash_Endeavors 4,735]

Ok so I ran through the whole thing.  It's actually goes quite fast  now that you are not slowed down doing things. It does feel "nicer" in some ways to wander through a more parklike open environment and not be herded through a linear tangled maze  of one-way pass-gates. Just as a note, if a person is like me and has their settings turned down, you've lost 90 percent of the content as there are no "sparklies" and I did not see many popups. For instance I saw a sign named "SWIMMING", I approached it, I clicked on it, I examined it, I learned nothing except the tutorial has a sign named "Swimming" (no water nearby to try swimming out). Hopefully not too many other people are running through this with lowered settings, because they will be very confused by it all. 

 

I have decided why they probably did it this way. I am sure it is very sensible from a caretaker point of view. By removing the ability for people to actually DO anything in the tutorial, everything is now a lot neater. You can have displays of all the pretty new models and not worry about anyone messing things up with chopped up logs, burning campfires, discarded piles of clay, half made items. Learning is messy so lets just put everything into signs.  Reading signs is a remarkably CLEAN activity and now  the tutorial is a tidy little Museum D'Wurm that seems to employ a fine janitorial staff.  Anyone who has every raised small kids (I raised four), knows that children trying to learn things is a Very Messy Thing. The new tutorial is a Very Tidy Thing, and should please the tidier inclined among us very much. You put a clear plastic cover on the good velvet sofa, invest in a set of Encyclopedia Britannica, and you are ready to raise kids.  I guess many do raise  kids that way, and many of us were raised that way. (One thing that worries me, is that they might decide there are many other ways to make Wurm itself more "tidy." Why have 17 types of wood, really you just need "Wood." Why have so many combat weapon types, really just "Blunt, Blade and Pierce" covers it all. But that is a HUGE topic in itself and doesn;t really belong here, other than to say -- this may be what divides people who think the new tutorial is GREAT, and the ones who think it is all one giant step backwards).  

 

 

Anyway -- I pretended I was a brand new person who had never been in Wurm. All I could think of, seeing so many signs, was how none of this information made any sense because I had no context to apply the information, and my best bet was going to be, to rush through the portal as fast as I could, and get into the real game where I could try things.  This is maybe not an entirely bad thing. No messy bad first impressions, and I  I can always read the wiki or ask CA Help for information. The tutorial is now a nice little showcase that serves no real purpose except to be tidier and to say that you have one.  It has little "educational" value, in my opinion, that is not done 100 percent better by the player run wiki.

 

The tutorial has improved itself by making itself entirely unnecessary. 

 

Obviously others will disagree. Tha'ts what makes the world itself so very messy, I guess

Edited June 11, 2014 by Brash_Endeavors

[Roame 91]

Perhaps clicking the signs not only displays the tip, but teleports you to a pen where you must complete the activity to advance, like the old, old tutorial that had the mallet-making section. Add a window that keeps track of which sections you have completed, and your "dull museum" just became a treasure hunt / obstacle course!

[Mongoo 50]

The hands on in the old tutorial was awesome.  You dont even need to do everything hands on, but I have frequently seen new players asking how to do the most basics of things since they took that out.  Like making a mallet or a camp fire....

[rosedragon 2,282]

I think the freeroaming and tips are good but they need to let you DO something of it.. :/ like optional... 'explanation of terraforming' 'you can dig here'

[Lithane 18]

You are already seeing the results on Xanadu, with new players not even able to do basic things without having to bombard CA channel or freedom channel with questions.

 

How do i make a mallet is one of those, somthing as simple as how do i chop a tree is now a CA help issue.

 

I think some kind of hands on needs to be reimplemented here, although i do love the new tutorial, and think great work was done on it. It really does not give new players a basic survivabilty in a practical manner.

 

I also think that some kind of check should be introduced to prevent new players skipping the tutorial. Perhaps having to provide the name of a current character before being able to teleport.

 

Wurm is too complicated a game to allow new players to skip the tutorial totally.

[Aetherwalker 1,863]

Annoying that the windows dont autoclose when you leave that area too, I have about 40 windows to close all at once when I get to the end, no me gusta

[Ecrir 887]

I have never tried the tutorial, but this sounds bad. Actually, it sounds redundant. There's no point in showing people a bunch of signs with text, because if they don't try the activities represented there then they will soon forget what they even read. For a tutorial for a complex game like wurm to work, it needs to have hands on stuff. If you just show them info and nothing else then they won't remember it. Then when they really need said info they can't get to it any more (unless I'm mistaken and there's some way to access those popups again later. If not then there obviously should be..)

