Newbies and the accessibility of Planetside 2 - Page 3

GhettoPrince · 2012-07-21, 09:15 PM

That video was the worse thing I've seen on Planetside 2 in the past year.

This thread is the second worst thing.

sylphaen · 2012-07-21, 09:16 PM

DISCLAIMER: warning, talking about things I did not see, stereotyped comments and broad generalizations.
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The issue is also about which kind of players PS2 tries to attract.

With players older than 14 yrs who have an attention span larger than 15 minutes and are not braindead, it shouldn't be too bad. Of course, a proper tutorial would always help everyone to learn faster.

The issue I see here is between personalities of players. On one side, you have "casuals-who-have-little-time-to-play-but-will-get-there-eventually" (usually a nice kind of people) and on the other extreme, you have cases of "so-casual-trying-to-use-braincells-is-a-waste-this-game-sucks-Oh-shiny-wow-explosion-mmmm-donuts-what-was-I-doing-again".

It's a bit extreme for an example but you see my point: not all players are of the same quality.

I did not see the stream but based on comments: did we even know how old he was ? He could have been 11. Surprisingly, he did know about quest systems... maybe a Free Realms recruit ?

If age was not an excuse for him, I'll simply say that some people have the unrealistic expectation of learning/knowing to do/understand something instantly without putting any effort into it. Sorry but things just do work like that.

(I am not advocating that a large effort should be necessary to learn a game; just that some people are too lazy to learn how to enjoy something.)

This guy, not knowing what an NDA is aside, is actually the perfect beta tester

This is actually a good point. The game testers at SOE are too professional and rational. They should hire total noobs to know what goes in the mind of a clueless player (ie. someone who has never played a FPS).

It will help to develop the tools that will in turn help new (or stupid) players to learn how to enjoy the game they play.

Beginners are the blood of gaming. Without beginners there cannot be pros. No beginners, no future.

p0intman · 2012-07-21, 09:22 PM

All newbies need to have this hammered home:
This is a PVP game. There is NO pve. There is NOWHERE safe save for the warpgates. You can and WILL be shot at anywhere else, for no reason other than you are not of someone else's faction. That IS the content of planetside. I nearly had a blood vessle pop in my head when I heard him say 'Where are the quests?!'. The answer to that is simple, THERE ARE NO QUESTS.

OutlawDr · 2012-07-21, 09:22 PM

Originally Posted by GhettoPrince

That video was the worse thing I've seen on Planetside 2 in the past year.

This thread is the second worst thing.

Nope, the irony is that video has better material for the devs to work with than the vast majority of the posts in these forums.

sylphaen · 2012-07-21, 09:29 PM

Originally Posted by OutlawDr

Nope, the irony is that video has better material for the devs to work with than the vast majority of the posts in these forums.

I disagree.

That video was great material to detect what PS2 lacked of in terms of tutorials and beginner support.

The posts on PSU are however pretty interesting when it comes to larger-scale game mechanics and battles involving >200 people concurrently AND the feedback from competent/enthusiast FPS players (I includes BF3/COD/PS1 vets so don't start playing who's being hated the most) who actually know what a FPS is.

I said enthusiasts because we would not be harping at each other and wasting countless hours posting around here otherwise.

Renegadeknight · 2012-07-21, 09:41 PM

Well I recall a vr from the original game. Just send them their to start and run though the basics. It may also be a good idea to have something similar to the shuttle once he enters the real world. Planetside 1 showed where fighting was occuring, if a newbie was told on the map in a similar way and allowed to start off by dropping in near by a battle, he would probably die quickly but atleast be able to figure out where he should go after respawn and that he should kill the people who shot him.If the action moves on all he would have to do is follow all the guys who are on his side.Once they become more experienced they may become more interested in the tactical and teamwork aspects of the game.

EisenKreutzer · 2012-07-21, 09:48 PM

Originally Posted by GhettoPrince

That video was the worse thing I've seen on Planetside 2 in the past year.

This thread is the second worst thing.

Mind if I ask what you find so horrible about this thread?

Bobby Shaftoe · 2012-07-21, 10:14 PM

Instant Action mode:
Assign 'newbs' to missions, put them in squads with other people on that mission, spawn them at the nearest point to the objective (or on SL), rinse and repeat. You can't get more accessible than that, they don't have to do anything and they're in the thick of it having fun.

