They don't and won't but my point is that it's fucking stupid and they wasted man hours into a throwaway content that had to have been implemented to check a box that developers think all MMOs have to have. In MMO land there's no graceful way to create a tutorial, it's simply a routine act of forcing a player to do mindless tasks to get one point across. But hey, at least they accept that it's dumb and unwanted.
Wildstar Launch Thread - Server: Stormtalon | Faction: Dominion
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Caliane
Avatar of War Slayer
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I don't know. I mean, your first point is right.
its wasted time and effort.
But, there are graceful ways to do tutorials. And I would point out, games in general have been stumbling over that shit for years now for some reason. Its not MMO exclusive.
There's plenty of videos on it. Extracredits did one. you have egorapter and Hey megaman press A to fire! Everyone bitching about Mario and Zelda with the talking talking talking, and tooltips popping up for everything constantly.
GW2 nailed its tutorial. Tera did pretty good. I don't think Rift had any complaints on its tutorial. Even going back to WoW. pretty good.
This game. And Teso. completely shit the bed on tutorials (And starter zones)
I have no IDEA what either game was thinking with so much clicking shit, in its tutorial. and the lore dumps. New players have no fucking idea what is going on with the lore, and are certainly in no place to absorb it, during the tutorial. it has no place being there.
Instead of a tutorial for lore dumping, make some videos. People like me who give two shits about lore can press escape, other people can watch them. I think the worst tutorial to date is the EQ one even though it gives you that phat piece of loot that you wear till like level 50.
I don't remember the Tera tutorial being all that great and I remember them throwing like 50 skills on my bar and being like "LOL, hit all your skills" which kind of sucks when you start a game. You figure out what they all do finally and then they take them all away and you are back to having one skill on your bar.
I don't remember the Tera tutorial being all that great and I remember them throwing like 50 skills on my bar and being like "LOL, hit all your skills" which kind of sucks when you start a game. You figure out what they all do finally and then they take them all away and you are back to having one skill on your bar.
TERA tutorial was awesome. Completely optional and you got a bunch of skills to play around with (if I remember correctly).
I totally agree with you on having no idea what MMO developers are thinking with tutorials like Wildstar/TESO. I can't believe for a second that they have metrics that show that the tutorial increased player retention. Most players have very short attention spans and are not stupid. They can figure out how to play the game without artificial pacing.
I think the Rift tutorial was accepted because it actually had some interesting content and played like a standard zone, including kill quests, a rift event that explained the time travel aspect of the game, etc. It was pretty cool and didn't feel like a waste of time. You did a lot of fighting with very little NPC interaction or other bullshit. It also helped you pick your starting souls which was something that was deserving of a little hand holding.
The thing that is so offensive about Wildstar's tutorial is that there isn't anything it covers that is worthy of tutorializing. It's an exercise in finding things to click on. If anything, it teaches the player how bad the quest tracking and map is. The game is about as straight forward as it gets and as Gaffney said during his recent AMA: "Our #1 market is probably ex-MMO players, truth be told."
Not sure about modern WoW, but classic WoW had a 10 second cutscene and then dumped you into your first zone. There was no tutorial, at level 1 you could run all the way to a level 60 zone without a single NPC interaction. Somehow several million people figured out how to play it.
I think the Rift tutorial was accepted because it actually had some interesting content and played like a standard zone, including kill quests, a rift event that explained the time travel aspect of the game, etc. It was pretty cool and didn't feel like a waste of time. You did a lot of fighting with very little NPC interaction or other bullshit. It also helped you pick your starting souls which was something that was deserving of a little hand holding.
The thing that is so offensive about Wildstar's tutorial is that there isn't anything it covers that is worthy of tutorializing. It's an exercise in finding things to click on. If anything, it teaches the player how bad the quest tracking and map is. The game is about as straight forward as it gets and as Gaffney said during his recent AMA: "Our #1 market is probably ex-MMO players, truth be told."
Not sure about modern WoW, but classic WoW had a 10 second cutscene and then dumped you into your first zone. There was no tutorial, at level 1 you could run all the way to a level 60 zone without a single NPC interaction. Somehow several million people figured out how to play it.
Just remember:
1. If you'resureyou want to play this game and think you'll like it, buy this deal.
2. If you're not sure you think you'll like this game, do not buy it from GMG. You won't get a refund. They have a pretty strict third-party policy that once they issue you a key, the game is yours even if you never got out of beta. Buy it from Carbine instead.
Seananigans
Honorary Shit-PhD
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Wait, if I pre-ordered digitally from Carbine, can I get a refund for that and then buy it from GMG for cheaper?
