The hardest thing to learn in TW

[Superted]

What [is] the hardest part to learn?

In TW? Manners.

[Dabram]

First explain the different commands:
- gameplay: from shooting, to attaching, repelling, warping, using a portal, cloak, x-radar, burst, rocket, greens etc etc. (dont just explain what key u need to use, but also what it DOES) what frequencies mean and how there can be different team etcs. yellows always teammates, blues always enemies etc. how there's 8 different ships to choose from with different strenghts and weaknesses. If i think back, these things are incredibely difficult to learn at first! (i personally was lucky, Roxy i think, took the time to explain everything to me)
- chat-interface: explain the different chats and how to use them: pub/freq/private messages/private chats/ (also incredibly confusin at first)

Secondly different arenas and different goals:
- explain there's a lot of different arenas and how you can change arenas: important encourage people to try out different arenas! i bet a lot of people quit early because they never got out of pub or maybe at most played some stupid side-events.. (DON'T MENTION THOSE IN TUTORIAL, they're EVIL)
- there are several styles of play that come with their own arenas:
explain styles:
basing: team-event in which 2 teams battle for the flag, try to take over and defend the base. a mix of the ships makes it easier for your team to be dominant!
dueling: deathmatch / elimination / duel, team-event or individual event in which everyone plays in the same ship, and gets a certain amount of deaths (i think todays generation should be familiar with the concepts of dm/elim/duel :P)
Main arenas to play in:
Pub: free-for-all play, possible to base and duel in a fun and chaotic way.
Elim / duel / deathmatch / tourny: to improve and test your dueling skills.
?go base or purepub: improve your basing skills.
Leagues:
This is for most the reason they spent so many hours trying to get better. In leagues squads participate (explain how squads work in ss?) in dueling or basing style matches. TWD: automatic continuous league in which all squads can participate. TWL: periodic league in which the top squads participate and battle to become the best squad in TW!

Maybe a final comment about how our community is 10 years old and how besides a competitive level of gameplay the community itself has always been very important in keeping this one of the most interesting online games. (end with the slogan; now go meet new people and then kill them!) (or w/e it is exactly )


Just some thoughts!

[Zingy]

Although having a tutorial arena is a good idea, the important thing is that a total newcomer will likely not even know how to view a list of arenas and go to one (in this case, the tutorial arena).

How about this: Having a bot sitting in pub that, depending on whether it is the first time for that person entering TW (to determine this bot could check a database or use a command such as *info to check usage), and depending on whether the bot determines that player is "new" or not, it will do an *objon which will show a large image on the right side of the screen visually explaining the basic commands such as how to go from arena to arena or other, and so on.

That way at least the new player will have enough "basic skill" that they will know that a tutorial arena exists, and how to get there. The same could probably also be accomplished if the bot just sent a PM to a new player instructing them to type "?go tutorial" but most new players would likely ignore a small green message such as this (or it would be drowned out with pub spam), whereas a huge image on the side of their screen telling them a brief description of how to change arenas (and in this case to specifically go to tutorial) might be more persuasive.

As for "teaching" content for the tutorial arena, the following is probably the most important to total newcomers:

• How to change ships, and a basic 1 sentence description of what each ship's "purpose is" (and how they are unique, such as the jav's bounce bomb, warbird's agility, etc.)
• Basic (default) control keys such as shift+ctrl to repel, or tab to bomb. Most players will probably have already figured out the "ctrl to shoot" since the shoot button in some other games are also the ctrl button.
• What the "point" of the game is (most newcomers probably get bored after dieing in the middle of pub after 5-10 mins and might just quit without ever realizing the whole pseudo-basing aspect of pub)
• How the communication system works (most newcomers would probably have trouble figuring out how PMs work since it is probably unlike what they may have seen in other games). Other "less critical to beginners" features such as how to leave ?messages or use ?chat can probably be left out so that newcomers won't feel "overburdened" with information - these other features are things they will easily learn later once they have gained a bit of experience with the other aspects of the game.
• They should know that players can use ?help to get help.
• They should know how the arena system works, and what other "game options" (arenas) are available, such as elim (wb or jav), wbduel, etc.

Also, since the main risk (in newcomer retention) is beginners deciding to quit after getting owned in the middle of pub for their first several mins, an alternate idea could be to make a special pub just for beginners-i'm not really sure how this would be planned out, but maybe a smaller map can be used with a smaller base and perhaps a tighter cap on number of players.

