New Player Experience

Discuss ideas about promoting Genesis and inviting more players into the Genesis community
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cotillion
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Joined: 04 Mar 2010 01:14

New Player Experience

Post by cotillion » 23 Jan 2015 11:37

As you might have noticed we've been getting alot of new players created lately.
The reason for this is the Chrome Web Store.
Thanks to everyone who has installed the app and rated it. If you haven't done that yet please do: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/deta ... mgfmeefmaa

Unfortunately few stick around. That's sortof expected but I suspect there is much we can do for the new player experience.
Alot of these players have problems with really basic things like how to speak etc. So we need to improve the tutorial and figure out why they leave.

So it'd be great if those of you who created new players recently could post whatever ideas you have on how to get those players to stick around longer.

Mortis

Re: New Player Experience

Post by Mortis » 23 Jan 2015 16:15

I ran through the new character creation. I'm experienced, so I have a slant. However, I found the limit on commands available to be annoying and frustrating. You can't do anything except what you're supposed to do in that room. I think that's a bad expectation to set.

Code: Select all

Energy flashes briefly! ... and then ...
> 
Utter darkness ... Void ... Stretching endlessly toward nothing ....

A friendly voice says: Welcome, traveller.
l <-- here I tried a command and couldn't do anything - annoying
Your eyes are having trouble focusing yet. You try to blink a few times, as odd sensations wash over you.
> 
At the sound of the voice, your mind seems to awaken, and your awareness spreads out, searching for meaning in the void.

A friendly voice says: You have eyes, my friend! Use them!

Type <look> or simply <l> to use your eyes.
Negatives:
1) Limited commands available
2) Too much to read
3) Overcomplicated process

Solutions:
1) Quicker, menu-based character creation. Zip them through it: Select race from list of numbers by races by brief stat factor description, etc. Don't make them pretend to play already without a body and without full access to our commands. Knock that out immediately. Then get them into the tutorial.
2) Flat out list the commands for them as soon as they have a body. No need for a roleplay overtexted style. <help commands> <ntell> <say> directions, kill, etc. All the things a mentor is going to tell them in the first few minutes of play should just be given to them. Give them a wad of gold coins. Dump them into the tutorial. That's what it's there for :)

Mortis

Re: New Player Experience

Post by Mortis » 23 Jan 2015 16:25

Solutions 3)
Gamewide broadcast alert:
A new mortal has entered the world: Jackthegk has awakened!

Immediately thereafter, welcomes ensue on <ntell> and help is begun.

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cotillion
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Re: New Player Experience

Post by cotillion » 23 Jan 2015 16:28

I'm thinking we should drop the entire pre-creation step and drop them directly into the tutorial.
Race selection etc could be done at the end of the tutorial.

Getting new players killing stuff fast should probably be a goal.

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Habiki
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Location: China

Re: New Player Experience

Post by Habiki » 23 Jan 2015 16:39

Maybe creating a personalized character at the very beginning would give them feeling of investment and reason to want to stay and develop that character. I also agree that newbies should be given more money. There's a lot of grinding for cash to level up skills.

Arcon

Re: New Player Experience

Post by Arcon » 23 Jan 2015 17:30

cotillion wrote:I'm thinking we should drop the entire pre-creation step and drop them directly into the tutorial.
Race selection etc could be done at the end of the tutorial.

Getting new players killing stuff fast should probably be a goal.
Or integrate the character creation into the tutorial, you meet some guy that talks about races and answers questions about them and there you choose your race.

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Cherek
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Re: New Player Experience

Post by Cherek » 23 Jan 2015 17:35

Habiki wrote:Maybe creating a personalized character at the very beginning would give them feeling of investment and reason to want to stay and develop that character. I also agree that newbies should be given more money. There's a lot of grinding for cash to level up skills.
Like Cotillion suggested, I've always thought it would be best to have the character creation part before you enter Sparkle, so you get thrown into the game immediately, although you make a good point there Habiki.

Perhaps...

You could get a choice?

"Welcome Cherek, in order to enter the realm of Genesis you need to create a character, however you may play the tutorial before you decide who you will become."

1. Play tutorial now and set up your character later
2. Set up character now, then continue to the tutorial

As for the pre creation tutorial, I'd like to make that optional too. It is optional in a way now actually, since there is a "skip tutorial" command, although it's not advertised so people dont know it exists. And even if it was advertised, I think it would be better if it's not _forced_ on you.

Cant we simply add to pre creation tutorial as a part of the Green Oaks lands instead? So you enter the world immediately and find yourself at a crossroads, north is the town of Green Oaks, and south is the "new to text game" tutorial. So you can decide what you want to do, and if you change your mind, you can go back and go through the "new to text game" tutorial as many times as you want if you wish. It's simply a part of the tutorial lands, you can do it if you feel completely lost, and if you like to figure things out yourself, you can just head north to the town and the adventure instead.

Mortis

Re: New Player Experience

Post by Mortis » 23 Jan 2015 17:47

Any game you play now is going to let you knock out the config work first thing in an easy to use, easy to understand format. For us that's going to mean quick selection of a number in a list. I agree, we definitely need to knock this out first, get the person into a real character body and playing right away. Maybe instead of gold, we just start them with all skills at superior student or amateur or something? Then they can't cheat and drop it, start a new guy, repeat.

The idea of changing race while in the tutorial is good though. Let them remake if they want before graduating. However, getting them into a real, full-powered body with full command access right away is a prerequisite of modern gaming. People can always slow down their pace, but if you don't give them all of that right away, they can't speed up their pace if they already get it and just want to play. That is really frustrating.

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Cherek
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Re: New Player Experience

Post by Cherek » 23 Jan 2015 18:50

Mortis wrote:Any game you play now is going to let you knock out the config work first thing in an easy to use, easy to understand format. For us that's going to mean quick selection of a number in a list. I agree, we definitely need to knock this out first, get the person into a real character body and playing right away. Maybe instead of gold, we just start them with all skills at superior student or amateur or something? Then they can't cheat and drop it, start a new guy, repeat.

The idea of changing race while in the tutorial is good though. Let them remake if they want before graduating. However, getting them into a real, full-powered body with full command access right away is a prerequisite of modern gaming. People can always slow down their pace, but if you don't give them all of that right away, they can't speed up their pace if they already get it and just want to play. That is really frustrating.
I guess you could always give them the option to confirm their body/race before entering Sparkle, or redo it without penalty. And let them know this when first creating their character, so they dont think the choice they make there is "final" and sit around for ages choosing...The more I think about it, the more I think it makes sense what Habiki said though, that if you have picked your name and your character you have already invested a little time and will perhaps give the game a little longer change than you would have if you get thrown in right away without creating your character.

Full powered body and commands etc we have, as long as you get past the pre creation tutorial, which takes a couple of minutes to play through. And can be skipped. (If you know about the command). I think it would be better to let them go directly to Green Oaks though, and then let them decide if they wanna go through it or not. Just make an exit to "Text Game Crash Course for People used to Graphics" or something.:)

As for skills... well you can kill the bunnies and stuff outside Green Oaks and get started on the quest without skills. I think it's good as it is. You immediately have something to do, kill demon bunnies to get money to improve skills. It's a simple thing to do and easy to understand. You need stuff to do, and improve stats and skills + get money is a very natural thing to do in most of these type of games.

Draugor
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Re: New Player Experience

Post by Draugor » 23 Jan 2015 19:46

We might want to say that unless they pick human as a first race they will not be able to do ALOT of the big quests in the game aswell, goblin from the start will gimp you like hell since you loose a ton of qexp from Minas tirith, aleast one quest on the holm, and the knights keep, that I know of :s

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