New Player Tutorial

[Zuelatak 235]

17 hours ago, Tomatoes said:

where would everyone spawn into the game?

Wherever they chose. I believe I said earlier that the first thing you'd be presented with is the server choices that you get at the end of the current tutorial.

 

17 hours ago, Tomatoes said:

but at that same time there definitely needs to be a specific zone where one can learn basics without being attacked by every mob in Wurms existence. 

I don't think this is actually a problem for most people >.< They struggle to understand the game. You can run from almost everything, and if they got targeted by something bam tooltip that mentions how to use guard towers. 

 

The only thing I'm down for is a tutorial on the basic controls and world interactions like Archaed mentioned. For instance, the tutorial should run you through all the menus like the crafting window that New Players are shocked to hear about when I tell them about it. Movement, Camera, Menus, Right clicking is how you'll start most things, Clicking the wiki icon on a menu will open wiki (Pretty sure most players don't see the wiki icon as a wiki icon, so it's not as obvious to them. It should probs be changed to a ? I think there should be plenty of games that use that), and other similar stuff.

 

17 hours ago, Tomatoes said:

pop ups for advertising, and im pretty sure that wurm does not need a million little itty bitty short phrases popping up on a player as they do something. A player encountering that would either turn it off immediately, or run away screaming.(thats like having your browser give you popups all the time :puke:) Its similar to how we dont need Walls of texts

It may not need it, but It's how it'll get better. I'm pretty sure that's a standard gaming practice to display in the moment information which if we want to not overwhelm the player that sounds like what Wurm is looking for. Popups are so forgetful and quick. If you need to know what it says you look. If you don't you don't. But they do a damn good job providing you the information you need in that moment. When you say browser popups it sounds like you're referring to popups that steal your focus and require you to close them which is what I was advertising against. It'll be less than 1% of the new people who run away screaming they would just turn it off or ignore it like most games. It's literally the opposite of walls of text. It's several tiny walls of small amounts of text.

 

A lot of games put their "popups" in loading screens fed to you as random tips. Unfortunately this game only has them on server hops so we would need a different way to provide that too.

Using recently popular game Lost Ark as an example, they drip feed you popup tips and other popups when they are relevant as opposed to telling you how everything works up front. Just because this game is popular doesn't mean this feature is a good one but this feels like an industry standard which means plenty of games use it and they all agree it's a good feature. If that's the case I think we should adopt it too.  

Spoiler

 achievement basically a popup

Side note ###### even markers on the ground are helpful indicators that this game could use. 

 

 Pretty sure it's even common for dialogue, items, and experience to be popups. I think Runescape's skillgain popup style would be the best to copy.

 this one did EXACTLY what I'm talking about. My health got low and it told me the keybind for healing, and where my healing was.

Okay hopefully this is enough to prove my point >.<

 

Another note is hotkeys being displayed on their buttons. Using Lost Ark again. This would be good to see on the toolbelt, quick button menu, and other elements.

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

I'm now also recalling my experience with New World using popups as well and I am so convinced this would be a good thing for Wurm. 

As a note, I was barely even through the intro tutorial for New World. I hope that was enough to prove my point QQ doing that was horrible.

 

17 hours ago, Tomatoes said:

there dosent need to be millions of windows popping up constantly

I don't know how you view constantly, but this sounds extremely exaggerated. 

Edited May 6, 2022 by Zuelatak

[Timoca 154]

Popups aren't all the great, they break immersion and often provide too much information which none reads. 

Clicking them away is what many players do as fast as they can when they seem em pop up.

 

I'm personally more for a handholdy questline with NPC's, teach em the things where Wurm is different from other games, give em a few rewards, or reward em by giving them the starter tools they need for the action they're going to preform.

I don't think there should be an option to skip this for new players, the game is just too different from pretty much everything else.

However you can ask a new account whether they've played the game before and don't offer the tutorial when they've done so. 

