I tried to get my friend interested in the game

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Jace3, May 30, 2016.

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  1. Jace3

    Jace3 Avatar

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    I turned over an extra account I had and played with him whenever he could make the time. By the 3rd day I could tell he was in over his head. We both played LOTRO for many years, he is still playing it after about 7 years. I think he is so use to the hand holding that is inherent in that game he has lost the ability to play without it.

    I enjoy just setting out and walking the land to see what kind of trouble I get into. He likes the ability to recall/port where ever you have once been. He didn't like too much that we had to run where we wanted or needed to go. Hop a horse and get these is one of the ways he likes to go.

    Targeting a mob using a bow was difficult for him. He uses a bow in LOTRO and the process is much easier. I gave it my best shot as I miss not adventuring with the guy. At the end of the 3rd day he logged and didn't return. I e mailed him and asked if he was going to give it another try. He said he had enough of this game and was going back to LOTRO.

    It all just makes me wonder how many others like him are waiting to try the game and won't like it? I sure hope that isn't the case on release.
     
  2. Rufus D`Asperdi

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    It's not going to appeal to a very large segment of the gaming populace. This has been known from the beginning.
     
  3. Grave Dragon

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    I know portalarium has taken steps to make the game more available to players who aren't used to the old style of Ultima games. Changes like underlined keywords, Journal Entries which contain keywords and task destinations etc. I think this trend will continue without going as far as implementing the giant exclaimation point over a quest givers head. If anyone you know is having this issue, I would just reinforce that the game is in development and will continue becoming more player friendly as time goes on.

    Also, there are several groups of players including the Hospitallers, EVL, PaxLair, Phoenix Republic and others who are willing to take new players under their wing and teach them the ropes. Even if it means not being in a guild together with your friends, it may prove to have a positive effect on their overall retention.
     
  4. Jace3

    Jace3 Avatar

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    Pretty much that is what I was telling him. I am in EVL and Jade offered as much help as my friend would let her give. It was just for him to make the transition from LOTRO to this game. He may stay in that game forever. He is an older guy who is fairly set in his ideas. He was telling me he had underlined words when talking to NPC's. I haven't had those in a long time can I get them back?
     
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  5. Traveller13

    Traveller13 Bug Hunter

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    That should be in the game settings window. Most likely in the Game tab. Maybe Video. I'm not in the game to verify.
     
  6. Josh Randall

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    Being a new player myself, and having played various MMO games for over 30 years I can certainly understand how your friend feels.

    I played UO when there was only 1 world (open PVP) - it was a lot fun back then. I also played all the Ultima solo games and was disappointed there wasn't another and I had to go online to get my fill.

    That being said, I have to wonder about the appeal of this game to the masses.

    I certainly understand want to bring back the immersion that most MMO's today have missed the boat on by using the "Exclamation" or other notification over the head - but my concern is that is so ingrained in today's MMO I don't see players flocking to no longer have things handed to them and lead by the hand through out the world (whatever that world happens to be - I'm still playing EQ II myself).

    Now that being said there are other methods of moving players through quest lines and areas without ruining the immersion - a simple "Psst - you there, can you help me." would certainly be better than expecting people to walk up to every NPC they see just to figure out if they contain some hidden quest or message.

    At least for me anyway - so far I've talked to no less than dozen maybe more NPC's in Aerie and have yet to obtain a quest!

    My 2 coppers worth anyway.

    More Hospitaliers would certainly be welcome addition IMHO.

    Oh, almost forgot - when I see that EVL moniker - I figured they were an Evil PVP guild - so I avoid them at all costs - I'm just saying...
     
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  7. Matheryn

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    the OP said it perfectly - too many people have become accustomed to hand holding - unfortunately this is the case for so many and they don't want to be challenged and until they do want to be challenged we cant force them to play SOTA
    Sota is always going to be one of those game that challenges people to play without hand holding and I love that. I rue the day that there will be no more games like UO and SOTA
     
  8. redfish

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    I don't really agree with that. I think there's a big segment of the gaming population for instance that comes from single player RPGs and don't play MMOs normally but simply want an RPG they can play with friends. I think there's also a big segment that wants both less mindless grinding, and less hand holding. I think if we buy into the dichotomy of mass market and hand-holding vs. niche market and no hand-holding, I think that's going to damage how we think about the game.

