Important: About the intro and starting sequence: Isle of storms and choosing our path ...

@Lord British, @Chris, @DarkStarr,

1. The former intro video explained how we get to the realm of Novia ...
I assume a new player looks at this once. Therefor I thought it was okay. What was wrong with the given information? However, more important is 2. !!!

2. Isle of Storms: Meeting with Arabella gave a wonderful mystical entry.

What was a kind of annoying:
a. the loading times, if you clicked the mirror for character creation ...

b. the ability to bypass one's own (!) decision and option to choose the path of "mage/truth," "ranger/love," or "fighter/courage."
--> this destroyed the whole 'pathfinding' intro! The huge text because of telling about path of "mage", "ranger" or "fighter" and how to change it was unnecessary ...

Room for improvement for the starting scene:
Less text with Arabella - Restriction to the essentials!
-> Choose a body to incarnate ...
-> Talk to the Oracle to choose your fate ...

The conversation with the Oracle should have a MAJOR consequence for the Avatar - beside the starting path!
Idea: Avatar receives a virtue card, which (s)he can hand to the Oracle at the END (after solving the path of the Oracle) and gets something special corresponding to the main Virtue (s)he decided for at the beginning!

Maybe:
Grants a 20% permanent bonus on ONE Skill of Avatar's choice connected to this chosen Virtue(card)!
Important: ONLY ONE CARD can be used once per Avatar [At least for Episode 1 ] !
--> NO BONUS FOR Avatars with too many negative decisions AGAINST the choosen Path!!!

By doing so, the Avatar's choice would have a significant impact on her/his character, making her/him more unique and powerful.

Please consider to get the intro back! Adjusted for loading times and polished from unnecessary decisions / sentences ..

3. The training with Anais could be skipped - that's okay, because a new player is responsible, if (s)he skips the introduction. Suggestion: The intro with Anais should always be accessible via game help (icon)!
May be a new player wants to visit her later?

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION

 

Wednesday i started a new avatar on QA just to test things. Still went through the old ways...talking to Anise and such. Today started a new avatar and bypasses the whole thing. I thought there was a choice in Isle or not. If so then why did they spend all that time setting up Isle of Storms just to bypass it all. Once i create the avatar it THREW me into Battle of Solace Bridge. Hence forcing me to choose where i went. I thought they intended to let folks CHOOSE where and what they wanted to do. the whole concept of the tutorial in Isle was to allow them to learn basic mechanics and learn basic skills of ranged, blades and magic. the whole thing is just out of whack and confusing.

 

Depending on when you created the character on QA, your path would differ. At the beginning the new path wasn't in. Later on it was and you went Character Creation and off to Battle of Solace Bridge (like it is on live now).

The old path had a way you could bypass the tutorial, but you couldn't bypass the first path of the Isle.

The change was implemented because they feel that SotA is attracting many different types of people. Basically they can be group into two main groups: a) I enjoy reading and want to know more about the world you've build, and b) screw reading I want to play right now. Old UO and some other players fall into the first category. But they feel that their data shows that there are more people who don't want to play through the Isle and would rather jump into the game right away. This is their conclusions based on data that indicates many players didn't lay through the Isle. Instead they quite part way through. As a result they eliminated the Isle and will gather more data to make sure their isn't another reason.

As far as I know, based on Chris's conversations in streams, they want to service multiple broups from the beginning. They intend to allow new players to creat a character and then branch to multiple different paths. So people who want background information can go through the Isles and get that background. Or it you want to fight you end up at one of the Battles. (only once is availoabe right now because they feel the love side is more polished and less buggy tan the other paths.) And there is supposed to be a patht that puts you into the housing (homesteading) game. Maybe there will be one for crafters as well. (I haven't heard anything about that one though.)

They are still planning a tutorial, but I think it will be weaved into the battle scenes (sort of like it was before). But maybe not as obvious as a the Isle tutorial. There are ways to do a non-tutorial tutorial, if they want to go that way.

 

Every game has an intro. Every game has a kind of starting scene. And basic information is important to know what this game is about ...

What I am thinking, what drives (new) player crazy when they start the game (just talking about intro!) are two things:

A: you need 3 load times to get into the game!

1. Starting SotA (that's quite normal, isn't it? )

2. Inside the intro (and Isle of Storms is a good one) you have to create your Avatar:
second load time! --> That's the most disturbing one <--

3. You can skip Anais (that's ok - nobody who won't read any longer can go on).
Third load time to enter the first game part (Solace Bridge | Highvale | Bloodriver). --> This shold be the second load time.

B: Intro text is not as clear as it should be. It seems the Oracle isn't taking us very serious ...

The Oracle asks us questions to find out about what path we want to follow.
After that - instead of sending us straight on our chosen path, how it was at the beginning(!) - it tells us, if we like to follow another path, we can just tell ...
THIS generated alot of unnecessary text for the Oracle! IF, AND, OR, NOT, THEN, ELSE ?

While the main paths were under construction and not finished, the intro was changed to give the possibility to choose the way of the Fighter, Mage, Ranger.
This never made any sense (in a classles system).
Later this was changed into: but if you feel more like to go on another path, just tell me!
--> THE WHOLE INTRO WAS DESTROYED BY THAT! <--

What are you thinking, after taking time answering those questions and than someone tells:
never mind - just feel free to go where ever you want!
Reading and answering was just a joke? Wasted my time?

To assume, the intro is THE reason, why new players leave the game isn't the whole truth, I think ...

Alot of feedback from players was, that our decisions in game should have a serious consequence!
Like I tried to tell over 5 years of game testing: get rid of disturbing and distracting stuff and focus on essentials
--> Please, do not get rid of an essential meaningful intro

... The player has to know at least about the Oracle and Arabella ...