[Zuelatak 235]

24 minutes ago, Timoca said:

Popups aren't all the great, they break immersion

The current UI already breaks immersion and is permanently displayed. Some elements could be hidden if they instead popped up when relevant therefore making the game more immersive. It's a game, not an experience. If you want immersion then you should just turn off the HUD (which I do when travelling) or wait until the apparent VR update >.<

 

24 minutes ago, Timoca said:

often provide too much information which none reads

As I've already explained, the game already does this. That is the reality we currently live in and are trying to get out of. All we have right now is a giant wall of information that no one reads, and that's what new players are complaining about. The Josh Hayes review covered in the OP specifically references how this game provides too much information at once.

 

24 minutes ago, Timoca said:

Clicking them away is what many players do as fast as they can when they seem em pop up.

Okay? Let them. They can't complain that they weren't given the information they wanted when they literally clicked it away. They also will still have the wiki to reference later if they so choose. 

 

24 minutes ago, Timoca said:

I'm personally more for a handholdy questline with NPC's, teach em the things where Wurm is different from other games, give em a few rewards, or reward em by giving them the starter tools they need for the action they're going to preform.

I'm asking for this on top of popups if you look at the photos I took there's a questline I'm following that is also teaching me the game. This game just doesn't have much of a story so I think using the journal would be the best way to convey a questline. As I also covered with examples.

 

24 minutes ago, Timoca said:

I don't think there should be an option to skip this for new players, the game is just too different from pretty much everything else.

However you can ask a new account whether they've played the game before and don't offer the tutorial when they've done so. 

Unfortunately this is contradictory >.< There isn't really a way to track if it's a persons first time, so your "option to say they've played before" will just become the "option to skip" The game isn't different enough that it needs an unskippable tutorial. 

Edited May 6, 2022 by Zuelatak

[christopher 207]

i like the way it is u want to no something u look it up ?

[Timoca 154]

Yes, the game already provides too much information at once, let's try to not do that again with the new tutorial (if there ever comes another one).

Let's try to get the people who don't enjoy the walls of text in, the people who don't mind it are already in, that's us.  And once those new players figure out the basics and get it they'll stick around.

We know that this is a game that requires a lot of reading but let's ease them in.

The journal is just another window, it's great but it's lacking immersion, use NPC's, everyone knows NPC's  all other MMO's got em, we're used to them.

And asking whether someone has played before is different from adding a skip tutorial button. Same function, different approach.

In my opinion there is no MMO more different from all the rest than this one, maybe EVE but they've got a storyline tutorial.  Our character controller ain't the standard one, we use the right mouse menu for everything that hasn't to do with movement. The game difficulty goes from hard to easy instead of the other way around.

 

You can use popups to highlight stuff, but they're not very useful for explaining things. 

Edited May 6, 2022 by Timoca

[Archaed 2,280]

I still get the feeling of this is "more players would stick around if we could just hold their hand and tell them how to do everything!" Which is how you lose players, not keep them. 

 

Teach the basics, show how to learn more, and give a taste about what's possible in the game. That's all a tutorial needs to do. 

[Tomatoes 276]

2 hours ago, Zuelatak said:

This game just doesn't have much of a story

What kind of 'story' are you looking for: something that some actors did, or real life drama? If its the first, then ya, this game dont much of a story(we 'players' were supposed to drive that from what i understand)
Real life drama on the other hand, well, Wurm has plenty of that - and from what i understand it has been a part of the game since the day the game was created. 
 

5 hours ago, Zuelatak said:

You can run from almost everything

If you are naked! if you need logs for a project and have to transport them back what do  you do then?
 

5 hours ago, Zuelatak said:

Wherever they chose. I believe I said earlier that the first thing you'd be presented with is the server choices that you get at the end of the current tutorial.

so before even playing the game you want a person to choose where to go? with as many questions as we get in GL on "which server should i pick?" i thought you would have noticed that people look at that map and go "WHAT?" quite often. Just displaying the list of islands, or a map selection screen before a person joins would be a sure fire way to keep more people from playing the game.
 

5 hours ago, Zuelatak said:

I don't know how you view constantly, but this sounds extremely exaggerated. 

open up the skill window in game - every last skill will have to be explained the way you are describing - each one with their own individual set of tips that get displayed every time you start using that skill for the first time. This is the 'vision' your message conveys. And yes several other games have that, but they also have options to turn it off.

 

2 hours ago, Zuelatak said:

The current UI already breaks immersion and is permanently displayed.