    SotA is doing a few things different than typical MMOs, so people who come straight from them are going to find they need to adjust. But the game should just make it clear from the start that things work differently instead of being coy about it.
     
  9. Adam Crow

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    I think the biggest problem is your friend is comparing a game that has been out for years, to one in development. Timing may have been the real problem. Have him give it another shot a year from now once everything is polished and ready to go. Some people aren't interested in testing, bugs, and everything else that goes along with a game in development.
     
  10. Jace3

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    He might give it a try in a year if there is a demo version. My account will be in full use and I won't be able to let him use it to find out again if he likes it or not. I tried my best to keep reminding him that this game was still being worked on and to not be fooled by all it currently offered for game play.
     
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  11. Odyssey2001

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    I think it might be harder to being a person already in game like Lotro because of the hand holding and also it a complete game, this is not complete and there are always expectations like ( Where the questions marks, where is this and that ) A be actually easier to bring in someone who has no previous experience with a game like this as they have little to no expectations.

    I had ZERO experience with this type of game when I joined in.. and is one of the reasons why I ask a thousand and one questions :)
     
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  12. Sir_Hemlock

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    I told all of my friends about Shroud... Now I have no friends o_O
     
  13. Turk Key

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    Biting my tongue. Millenials have trouble leaving their folks homes. It's a new world. (Please, I am not referring to any one in particular) it's just that in today's world, hand holding is expected where in the past it was disdained.
     
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  14. Rofo

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    There are NPC's that do that already, there just isn't that many of them, and falls into background noise because of other NPC's "barking" at the players as they pass.


    At the end of the day, quests don't really matter. Yes they tell a story. Yes they are supposed to be cool to do.
    However, the minute amounts of XP are really only helpful at very early levels. (But They kinda ruin draw decks, because they level you up to getting slugs you won't really be able to get rid of again until around level 50 or 60 when you have enough glyphs you want to actually build a deck that works without having to load it with just any non-slug cards). The gear from quests will never be "best in game" crafters are supposed to fill that role.
    They may be some unique deco items, or emotes, but none of these vanity items are critical for anything. In the big picture, quests are a waste of time after the first month. (basically the best quests can hope for is the same draw that a sandbox game has, a single play through for the story, but afterwards the story is known, and peeps aren't going to keep playing for the quest content. Even if they introduce new quests every single month, There isn't enough devs to create enough quests, to keep us all busy. If there's a quest with a decent reward people will just google it. The devs could spend all their time trying to change things up, or introduce multi stage quest locks, or have some weird acount specific triggers. (e.g. I have to bring a blue flower, but you need to bring a red stone, based on the hash of our account number kinda stuff) but even that, once the list of possible items is known, people will just talk to the NPC's with a fish, a stool, and a hammer in their pocket and try them all.



    Call me crazy, but I'm not worried about combat, crafting, item durability or lack of travel options. All these things will be fixed.
    Any feature that is there for "purity of the game" reasons, that doesn't add value to the product will be "corrected" at some point.

    Ultimately, the end game is going to be the same things it always is. A fraction will go to PvP. A fraction will go to RP. a fraction will got to that other RP (basically just cybering with fancy words). They rest will end up logging in for their guilds, their Friends, the auction house, or to finally aquire a certain rare, or every rare in the game.

    SotA has the same blessing and curse that UO had. It's open ended, and dependent on the player to come up with something to do everyday when they log in.
    The devs could introduce daily quests, and weekly quests, and monthly quests, but if your only doing the quests just to do them, that will get old after awhile.
    If your only doing quests for faction with kobolds, or elves, or whatever, you'll grind it long enough to get the reward but then your done again.

