Goblin Squad Member
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If Goblinworks decides to give us a New Player Tutorial, please don't make it a "compelling story" where you're effectively pigeon-holing us into a specific character history.
You may have noticed that a lot of your fans are into RP. Don't force them all to have characters that start out as escaped prisoners or shipwreck survivors or what have you.
Personally, I think there's plenty of room to allow new players to learn the game in the safety of the NPC Settlements, with appropriate warnings when they first leave. Although it sounds like you'll also need to make them immune to Assassination Contracts for some period of time played.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I personally see no need for it if people are introduced to pvp through low sec/high sec zones
Help me understand this argument. How do high and low security areas introduce people to PvP? If you're in a high security area, the only people that will engage you in PvP are the individual griefers and/or assassins who are skilled enough to obliterate you before the guards can arrive. How would that help to smoothly introduce someone to a PvP experience?
As you start to move away from high security areas, into medium security, the most likely scenario would be roving groups of PvP'ers, strong enough to survive an attack by a ranging town guard or random monsters. Again, a lone PC isn't going to enjoy dying to such an overwhelming force in less time than it takes to say "ganked." So how does someone experiment with PvP by testing their strength against a like-minded single opponent? How do we help people dip their toe in the PvP waters to see if it's enjoyable?
I have a co-worker who played EVE Online once (which also uses the high sec/low sec model). The first thing he did was ask a friendly player for some instructions on how best to gather resources. That player was more than happy to walk him through the process for gathering ore and gas and showed him that he was even more likely to find better resources over here in this system... whereupon he mugged my co-worker and left him for dead.
While some might argue that this is perfectly acceptable in a sandbox environment, might argue that he should have RTFM to understand the intricacies of the different security values, might argue that therein lies the *fun*... but the next thing he did was logout, uninstall the game, and has told this story to every one of his gaming co-workers and anyone who will listen.
That is a very negative experience, one that was most certainly not fun for the victim, that resulted in the loss of a customer and, more importantly, highly negative and vociferous word-of-mouth advertising. It could have been done better. And we're in the position right now of being able to influence how better to do it.
So I would ask again:
- How do we help to smoothly introduce someone to a PvP experience?
- So how does someone experiment with PvP by testing their strength against a like-minded single opponent?
- How do we help people dip their toe in the PvP waters to see if it's enjoyable?
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Goblin Squad Member
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@ArchAnjel, in general, I think your questions provide their own answers. "We" do these things as a community by actively doing these things as a community.
We'll be able to communicate with new players, and we'll be able to escort them away from and back to the NPC Settlements so that we can safely engage in PvP as mock combat with them.
Yes, there will be groups who try to lure them away just so they can safely grief them. If this doesn't rise to the level of something that GW mods will deal with, then it's certainly something we players can deal with.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Nihimon, I completely agree with you. My preference for a tutorial would be completely OOC, and seperated from the game world. Essentialy it's a "practice game"....you're not actualy playing the game yet and not part of the world yet.
@ArchAnjel, I had a very similar experience with UO, which is why I proposed what I did. I was killed multiple times within 5 minutes of creating my character. This was before I know the commands for talking to other players, checking my inventory or doing attacks. I was in fact, just figuring out the movement commands when it happaned. After being corpse camped, I decided to logout for 3 hours, hoping the attackers would leave...so I could come back later and figure out how to play. 3 hours later when I logged in, it happaned again within a few minutes. Next day, the same deal. Whereupon I canceled my account and uninstalled UO from my hard drive. I never even had the chance to learn how to execute an attack.
The thing here is, I actualy enjoy PvP...I play FPS games and strategy wargames quite a bit. This wasn't PvP though, it was PVV (Player vs Victem). It wasn't part of the game, it was PREVENTING me from LEARNING HOW to play the game.
It's like playing Chess with someone who hasn't been explained the rules for how any of the pieces except the pawn are allowed to move and then putting them against a Grand Master who is playing his top game and taking them out in 3-5 moves without even explaining to them what he is doing. It never even gives them a chance to learn how to play the game.