 

So what I'd propose is: remove the tutorial entirely from GV

Instead, add it as a sort of tutorial quest line once the player has left GV (of course with the option to disable it). When they arrive on their destination server they could get a popup with details about the controls (like the climbing button). This popup should be stored somewhere so they can revisit it at any time, same for all the other tutorial related information. Then after this popup the first tutorial quest could for example be to create a mallet. This quest would take them through all the steps one at a time, from activating the hatchet and cutting down a tree, to putting the hammer together. Once it's done they get their next quest. The final quest could be to create a wooden building, that's probably a good spot to stop. If a player enters water for the first time, give him a popup about swimming because that's when he really needs it and is interested in learning about it.

 

I think an interactive tutorial like that, while actually playing on a server that is not GV, would work much better and teach the player much more. You can essentially guide them through their first steps in the game instead of throwing them to the wolves once they leave GV. If done right it should help give the players a pointer towards what they should do next.

[eyerobot 202]

The tutorial is terrible!  Where it should have made you actually learn survival skills. It shows you a sign that nobody will want to read.  After five minutes of trying to figure out what was so great about it, I ran out the gate and went on to xanadu. 

 

Another complete strike out for the Wurm team.

[Marshlander 188]

Where did the old tutorial explain how to make a mallet or chop a tree?

 

The old tutorial explained things like item activation, tiles and borders, inventory, action menus etc. All the more technical stuff you need to know to even get to the stage where you can worry about making something. And this is completely lacking from the new tutorial.

 

When I looked at it, I even entered from the wrong side and only got 3 pop-ups (the one about climbing and the two at the entrance). I'm not sure if it was bugged or not, but the pretty signs didn't tell me squat about the involved game systems.

 

EDIT: I do like that the new tutorial showcases much better what can be done in Wurm, and beautifully so. That's an aspect that was lacking from the old tutorial and from the starter zones that people end up with afterwards.

Edited June 11, 2014 by Marshlander

[Brash_Endeavors 4,735]

 

Where did the old tutorial explain how to make a mallet or chop a tree? 

 

 

 

Chopping trees (and learning the difference between Overaged and Young trees, and about sickles and replanting sprouts) and making mallets, clay bowls and campfires, were all a part of the tutorial until they fenced off large segments of it about a year ago, saying they were making a new & improved tutorial. Obviously, learning to make a mallet also included learning about item activation vs "equip", and about inventory and encumbrance (since all newcomers somehow felt they HAD to haul their precious entire stack of 1Q logs with them everywhere they went) .  Everyone had to go through the course even if they had been through it 19 times before.  It was believed to discourage armies of freebie alts (ha! ha! sure!) and to slow down periodic 4chan invasions when they would mobilize 100 people to make new characters and terrorize the starter neighborhoods. Mostly because Wurm players were reknown in the internet  for throwing pleasantly entertaining conniption fits at the mere sight of "invasion groups"  dropping sand on everyone's farmlands, clearcutting all trees in 100 mile radius, and playing havoc with the roads.  Drama Drama! But probably about 10 percent of those 4channers and others  actually decided they LIKED Wurm, settled down and became upright community citizens. So the old tutorial was ugly as sin but had several redeeming functions. The place was usually a mess even with faster decay, and I recall someone once building a corbita in the middle of the tree chopping area. Those wacky people.

 

The whole area was pretty trashed with litter, longer than necessary, and ugly as all getout. A constant debate raged in the forums  over whether it was good or bad to let people skip the whole thing. A facelift to showcase new construction options (multistory) and graphics, and some minor tweaks were certainly considered A Much Needed Thing. 

 

I think there should be a sandbox area and you are required to pass ONE "make a mallet" subsection to finish, but if you wanted to you could also stay and make a clay bowl and fishing pole, make a campfire and roach casserole, forage and botanize and rummage for iron, smelt a little iron lump and make a nail, and other skills that would be very important starting with a new character and a new server. Perhaps the code could identify when your character had left the zone and "clean up" automatically anything you had made or dropped ("owned") . This would prevent people from leaving messes -- as soon as they logged off, poof it was all gone. 

