I'm seriously worried about the new player experience

[Ghost Runner]

Silly Cat Underneath? lol

[FireWater]

I agree, SOE really needs to vamp this up, otherwise I fear a lot of brand new players will get frustrated and turn the game off.

Remember a lot of FPS gamers may not be MMO gamers. I know I certainly wasn't. So the idea would be to find a way to get them into a fight effectively, with tool tips that can assist.

I think they need to have tutorials for every vehicle, explaining their main purpose, as well as a VR Arena to test things out and get used to them.

Maybe that isn't reasonable, but I think that would be so beneficial to the game.

[MrBloodworth]

Originally Posted by Babyfark McGeez

Edit: Solution: A proper bootcamp for new recruits where a comical yelling drill instructor gives out a real introduction to the whole game. Additionally a drill instructor / General NPC in the warpgates that gives further informations on specific topics (what the heck is a SCU sire?).

Agreed. I Think what Americas army had going for it was a stroke of brilliance. You have to qualify for roles, and in turn you get very informed.

But this seems to go counter to the "If you are not shooting constantly, we are failing" mentality they have taken with this version of Planetside.

[Babyfark McGeez]

HA, so it WAS Americas Army i had in mind there. I wasn't sure so i didn't name it hehe.

I refined this idea a bit more to include more goodyness:

You start, a short video shows your freshly made soldier inside a huge ship with many others flying towards auraxis. A narrator gives out the basics about the conflict. Zoom on auraxis.
You exit the ship and find yourself in the Sanctuary of your empire, where the aforementioned drill instructor greets you with "Welcome maggots! We are the VS/NC/TR empire! We will conquer this planet and fight for our main beliefs which are - NC/VS/TR propagande - Take your equipment and move over to the training grounds!"
You are now able to control your character (weapon holstered, it's a sanctuary!). A big indicator above the (VR) training facility shows you where to go.
After arriving there, you are awarded some xp/certs. As a vet you can now opt out of the tutorial at this point and move on. But you will miss out the rewards. In the VR you are asked to try out the guns and tools to find your favorite class / vehicle. If you want to learn about the different (big) base layouts you can optionally also enter an instanced area that lets you walk through each of them (biolab, amp station, tech plant). Big popups at each important objective and the option to turn on a "ghost character / ideal progression line" who shows how to actually attack or defend that base.
When you're done and feel prepared you leave the VR.
The drill instructor wishes you good luck ("Still here soldier? Those TR/VS/NC don't kill themselves!" - pun intended hehe) and gives you some more xp/certs. He ends the tutorial with telling you "I will stay here if you need further instructions! Now use the Hotspot dropping feature to get into battle, or go through that warpgate that leads to our home continent."
With the certs from the tutorial you are now able to buy your first item with which you can allready specialize your character (a scope, ams-sunderer, something like that).
You are now prepared and have been rewarded for showing a littlebit of patience. The Drill instructor will remain in the sanctuary as the only NPC in the game incase you need further instructions / tutorials. The Training facility (VR) will allways be open to you aswell if you want to check something out.

Things to add:
- Sanctuaries
- VR / Training facility
- Drill instructor NPC
- Holstering Weapons

Side effect: Sanctuaries as a place for an empire to form and communicate global strategies ("Let's concentrate on indar people"), and an actual home.

[MrBloodworth]

ARMA II also does it.

[FireWater]

I guess the question is:

How does SOE do an effective tutorial with 0 NPCs in Planetside 2?

[MrBloodworth]

Originally Posted by FireWater

I guess the question is:

How does SOE do an effective tutorial with 0 NPCs in Planetside 2?

You make a VR area that goes over the basics of movement and such, with Training Drones with a tool-set for outfits to customize the training.

That's how you build a community and inform the user base. Again, Improve on what PS1 had right.

[Rolfski]

Originally Posted by Boomzor

I think one of the reasons they're not doing a final, set in stone tutorial is that they don't know what the final mechanics are at this point in time.

Just think of it, how many capture mechanics changes have we been through during the beta?
I'm certain that past the 20th of November, what we have now will NOT be the final incarnation, just because we've passed a certain date in the calender.

