KoD Tutorial for New Players

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Omni
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KoD Tutorial for New Players

Post by Omni »

Discussion topic for what a beginner tutorial should cover. I am looking for players to talk about their own experiences back from when they first learned the game. What did you struggle with, what did you not understand? What could be made clearer?

I think we need 2 pieces to this tutorial process. First we need to have the in-game system in place for players who just like to jump and start playing. I envision this as a quest chain based on the Norken Guard story lines. The new player will be become a recruit with the Norken Guard, be given various missions as part of their basic training and eventually get promoted (yes, they will have ranks). As they gain rank, they will be given new missions to lead them around the realm. This could eventually expand to other quest series to guide players to all the various locations in the realms where there may not currently be clues or quest givers to lead players there unless it is by word of mouth or because the player is just an explorer.

The 2nd piece should be recorded tutorials, reachable via the game Help menu. This could cover basic game play, as well as how to use features of the game found in the front end. For example how do lockers work, how does the party window work, how do you use quirks or turn them on and off.

I look forward to hearing additional suggestions from the players.

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Cobra
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Re: KoD Tutorial for New Players

Post by Cobra »

I would make quests that go all over nork town and point out the main buildings and NPCs. Show them the apothecary where you get the 10 or 20 coin health pots. Show them the bank, steel flower, and tanner. Show them to their corresponding trainer once they dedicate. Show them the healer, how to CC someone, and how to set a restore point. Show them both entrances to n-1, and point out the quest npc by the entrance south of steel flower.

Explain how the skill gain system works. Explain the purpose of skill training, and the benefit of it in a specific way (you gain skill x faster when it's paid).

For a little later in the game, give them a pop up or something that can't be missed when they hit lvl 13 that they can buy hps. Maybe make it so the guy tells them how many they have and how many are left to buy, so they can see the progress being made, and not just an empty bank for a couple more hps.

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GhostGuest
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Re: KoD Tutorial for New Players

Post by GhostGuest »

I think one of the biggest hold backs to newer players, is figureing out "how to do" the quest. The trial and error methood of finding the right "key word" to trigger or continue the quest convos is very frustrating. when i first started playing back in about 1998, it was over a year of play and me having gotten to level 10 or 12 before some of the "Old Timers" back then started showing some of us "newbies" the right prhases to use to go through the quest. Even now since i have strated playing again after about a 5 year absence, i cant remember how to triger most of the quest convos. Back whne this game as first coded up, the text input methood was the only way to go. But things have changed a bit since then. I would not want to do away with the interaction with NPC's to get the "story" and quest, but is there some way to automate or simplify the process a bit. I would be willing to bet one reason why most newer folks don't do the quest any more is because they cant figure out "how to do" them.

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Re: KoD Tutorial for New Players

Post by tekcap »

Skill training needs to be made VERY clear from the beginning for newbies. At level 18 I still don't fully understand how it works.

The game is way to confusing for newbies. Without help from a experienced player, a newbie could play for days and not accomplish anything. You get thrown into a world without a newbie guide and ontop of that the game mechanics are upside down compared to all the other mmorpgs. At the very least a pop-up box system should be implemented that always has guidance for new players. The best would be to have all NPC conversations in a seperate box but that will probably never happen.

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Mars
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Re: KoD Tutorial for New Players

Post by Mars »

I'm not sure I understand game mechanics are upside down.
Do you have specific examples?

I find it far easier to start this game than others I have played or just started playing. Macros are right on the screen to allow you to do basic things like open/close, search, look, attack. Other games it's not obvious at all.

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Re: KoD Tutorial for New Players

Post by Cobra »

After reading tekcap's post, some sort of tool tip would be nice for the items in nork stores as well. Once you get players to the apothecary, show them a tooltip when they hover over the bottles that this one heals for 20-30 or whatever. The goal should be to arm them with with knowledge that they can start hunting n-1, be able to loot and sell (the school covers this I believe, but how many make it that far?), and be able to find their trainer and train. Once they know the basics, then you can start expecting them to build on what they know and use sense to identify items, or ask someone when they see a rare pot.

Tell people to class train every new lvl or new skill, I don't know how many times I've seen people asking how to get their discs in DZ chat. Also, once someone has outgrown the nork trainer, tell them where the next one is. You are too advanced for me, seek out xxx in the town of maeling!