 

 

I would suggest that in lieu of skipping the tutorial, any time you complete it on a character that entire email account gets "flagged" as ok to skip. And in addition  you can also "demonstrate instant mastery" to an NPC at the start portal by handing him a mallet and instantly passing right though (and flagging any other characters on that email account). If groups wanted to organize, they could even have one experienced player run in, make up a dozen mallets, hamnd them out as group members logged in, and pass their whole group through in 40 seconds. People in groups generally have ready-,made teachers in their party anyway,  and can help each other learn the game "out in the real world". So premade groups should have some way to skip through. Or some way any current player can just /vouchfor for them (similar to sending a /referral) and flag them to pass instantly through. In fact, I like that last option a lot, and it would cover all current players just fine since they could have any character /vouchfor all other ones. 

 

If you don't have SOME type of support system  already ingame to help introduce you to how to play, ya gotta learn to chop a tree and make a mallet. And if you want to stay for an hour or two or even three hours, and have a chance to learn all kinds of cool stuff that might be harder to learn "out there" (clay is not always easy to find your first day),  that would be an option as well. 

 

And get rid of sparkles and kazillions of signs (again, not all players can even see the sparkles anyway, depending on graphics settings.) I think I triggered about 2-3 popups myself is all,  and I was meandering around really exploring.  And because I had low settings, none of the signs were really readable as they were all blurred low-rez. Some, I could only see the name of the sign ("Swimming") and nothing about any information on swimming. 

 

Let the lovely little noobies  get their hands dirty and a few blisters too. THEN turn them loose on the community. 

Edited June 11, 2014 by Brash_Endeavors

[Wox 1,477]

Thanks for the comments!

 

We do have a lot of space to expand it further and I wish to add an advanced section where you can try out different tasks.

Also we do plan to expand the Book of wisdom, covering more features and other handy information and make the gui more book-like.

 

Some of the key suggestions and requests from previous post on the old tutorial was:

1. How to access the tutorial information after the tutorial. That's something you can do now throughout the Book of wisdom.

2. Be able to skip it and go directly to the portal.

3. Show off what you can build (like a village).

 

Think we did cover the most basic parts in there, we can't cover everything then it would be thousands of signs and cover a quarter of the GV island  

Just to start a camp fire are complex task and needs several steps to explain. Maybe we will add more links to the wiki for stuff like that.

 

 

"For instance I saw a sign named "SWIMMING", I approached it, I clicked on it" 

You should not click on the sign you should click on the "!" Icon! 

 

The Notifications system maybe needs more explanation!

They show up as "!" icons in the notification list and you have to click it to view the window with further information.

Maybe the two Pop ups explaining it aren't clear enough! 

 

Maybe make em all pop ups so you don't miss the information!

 

 

"For a tutorial for a complex game like wurm to work, it needs to have hands on stuff." 

Didn't we had that? And did people remember all things they did? When we did force the players to create a mallet a lot of player did quit at that station and I mean a LOT!  So having stations that you can enter and leave as you wish I think will be the best solution for "hands on stuff".

 

 

"Annoying that the windows dont autoclose when you leave that area too, I have about 40 windows to close all at once when I get to the end, no me gusta" 

 It's only one window. Maybe you say you had a Lot of "!" icons in the notification list, the last one you get are always at the bottom in that list , you don't need to open and close em all.

If you want you can right click in the list and hide it. If it's not like that we have a bug!

 

How much text we throw in their face, how much we force players to do stuff, there will always be players that doesn't care to read or do it, and ends up screaming for help!

Wurm is a complex game, maybe the best solution would be to only have the portal and just to randomly throw players out in the wilderness with noob tools on the server of their choice and instead put all effort in making the Book of wisdom the "tutorial" instead of having a tutorial area.

 

Cheers!

[Marshlander 188]

Chopping trees (and learning the difference between Overaged and Young trees, and about sickles and replanting sprouts) and making mallets, clay bowls and campfires, were all a part of the tutorial until they fenced off large segments of it about a year ago, saying they were making a new & improved tutorial.

Ah, that part. It must have been over a year and a half, because I never saw it. I did go through the quest-like experience on GV before and found it fantastic, it never felt as if I was just doing the tutorial.

 

 

It was believed to discourage armies of freebie alts (ha! ha! sure!) and to slow down periodic 4chan invasions when they would mobilize 100 people to make new characters and terrorize the starter neighborhoods. Mostly because Wurm players were reknown in the internet  for throwing pleasantly entertaining conniption fits at the mere sight of "invasion groups"  dropping sand on everyone's farmlands, clearcutting all trees in 100 mile radius, and playing havoc with the roads.  Drama Drama!

I guess at this point most would agree that Wurm isn't getting enough marketing attention and that fresh blood is needed...?

