On Personal Investment

[Brusinger]

I have in idea on the tutorials, idk if its possible Amon with the type of system istaria is run on. but... a lot of players dont read the blue pop ups :/ i know this from a few years ago trying to get some of my friends into this mmo.

anyways i'll get right to the point.

if you can manage some sort of short video showing how to use "said" controls.
(Example) small video, dragon dies, up close view of recall button. dragon is revived. end of story.
(Example) small video, Auto open C window showing the list of ability icons, Mouse cursor appears on screen, displaying a drag and drop motion with the ability icon onto the hotkey bar.

ECT

I don't know *Shrugs* just an idea.
to me it would make the game seem a bit more interactive with the players
could work for explaining how biped classes work as well

Or new idea! this one may be less invasive to the players.
you could have a "Guide" tutorial. show them around the game interface a bit with a guide,
highlight buttons and tabs on the screen encouraging the players click on them, follow the tutorial.

could work with a little bit of all 3 styles of tutorial, little high lighted button here, short video there, and a pop up bubble to explain more complex things..

I'm probably rambling by now, no idea if this was of any help or inspiration. i hope you find a solution Istaria is a wonderful mmo and i hope it stays alive for a long time to come

[AmonGwareth]

Videos aren't possible, but the guide is. And in fact the tutorial does guide you around the UI as it introduces concepts and it tells players about the ? icon which brings up each window's specific tutorial.

[Steelclaw]

Wow! The thread made it this long without going totally off topic. Thanks everyone!

The conversation seems to have died down, so it sounds like this is a good opportunity to circle back and close out the discussion.

I see a general acceptance of a "you must be this tall to ride" concept, though the token bypass seems to have some catches. I'll have to go back and look at the technical hurdles to implementing an account-level completion check, so alts have the option of bypassing the quests if another character on the account has completed the tutorials. It may be simple to do, otherwise, we may try the craft-able token route and see how it goes. In any case, I want to make sure that the process is self-service, even for the odd school configurations, and does not require a support ticket to complete.

Looking back, I see three additional themes that came up: the current tutorial promotes skipping, power-leveling contributes to poor retention, and there may be a lack of post-new-player investment incentive.

The post-new-player investment incentive is more of a school-by-school issue, where we need to identify the holes and commit the time to fill them in with quests. Aside from identifying the holes, this is pretty much an easily-solved problem. As Amon points out, it's just a (developer) time investment issue.

Power-leveling, as I mentioned earlier, is outside the scope of this discussion, though it does deserve a nod. I think we, as a community, need to look at the motives behind power-leveling before condemning the entire practice. Does the new-player experience just plain suck? Does the power-leveled player want to max out so they can just run around and squash things? Does the power-leveling player want to show off? Does the power-leveling group just want to get the low-level up so they can all enjoy a challenging fight? Some motives may be ways to cope with frustrating game mechanics or design, rather than pure laziness. The former should get some attention, as that's a sign that there's something wrong (more "F-U-N", less "F-U"). The latter... well, we can't cure laziness.

That said, please save your comments on power-leveling for another thread. This isn't the place for it.

Regarding the tutorial, I agree that it could use some work to be more engaging (and less demeaning). Nobody wants to read a wall of text when it gets in the way of playing their game. There's some useful ideas in this thread, and I'll make sure to point them out when the new-player experience comes up for review.

Thank you again to everyone who contributed and for the feedback!

[Zarkela]

I am a level 100 Ancient Helian Dragon, I was never power leveled, nor would I power level another, I have always made that clear to the whiney Hatchies that have begged to be power leveled.

but another Issue I have seen is those other Adult or Ancient Dragons that have gotten on my case when I would not Baby sit a Hatchie. Fortunately, there has only been one to do so, I will name no names.

So, I have gotten hit on one side by Hatchies to power level them and on the other side by and Adult to power level a hatchie, and I will always say, no, there are the trainers, go train.

[Deelighted]

I'm a little late responding but hope my suggestions will be taken into consideration.

I really try to help the new players to Istaria, and from what I've heard from new players, many of them want to start tinkering school right away which is a difficult school for a new player to take on. Some players will take the time to stock the NT connie with flax cargo gear at a reasonable price, but many times there isn't cargo gear available or what's available isn't what the new player needs. So would it be possible to have some kind of cargo gear (even refurbrished) available on trainers like smith or outfitter? If that isn't possible, would it be possible to introduce a quest line similar to Geoff's cargo disk?

Another player brought up the need for the low-level biped backpack forms to be made more accessible to new players. Would it be possible to change the beginner leather backpack form from a drop item to a quest formula similar to the Nielenoss quest line?

[Kaishan]

Just ran into this thread and found it most interesting. It's been a year and a half since it was started by Steelclaw is this still in the works? I think it would be a great idea to lock new players into the beginning island to learn the basics. Although I do love how Istaria is open world with no restrictions like some other games out there. That is one of the key things in this game that make it so great and I wouldn't want to ruin that, but the starter island to teach fundamentals would be a good area to change that part.

I also agree with a sort of token being craftable along the lines of the cargo disk that a person who wanted to bring an alt through wouldn't have to do things to learn something that they probably already know.

I would like to touch on a few ideas for improvement; food for thought if you will. A lot of the crafting in Istaria is tied together, another thing that makes Istaria hands down the best crafting mmo platform in the world. Now since crafts are tied together wouldn't this be a great time to just scratch the surface on how some of the basic crafts help each other?

Level blacksmith alittle (level 1?) then note how it gave you woodworking, sculpting, metalworking to show them how to see skills and see them change.
Level Scholar on stone from blacksmith with this newly achieved skill.(level 1?)
Level Outfitter by smelting bars from blacksmith and achieving foraging skills.
Use outfitter to harvest flax or something to make spools to give xp for outfitter (level 1)

Then you could have a line for adventure, this should be enough to get off the island and on to New Trismus. I think it would give a beginner a basic understanding of the game and open their eyes to the possiblities before them.

P.S. Maybe add a chat tab for new player chat to ask questions in case someone is having difficulty understanding something and leaving the AI world out of that part? Hehe

Great idea Steelclaw
-Kaishan