What? F11 in game don't work for you to shut off the GUI? if thats not what you mean I suppose you should explain what you mean by 'immersion' cause if its 'forgetting about the world around you', well i dont think that is supposed to happen with Wurm, afaik. INSTANT GRATAFICATION was never something Wurm had to begin with.
 

2 hours ago, Zuelatak said:

This game just doesn't have much of a story so I think using the journal would be the best way to convey a questline.

Why do you think we cant create the 'story' for ourselves - that is what a SANDBOX is about, in the end: the ability to create your own 'story' - that's what I'm talking about - US players, taking what little lore there is and actually expanding on it just enough so that a player gets some guidance in game, while keeping the possibilities for the things they can do as open as possible. 

 

 

41 minutes ago, Archaed said:

I still get the feeling of this is "more players would stick around if we could just hold their hand and tell them how to do everything!" Which is how you lose players, not keep them. 

Yes and no - permanent hand-holding can lose some people, but just having the option to have your hand held for a short time while you learn something will give people courage - even if its not something they will use much, if at all.

Lets think of the 'new player experience' a bit. When someone finds Wurm these days, they normally come from Steam. Of the information presented on the store page, nothing explains anything about the wiki, there are a total of 3 guides in the community hub, and it has its own separate forums.

From what i understand, most people picking up a game for the first time dont 'research' it in order to play it - they want basic instructions with an end goal to meet. Its easy enough to convey the 'open-endedness' of Wurm while giving a player a 'temporary goal' of "get to 20 in x skill" thorough a short series of 'in character' instructions that gives the player a sense of what is possible in the game.

Edited May 6, 2022 by Tomatoes
Arch posted before i did XD

[Zuelatak 235]

8 hours ago, christopher said:

i like the way it is u want to no something u look it up ?

That won't be removed. You'll still be able to that, but a lot of New Players complain about this being the only option. Reading a book is not something people want to do when they first enter a game. 

 

8 hours ago, Timoca said:

And asking whether someone has played before is different from adding a skip tutorial button. Same function, different approach.

I agree. The approach is better, but it's still an option to skip the tutorial that people will use regardless of if they're new. All I'm pointing out.

 

8 hours ago, Timoca said:

we use the right mouse menu for everything that hasn't to do with movement

I mean we don't have to, and we should probably find ways to improve this in the future too, because there should be a lot easier ways to do it.

 

8 hours ago, Timoca said:

The game difficulty goes from hard to easy instead of the other way around.

But it's hard because of the lack of a good handholding mechanism. It's hard to understand the game when all that's there is a manual.

 

7 hours ago, Archaed said:

I still get the feeling of this is "more players would stick around if we could just hold their hand and tell them how to do everything!" Which is how you lose players, not keep them. 

And you can have that feeling, but I also feel like I proved my point that this is a largely used mechanic across multiple games to handle their tutorials. And they gain more players over losing players. If you could prove that this game would lose players over gaining players then that would certainly change my feeling. I'm unaware of any games that have failed using this.

 

7 hours ago, Tomatoes said:

What kind of 'story' are you looking for:

None really. Just saying you need story for NPCs. They need to have reason for existing and a personality. I'd prefer to just use the journal FOR NOW and in the future we can certainly replace the journal with NPCs.

 

7 hours ago, Tomatoes said:

if you need logs for a project and have to transport them back what do  you do then?

Drop em and run. Dying is apart of the learning experience anyway, they'd most likely not be far from their corpse, and a lot of their gear will stay on them.

 

7 hours ago, Tomatoes said:

so before even playing the game you want a person to choose where to go?

Yes this is also STANDARD for a LOT of games. I had to choose the server in Lost Ark BEFORE I got into the tutorial. Yes, this should be the thing players are first presented with. However, they react to the map isn't going to change if they did the current 30 minute tutorial prior to it. It does nothing to help you pick, so yeah I don't see how it matters.

 

7 hours ago, Tomatoes said:

every time you start using that skill for the first time.

Yes, which happens once. When you use the skill for the first time. Then never again. There might be a lot of tutorial popups, but you aren't going to be seeing the same popup.

 

7 hours ago, Tomatoes said:

And yes several other games have that, but they also have options to turn it off.

