DUST Search - Game needs to be a little bit more friendly to fresh people!

Entruv wrote:

In Eve there is a corporation called Eve University. Their sole mission is to take in new players and teach them the ways of the Eve Universe. They cover everything from PVP to PVE and all that entails. They have a very strong leadership base and if your new to Eve I'd highly recommend checking it out. It's not for everyone but with the vertical learning curve that comes with Eve Online they definitely help out many new players.

Reason for posting that about Eve Uni is I'm wondering if a corporation in Dust514 with emerge and fill that role for this game. If so that would help out the newer player base. Something like this in Dust would also help your friend immensely.

Another thing that happens in Eve that might benefit Dust is there are corporations such as Agony Unleashed and others who hold PVP classes. They have a very well thought out class plan and provide theory, as well as practical learning environments. People pay for these classes with ISK. Something like this might work out well in Dust too.

Who knows, we'll see. We all know the Eve player base can be ruthless but also know there are alot of folks that go to great lengths to help out the "newbs" and hopefully we'll have some people like that in Dust.


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Rue Hadra 31	Posted - 2012.07.28 20:54:00 - [1] - Quote I've been in the beta for a few weeks now and I'm getting on great with it, but this weekend a friend of mine who has been really looking forward to the game got into the beta. (I got one of the emails with weekend codes in so I sent one his way) I talked to him after he got to play the game for a bit, and it seems he has just been completely scared away from the game! I won't quote him exactly, but he pretty much said that everything look so complicated that he just didn't know where to start, and when he was looking through the market and playing online it seemed to him that it was pretty much a pay-to-win game. Since I have tried explaining to him a little more about how the game works, and keeping in mind that this is a beta and the is still a lot to be added into the game, but it does raise the question of how new people will see the game for the first time, even when completed. I will admit that my first go in the game I had no idea what I was doing, and I have been tracking Dust for a long time now. The messages that pop up in game were a bit of an information overload and I ended up learning more just from messing around with the game than I did reading up on how to learn skills or upgrade your equipment. I'm sure that will be fine for a lot of people, but not everybody really works that way, some people need a bit more guidance. My friend, for example, only ever had a wii up until last year when he decided to buy a PS3 because he'd heard Call of Duty was a lot better on it. He's got a long way to go with his gaming. It would be nice to see CCP implement a really well thought out tutorial stage for new players, maybe introduce things to them a step at a time. Maybe when you first enter the game and you've created your character, it puts you in a pve match or a match with specifically other new people so you can learn the physical gameplay. Then upon completion of the match, your screen pops up saying how much SP and ISK you've earned and it goes on to say "now let's show you how to spend what you've just earned!", then shows how the market and skills work. After that maybe it can go on to showing the various game types, how the social features work and how to build up your vehicles... Showing people one thing at a time and allowing them to learn in stages will be a lot easier for people who have no idea how the game works than flooding them with walls of text when they first enter the game. Another thing to be careful of is the kind of matches new people play in. The vast majority of people in the beta right now have a lot of experience with the game and have pretty descent gear. Somebody who is brand new and isn't so good with the game is pretty much cannon fodder, and as my friend experienced, they don't have much of a chance. His assumption was that everyone he was playing with had payed for really good gear and so his bullets didn't do anything to them whilst theres instantly killed him. This is how the vast majority of people that play the game will be seeing things. People who play beta's are normally much more likely to do there own research on a game and know what there in for. Your average person is just going to see the game on psn's front page and think "ooh, new game! lets try it out!" and pretty much act in exactly the same was as my friend did. I'm sure it would help a hell of a lot if he had me there to guide him a bit, but obviously there isn't a way in the beta for me to do that yet. But even still, not everybody will have a friend that can help ease them in to the game come release. I don't know about everyone else, but personally I wasn't as big and robust a community for Dust as we can manage, and that means we have to give some leeway to the new people that really have no idea what there doing here. It brings to mind MMO's where more experienced players quite often offer to help out new players who don't know whats going on yet. Maybe CCP could try and implement some kind of a mentoring system into the game? Just a thought.
Rue Hadra 31	Posted - 2012.07.28 21:13:00 - [2] - Quote It's something that crossed my mind before, but until I saw how quickly my friend went from excitement to completely dropping the game it kind of slapped me in the face. Especially to think about all these people that are getting weekend passes. They are coming in for a single weekend to play with people who have vastly more experience and better gear than them. They will join the games and just get mauled by the more experienced players. If that doesn't scare them off they just have enough time to learn how the game works before the weekend is over and they can't play any more. I could really see that leaving a sour taste in the mouths of many people, especially those who are used to your Call of Duty style games. I'm sure its something that CCP have put some thought in to, but I really think other players should try and think about this too. There are a lot of posts pretty much stating "Oh my god, whats with all these people that just join the games and die lots and dont have great gear and kill lots? They should be banned from the game for not being as good as me!" Well, it's very likely there just new people that are just completely lost, and instead of being considerate I'm sure a lot of people will rage at them. If we want the game to be big and have a lot of players, we need to be inviting to new players. Hopefully once all the social features are implemented plenty of players will help out any new people and show them the ropes.