Bondurant
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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I think the problems lays deeper. Nowadays a lot of studios have "Community Management" teams working people to know trends and what potential customers think. Problem is, most of these jobs are shitty jobs (like, you're paid min wage and travel a lot, you don't have any incentive regarding sales, also as soon as the game isn't going nice you're gonna get fired first). Therefore, having a shitty CM job for most a, most of the time, large company, you'd either want to blanket negative reviews / opinions and spin them as "marginal". You're in a world of big money, where customer trust and reliable support are variables. During Aion launch the NCSoft CM team posted a lot of photos regarding their "Eu presentation", most of the time you spend hours in transit, get shitty hotel rooms, boring presentations to "videogames journalists" which are glorified neckbeards, awful jetlag and no real benefit than _ProductName_ tshirts and 1Gb USB keys. CM is an awful job, it's being the buffer guy between people who care, and people who matter.
Now, I'm not gonna say it's all CM work's fault."Game Directors" or "Game Producers" boldly choose to discard CM reports because they have to deliver a product and they have huge sales interests (they don't have "after first month subs" contract clause, it's most likely a myth, most AAA MMOs make their investors buck on launch sales), they're not gonna bother everything (and then raising costs) just to appeal to some people. That's why if a community raises some serious concerns during the 3 months before release window, they won't care at all or they'll spin it regarding their current ressources. For most "Western" MMOs nowadays, people have to understand that more than 50% of its developing costs are about payroll. Looking after community concerns is allocating ressources therefore workforce therefore payroll. Which costs a lot of money. I don't have any gaming industry insider info to back my claim, I'm just a movie addict guy opinion with public knowledge about how Hollywood runs, which is basically the same for AAA videogames nowadays.
My guess is yes. You tell them something something, they refund you. You have a lot more room for negotiation if you buy it directly from the company, but with third-parties it's very restrictive.
Might as well try it... you got nothing to lose, n'est-ce pas?
Had to quote because it's all true.
Yo Game Devs: Fuck a tutorial. PC gamers arnt idiots. WoW had no fucking tutorial. Just start the fucking game.
Bondurant
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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You should read latest AAA MMO technical support forums. Assuming PC gamers aren't idiots is like assuming drivers' license owners are skillful pilots.
PC gamers know how to move with WADS and click an NPC. An inexperienced player may not understand more advanced MMO concepts but no tutorial teaches that shit anyways. Knowing how to troubleshoot a technical issue or something is a completely different skill set. The fact they even get on the forum and ask a question indicates they aren't an idiot.
As a warning: I refunded an Aion pre-order years ago and NCSoft banned my master account. Didn't chargeback, just a refund through support.
Boring over the top crowded zones I could care less about filled with quests I could really care less about.
MMO's are deadddddd
MMO's are deadddddd
That's weird, I never heard of anything like that before... with any company.
I specifically referenced Zelda (Skyward Sword) in my post. It's not that general gaming is innocent, but there's a general swing in opinion that it isn't always necessary and hell, even the latest Zelda (LBW) got applause from backing the fuck off it. The MMO genre is riddled with developers too afraid to try anything new, so they slightly iterate on the same formula we've had for so long. People bitch about nostalgia this and nostalgia that, but modern development is a bore. By all means, let's please bring the genre forward.
Rift's starting experience is actually pretty wretched because they literally give you two varieties depending on faction. If you're rolling with a guild and want to rock another character, it's back to the drawing board (I know they've loosened up faction restrictions but the point still stands). It's the same in Wildstar. And in the beginning when I'm dicking around with different classes, I'd just as soon not try a new one than waste even minutes going through the same weak content for the 10th ten.
WoW-era games get a pass with a lot of this because they were the ones that kicked this era off for better or worse. It did a lot of things right the many years ago it was released, and despite coming with some warts, it at least tried to push the genre forward. Also, every race had a starting city so it's damn sure easy to do a third or fourth time.
I know I'm bitching and I'll stop because I'm not trying to ruin this for anyone digging Wildstar. I actually want to be into it more because I've been looking for a PVE game to play. There are just so many hangups for me that are easily avoidable literally within the first minutes of the game. I know I lot of people can slog through that content, but there's also a huge amount of people that are sick of it.
I think the bitching is justified. It's not that the tutorial and other hangups are so terrible that they can't be dealt with. It's that their existence is indicative of the developer being out of touch with what you're looking for in a game. If they made those decisions on the simple things, what other more important game systems have they fucked up?
Selix
Lord Nagafen Raider
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All this talk about the tutorial and the initial leveling experience has some merit but have any of you played any recent MMO's with decent to awesome initial leveling experiences? How are they doing now? Even more important then that initial leveling experience is long term player retention and that even more then the initial leveling experience will continually draw in more players as they rave about how good the game eventually is.
Now I'm not saying Wildstar does or does not have that kind of long term retention but I can certainly appreciate a game prioritizing player retention after the recent MMO failures* we have seen after only 3-6 months.
*By "failure" I mean in the general sense of a quality long term gaming experience. Not just if they continue to have a minimum number of subs.
Now I'm not saying Wildstar does or does not have that kind of long term retention but I can certainly appreciate a game prioritizing player retention after the recent MMO failures* we have seen after only 3-6 months.
*By "failure" I mean in the general sense of a quality long term gaming experience. Not just if they continue to have a minimum number of subs.