I would have been perfectly fine with the UO situation...if I had been given 2-4 hours breathing space in a place where I couldn't be attacked, so that I had the opportunity to learn the basic commands, the GUI, and some of the basics of how to do combat... BEFORE it was open season on me.
That's what I believe is really important about the new player experience..... it doesn't have to be very long, but you need to give them the breathing space so that PvP doesn't interrupt or prevent thier ability to learn how to play the game. Once they've had an opportunity to learn the basics of play...most people are fine with dealing with risk once they've learned the basic rules of play.
It may sound a bit silly to people who are used to playing alot of MMO's as many of them use very common GUI elements or commands, but think about it from the perspective of someone new to MMO's or even computer games in general...which PFO may eventualy appeal to as an audience. There is nothing inherintly intuititive about using WASD keys to move, if you haven't played those sorts of games before... and the more complicated the game, commands and GUI...the more time it takes to pickup the basics for a beginner.
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Goblin Squad Member
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We'll be able to communicate with new players, and we'll be able to escort them away from and back to the NPC Settlements so that we can safely engage in PvP as mock combat with them.
So, you're suggesting that a group of players will voluntarily become the New Player Welcome Team as their chosen playstyle? In looking at the experiences from past and present MMOs, I don't see any evidence to suggest that this will happen.
Read through GrumpMel's experience in UO to see how people would be more inclined to behave.
The New Player Experience needs to be carefully designed by the dev team to ensure consistency, thoroughness, and fun. As part of the gradual exposure to the variety of systems interacting to make up the game, I believe gradual exposure to PvP needs to be incorporated into that New Player Experience.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't know, the devs could follow the lead of themepark MMOs which semi-worship "New Player Experience" and then the rest of the game falls away. Perhaps that's why I'm suspicious of this? :)
GrumpyMel's idea is certainly practical. My gut-feeling is a tutorial should be active but in the background almost to choices and you deciding what you will do with the tutorial-help-thing switched on prompting the controls etc. I'd be interested if the devs design it so that new players immediately are a useful resource to either NPC's or other players when they start in those NPC's towns and any questions additional to the help-prompt can be answered by players wanting them to do some task? Maybe that's not dependable enough, but a world that reacts to you immediately is an impressive start, even if it is a swift demise!
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Goblin Squad Member
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So, you're suggesting that a group of players will voluntarily become the New Player Welcome Team as their chosen playstyle? In looking at the experiences from past and present MMOs, I don't see any evidence to suggest that this will happen.
Read through GrumpMel's experience in UO to see how people would be more inclined to behave.
First, we at The Seventh Veil have already had a number of discussions about how we can assist new players in a variety of ways.
I also think that the Slow & Steady approach to growth, combined with the level of involvement Goblinworks has expressed they'll take to suppress griefing, and the nature of the groups that are likely to be involved from the beginning, will almost certainly mitigate a lot of the anti-social behavior we have all experienced in other games.
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Goblin Squad Member
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ArchAnjel, Senseless crime, scamming and fraudulent activities will, as in reality, always be prevalent in an open PvP game
Being befriended by a stranger, lead into a dark corner and murdered is something which can happen to veterans and newbies alike; it is not something you can prevent. In allowing an open PvP world, you allow the avenue for human nature to present itself in all it's forms and this will be the environment of the game regardless of any newbie experience. Whether you've spent a day in game or a hundred days in game, you either have the stomach or the right mindset to play in such a scenario or you don't. I do not feel any degree of 'easing someone in' can change a players preference for how they enjoy themselves in a video game.
One of the most glittering of gems of the UO experience was the community. The game offered a distinct brand of knowledge of not the game itself, but how the organic world operated: how to look after yourself, the importance of friends you could actually trust, where to go, where not to go. Much like moving into a dangerous suburb of a city, you had to learn how your locality operated and such an existence of knowledge that people were dictating the way that the game was played was the single most amazing and unique thing which breathed life into every element of the game. Logging into UO and being dumped in a city with no foreknowledge or insight of what the hell to do, leaving the city limits and being murdered is probably the most typical horror story you'll ever hear. I can say in all honesty that I've never enjoyed a newbie experience more as I was learning things about a game which no guidebook could teach and which no tutorial could prepare me for. No game has felt the game since and any method of softening dangerous or challenging experiences for players will ultimately trivialize the gameworld, as has been the case with so many others.