    In UO, once you had a character that could afford to buy a house, then you made up more characters to master a trade skill, or you made a char for a specific task.
    (treasure hunter, fisherman, felluca miner, tamer, glorious lord fame farmer, npc enticer to get rare npc gear, a player killing red, a stealthing dragon hearder that blocked the exit of a big loot dungeon and looted player corpses )

    Skill progression was so slow that it would take months to finally get GM at really popular skills, but unpopular skills could be Gm'd in a day or less with the right stock pile of resources.

    After final wipe, I'm sure we are all going to become "IDOCers" for a bit checking house tags see which ones are going to expire and try to upgrade our houses to a better location.
    But because the contents are safe, the only houses that are going to be watched are prime vendor locations, the rest just won't matter.

    Right now, there isn't enough odd quirky bits, to attract enough fractions of people into staying long term. We have a whole generation of gamers that are used to doing things because they are rewarded for doing them. Rare is the breed of gamer that does things just because it's fun.

    No Global chat, (besides us elitest Nobles), Single Player Online, Friends Only mode, all of these really limit the potential for the Day to Day player to player interactions that cause us to want to login everyday.
     
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  15. Adam Crow

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    I agree with you big time here. But the one thing this community does have that will combat those issues is an abundance of mature players, that when given the opportunity will build a lasting and fun experience for years to come. I'm a very solo player, and most of the time when I have nothing better to do I'd rather just grind out skills or gold. But this is one of the first games that makes me really want to interact with everyone. I'm constantly looking for reasons to interact with the community because it's fun and I genuinely want to be a part of it. There are not a lot of games out there that offer this type of community. And I see it getting much better once everything is fine tuned and we are past final wipe.
     
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  16. redfish

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    I wasn't even talking about quests, Rofo. I referenced single player, yea, but single player isn't all about quests -- its also about gameplay. Its going around adventuring, exploring, living, interacting in an immersive world. So, I don't know if you played the single player Ultima games. Most of them were at first about going out and adventuring, and they didn't lead you by the nose to do quests. The story was something you gradually picked up on through clues while you were having fun adventuring.

    You know what doesn't keep a lot of people playing MMOs? Grinding. Social events. Some people live for it, yes, and log in plenty of hours on MMOs grinding and doing social events. Other people stay away from MMOs *altogether* because they think that's all there is. Still yet others play through the story then put the MMO on their shelf until new story content comes out. A lot of MMO players see this through the perspective of people who are active in MMOs and don't understand there's a whole bunch of people who *would* play an MMO, but choose not to, because from their experience they find the gameplay in MMOs incredibly boring.

    As for quests. Yea, there's a way to cheat through quests; the question becomes whether its more trouble than its worth. So lets say quest brings you into a dungeon to find an object, and there's also lots of treasure and adventure to explore in the dungeon. You find the object by figuring out clues or finding your way around or doing puzzles. If its a well designed quest, its less fun to do it with a walkthrough than to figure it out on your own, and using a walkthrough is more tedious. There's also a virtue system in the game where you have to watch and balance your actions, and this isn't easy to figure out without knowing what you're doing.

    At some point, yes, people will get beyond the main story content. I can see other things added on top of the story content to keep it going. So, for instance, procedurally generated quests given at random encounters, or by traders who appear on the docks of towns for a week, or by travelers that appear in taverns for a week. Or, player created quests.

    Yea, but as I said, its not all about quests.
     
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  17. redfish

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    RP and PvP aren't distinct groups btw; its overlapping.
     
  18. Jace3

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    I was constantly being asked why was this not like LOTRO or that not being like LOTRO. I tried to explain that not all MMORPG games were made the same. He hadn't an extensive background in these types of games. He was indeed very focused on LOTRO and had got very use to how it needed to be played. Logging into SOTA was a very difficult experience for him, too much so. I wish it had been better for him.
     
  19. Rofo

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    All the groups overlap
     
  20. redfish

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    Ideally, you make the game around the fact that they overlap, and encourage the overlap. JMO.
     
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