Just an observation on after the Outskirts

From many of the posts i am seeing lately many new players are still having issues progressing in the quest lines after the outskirts. Many are having problems finding the folks they are supposed to be looking for. Its kinda funny to me that after all the changes, rechanges and changes again to the outskirts folks are still having problems going forward.
So much attention being spent on New Player experience and they are still not getting the hang of things for the most part. Just not sure where to go from here if they are still having problems. I know what i am thinking is the problem but i wont mention it here. Dont want to make anyone mad right now. LOL

 

None of the problems were really fixed, they just shifted the geographic location where players first run into the problems. I wish like crazy that I could analyze the data for myself that they were looking at when they decided to remove Isle of Storms.

 

My thoughts on that have been stated. All that work to add on to Isle and do tutorial there and BAMM back to the old way of doing stuff.....then again taking away the choice of where to start by forcing everyone to do Solace Bridge ....that alone would deter me from starting the game....they put so much stock into giving the players a "choice" and then take it away

 

Trial and error

 

I really liked the floating parchments in the Oracle's house. Are they still in the game in some form?

 

Anecdotally, I know a few people who left at the isle of storms because they got to the character creator and thought "really?" and left, they certainly had no difficulty with the isle of storms.

 

That is the most unhelpful statement ever.

 

This is why I made videos, and will be redoing the videos better hopefully before the end of the month here. Its the only way I can think of to help these players other then actually being there leading them around.

 

As is pretty much any comment in the forums, no one has the full data.

 

Yeah, I mentioned that in my release feedback post elsewhere. Great to do character creation first and skip all the loading in and out of the mirror, but they should have waited to make that change until the character creation options were no longer one of the weakest parts of the game. We shouldn't be putting our worst foot forward.

Yes, there are players who want someone leading them around. There are others who see a lack of quality assurance (like all the typos that used to exist on the Isle of Storms and still exist in the first few hours of play) and think "Really? Why should I bother?" Players leaving on the Isle of Storms doesn't mean they needed anyone to explain things to them. It means they didn't see a reason worth continuing. People have lots of different reasons for playing -- correspondingly, the game has/had lots of different flaws taking those reasons away in the first few hours.

It's why I don't mind them focusing so much on the NUE, why my own feedback has focused so much on the NUE, when longer term players are concerned about other things. If you're still here despite those other things, you're probably gonna stick around a while longer. A new player... only one chance to make a first impression.

Fortunately, there have been a lot of little improvements in the past few months, that I hope will add up to more players sticking around. But until the marketing on the website matches the experience, they're going to keep losing potential players, with or without the Isle of Storms.

As for the people who DO need to be helicopter-parented instead of being able to play a game by themselves... I'm perfectly willing to see them leave and not come back. No amount of bug extermination is going to solve their problems.