If they want to do the more 'advanced' things, let them opt out of the Instant Action gameplay and explore and learn the rest of the game.

Littleman · 2012-07-21, 10:18 PM

Originally Posted by p0intman

I nearly had a blood vessle pop in my head when I heard him say 'Where are the quests?!'. The answer to that is simple, THERE ARE NO QUESTS.

I called it in another thread: some of our newbs WILL be the MMORPG hoppers. Many gamers don't do research, so when MMORPGers jump into this game, they could be expecting another point and click fest that hand guides them with exclamation marks.

These people you don't really need feedback from... they're just lost. They saw "MMO" and wasted an invite that could have gone to someone that at least knew which genre PS2 belonged to.

derito · 2012-07-21, 10:22 PM

A little idea if you can have very basic interactions with NPCs at the warpgates : A man repairing something with a half-broken holoscreen above him displaying a big yellow exclamation point. Once interacted with, the man rant about soldiers asking him stupid question about quests and other nonsense. Then there's a tooltip appearing on the player's screen explaining how missions work in PS2.

Minigun · 2012-07-21, 10:42 PM

There should be no BS quests, the best thing about planetside is that it DOES NOT hold your hand while you play. I'm not against a tutorial teaching new players the basics and giving them an overview of the game but I refuse to agree with any shape or form of help (lolquestgoherewinxpderr) for those players who simply do not use their brain. It makes for terrible game play.

A simple tutorial room where players spawn for the first time after character creation would work fine, they could walk down a hallway with equip terms vech terms capture points and what not with onscreen briefings detailing each to familiarize themselves. Once done they walk through a teleporter and they are officially in the game forever. Also, MAKE SURE you let all the retards know that friendly fire is freaking on and if they do it after they teleport a freaking nuke will fall onto their house, jesus christ.

FPS's have been dumbed down so much in the recent future i will not be surprised when the next COD and BF start you out with aim bot. Don't let planetside become this too.

Arrius · 2012-07-21, 10:45 PM

The material being talked about in all these "tech test" threads are things that would normally be discussed during beta.

It's just another closed beta where they invite people whether they know anything about the game or not. They are just evading all the promises they made to the vets and guys with keys. As long as they don't use the word beta most people will believe them. They know they can't live up to anything they say so it's just crowd control.

Sephirex · 2012-07-21, 10:49 PM

Originally Posted by Arrius

The material being talked about in all these "tech test" threads are things that would normally be discussed during beta.

It's just another closed beta where they invite people whether they know anything about the game or not. They are just evading all the promises they made to the vets and guys with keys. As long as they don't use the word beta most people will believe them. They know they can't live up to anything they say so it's just crowd control.

The entire Beta is a lie. In fact, Planetside 1 never even existed! The memories were all implanted so you could form the core of the hype machine for this game. Now they're purposely leaving all of you out of it while feeding you fake footage to keep the hype going.

Planetside 2 isn't even a real game, either. It's an Illuminati training tool, to prepare you all for the Great War!

TheDAWinz · 2012-07-21, 10:54 PM

Originally Posted by Sephirex

The entire Beta is a lie. In fact, Planetside 1 never even existed! The memories were all implanted so you could form the core of the hype machine for this game. Now they're purposely leaving all you of out while feeding you fake footage to keep the hype going.

Planetside 2 isn't even a real game, either. It's an Illuminati training tool, to prepare you all for the Great War!

I am ready for it! Bring it humans!1

Goldeh · 2012-07-21, 10:55 PM

I think, just putting down some pop-up tooltips, like they do for most MMO's is good enough. Tell the player to click this, click that. Have info pop up following them through the steps of how things work is good enough.

Beyond that, I don't think anymore hand holding is needed. Cos' if we have too much hand holding it's gonna be advocating derps

.

I think, (don't quote me) on average it takes a gamer an hour to get a grasp of what's going on in a game if he/she is paying attention. Perhaps more due to scale and depth. (Tetris versus Skyrim ex)

Originally Posted by Sephirex

The entire Beta is a lie. In fact, Planetside 1 never even existed! The memories were all implanted so you could form the core of the hype machine for this game. Now they're purposely leaving all you of out while feeding you fake footage to keep the hype going.

Planetside 2 isn't even a real game, either. It's an Illuminati training tool, to prepare you all for the Great War!

They have stocks in hell you know.