So.. I'm going to SOE Next week. Top Issues?

[Malorn]

In this discussion about sancs I saw several more great usability topics Hamma could ask about.


This is an interesting video to watch - brand new player first twenty minutes in PS2.



Interesting things I saw

1) He immediately dismissed the pop-up that gave him an introduction to the game (without reading it). I think internet ads and Windows have trained us to click those things away as soon as possible. We just don't like pop-ups, so I can't blame him for doing that. Though I did find it amusing he dismisses a welcome pop-up and then claims he's confused and doesn't know what to do. Clearly need something more effective there.

2) He never once found Instant Action.

3) It took him about 15 minutes after he got into the game to find a fight. I think there's a good chance many players in our short-attention-span world would not have waited that long. He said after about 3 minutes "I'm bored"

4) Some of his "wow!" moments came when he opened the map and saw how big it was, when he saw the vehicle options at the ground terminal, and when he actually got into the fighting he seemed to enjoy himself. He also admired the graphics of the game, though I don't think he played long enough to realize there was a day/night cycle. He probably would have enjoyed that too.


Could learn a lot from this video as a case study. Its something I consider an important issue to the game. It's key to hooking new players. If you want people to shoot at and a healthy PlanetSide 2 community and a well-funded post-launch project then this should be one of the top concerns. New player retention.