For players that want to skip the tutorial, make their starting point in the steel flower by the lockers. Show them the lockers, the npc (maybe put the little health bottles for sale here) so they know a place to sell and buy pots, and them let them go. Flag them so they can't go down to n-1 until they pick a class, and give them a pop up about dedicating so they can go down to n-1.

Cobra

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Re: KoD Tutorial for New Players

Post by Omni »

Please keep in mind that Drakkar has always been a game where players were not told anything more than the basics of how to play. Everything else has been about discovery. Many mmorpg's today will tell you everything about what your character is doing to appeal to the min-max types of players and the API's give even more information. In other games, a player can tell you exactly how much damage a beginner longsword does. In drakkar players have to beat each other up and track the damage to figure it out.

Doing something like adding a tooltip to the vendor window would require a front end change, a change to the basic item structure to provide the specific help text and ultimately, brad would need to approve the fundamental change about how we do things.
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Cobra
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Re: KoD Tutorial for New Players

Post by Cobra »

I understand about keeping the feel of drakkar, and I very much enjoy remembering finding everything out myself the first time. Unfortunately that was 16 years ago and times have changed. I'm not suggesting we make everything easy as pie, and just hand out info. But, I think being able to know at least where to buy health pots, find your trainer, and where to start killing is a good start.

The point of all this is to try to attract new players and keep them interested in the game, which means changing with the times. I would love to keep the game exactly the same and have people experience the magic that it used to have, but if that leaves the game with five players, it's kind of pointless.

In regards to the tooltip, it was just to get people thinking. You could just put a message in the scroll when you enter the apothecary that it sells potions that restore health, or maybe change the text when you double click the bottle so that it mentions it heals 20-30 hps.

Cobra

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Re: KoD Tutorial for New Players

Post by Omni »

Agreed. Just so I am clear - I am not knocking down anyone's ideas. I just want to make sure that newer players reading these threads and submitting their own ideas have a bit of an understanding on why things are the way they are currently. I have learned most of it from being a sysop (and asking Marsy) but there are lots of old timers still around who just 'know' why things are the way they are.

I very open to changes, in general. It just needs to be discussed and thought out carefully before we act on it :-)

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Re: KoD Tutorial for New Players

Post by Migam »

I once suggested a practice dummy that reported how much you hit for but it was shot down for the similar reason of discovering through testing (sigh). I still know many, uh, unknowns after years of playing as game mechanics differ from similar games (what the heck does combat adds really mean and how do they differ from offense/defense adds!)

I hope the tutorial includes how to access Help in the FE. Help is underutilized and has answers to common questions I've seen in dz. Maybe the addition of a ? on the FE to click and take you there would help. It will not help the person who refused to do the Nork school and doesn't want to research but not all new players are like that.
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Mars
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Re: KoD Tutorial for New Players

Post by Mars »

the ingame help file is also being looked at. Once Brad figures out to make the new helpfile compiler (needed for Vista and beyond) work with his ARCHAIC compiler <smile>

tekcap
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Re: KoD Tutorial for New Players

Post by tekcap »

The game mechanics is just the feel of Drakkar for me. I think they are very different from other games and that is a good thing. My problem is trying to make sense of everything and how it really works. I still sometimes feel as if I could be using the game controls better but I have no way of finding out except by asking other people.

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Re: KoD Tutorial for New Players

Post by Quaternion »

Would it be possible to make it so that in addition better in game help systems, there could be a way so that if you found something a problem you could say click a pop-up link to a web-page that would guide people through tutorials or offer tips?

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Re: KoD Tutorial for New Players

Post by GhostGuest »

How about makeinf a NPC that sells scrolls, or "books", that have common commands for macros. There could also be scrolls for "hints" about the keywords used in the various quest. Could also be some for how to do various actions such as use the lockers, search, throw grenades, etc. Sort of a second version of The School of Nork.

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Re: KoD Tutorial for New Players

Post by Martialarts »

I like the idea of making a quest for information maybe instead of doing tiles how about you add a quest in place of most like the event on school days? In its own seperate place might even think about starting it in a place thats happens before you make a chartor.. Right now the system can not tell you what a chartor does it comes up blank. A good example would be as drakkar is being down loaded a text version of how to make a chartor.. Might want to think about hinting more things about quests.. In NL i love the small hints like all capitol letters of a few words start with caps..

Making them not re roll later because of really bad rolls. once down loaded make the school house interactive in a quest once you complete a quest give a random stat.. Make the quest 3 or 4 items mini quests. Model it simple like my daddy said keep it simple stupid.

Just some thoughts,
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