NUE (New User Experience) thoughts

Ran into a new Visitor player yesterday and helped explain a few things most of us probably take for granted. Could be some things to include/address in the NUE Polish ?

Here's what I can remember teaching them about / mentioning how to utilize:

- How to get back to Novia (use the un-labelled boat by Kingsport on the Overworld Map - or the "Red Sail" boat inside Kingsport to get to Brittany)
- Devotionals and usage (jump in)
- Oracle Confirmatory and daily exp/gold
- POT versus NPC town
- Food
- Lunar Rifts
- Virtue Gain / Loss from decisions made and possible impact
- Mailboxes by NPC banks to retrieve in-game mail (I mailed 10 teleport and 10 recall scrolls to help)
- Chat mode (how to use /p or /party)

Forgot to mention:
- Taming (They asked about it - I said to wait until they are a bit more experienced / have some extra gold, since it requires taming collars and whistles)

 

Thanks, yes I have to do this pretty regularly as well. There have been some really lost new players in the Factorium, and I'm like "It's the red wagon!" /em jumps up and down waving hands.

 

I agree with the above points, I have watched a few new player streams and been in game with some new players and can add a couple things:

-Questing: New players seem to get a little frustrated and confused on the questing system. Its not really a fault of this game per se, just most players are accustomed to quests being the only thing to do/follow to progress. They are used to getting gear to progress and for the quests to take them to appropriate leveling zones for their level. Add to this if new players who play together get sent to different starting towns it adds to the confusion immensely. I know some of this has been addressed but it still seems to be a big issue. I think a big part of it is also the games people are used to as I mentioned.
-Skill tooltips: These things are still not accurate at all in many cases and is so fundamental to base understanding.

This game has come a long way in the NPE, but I still feel compared to competitors its still tough.

 

It took me roughly a 6 hour session to teach a friend of mine (one who is no stranger to MMOs and RPGs) the ropes of the game. Last time I checked, he lost interest before completing the Outskirts area. From what I gathered, he didn't care for the questing.

On his last play session, I offered to follow him and help him out with his quests. His reply was "Nah. Lets do something else"... so we went dungeon crawling and he hasn't logged back since.

 

@Gix

I loved the single-player Ultimas, so I like questing, but I always felt they worked best when they were a. non-linear and undirected, b. simple and engaging, c. made you interested.

I don't know whether your friend just doesn't like quests at all, but I haven't so far got a good handle on the questing vibe that made it great in the Ultima games.

 

@redfish He just doesn’t like questing in SotA... too many "how was I supposed to know?" moments that gets him furious while trying to find directions (even with the GPS map) and figuring out what to do next.

Next time I talk to him, I'll try to remember to ask him about his thoughts on the matter in more specific details.

 

Yes nice post, the first time I played I got overwhelmed when starting to travel on the overworld and got pretty lost. Just wanted to get back to my starting point but had no clue how to.