PS2 makes new players unhappy

[IHateMMOs]

Originally Posted by Rahabib

As someone who is new to PS, there are a few things that were confusing to me and took me a while to figure out.

First off, the map. When you spawn at the warp gate the first time there are no green dots. No where it says - you have to instant action, or re-deploy. No where does it say anything about squads. So a lot of new people truck out into the vast emptiness, thinking, "hmm.. I remember there was a explosion icon somewhere in this direction."

Second, No where is it stated in game how you get credits. So you start killing things and then eventually you get some. But when you kills things you get XP not credits - it was a bit confusing to me when I first started. Back when I very first started, they still had Araxium, which I can bearly tell you how that worked because I had to look it up. Same with the credits.

Once i grabbed an Sunderer thinking I could deploy and use it as a spawn like I saw everyone else doing - obviously that didnt work. What about buying weapons or attachments - oh you have to equip it first. That I had to just play around with it and then find it.

So the fact is, there are some things thats easy to people who use the internet to google things, but not intuitive to just figure out.

I guess this is where you tell me how I am too stupid to play the game or something else demeaning. Normally, I probaby wouldnt say anything but I know others who have the same questions - just look at the new player boards.

No, I don't call people stupid just because they don't understand the game. It's just that there's an entire website dedicated to all things Planetside, where you can find anything you need. Don't know how to use the map, ask someone, watch a tutorial video, read up on it in the wiki. I was confused about many things in firefall, and the wiki is useless, so I tried out some things, asked some people, and I figured out what I was supposed to do. Same method can be used with Planetside 2, especially with 2 full wikis. All you have to do is research some things. Doesn't require too much work.

[Crator]

^ You are a hardcore gamer. SOE wants to cater to the majority whom most likely are casual gamers. If you want to get them hooked you better do everything in your power to make it easy for people to learn (in-game) how to do things.

[Rahabib]

Originally Posted by IHateMMOs

No, I don't call people stupid just because they don't understand the game. It's just that there's an entire website dedicated to all things Planetside, where you can find anything you need. Don't know how to use the map, ask someone, watch a tutorial video, read up on it in the wiki. I was confused about many things in firefall, and the wiki is useless, so I tried out some things, asked some people, and I figured out what I was supposed to do. Same method can be used with Planetside 2, especially with 2 full wikis. All you have to do is research some things. Doesn't require too much work.

That's what I did. But so many others want to just load the game and play. for Hardcore gamers going to a website is fine, but a lot of people their time is valuable and spending it just trying to figure out things like how to use a sunderer may be a waste of time to them. Its those people whom SOE needs to worry about.

Also, no offence, the PS wiki is horribly outdated an unuseful. Maybe after thing settle down it will get better.

[adanos]

I dont understand the topic , i think its title should change to something like "ps2 makes new not so bright players unhappy" and i m dumb as fuck.
If someone wants to learn something he WILL learn it.Others who are bored to do so , be sure they will skip the ingame tutorial too.
Before i play ps2 for the first time (5 days ago) i watched just 1 video on youtube.


all i had to do is type 3 words "planetside 2 guide" nothing else.

Is the video perfect? Ofcourse not , is it helpfull? hell ya . A fully video guide would take like 6 hours covering every single detail.

You(not you :P) are so bored and dont like discovering things yourself? Wanna just join the game and play? WAIT are we still talking about the same game?

For more details ask ingame people , whenever i ask something in squad chat i always find 1 awesome person who wants to help me , after that we become ingame friends and the questions keep rollin!

p.s: try to find ps1 players they are friendly and happy!

[Crator]

Why do people speak against an in-game guide? Boggles my mind. You do understand SOE wants people to pay them, right? How much of the stuff is missing from a player made tutorial, hmmm? You don't know.

[Rahabib]

I wouldnt mind just using a website if there was one that covered things in more detail. However even that video isnt very helpful for a lot of questions new people have.

Next, people are intimidated by using the chat. In some games people have had experiences where the old community just responds to a question about "how do I get new weapons?" with "press alt+F4." I havent seen it in this game however, but there are some who may be afraid to ask.

I am not saying make the game idiot proof, I think a video or wiki is sufficient for 90% of players as long as its well maintained and current. Thus far the wiki is far from it and the videos online as you stated you would need to watch 6 hours of it. Without incentivizing watching a video many will skip it. But with incentives like free credits, I think you will get more people who will watch it.

A smarter game population is a longer term population.

[Figment]

Regarding in-game communication: voice chat is most likely considered to be scarier than typed chat because you expose something more personal about yourself. I'd imagine especially women would feel less secure about using voice chat.

[Hamma]

People shouldn't have to find a website or a YouTube Video to figure out how to play the game.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Hamma

People shouldn't have to find a website or a YouTube Video to figure out how to play the game.

Agreed.

Whatever they do, I think they should make lots of use of any non-play time to instruct new players: provide game mechanic tips during continent and game loading screens, make optimal use of installation time to explain the concepts and during character creation they should explain how characters work.

Currently there's this short text on the empire background and that's it.