Like most people, I launch the game through steam, login with steam, and play online with the same avatar each time. That should no more than one screen. It feels like the game is trying to make me screw up each time I start playing, lol. It takes 6 dialogs to enter the world. #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6
Do most people launch and log in through steam? Honestly don't know, but now I'm curious. The multiple screens have never bothered me, is it atypical for games to have multiple menus before you're actually playing?
That’s a very good question. Can someone confirm how many windows to click to just play, just for example Elder Scrolls Online?
hummm title, playstyle, logging, resume game, not sure where the problem is, takes me 15 sec to do all this...
The splash screen #3 provides no function at all, so that is an easy win. The display mode #2 should be part of the video settings in game. Online/Offline in #4 can actually be separate steam buttons or incorporated in login page #5. Page 6 should just be different, with a big avatar picture on the left for avatar selection and one START button on the right with a (non-default) checkbox for starting in the overworld. It's unfortunate that there are so many game modes and options here. It's not as beautiful as it could be. I would be dishonest if I said that the front door experience is fine. The default action should be to resume in the same game mode as before in same location as before, selecting the same avatar as before. Everything else should be hidden behind the options button. That is how 99% of MMO's work, so that is what is expected.
I use steam, but don't see this dialog (and play in borderless windowed mode). I just double-click my desktop shortcut, and (after it loads), am at #3. Mind-blown! How have I never noticed this, thanks!
Great observation in the opening post. I agree, I noticed this a while back too. The team has bigger fish to fry, but this can be a minor detractor to those that just want to jump into game, especially in the age of game apps.
I want to say two or three. Definitely a main login/update screen, and a character select. There's usually a reward screen too for your daily login/rewards, at lest the first time in each 24 hour period. I'd try it now to verify, but i haven't played in quite a while, and the updater will fire up before I can do anything, so it'll likely be sometime tomorrow before I can finally log in...
I agree 100% that there are more important issues. And in fact, the opening is not broken. It is just not sexy and first impressions do make a different. I won't say this is apples to apples and Star Citizen is a completely different game, but its also true that Star Citizen is significantly more complex than SotA. Both of them are technically supporting multiple game modes. I will say that I prefer the SotA load times, lol. However, I think the Warcraft is the real standard setter. So there you have it. Two huge complex games whose combined total of launch screens is less than SotA. Now take an objective step back and forget you know anything about these 3 games. Based on the opening screens, which one is going to provide the highest quality game play? How reflective are those screens of the actual game experience? Now take another objective step and remember what each game experience is actually like beyond the opening screens. I would argue that had I never had played Wow or Star Citizen, I would have made reasonable predictions as to the real game experience. And that is the only reason I made this feedback post. I want people to see SotA in its best light.
Noone has changed any of the games splash pages that open after loading the exe since something like 2013? Aside from streamlining the click through, its at least a "refreshing the Brand" missed opportunity big time. I mean how do we reflect a developing game if our splash pages aren't updated? You would think they hope to improve the experience, even KFC change up their buildings apperances after so long
#'s 1 & 2 are completely avoidable. Just go to your steam library, right click the game and create a desktop shortcut. #3 isn't really necessary but it's one click to #4. #'s 4, 5 and 6 are necessary and pretty standard for any online game.
Launcher -> login screen -> char select So that's 3 without steam, so probably 3-4 with steam. So yeah, Sota should really remove the "Play" screen and have the login integrated in the main menu. It just saves a few seconds, but those are pretty annoying seconds imho.