 

You raise very good suggestions, I just think the devs are aware of the different solutions having been through several generations of tutorial before, one very open and just minorly scripted, to full hand-holding including teleporting, popping items into and out of existence, to what we have now.

 

Not giving new players rudimentary knowledge of game interface and mechanics just exacerbates the noob vs veteran dispute. The new player is helpless and needs to ask the most basic of questions, while the vet remembers the old tutorial and blames the "noob" for not RTFM.

 

At this point, a player-made curriculum consisting of the first 30 mins in Wurm (explaining the interface, activation, inventory, looking up in Wurmpedia) is probably the quickest way to amend the situation. Or vets holding scheduled classes for new players on alts at the Xanadu starter deeds.

[Icelion 2]

Having different areas you can dip into to learn as much or as little as you like sounds like a good way to do it. Perhaps similar to the first part of Dark Souls 2, there's the path to Majula with turnoffs that you can explore all of them linearly or in any order you choose if you're so inclined, with the stones outlining the different controls, but off a path leading to the portal that you can walk straight through to if you wish.

 

 

If people are still coming in without the information thats sort of their own problem, they were given a choice and they can always ask or take a look at the Book of Wisdom.

[Marshlander 188]

You should not click on the sign you should click on the "!" Icon! 

 

The Notifications system maybe needs more explanation!

They show up as "!" icons in the notification list and you have to click it to view the window with further information.

Maybe the two Pop ups explaining it aren't clear enough! 

 

Maybe make em all pop ups so you don't miss the information!

Yes, please, I think I missed all that! The new pop-ups were clearer and more to the point. I don't mind there being more pop-ups if they are clearer and there's a good interface for managing them.

 

 

"For a tutorial for a complex game like wurm to work, it needs to have hands on stuff." 

Didn't we had that? And did people remember all things they did? When we did force the players to create a mallet a lot of player did quit at that station and I mean a LOT!  So having stations that you can enter and leave as you wish I think will be the best solution for "hands on stuff".

I agree that the hands on stuff feels artificial if you're on a linear track tutorial and this step three is suddenly taking much longer than all the previous steps together. I believe it would work if the player didn't feel like they were on step three of a linear track in an isolated instance that separated them from the game proper, then they'd be more willing to put in the time to complete the mallet (or whatever).

 

Perhaps this could be included in the book of wisdom as optional guided steps after leaving the tutorial? With perhaps a window/button/gui element to pop the current one open at any time (that can be toggled in options)?

[Seara 686]

There's another issue with "doing" and that's the cleanup.

 

Letting folks modify the world means someone has to occasionally clean up.  For example, the old tutorial mine needed constant repair as it was mined out.  That's doable for when we have low numbers of players coming through, but becomes more and more unmanageable should we get a horde.  (e.g. Cutting down trees.  If they all get cut down, it destroys that section for anyone else until it can be cleaned up again.)

 

We have no way to automatically reset an area, or create throw-away instances at this time, and that would be needed for any "do" activities that change the world.

 

The current tutorial ties to point the player to the Book of Wisdom, and in effect says "All of this information is available at your finger-tips in the game world, when you actually need it."

[zalifear 186]

Signs, signs everywhere's a sign, break my back blowing my mind. Don't do this, don't do that, can't you read the signs.

>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeT5otk2R1g

[Brash_Endeavors 4,735]

That "Book of Wisdom" has great potential, I hardly noticed it at first but the more I look through it, the more its potential starts to show. Currently it is primitive, ugly and unfinished but there is some great potential there.  I think it needs a few extra tweaks (not sure what) to make it feel more like the New Players Essential Bible, something they will use constantly their first few hours and keep close always. I do not think that is currently the case.  It's a puzzle how to make it so. Maybe just looking a little better and adding more content will help some, so that people are drawn to its attractiveness. Maybe somehow tie it into the ESCAPE key submenu, as an attractive book design with some shortcuts and search. 

 

I will have to make another new character to check, but I believe the first two popups flashed up and closed  immediately as I went down the path past them -- I was not anticipating them and my attention was distracted figuring out my surroundings.  I remember   seeing something about "activating sparkles" which never showed for me.  I assumed clicking signs would be the same as activating these sparkles. Adding a hands-on workshop someplace  would be great. Personally, I DO remember (quite fondly)  all the little "try it out yourself" tasks in the old tutorials.

 

Anyone who would quit the game because they had to make a mallet, is seriously not going to be staying in Wurm long anyway. It is not their sort of game,  unless you change the entire game to appeal to massmarket / SteamAccess crowd.   Personally, I prefer Wurm to stay a small and intimate niche game but I suspect there will be many forces pushing it into the mass market appeal arena. Oh well. That's how these things go. 

