Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Publish 8 Feedback: Enhanced New User Experience
Artysan
Fri May 07, 2004 6:01 am
#40
Myson-in-law was visiting last weekend and asked me to showhim the game. I had him create a character, because I think that is one of the best ways to get people to understand the fascination of the game. He had great fun creating the character, marveling at the detailed and diverse choices he had and laughing at the emotes of the starting characters he rejected.Hewashaving a great time until....
...he landed in the middle of some city on Tat in the midst of a dozen or so other players. While some of those players were other noobies,most obviously had played the game before. Within seconds of arriving he was overwhelmed with spam and just overheard conversations, trying to figure out how to respond to tells and other communications, had people offer to trade things to him, had a couple of people be rude, impatient and obnoxious, and in a few minutes he logged off.
This reinforced my initial reaction to your idea of starting all new players in the same city/cities. This is a BAD idea. Please change it.
A new player needs a chanceto start someplace quiet and spend a little while just learning the interface of the game. Being bombarded by tells, initiated trades and other interaction, even interaction intended to help you, before you have a chance to learn how to walk and talk in game is not a good thing.
From what I saw, the rest of your changes are great. Thedroid and the quests for newbies certainly would help someone get a toehold in a complicated game. However, my son-in-law didn't even realize he had adroid for some time, as it was lost in the maze of people he landed in. And he certainly couldn't work with it to learn things and go through the quests while being in such a crowd.
I've started several characters (I have three accounts) and my favorite place to start is Nashal. It is small enough to learn your way around and unpopulated enough that you can try things out. The few characters who base there tend to be helpful to new characters because they are not overwhelmed with requests and demands for help. And of course there are many other cities in game in this mold, especially since the advent of player cities.
Please think of giving new players a choice of cities again and include at least an option of two of quiet places to start.
Amythyst, Tazzia and Wynsum
River's Edge, Dantooine, Tempest
hasibert
Sun May 09, 2004 7:53 am
#41
General Feedback:
The idea of the helper droid is really great.The quests are great, they help alot to understand the profession. The fact that you get the items you need (weapon, crafting tool) is also very nice. The rewards are very cool, free cloning, free traveling and to try out a vehicle are very cool things. I think it helps a new player very much to have this droid.
Suggestions:
There is no role-playing reason why these droids are here. Please add one. Maybe someone give it to you in the Tutorial or when you start at the planet a NPC approachs you and tells you he is an old friend of yours and he gives you this droid. I think you get the idea.
Add some diversity to the droids. A helper droid can either be an R2 or an R4 and he can have a various color. This way not everybody would have the same droid.
Voradorish
Tue May 11, 2004 2:54 am
#42
I think the new player quests are very enjoyable, even my girlfriend who never liked SWG thinks these quest are fun because the only reason she didnt like the game was she didnt know what the hell she was suposed to do when starting a new character and now she enjoys playing as a medic on the chilestra server 
NarCranor
Tue May 11, 2004 10:59 am
#43
I think this was really well done. The gift rewards were excellent, along with the cash and XP. I really think this eases new players into the game in a much smoother manner. Bravo.
Akush
Wed May 12, 2004 12:23 am
#44
Ok I love my little green friend alot...but yeah, everytime I log back on I have a green droid for a "extra" body part.
"It's NOT ATUMOR!"
Kharn_JB
Wed May 12, 2004 1:13 pm
#45
I tried Artisan, Scout, and Medic
Artisan and scout went fine. Medic however is very difficult to complete with having to heal the wounds of 5 differant players. It's not getting materials or anything that's the problem, it's finding people with wounds that wander into a hospital. I sat in Coronet hospital for over an hour and only one person ever showed up with wounds. This isn't an isolated incident either, as I've tried it a few times with very similar results +- 1 person.
I can see making the required people to heal wounds for to 2, maybe 3. However, 5 is just too much because it takes so long to wait for someone who needs their wounds healed to show up, where as you can finish any of the other new user skill experiences in a fraction of the time.
Artisan and scout went fine. Medic however is very difficult to complete with having to heal the wounds of 5 differant players. It's not getting materials or anything that's the problem, it's finding people with wounds that wander into a hospital. I sat in Coronet hospital for over an hour and only one person ever showed up with wounds. This isn't an isolated incident either, as I've tried it a few times with very similar results +- 1 person.