Okay? We could as well.

 

7 hours ago, Tomatoes said:

What? F11 in game don't work for you to shut off the GUI?

It does. If you read the next like sentence or two I tell him to turn off the HUD (Heads Up Display) like I do >.< Which is what F11 is.  I was explaining to him that the game is already un-immersive with it's HUD and changing the HUD to popups will in fact make it more immersive.

 

7 hours ago, Tomatoes said:

Why do you think we cant create the 'story' for ourselves - that is what a SANDBOX is about, in the end: the ability to create your own 'story' - that's what I'm talking about - US players, taking what little lore there is and actually expanding on it just enough so that a player gets some guidance in game, while keeping the possibilities for the things they can do as open as possible. 

I didn't say we couldn't CREATE a story. I said it doesn't HAVE a story >.< So unless we're gonna sit here around a table and propose lore for the devs to implement. There's no story for NPCs to be built off of. I'd rather we focused on the functionality of the tutorial rather than it's looks first. Afterwards, absolutely I would LOVE FOR THERE TO BE A STORY that is based on player involvement in the world. I for one want to be able to ascend still for the historical purpose of making my mark in this game. I don't care about the custom spell list I think they could easily remove that and ascending would still be worthwhile for the bragging rights.

 

 

[Archaed 2,280]

You can still do that. 

[Tomatoes 276]

2 hours ago, Zuelatak said:

I said it doesn't HAVE a story

yes it does, granted its minimal 'in character' lore, but it does exist - https://www.wurmpedia.com/index.php/Lore

Its there so we have something to start from when trying to explain our existence in game from a RolePlaying perspective*  - and it can be used to create engaging content that draws players in while teaching them the basics.

Edited May 7, 2022 by Tomatoes
clarifcation

[Zuelatak 235]

4 minutes ago, Tomatoes said:

yes it does, granted its minimal 'in character' lore, but it does exist - https://www.wurmpedia.com/index.php/Lore

Its there so we have something to start from when trying to explain our existence in game from a RolePlaying perspective*  - and it can be used to create engaging content that draws players in while teaching them the basics.

Sure you are correct that there is some lore. There's just so much more thought that needs to go into making an NPC. Lemme ask you this. Would the game be better than it is now if we did my popups idea without a story. I think it certainly would. Like just soooo much better, and while I think a story would be ###### great I don't think it adds enough to hold back the popups change. Like we can just keep adding more and more and more work to do to change and make this game better, or we can draw a line and say "Hey y'know this is a good enough change to make a big enough of an impact that we should stop here, implement it, and then we can continue working on it later" None of the changes in Wurm are permanent, and none of them are finished. There's always room for us to add, remove, or tweak things. But we need to determine at one point is it enough and can we just start working on it.

 

The more work we ask for the more work the devs have to do which they're probably not gonna be thrilled about. We need to not only dicuss what will make the game better, but what features we can quickly implement to have a massive impact.

 

Again I'm all for more lore and story and all that, but right now players are quitting because of how terrible we're conveying information to them. Lets just get that fixed, and then we can talk about adding in more story and changing it to use NPCs. 

[Tomatoes 276]

Who says we need NPC's? the STORY can be told through quests, no need to add more NPC's to the game.

 

Without the story its just a bunch of random facts - and people get annoyed when you pester them with a bunch of random facts - We can do better.

 

 

 

Edited May 7, 2022 by Tomatoes

[Zuelatak 235]

16 minutes ago, Tomatoes said:

Without the story its just a bunch of random facts - and people get annoyed when you pester them with a bunch of random facts - We can do better.

While this might be true. I still think they would prefer those annoyances over the lack of anything that we have right now. Also, someone else mentioned NPCs. My point still stands for a questline. It's flavor text that makes the popups more appealing, but I don't think it's to a massive degree that doing it later would be problematic. 

[DaletheGood 1,073]

36 minutes ago, Zuelatak said:

right now players are quitting because of how terrible we're conveying information to them

What, besides a couple of anecdotal stories do you have to back up that claim?

[Zuelatak 235]

2 minutes ago, DaletheGood said:

What, besides a couple of anecdotal stories do you have to back up that claim?