I feel that the more you accommodate for PvP, push safety down peoples throats or try to but a limit of player interactions which are ultimately governed by human nature, the more life you lose from the whole experience. Players can make a world safe - when it is necessary. Artificial mechanics of making the world safer for players removes the necessity for organic movements to provide that safety for others. That very distinction is what seperates themepark and sandbox PvP games; the latter of which we are desperately trying to achieve.
Danger is not a bad thing. People fear it as past games have had artificial limits to prevent such danger, ultimately leading to the absence of preventative player interactions, the removal of serious risk of player vs player interactions and the sorry result of rampant ganking and griefing.
On a note about UO and players aiding others in the face of danger, you're grossly misinformed to believe that player institutions were not formed to deal with problems. You're also omitting the fact that players in such games play with true alignments; a stranger will go massively out of his way to come to your aid - without the possibility for such danger, such heroes never come to light.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Being befriended by a stranger, led into a dark corner and murdered is something which can happen to veterans and newbies alike; it is not something you can prevent.
When I joined EVE, the first experienced player who offered to show me the ropes specifically encouraged me to ask around about him before we went anywhere. The reports were very encouraging, and he and I even became friends after I siphoned as much knowledge from him as I could.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Being befriended by a stranger, led into a dark corner and murdered is something which can happen to veterans and newbies alike; it is not something you can prevent.When I joined EVE, the first experienced player who offered to show me the ropes specifically encouraged me to ask around about him before we went anywhere. The reports were very encouraging, and he and I even became friends after I siphoned as much knowledge from him as I could.
One of the first players I met in UO offered me a magical sword as a token that I could trust him before showing me the ropes; few minutes later he pried from my cold dead fingers :D.
Goblinworks Founder
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I had a similar experience on the Age of Conan RP-PvP server a few years ago. I was just out of the starter zone, someone invited me to a group, I accepted and asked what he was upto. He used the party to locate where I was, promptly left the group and killed me. Then said "never accept a party invite from someone you don't know" lesson learnt. No hard feelings on either side to be honest.
These are the things that make FFA games interesting in my opinion. They are and always will be a niche market. XCom: Enemy Unknown has a dedicated niche fanbase for Turn-Based Strategy but was abandoned by so many game developers for nearly 20 years before deciding to bring it back due to popular demand. The FFA sandbox MMo is in a similar Situation
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A lot of the reason rampant, dishonorable PvP went on unchecked in previous MMOs was because there was virtually no in-game penalty for doing so. With PFO and the introduction of the alignment system, when you go on a rampant ganking spree, lawful and good organizations, whether player-run or NPC-controlled, will take notice (in some form or another) and take steps to make your life difficult, at least while in the territories controlled by those organizations.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Nihimon, I completely agree with you. My preference for a tutorial would be completely OOC, and seperated from the game world. Essentialy it's a "practice game"....you're not actualy playing the game yet and not part of the world yet.
I think that's a good idea.
In fact, I'd take it (perhaps) a step further and have the player run thru the tutorial with one of several vanilla archetype characters. I'm always amused entering a game, creating a character, and being told to keep the name within the spirit of the game... Hey, Dev, I haven't entered the game yet, how do I know what the names should be?
Anyway, let the player run thru the tutorial with a vanilla character to learn how the world works. Then the player can create and name his character, and exit the ferry or turnip cart into the River Kingdoms with whatever backstory he wants.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Tutorial is good to negate frustration ie being able to do what you intended to do. But open world fun is discovery by experimentation. It should be impressed on new players danger lurks nearby, and what they decide to do is up to them but "this is not a training exercise" - what you do has impact, you might make friends or enemies before you know it suddenness. Personally I think any tutorial should be integrated into implicating or affecting later directions - already: Not a believer in exclusive training zones. The experimentation should always lead down the garden path imo.
The eg of name selection maybe should be modifiable for a period of time until a good fit is found agree. If there is a Pathfinder naming convention would be worth making this stringent imposition imo.