I can see making the required people to heal wounds for to 2, maybe 3. However, 5 is just too much because it takes so long to wait for someone who needs their wounds healed to show up, where as you can finish any of the other new user skill experiences in a fraction of the time.
Kabukkura
Wed May 12, 2004 2:52 pm
#46
Let me give BIG kudos to the devs, for the most part, on this one. Let me also digress a little bit, to explain how happy I am that this new player experience was implemented when it was.
I finally married my high school sweetheart last month. She certainly has geeky inclinations, but she was never a Star Wars fan, detests RPGs (both electronic and pen-and-paper), and simply cannot tolerate "grinding" or "levelling up" of any sort. But after she moved in, and watched my Wookiee avatar bust ass TK-style and bust moves b-boy style, her ears perked up. When I explained that you could not only have cool alien pets, but tame and command giant beasts of destruction, she was in. I walked her through creation of a Twi'lek character, then was pleasantly surprised. A helper droid, aweapon, vouchers for travel and stuff? Incredible!
The bonus XP and Credits from the trainer quest helped her out, but the fact that she had a months-long veteran of the game sitting one foot away meant that she didn't need a helper droid appearing every time she made a camp or harvested a creature. In fact, the no-store, no-drop, no-destroy, no-fscking-shut-up nature of the "helper" droid made no sense. When you say "go away", that thing should go away unless asked for. You should never see:
[bleep bloop] Hello! I have not aggravated you in nearly thirty seconds . . . [blip bork] . . . I see you just finished running for your life . . . [bonk quoit] . . . would you like me to explain where babies come from?
Well, anyway,I had to go to work at 6:00 pm . . . Wifey called meduring work togrillme about grouping up with people. . . by the time I can home, she was an 0-0-3-1 Marksman, and a 2-1-1-2 Scout! I partially credit the new player experiences with helping my wife get into this game I, well, waste so much of my time on. However, credit mostly goes to the inner core of this game--the deep down spirit that is "freaking addictive", as my wife put it--and she doesn't even LIKE Star Wars! After she logged and went to bed, I was filled with nostalgia for when I first got into the game, and thinking of all the things that SHOULD be possible . . .
Then I logged back on, put on my armor, got buffed up, and soloed stuff on Dathomir 'til my eyes gave out. Now, granted, I wanted to become a TK master since before I even bought the game, and it was just my luck that when I finally used my holo, it gave me TK as my goal. So really, I wasn't hologrinding, just trying to become the character I always wanted to be. But the soulless macro-entertainers and spam-merchants and stuff is just so, so far from the spirit of this game . . . I hope that publish 9 & 10, and the GCW revamp, and the Combat Balance revamp, and the Space Expansion, and the SMUGGLER REVAMP IF IT EVER FREAKING COMES will finally make this game what I paid for a year ago.
Peace
policyvote
PS--just to recap, that's KUDOS TO DEVS on New Player Experiences, but MAKE THE DROID BANISHABLE.
Maisland
Wed May 12, 2004 5:15 pm
#47
I have a few comments about the new player experience.
First, the Pros:
- I like the quests the new helper droid gives.
- I like that it gives suitable equipment for each class you take.
- I like the rewards you get for the first set of quests (the cloning voucher, vehicle rental etc).
Now the Cons:
- The droid counts against your total number of allowed droids.
- I don't like not having a choice of starting town (or even planet).
- I don't like starting in Mos Eisley (which, as others have pointed out, is basically a ghost town except for all the newbies).
- The medic and entertainer quests are difficult to do. Few people showed up in the medical center for me to heal and finding 7 people to watch me as an entertainer was even worse! It took me a couple hours to do the medic quest, and three DAYS to get the entertainer quest completed.
- Once you have completed all the quests, the droid becomes useless, but is still there. I saw one suggestion that it be made upgradable, if that is not possible, it would be nice if it were at least programable and made to act like a regular droid once you were done with it so that it was useful to a player once they are no longer a newbie. I haven't tried destroying it yet, but have seen from other posts that this is hard to do (at the very least).
Now on to the Image Designer upgrade:
Are the existing salons going to be the only places where advancedimage designing (such as stat migration) can be done or will we have the option of setting up in a player city? What about doing image designing in my character's house? will image designers be able to makea booth in the way a merchant can make a vendor? or perhaps an architect able to make one? or will player owned image designer tents be made possible (similar to merchant tents but with an image designer booth built in)?