The review that was referred to in the OP + steam reviews. And it's not a couple experiences >.< As a streamer and actively recruiting deed I've interacted with at least over 50 New Players. Do you have evidence of the opposite? 

[DaletheGood 1,073]

22 minutes ago, Zuelatak said:

As a streamer and actively recruiting deed I've interacted with at least over 50 New Players

Anecdotes. Not concrete analytics. And if you've recruited 50 players to your deed, and they've all quit, that might be a reflection of your abilities as a teacher and shepherd of your newbs.

[Zuelatak 235]

5 minutes ago, DaletheGood said:

Anecdotes. Not concrete analytics. And if you've recruited 50 players to your deed, and they've all quit, that might be a reflection of your abilities as a teacher and shepherd of your newbs.

Ahh casually going to ignore the first half of my post that included "concrete analysis" and attack my 2nd half so it looks like you win. Good strategy.

 

Bro. I didn't say it wasn't anecdotal. I was just correcting your "couple" to 50. That was it. It certainly is a reflection of how I am as a deed owner also it reflects how this game is. 

[Tomatoes 276]

40 minutes ago, Zuelatak said:

The review that was referred to in the OP + steam reviews. And it's not a couple experiences >.< As a streamer and actively recruiting deed I've interacted with at least over 50 New Players. Do you have evidence of the opposite? 

i knew it was bad, but i didnt have the experience to back it up. 

 

59 minutes ago, Zuelatak said:

While this might be true. I still think they would prefer those annoyances over the lack of anything that we have right now. Also, someone else mentioned NPCs. My point still stands for a questline. It's flavor text that makes the popups more appealing, but I don't think it's to a massive degree that doing it later would be problematic. 

My point is that "tool tips" the way you describe would not be enough. it would be, pardon the language, "half assed" in my honest opinion. However, combining it with a story that gives some sort of reason as to why things are done they way they are done would make it a more complete picture.

But we dont need to do that for each skill in the skill window - we can do it for 'classes' and 'roles' instead.
How about an example of what i mean. New player enters the game. We will use the current area as a basis for now, and lets assume for a moment this game was 'recommended' for them by steam. they have played other sandboxes and sort of know what to expect. Instead of the current welcome to Wurm stuff that is there, they gets a rundown in the basics of the history of the game while learning about their inventory, how to activate things, how to use the crafting, recipe, and cooking windows. Before they choose a server they get an explanation on how each chat works that has a lore background. now all of this could be skip-able, or just be basic information - the 'tool tip'. a choice of Three different ways to play the game if you want.

TL;DR: Call them the "i dont need no stinking tutorial', 'just the basics, please' and "This game has Lore?" options

 

2 minutes ago, DaletheGood said:

 

you mean this? this isn't concrete analysis. there is no statistical information in those reviews, there is no exit survey, no parsing of all of the hundreds or thousands of reviews and breaking them down into defined categories to give the developers a true picture of why people leave. Whether you have 5 or 50 stories, they are still anecdotes. So, you don't know any more than I or any one why the majority of people leave this game. You are just speculating.

it may be 'anecdotal', but its his experience. cant deny a person the experience they have had.

 

 

Edited May 7, 2022 by Tomatoes
added TL;DR

[DaletheGood 1,073]

4 minutes ago, Zuelatak said:

Ahh casually going to ignore the first half of my post

 

36 minutes ago, Zuelatak said:

The review that was referred to in the OP + steam reviews

you mean this? this isn't concrete analysis. there is no statistical information in those reviews, there is no exit survey, no parsing of all of the hundreds or thousands of reviews and breaking them down into defined categories to give the developers a true picture of why people leave. Whether you have 5 or 50 stories, they are still anecdotes. So, you don't know any more than I or any one why the majority of people leave this game. You are just speculating.

[Zuelatak 235]

2 minutes ago, DaletheGood said:

there is no statistical information in those reviews, there is no exit survey, no parsing of all of the hundreds or thousands of reviews and breaking them down into defined categories to give the developers a true picture of why people leave.

If this is what it takes for us to make changes in this game then ######. I have no faith in this game. This is such a high standard for any of us to meet. None of us here should ever be expected to do that much work. I will at least rephrase what I said earlier to maybe hopefully make you feel better.