 

Players should at a minimum understand how to chop a tree, activate a tool and use a rightclick menu, and use the new Crafting window (which is a great addition paired with Book of Wisdom) before going through the portal. If they can quickly demonstrate that knowledge, then they can activate the portal. 

 

So the PROS:

 

1) Looks very pretty now

2) Book of Wisdom they can keep always is a GREAT idea, needs more polish

3) Some way to shortcut the tutorial  for  people who will not benefit from it, but to first make sure they understand a few game essentials (like -- how to use the Book of Wisdom)

 

 

 

The CONS:

 

1) confusing clutter of signs, no chances (yet) for any hands on learning, people encouraged to skip through as fast as they can. 

2) Right now, it is only a "model village" not any kind of tutorial. This "shows what players can do" but the players themselves can do a better job of this, in the game.

 

This new tutorial does not prepare players for the game. If it is unfinished and the concept of a Book of Wisdom will be the main "heart" of the tutorial, that's fine as long as no one thinks this "new tutorial" is done and somehow  improves on the old one (its a step backwards).  That's why I asked "Is it done??" Because it was confusing and seemed to be presented as ta-dah look its so nice! Osn;t tit all BETTER now?

 

 

 

 

 

Seara, I did take note of the cleanup issues and actually spent some time acknowledging that as a problem. If you are going to remove completely  "hands on," (and maybe we must if GMs were spending that much time cleaning up the old site)  you need something better to replace it.

 

"We are not done yet" is an acceptable answer.  The original title was a question asking whether it was "done", because the current "new" tutorial  stops far short of filling the gap left by the ugly "old" one. 

Edited June 11, 2014 by Brash_Endeavors

[Torgrim 403]

Good comments by Wox. Your life is not easy, the tutorial was bad before and it is not perfect now. I do think now it does look alot better, the graphics are less likely to scare people away Do all those other things in your list and the tutorial will be pretty good. 

 

The UI, well, it's not that great. It's functional, it fits Wurm medival theme, sure, but it looks outdated, it could very well scare some people off. Not really tutorial related, but it would help if the GUI looked better. A new window system with new graphics would be great. For us vets it's not a big deal, but for new players I think it could be a major turnoff. 

 

You should also add to the list of improvements to explain the server choices and starting locations better. 

[Ecrir 887]

There's another issue with "doing" and that's the cleanup.

 

Letting folks modify the world means someone has to occasionally clean up.  For example, the old tutorial mine needed constant repair as it was mined out.  That's doable for when we have low numbers of players coming through, but becomes more and more unmanageable should we get a horde.  (e.g. Cutting down trees.  If they all get cut down, it destroys that section for anyone else until it can be cleaned up again.)

 

We have no way to automatically reset an area, or create throw-away instances at this time, and that would be needed for any "do" activities that change the world.

 

The current tutorial ties to point the player to the Book of Wisdom, and in effect says "All of this information is available at your finger-tips in the game world, when you actually need it."

 

I believe you can avoid the cleanup issue altogether by moving the "doing" part out of GV. Give the player a list of tutorial quests/achievements once they exit GV (would the missions system be usable for this in some way?). So when they arrive on for example Xanadu, they get a popup showing the first quest, making a mallet. This quest can then have several sub steps.

- activating a hatchet

- cutting down a tree

- creating the logs

- etc

 

The player shouldn't be forced to do this quest, he could just do something else if he wants to, but it will help steer new players into getting to know the mechanisms by doing useful things, like making tools they need. Later quests could be to create a mine (or enter an existing one), mine rock, to find clay and then to create a forge. Another could be to create an anvil (at this point a ql 10 pelt would make a nice quest reward), then follow it up with a couple of important iron tools (a rake would be a good one so you can follow up with a few farming and cooking related quests) and possibly have a final quest involving the creation of a wooden house (at this point, or at the farming point, you throw in digging because they will need to make the land suitable for a house or for farming).

 

This way you steer new players more by giving them goals at the beginning and helping them to learn as they go. Instead of throwing all of it at them at the beginning they can go through these quests at their own pace. And players who don't like the quests can skip them. It solves the issue of cleanup as they aren't doing this in some designated tutorial server, they can do it wherever they want and anything they left behind will decay away. I'd imagine something like this could really help a game like Wurm, since the learning curve is quite steep here.

Edited June 11, 2014 by Ecrir