Rue Hadra 31	Posted - 2012.07.28 21:39:00 - [3] - Quote Entruv wrote: In Eve there is a corporation called Eve University. Their sole mission is to take in new players and teach them the ways of the Eve Universe. They cover everything from PVP to PVE and all that entails. They have a very strong leadership base and if your new to Eve I'd highly recommend checking it out. It's not for everyone but with the vertical learning curve that comes with Eve Online they definitely help out many new players. Reason for posting that about Eve Uni is I'm wondering if a corporation in Dust514 with emerge and fill that role for this game. If so that would help out the newer player base. Something like this in Dust would also help your friend immensely. Another thing that happens in Eve that might benefit Dust is there are corporations such as Agony Unleashed and others who hold PVP classes. They have a very well thought out class plan and provide theory, as well as practical learning environments. People pay for these classes with ISK. Something like this might work out well in Dust too. Who knows, we'll see. We all know the Eve player base can be ruthless but also know there are alot of folks that go to great lengths to help out the "newbs" and hopefully we'll have some people like that in Dust. That's something I would certainly be interested in taking part in. I've always been somewhat against the elitist hating of new players that so many online games get, and having an organisation specifically for helping out new players seems like it would be a big help to the games community.
Rue Hadra 31	Posted - 2012.07.28 21:49:00 - [4] - Quote AMARRKIS wrote: There are tutorial pages but im guessing ppl just dont read them or something i mean dont complain about the game being difficult if you havent read them not saying he didnt i dont know because once the game goes full its going to get a whole lot more complicated than it is now and honestly if new ppl would just read the pop up tutorials then i probably wouldnt seem so complicated to them I really don't think you can leave it at that though. There are different methods of learning, and everybody has there preferences. Reading/Writing learners are people who can just look at instructions and go, for whom the current tutorials will be fine. Unfortunately, very VERY few people can learn in this way. Most people's brains just aren't formatted to take in such a massive amount of information like that. There are also Auditory learners, which is somebody who learns through communication. For example, they would enter a game and ask there team mates to tell them what to do and follow there orders so that they get a feel of what's going on. There are Visual learners, who learn by observing the actions of others. These are people who will enter games and follow somebody to see what they do and look up videos on youtube and watch how people play the game. Then there are Kinetic learners, like me, who prefer to learn by doing. The kind of people who buy a desk from Ikea and try to put it together without looking at the instructions. But then you also have to consider that there are different levels to each of these. Where I can learn by doing quite easily, as I did with Dust, there are also Kinetic learners who aren't as good. They prefer to learn by playing the game, but they need the game to help them bit by bit. Just think about the way most video game tutorials go. The most effective tutorials are those which will tell you in a very simple manner what you have to do. They will be accompanied by an illustration or short video showing you how this thing is done. Then they will ask you to do it before moving on to the next tutorial. "You hide behind cover by holding down the L1 button" - show's you a non-player character running up to a wall, a big "L1" symbol appears and the character huddles up to the wall. "Now you take cover by the wall!" - player runs up to wall and presses L1 - "Well done! Now on to shooting from cover!" Obviously a very exaggerated example, but I'm sure my point is given.
Rue Hadra 31	Posted - 2012.07.29 12:32:00 - [5] - Quote In reply to all the people saying "CCP games don't DO tutorials, they just drop you in it and thats the way it should be!" Well, there are plenty of other people talking about tutorial missions in EVE, so first of all it would seem you dont really know what your talking about. On top of that, where is the benefit to forcing people to teach themselves in such a complex game? It works fine in a game like mario or journey where theres only a very limited amount of actions you can perform, but Dust is very demanding of the player at first, and the vast majority of people just will not get it. People that dont want to bother with tutorials should always have the option to just skip them and jump straight in to the game. Difficult starts are something you can get away with a lot more on a pc game where the users are expected to be a bit more hardcore and have a bit more technical knowledge. They have easy access to wiki's and forums and youtube. Console gamers are a whole different group, and though there are those of us who use wiki's and forums the vast majority of people that will be playing Dust come launch will never have touched a forum in there life. It's important for the game to be inviting for the game to do well. I want Dust to be a huge success for CCP, I think they deserve that. And I want this game to have a big playerbase so that I can play it for longer and enjoy it more. No offence, but I don't want to spend all my time in the game interacting with people who are so dead set on making it hard for anybody new to join in.
Rue Hadra 31	Posted - 2012.07.29 14:49:00 - [6] - Quote Rasatsu wrote: Rue Hadra wrote: On top of that, where is the benefit to forcing people to teach themselves in such a complex game? It works fine in a game like mario or journey where theres only a very limited amount of actions you can perform, but Dust is very demanding of the player at first, and the vast majority of people just will not get it. The benefit is that it weeds out a certain kind of player. EVE has one of the most loyal playerbase of any mmo partially for that reason. There's never any huge spikes in subscribers only a slow and steady growth that has lasted almost a decade. If he isn't a dedicated gamer who thrives on understanding complex systems then he's never really going to fit DUST. What is the benefit to scaring off so many players? Sure, not everyone plays plays may be extremely hard core, but with the way they intend to implement all the different social features it should be extremely easy for those of you that only want to play super hard core to meet up with eachother and do so. You wont be forced in to playing with people that are just doing so for fun. Having more players means the economy will have many more people interacting with it, there will be a lot more happening within the universe, there will be more people fighting on more planets, it will be easier to find matches when your looking for one and easier to meet new people, and probably most importantly for CCP, it will hugely increase the chances of them making a descent amount of money back from the creation of Dust. I really don't understand why so many people ONLY want super mega hard core people playing games. Sure, its nice to have people that take it seriously, but it is a game. Something that is intended to be fun to play, so why limit those who can have fun with it? As much as you may dislike people who aren't as good at the game, it's not like there taking chunks of the game away from you.