So how do you make an all encompassing tutorial or boot camp mission on a topic that is constant flux?

Basic mechanics like moving around, shooting, using equipment terminals, spawning vehicles and getting around the map are things I assume is safe to say won't see major changes by now and should definitely be included in a boot camp (or even off line) mission or tutorial, and then add on the things that are too vague to explain right now.

You're right, with so many very drastic last moment changes it's hard anticipate with tutorials on this.

But here is where a modular mission system would show its flexibility. As you said it, they already should have missions in place for the basic core stuff. No excuse to have them not implemented at launch. Advanced capping mechanics missions should be added asap.

These missions should all be in your face as well as reward you with certs/unlocks to get you started. You can always opt-out or postpone them of course but then you know you will be missing out on stuff.

[Joshinya]

The New Player Experience is something that concerns me as well. Being the primary recruitment officer for a large outfit is frustrating when all of the greenies that I pull in have no clue what to do, in terms of even attacking the point. They just run around and zerg. Painfully painfully zerg. It is frustrating to get this player into my squad and try to recruit them because I have to be the one to teach them the game from the ground up.

I don't mind doing this, in order to get a serious recruit who is interested in the game and interested in joining my outfit. My outfit gets no reward other than another pair of feet on the ground that is very likely to not be around next week (COD/Beta/game flippers) however this has always been the case.

I guess the overall point I would like to make is that I still love the idea of zero NPC's in this game. It underlines and exclamates the point that we can really make this a player driven game and a player driven experience. We need to keep that and integrate our new player training system into our current outfit capabilities. Give outfits rewards for recruiting new players and training them in the game. A training system that is flexible and adaptable to each different outfits needs? This sounds complex but in reality it could be a simple system which oufits can extrapolate on.

[AThreatToYou]

PlanetSide is about the players, and the vast majority of new players that have even a slight chance of staying with the game are those with friends who are already playing. They'll already have a tutorial waiting for them. No tutorial better than a brother-in-arms.

As for those with passing interest and will just try the game out and see how it does, I agree, I think about 1 in 100 of them will even figure out how to leave the warpgate, and 1 in 100 of those who leave the warpgate will actually figure out what PlanetSide is. A better explanation is needed, but so often its too little too late.

PlanetSide 1's tutorial system did a great job of telling me how to get to a battle and how to look for one. SOE being experienced with MMOs tells me they have apt plans for this.

[Crator]

^ Nobody wants to go over the basics of the game over and over again. It will get old fast and people will have to rotate teachers or something to make it work. We are talking about the basics, not outfit strategy and tactics. Outfits should be teaching those things, not the basics.

[flargy]

I agree with the OP.

This is the single biggest problem SOE has at the moment.

I fear new players will try PS2, and either MEH or WTF their way
out the door.

They might come back. They might not.

It is to late to change things now, but I wish SOE had put a little more effort
into making those first 30 minutes in PS2 mindblowing.

First impressions count.

flargs

[Dagron]

Originally Posted by flargy

It is to late to change things now

It's never too late to improve things. Sure a lack of decent newbie experience will be particularly bad at launch, but they still should do something about it ASAP so those who show up late for the party don't get discouraged too.

[Adventis]

Needs a VR training sort of deal.

OH WAIT.

[Rolfski]

Well, we've just learned this weekend from AGN streaming that tutorial missions will only be added after launch. At launch, RivalXfactor stated that he's working to have 12 YouTube tutorials ready. Nice of course but most people don't bother watching tutorials.

So basically, the new player experience will be bad at launch and the devs are depending on us to ease the pain a bit.

So what can we do in the meantime to help the new guys? Let's brainstorm a bit:

• Jump in Galaxies/Sundies and escort new players to the front lines
• Form up newbie squads and lead them into battle
• Start you local Planetside Military Academy
• (Temporarily) open up your outfit platoons for new players
• Spam Liberators and do some educational sight seeing with the new guys, manning the guns
• Have some of your outfit squads spawn as enemy and do base capping trainings/simulations

Any more ideas?