Atleast this way newcomers will be able to get some easier kills and start getting used to the idea of simple basing. In this simple introductory pub they will gain a "clearer" idea of what the "point" of the game is, and once they get 10 hours (maybe less?) of experience, they can be promoted to the main pubs. This "introductory pub" system may be a little "restrictive" but i'm willing to bet that one of the main reasons a new player might quit the game before they even gave it a chance is because they felt they were getting killed too much.

Yes, "pub" is itself a beginner area, but "total beginners" who have just entered the zone will still have trouble playing against people who have been playing for much longer than they have (ie. "vet pubbers" if such a category exists). To be able to retain these "total beginners" (who otherwise may have given up quickly) would be important to rebuilding zone population - getting advertisement for the game is one thing, keeping those players that come in as a result of it is a totally other thing.

[Let's also keep in mind that in the early days of SS when the emphasis was on SVS zones, there was a similar "isolation" system where new players would begin in Alpha before later moving on to Chaos - so perhaps there is some merit to a "newcomer isolation" system such as what I described above regarding the introductory pub for absolute beginners]

[Ephemeral]

Will it teach people how to grow up?

[Doc Flabby]

The hardest thing i found to learn in TW was to stay alive for more than 3 secounds, learning how to dodge and survive the spawnfest of pub.

Learning about ?arena opened the game up to me, and made me realize its depth. Learning about ?chat was also something that i didnt learn until someone invited me to join a squad.

[MirrorriM]

Lots of good responses from everyone! Definitely a lot of good ideas to think about.

To comment on a couple:

LF: The difference between a help ticker and this new arena will be interactivity. This arena will have (so far) a pub area and an elim area in it. ZH's along with other players will be encouraged to hang out here and help. This is not an arena to read a guide on how to play. This is a place to learn how to play by doing.

Zingy: We are on the same track I didnt go into the specifics for how the bot and arena would work because I wanted some ideas of what the bot should include. But since you brought it up, this is what we were thinking:

-a bot will recognize when a new player enters the arena (via new mid/ip or name, havent decided yet). The bot will automatically send the new player to ?go tutorial when they enter the game. It will send a nice welcome message to the player via spec chat so they know what the heck is going on (and also alerts zh's/older players that someone has arrived).

-also, we are designing the bot to have mini goal-based games that will teach the player basics on how to shoot (and what the bullets/bombs mean), what a pub is, what elim is, etc. Very simple example: Bot> Get in a warbird by pressing ESC + 1. Shoot enemy bot X by pressing CTRL. Once this is accomplished, the player gets a new task. All the while other players can help the newbie learn what to do.

This bot is not easy to do, but weve got some guys working on it so hopefully things turn out well.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

P.S. Rodney: yup

[Zeebu]

i wouldnt mind being an 'older player' that helps, but do i have to try to be on staff to do so? id rather not

[hak]

In TW? Manners.

It's like you read my mind Ted.
It really is.

[Maverick]

i wouldnt mind being an 'older player' that helps, but do i have to try to be on staff to do so? id rather not

I think it won't be a problem if you hang around in the tutorial arena trying to help out new players. However, only if you can do it in a nice manner.

[HateTheFake]

in addition to the ?go tutorial map, it would be cool if there were 8 freqs, and u can go through each ship practicing the same course or a different course.

Things Hard For Me:

Didnt know u can :: up to the last 5 private msgs recieved
Didnt know how to work any other ship but lancaster and warbird
Didnt know mulitple chats, team chats, and #squad chats
Didnt know how to turn off the help msgs
Didnt know about the ?ignore or ?obscene commands

[Ronn]

I think the tutorial should emphasize the twdd, twjd and twbd, thats what makes this game addictive.

[dads revenge]

mirr, ur avatar isnt the picture i made of a bunch of ppl in TeKs back in the day is it????

Can't believe I still have this.



Hmm maybe I will break my bordum and make something psychotic for this >8)

[Galaxy Turbo]

I think the tutorial should emphasize the twdd, twjd and twbd, thats what makes this game addictive.

Agreed, more emphasis on squad creating, joining squads, sign up at ?go twd to a squad in order to play matches, stuff that has a lasting effect also.

Also, speaking in Yellow, Red, Green, Blue... and what " (Yes, ") actually means. I used to think talking in different colours was made purely for fun at first like something silly at Runescape, so I'd talk in all of these colours thinking everyone in a pub would be able to see what I said, until it took me time to figure out it actually all had a purpose.

I think what you're asking is basically a full TW Tutorial, newbies won't know everything, so teach them everything in blunt so they aren't at ?go tutorial for a year, this is my view on it.

Nice thread, just collect ideas.

[roxxkatt]

bump'd for justice

[Scoop]

bump'd for justice

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