Suggestions: Arabella should follow the hero to the mirror

First: I love the new way to create the character with the mirror! It blends in well with the whole game and doesn't separate the character creation from the game.

One suggestion: I thought that it was a bit confusing to talk to Araballa, then go to the mirror and then back again to Arabella.
I think it would be better if Arabella would take the hero to the mirror, e.g. follow him there and wait for him to get his appearance. Then we could talk to her directly in front of the mirror and wouldn't have to go back to her.

 

We're redoing the Isle of Storms VERY soon (it will most likely be in an R31 patch) so that you no longer return to Arabella, but instead are introduced to the Oracle. Arabella will serve as an introduction to the player of why they suddenly landed in this place, what it is, why they are there... then the Mirror will shape what the Avatar appears to be... then the Oracle will reflect on what the Avatar is.

This is in fact so key to the story and the game that Richard literally sat at our desks and pleaded for us to get it in this release instead of delaying it. Starr was then kind enough to provide tissue for my tears (no really, there's a box on my desk). So, the Isle of Storms is in an interim state right now.

 

Really love what you just said Lum ....... sounds great ...... Just try and make as less loading screens as possible, too many loading screens takes away from immersion ..... IMHO

 

Not much we can do about that, unfortunately.

 

Yeah, I was going to post the exact same suggestion as @Lord_Darkmoon. But glad to hear its getting revamped to use the Oracle. Looking forward to the enhancements. Many thanks @Lum!

Perhaps @Chris can optimize the loading for the Mirror and Isle of Storms scenes to such a degree that you can simply not show the loading screen. Just a fade or other visual effect perhaps.

Not sure the tech reason for two separate scenes, but perhaps you can fake it like in the Ultima series where it's all one scene and you teleport to a far off hidden mirror location in that scene and teleport back once character creation is complete?

 

One thing that Arabella could do, if she follows you to the mirror herself, is also explain that such mirrors (and whatever powers the NewYou shops) requires magic like those collected in Obsidian relics. She can offer to enpower it with her own Obsidian Crowns, but if you want to use it in the future you will need to acquire your own. Those same crowns are also exchanged for some rare, expensive, or otherwise difficult to acquire items throughout New Britannia.

Tooltip: Premium Currency (unlocked)

 

I'd disagree here. New You shops aren't critical to the lore or story, only the sandbox. I think we should keep the new player focused on that and keep Arabella's scope to offering lore about the story campaign. Plus, let's not throw monetization at them as their first experience. Also, offline game.

 

What lore does she offer? Her questions are being taken away, so shes basically left with "Lord British and I were waiting for you. Go to the mirror."

It isn't about monetization. I don't think it should talk about gold crowns at all, just crowns in general which are available anywhere. Its important enough that they know to keep an eye out for them.

The offline game is not any different in that respect, as far as I can tell.

 

We are replacing her questions with a good deal of lore exposition, actually.

 

Hmmmm.

I have a pretty good idea what the Avatar is. This should be interesting.

 

@Lum @RichardGarriott @DarkStarr It's good you guys are putting so much time into making the first user experience better. My friend got in-game a few weeks back and he stopped playing after like 5 minutes because he thought it was so terrible and unintuitive. He was very confused and couldn't figure out the controls and it didn't go well. You need to explain the whole target mode right off the get go tabbing in/out of it and what not. The guy should know what weapon you pick up not just assume it's a bow. Next, I know the hints in the tutorial are leaving but I'm really really hoping that as I've stated multiple times before, that we get single window hints with forward/back arrows with an organized/categorized index for R32. If we don't I think this will be a disaster for new players because they need to be able to go back and review hints as well as not be overwhelmed with a ton of individual window popups. On top of that R32 really really needs to resolve the problem that you can deliver news in-game, I created a post with a few solutions to be able to display websites in-game and honestly it shouldn't be incredibly hard to make a website work in-game even if it's a version that's slimmed down and optimized for the game to more easily interpret the HTML. I know this game isn't supposed to be hand hold and that's fine in the long run but most players especially the younger generation aren't used to this and need some hand holding but after a while, you can take off the training wheels and let them go and be free. I would say the FTUE is the most important part of the game to get right because if you mess that up you lose users very quickly and I'm sure you and everyone else probably agrees with this. I have faith in you guys and I love this game and really want everyone I know to love it as much as me so keep up the great work and I know together we can make a great game.