Starting Tutorial Problems

I finally got my friend to try out the game. He is not patient at all and doesn't really care about story or anything and just wants to get started in the game.

I haven't actually done the path of love myself since I'm a truth type of guy and I'm trying to help him to get the notes from Edvard...He was able to pick up his bow, and he failed to save the girl (He didn't care about doing that haha)...he killed the skellies across the bridge with edvard. Now edvard is only saying we'll speak later when we've left this place and nothing else will ever happen.

He cannot leave with the boat as he is stuck without the quest to turn in edvard's notes.

I myself find this to be a blocker for new people who have 0 patience like my friend. Please allow new people who would rather skip story type things to escape out of these things and get on with the game. It will drive new players like this away from the game.

Thank you

@Lum the Mad @Berek

**UPDATE...he was able to get the boat to work after deleting his character to reset the quest and making sure that edvard did not leave the area across the bridge. That apparently bugs the quest.

 

Yes this is very frustrating and claustrophic to someone who just wants to move forward without doing any part of any of the quests.

 

Just an update: Ok so Me and Lord Baldrith got a longtime friend settled in the game. It totally wore us out though. *sheesh*. Anything that could go wrong did. For example his client/game crashed several times, he could not get out of the starting area for anything. He created 3 different characters after deleting them to finally find out he had to kill all the skeletons. Can you believe it? And did he want to kill the skeletons or do anything but just get to place his house, no, no, no lol. Man am I glad that is over.

Oops I forgot the other thing that happened. None of us could see each other, when we got to Wizards Rest finally, with trying to find a lot, we all let the game re-entered the game and finally went out of party, then in party again and etc. So finally the last try to leave party again and I went back in and all of us could see each other, hmmm I was like what the h*ll did I do

We need to find some ways to help in this.

There is a great difficulty to explain to someone who won't listen, plus I did not even know what to say to tell him to do differently. I was not there and I could not get him to me at all. There is an opportunity to make this experience better, lots of opportunity and I do not say that it is not a good experience for everyone, but for some, they just need an opt out to leave the area.

 

Ya this was a good wake up to me, who doesn't think twice about just working my way thru the story and figuring things out. When you have played this game for a long time, you really do forget that new people are going to be completely lost.

If there is not literally words that tell you what you didn't do somewhere (rather than the quest giver just getting stuck in an endless loop of the same convo) then people will be lost. Some will work it out and some will not.

There were absolutely no up-to-date hints I could research to help him. I didn't have a character that I hadn't already ran thru the tutorials to use to figure out what had gone wrong.

This is a guy who never played the old Ultimas, so he has no appreciation or care about the stories or lore of the past games (sadly)...and he hates the overland map with such a passion that it took this long to get him to even log in (and he is a knight account level). The main thing I can take away from this is, we need to really be able to put ourselves in the shoes of people like this who come from modern games and would rather just get on with whatever they want to do rather than be forced to figure stuff out.

I am holding hope that once he gets used to this game, he'll get curious and try things out and grow to like it or maybe even love it the way I do.

 

I see both sides of this issue. On the one hand, this game was specifically billed as a "figure it out yourself" rpg, no hand-holding. If someone didn't realize that when they bought in, I'm hard pressed to put the blame on the Devs.

On the other hand, I think the tutorial section specifically should not lock folks in if they choose to ignore the story and quests. How do we find a happy middle path?

 

That's my point...sure this is not an easy mode game...but the tutorial in a game is generally optional.

I think that some people just need time to get used to this game...if we make the tutorial easier to work thru, it will help new players in both camps to start their Shroud of the Avatar journey.

 

Well I guess I would do what I do. I am not telling my friends about this game until it gets to a better state. To bring some one to this game at this point who is impatient and will not listen is probably the wrong thing to do. I have seen this problem for a long time already. The game is still in its infancy really. I crash all the time still as he does, the load times are horrendous, and the downloads take forever. Not the time to be bringing in hard to please players that do not realize this is still in development.

 

Two things:
1. Yes, SotA can be a pain for new players and casual players.
2. The right presentation of the story should even draw those people in who normally are not that much into the story of a game.

 

Made a mention about this in another thread but 2/3 of the people im introducing into the game seem to run into one issue or another on tutorial. And then need re convincing.
Almost need a skip button as i dont know specifics ( been a while since i done it ) but yea its a maaajor turn off atm.