Decisions during the tutorial/beginning

I think the beginning of the game should be exciting and memorable and give a good impression of the things we can expect from the rest of the game.

So what should the beginning of SotA offer in my opinion?

1. The quests should be great, exciting, deep, complex and full of twists and surprises.

2. The NPCs should be interesting and not one-dimensional. We should discover more about them, their motivations and their personalities. Some twists here would be great, too.

3. Maybe we should even visit a first small dungeon so that we get to experience wilderness and dungeon (for example let us flee from Highvale through an escape tunnel instead of through the gate).

4. We should make our first decision. It was said that SotA would let us make decisions that change the world. Then show it right at the beginning.
Let us make a hard decision during the first quests. And this decision determines whether Highvale, Blood River or Soltown fall into enemy hands or if the villages will be occupied by workers and guards of the nearby city and they begin to rebuild it.
But it shouldn't be that easy. There should be more to this decision. Maybe we have to drive the elves away from their homeland when we decide to let the village be rebuild and then they attack another city. The decision should not be easy and it should be representative of what other decisions await us during the course of the game.

I think that this would give players a really good impression of what they can expect from SotA.

 

How will players learn about the world itself. Arabella is very stingy with details, and the particular quests don't seem like they are going to flesh it out.

I think there are NPC's in Vertas (starting quest) and Desolis (non-start location) who share an overview of the history of the world. If the lore is going to be great (with the involvement of Hickman) I think it should be showcased a little more. Or maybe the plan is that people will have to read BOTA if they want to understand what's going on... honestly, if I hadn't been involved from the beginning and read BOTA, I'd be lost in what the world was about.

 

I agree, we should get to know the world a bit more even during the beginning.

 

All nice and lovely - I like this.

But remember: the first steps in a new game... Pardon... In a new, very complex game, must absolutely be considered a tutorial of sorts. There's no escape from this, especially if we have "weird" or "special" quirks detaching the game mechanics from the mainstream customs - like we do.

And unfortunately, the strictly-linear nature of a tutorial collides harshly with a rich and twisty first quest showcase.

 

Yep, beginning should be catered for beginners. The game shouldn't be hand holding, but only with players that already know how to walk, so i think some flashy letters in the middle of the screen telling you exactly and concisely what the game expects from you, and some notices to indicate the player is doing it right.

I agree with the OP in that we need the initial quests to be engaging and meaningful, but let's also add that it's the moment to make new players learn what the game expects from them, and i think for that we could hold their hands a bit. And point at things. And yelling. And clap very loudly when they go as they were told (but briefly, to hold their hands again). Then let them loose with the warning that the game expects them to look for that things.

 

I agree that the intro should be more engaging, show off the richness of the game engine and the world a bit, but I think the longer new players are barred from entering the open world, the worse it is.

I also think it would be far too complex of a game mechanic for every single new player's decisions to affect things like the status of a town/zone for a persistent game world. Highvale would be morphing from burnt to constructed to defended to abandoned every 10 mins!

Though, the idea of their decisions having some effect would be cool. Not exactly sure that would be, but Im not against the idea in a general sense.

 

Isn't it the point of a single player game, that the hero changes the world?

Those changes to the world due to our decisions would only affect us. In my instance I let the city burn down, so when I enter the scene the city is burned down. In your instance you rebuilt the town and when you enter the scene it is rebuilt.
If we enter the scene together then we enter the instance of the leader of the party.

Similar to how The Elder Scrolls Online does it with phasing.

 

I think the way you do it, and as I pointed out with the way it worked in Ultima VII in the other thread, is that you sort of just organically introduce players to what they need to know to play. It's less a "tutorial" -- its more an "introduction" -- an introduction to the game.

Its not handholding; I don't think Ultima VII did any handholding. Maybe only in the sense that you were first locked into Trinsic, but that's where we are now in the starting quests; we're locked in the scenes until we find a key. But the environment and objectives at the start of Ultima VII got you used to certain gameplay mechanics and acquainted you with some basic facts about the game world.

 

Once again i agree with you. I'm very fond of Ultima VII as it was the first Ultima (and the first RPG) i ever played, and the way it introduced you to the environment was entirely organic, and that's definitely what i'm looking for, for the world to feel alive in that way. I remember how the game fascinated me from the very start, even being in a language i couldn't understand properly, and how fun was the intuitive environment interaction (the first time i found a secret door on a wall... i couldn't believe it!). I definitely want all that.

But searching in my memories i remember another thing that i always had with me. The Ultima VII User's Manual. That's because even when the interaction was intuitive, other things weren't, and as a first RPG player i needed to learn a whole new gaming genre and a new interface from scratch. The game didn't told me any of that, i needed to learn that by myself, by trial and error, the manual and a dictionary. And i did all that because i wanted to play that incredible game that came as part of a game pack with the sound card i bought for my new computer! Countless tries did i need until i managed to enable the EMS memory so the game could work! That was the will of a player. Happy times.

Now we all know... times had changed. Users manual are something that comes with collector boxes, and people want to game NOW. This is the root of my concerns, and that's why i keep considering giving in the introduction a closer follow up to the way the player does things during the starting quest. Even we forget to check the player instructions from time to time, and miss stuff. Can we really expect new players to "catch up" without telling them exactly and clearly how to do things?

Maybe i have no reason to worry, i don't pretend to make a mountain out of it (keep checking the length of the post i digressed a lot with the UVII memories lol), but i think it's an approach to keep always in consideration. Some strict and direct explanations can do so much good to the game, and being a direct way to tell the player how things are done around here, there's an increase chance that they like it, instead of just being annoyed and leave. Some hovering text and highlights oriented to tell the player NOT what to choose, but HOW to do what he chooses. Having an advisor, not a driver.

 

@KuBaTRiZeS ,

Well, you had the "manual", which was a lorebook, and then you had a really small instruction sheet -- folding, I remember -- which gave a short guide of the UI and told you how to use the mouse. It also gave you a hint about how to begin the starting quest. The tutorial windows are just a substitute for that small instruction sheet, since the game is being distributed digitally.

And actually, U5, U6, etc. just dropped you in the game and expected you to figure out to play. This was especially the case with U5, where you were dropped in an empty Iolo's hut, in the middle of the forest, and had to find a city. You also had a small instruction sheet, of course. And I like that experience of being dropped in the game and having to figure out things for yourself. It was a lot less linear feeling than U7. I love the non-linear gameplay of U5. As I related, someone in IRC mentioned they were spending an hour wandering around and trying to figure things out, and I replied "good!" -- because I think he was having fun doing it -- and I think that's great.

But you still probably need little bit of the U7 stuff, especially since there are going to be people coming in from generic MMOs and are going to expect everything to work the same way as a generic MMO. You have to show them that it doesn't.

I also think most of the game, when you get passed the beginning, is going to feel non-linear. Its just a matter of getting new players past the beginning and getting them introduced to the game.

 

I've been looking at images from UVII from the internet since i finished writing the last post. I've thrown myself into an abyss of memories and i can't come back! It's right that the instructions weren't that much (geez i remember spending hours trying to understand that). I must confess i never cleared the game until later when my knowledge of games was a bit deeper... And that's the only Classic Ultima along with U1 i've ever cleared (does Savage empire count?). After clearing U1 installed U2, died for lack of food a hundred times and that was the end of my ultima spree

I'm kind of nostalgic. Maybe i put the pack i bought from GOG at use and start playing U5. Nothing but good ideas for SotA can come from that