 

1 hour ago, Zuelatak said:

right now players are quitting because of how terrible we're conveying information to them.

What I meant to say was, a big reason players are quitting is because of the way we convey information to them. Info dumping them the entire game up front is overwhelming and so many people in this forum already agreed that no one will read it. What I believe we need based off of universal game standards is having that information given to the player throughout the game when relevant using popups.

 

[Madnath 3,113]

8 minutes ago, DaletheGood said:

 

you mean this? this isn't concrete analysis. there is no statistical information in those reviews, there is no exit survey, no parsing of all of the hundreds or thousands of reviews and breaking them down into defined categories to give the developers a true picture of why people leave. Whether you have 5 or 50 stories, they are still anecdotes. So, you don't know any more than I or any one why the majority of people leave this game. You are just speculating.

 

The Josh video does have statistics though. They're just... sketchy-ish. One issue I had with the video was that, funnily enough. It takes steam achievement information and presents it as a cold hard fact and backing statement. Fairly sure those Steam achievements came after launch, and not only that, it's still unclear (to me at least) if you get that achievement if you skip the tutorial. I do trust Zuelatak to offer some insight and rough figures of the amount of new players who make their way to his village, just because as players, that's basically part of the chunks we get to see and work with to try and understand this issue ourselves.

 

Time for my blind trust segment. Devs commented on the YouTube video and have spoken about how they've taken note of some of the issues raised. I trust they're looking into and already have plans for something better.

 

Personally, I don't mind the idea of some quest NPC or something just to ease those players who prefer some more... guideliney rails, I guess? But then that raises a conflict of if they follow that or the journal. So I dunno, not really for or against the idea.

Also lol at the lore being posted given Rolf put some abhorrent stuff in there and most of the interesting stuff is just awkwardly tacked on later. Game is better without the lore tbh, nothing is engaging enough to give a storyline to follow.

Edited May 7, 2022 by Madnath

[Zuelatak 235]

On a side note. This game is already at rock bottom. Trying something like tutorial popups and having fail will just result in wasted work. It's not like this suggestion would get everyone to quit the game. It wouldn't even effect the current playerbase. We don't need a 50 page document showing us what will happen when we can just introduce it and then see what happens. I'll even volunteer to do all the work for it.

Edited May 7, 2022 by Zuelatak

[Tomatoes 276]

12 minutes ago, Madnath said:

 

The Josh video does have statistics though. They're just... sketchy-ish. One issue I had with the video was that, funnily enough. It takes steam achievement information and presents it as a cold hard fact and backing statement. Fairly sure those Steam achievements came after launch, and not only that, it's still unclear (to me at least) if you get that achievement if you skip the tutorial.

Having achievements that actually meant something would be very nice, and actual statistics at our finger tips would be beneficial, however the achievements are a different topic all together, and we have to work with what we have.
 

10 minutes ago, Zuelatak said:

On a side note. This game is already at rock bottom. Trying something like tutorial popups and having fail will just result in wasted work. It's not like this suggestion would get everyone to quit the game. It wouldn't even effect the current playerbase.

I am going to add my example from above to the OP. You obviously have ideas on what the first 'tooltips' should be. What would they be like?

Edited May 7, 2022 by Tomatoes

[DaletheGood 1,073]

14 minutes ago, Zuelatak said:

no one will read it

I've read a LOT of the Wiki. It's how I learned this game without going to CA-Help for every little question. I don't find tool-tips and pop-ups that helpful as they rarely contain more than a brief overview of the subject matter. So, your experience in not choosing to read the wiki is offset by my experience in reading it.

[Tomatoes 276]

Just now, DaletheGood said:

I've read a LOT of the Wiki. It's how I learned this game without going to CA-Help for every little question. I don't find tool-tips and pop-ups that helpful as they rarely contain more than a brief overview of the subject matter. So, your experience in not choosing to read the wiki is offset by my experience in reading it.

My apologies Dale, but your experience isn't the only one, nor is it more important, or any better then anyone else's. Just cause you play a specific way doesn't mean everyone has to play that way. 

that is why OPTIONS are necessary.