Talon1
Fri May 14, 2004 2:59 am
#48
I tried out the new player workings last evening and found most of them to be rather frustrating, especially to an avid roleplayer.
Pros:
I like the newbie quests for the most part, helps the new player better understand his/her role
I like the helper droid, wish I had one when I started playing
Cons:
Forcing the newbie to a specific city in the live game. My sister was the new player using her own SWG account. We had planned to meet up on Corellia, where my character lives so that I could walk her through the first few missions and teach her the game, but the new user system prevented that from happening. The forced city choice and "free ticket" [b]after[/b] the missions also limit the RP options for new characters, if my backstory has me spending my entire life on and around Naboo, why would I suddenly find myself on Tatooine? And just how the [b]frag[/b] does the free ticket home fit into RP anymore???
Inability to turn off helper droid. While the droid is a good idea and a wonderful tool, it can get annoying if you can't turn it off. While we were trying to figure out a way to get my sister's character to Corellia the droid was constantly interrupting us.
overall the system is a good idea, just not fully thought out. Personally I think noob quests should be available options in every location new characters could previously travel to, or all contained within the initial new player tutorial. Every aspect of the new player experience needs to be fully bypassable by the more experienced players, not just the "this is how to use your controls" tutorial.
Pros:
I like the newbie quests for the most part, helps the new player better understand his/her role
I like the helper droid, wish I had one when I started playing
Cons:
Forcing the newbie to a specific city in the live game. My sister was the new player using her own SWG account. We had planned to meet up on Corellia, where my character lives so that I could walk her through the first few missions and teach her the game, but the new user system prevented that from happening. The forced city choice and "free ticket" [b]after[/b] the missions also limit the RP options for new characters, if my backstory has me spending my entire life on and around Naboo, why would I suddenly find myself on Tatooine? And just how the [b]frag[/b] does the free ticket home fit into RP anymore???
Inability to turn off helper droid. While the droid is a good idea and a wonderful tool, it can get annoying if you can't turn it off. While we were trying to figure out a way to get my sister's character to Corellia the droid was constantly interrupting us.
overall the system is a good idea, just not fully thought out. Personally I think noob quests should be available options in every location new characters could previously travel to, or all contained within the initial new player tutorial. Every aspect of the new player experience needs to be fully bypassable by the more experienced players, not just the "this is how to use your controls" tutorial.
MangusWieland
Fri May 14, 2004 5:27 am
#49
The droidmight befine for a newbie, but it isa major annoyance to anyone who knows the game or even read the manual. It has to be possible to get rid of that damn thing if you don't want it.
An other point is, that it just pop up when a char is in combat. The last thing you need is a droid pestering you with mindless chatter when an other mob happily chews on your leg.
TDLUNT
Fri May 14, 2004 6:16 am
#50
I don't know how Mos Eisley is on other servers, but on Tempest, ME is a ghost town. I spent a half hour surveying around there last night and only came accross two other players; one a noob. Would have made more sense to randomly select one of the more populated player cities and started the player there. You could also narrow down the selection of player cites by asking some sort of survey... Reb/Imp? Crafter/Non Crafter? etc... Of course you devs would actually have know the different types of player cities. But then that's probably a good thing.
TDLUNT
Fri May 14, 2004 6:18 am
#51
MangusWieland wrote:
The droidmight befine for a newbie, but it isa major annoyance to anyone who knows the game or even read the manual. It has to be possible to get rid of that damn thing if you don't want it.
An other point is, that it just pop up when a char is in combat. The last thing you need is a droid pestering you with mindless chatter when an other mob happily chews on your leg.
Go into you're datapad and just delete droid. Problem solved.
Syzygy-Gorath
Fri May 14, 2004 6:36 am
#52
I played through the Marksman, Scout, Brawler, and all but the last objective of Artisan quests. On the whole, I'd say that these were really good missions, the rewards were worthwhile, and the bonus XP and cash really made it easier getting a starting toon on its feet. With that said…that droid is so ungodly annoying! There needs to be some option to keep it from popping up on its own. I understand that it was designed this way so that starting players who couldn't figure out where it went wouldn't have to worry for too, too long…but it's really, really annoying. So…on the whole, really great system (although manually sampling enough materials to make 5 CDEF Rifles while trying not to get killed by critters near town kinda sucks) but the droid…gah!