Forums » Suggestions
Tutorials too wordy
I remember having a grueling time with all the tutorials leading up to the basic flight test, succinctly because they were too wordy. Moreover, I remember shortly after I had gotten through the tutorials, other newcomers voicing their same frustrations.
If the extra text served to immerse me more into the game I would have welcomed it, but instead it seemed to generally state the obvious and delay me from getting into the game, while the only required and pertinent information could have been conveyed in a few sentences.
In the pursuit of constructive criticism I provide some concrete examples from the initial new character tutorial, but in a general way I would apply my points to all tutorials.
After clicking on the "Ship" tab a text box describing the tab appears. The text starting from "The major categories..." is hand-holding; I know that there will be a menu system when I see it. Ultimately the tutorial should not be so descriptive but rather the UI should be obvious from inspection, but I digress. No need to describe the location of the menus because it won't sink in until I need to use them anyways. The text block would have sufficed to say:
"This menu allows you to purchase ships and equipment upgrades. Let's click on "Buy" to buy a new ship."
Moving on. Again, if you want to make it wordy, have a purpose like being engaging or immerse, otherwise delete. For example, the parts that say the government pays for your ship is a pertinent part of the fantasy, it's cool, it actually hints at the question "why?"--this would be a perfect time to explain, but it is not explained.
However, the on screen selection and the concept of highlighting and color significance will become obvious, no need to slow down the tutorial with those. Also, no need to showcase non-essential details at this point. (How to choose a color, how to spin the ship, how to maximize the window.) The player will figure these things out on their own from the obvious UI and when they do it will be more rewarding. If the player doesn't figure it out from the beginning, it doesn't matter.
The only really important information here is:
‘You can only access one ship currently because you lack money and licenses.’
The next few sections on equipping the ship are quite lengthy. This could be avoided a few other ways if once again the UI had less nested menus and was more obvious, or if creating a new ship automatically defaulted to the free (and in this case only) options. Short of that, the text could be reduced by concentrating on this important information:
- You need to equip ships with equipment in their ports.
- You will need a weapon and a battery to start.
(Optionally) - Mass affects your handling.
"Great! Now you're ready to launch...but first..”
Oh, you teased me, but still no recess as my frustrations rise. Pushing on to the PDA section, the text starting with "The Missions category is shown by default..." is a good example of unnecessary. It would suffice to say:
"This is your Personal Data Assistant, it can be accessed at any time. Your PDA can keep track of your missions, but since you don't have an active mission yet, let's set you up with one."
The background on who the galaxy's mission employers are and how your reputation responds to completing missions is good, it actually took my mind off how much I just wanted to get out there and how boring this tutorial was, because it was feeding the fantasy. I would leave that intact.
I'm not going to dissect the other tutorials, even though I remember this notion thoroughly dawning upon me during one of them, but hopefully you get the picture already.
Looking back, I think the heart of the issue is not considering the audience. The existing tutorial serves a different purpose than what the audience wants at that point in time.
Even though the information given in the tutorial is accurate, useful and ample, it's not presented at the right time or the right pacing. In fact, the problem is so acute that the other frustrated newbies I was referring to at the beginning of my post were actually spamming the chat for answers that were genuinely contained in the tutorials! How can the tutorial that tries so hard to answer all questions answer none? After veterans replied to the newbie that all their questions would be answered in the tutorials, the newbie pleaded that they refused the tutorials because there was just too much reading involved. The player nightmare that is the very first tutorial had (quite accurately) conditioned players not to want to take any more.
Hope this clarifies some of the frustration of new joiners, leading to their incredibly important first impressions and hopefully positively affecting some of this game's immediate turnaround.
-Dirty Cash
If the extra text served to immerse me more into the game I would have welcomed it, but instead it seemed to generally state the obvious and delay me from getting into the game, while the only required and pertinent information could have been conveyed in a few sentences.
In the pursuit of constructive criticism I provide some concrete examples from the initial new character tutorial, but in a general way I would apply my points to all tutorials.
After clicking on the "Ship" tab a text box describing the tab appears. The text starting from "The major categories..." is hand-holding; I know that there will be a menu system when I see it. Ultimately the tutorial should not be so descriptive but rather the UI should be obvious from inspection, but I digress. No need to describe the location of the menus because it won't sink in until I need to use them anyways. The text block would have sufficed to say:
"This menu allows you to purchase ships and equipment upgrades. Let's click on "Buy" to buy a new ship."
Moving on. Again, if you want to make it wordy, have a purpose like being engaging or immerse, otherwise delete. For example, the parts that say the government pays for your ship is a pertinent part of the fantasy, it's cool, it actually hints at the question "why?"--this would be a perfect time to explain, but it is not explained.
However, the on screen selection and the concept of highlighting and color significance will become obvious, no need to slow down the tutorial with those. Also, no need to showcase non-essential details at this point. (How to choose a color, how to spin the ship, how to maximize the window.) The player will figure these things out on their own from the obvious UI and when they do it will be more rewarding. If the player doesn't figure it out from the beginning, it doesn't matter.
The only really important information here is:
‘You can only access one ship currently because you lack money and licenses.’
The next few sections on equipping the ship are quite lengthy. This could be avoided a few other ways if once again the UI had less nested menus and was more obvious, or if creating a new ship automatically defaulted to the free (and in this case only) options. Short of that, the text could be reduced by concentrating on this important information:
- You need to equip ships with equipment in their ports.
- You will need a weapon and a battery to start.
(Optionally) - Mass affects your handling.
"Great! Now you're ready to launch...but first..”
Oh, you teased me, but still no recess as my frustrations rise. Pushing on to the PDA section, the text starting with "The Missions category is shown by default..." is a good example of unnecessary. It would suffice to say:
"This is your Personal Data Assistant, it can be accessed at any time. Your PDA can keep track of your missions, but since you don't have an active mission yet, let's set you up with one."
The background on who the galaxy's mission employers are and how your reputation responds to completing missions is good, it actually took my mind off how much I just wanted to get out there and how boring this tutorial was, because it was feeding the fantasy. I would leave that intact.
I'm not going to dissect the other tutorials, even though I remember this notion thoroughly dawning upon me during one of them, but hopefully you get the picture already.
Looking back, I think the heart of the issue is not considering the audience. The existing tutorial serves a different purpose than what the audience wants at that point in time.
Even though the information given in the tutorial is accurate, useful and ample, it's not presented at the right time or the right pacing. In fact, the problem is so acute that the other frustrated newbies I was referring to at the beginning of my post were actually spamming the chat for answers that were genuinely contained in the tutorials! How can the tutorial that tries so hard to answer all questions answer none? After veterans replied to the newbie that all their questions would be answered in the tutorials, the newbie pleaded that they refused the tutorials because there was just too much reading involved. The player nightmare that is the very first tutorial had (quite accurately) conditioned players not to want to take any more.
Hope this clarifies some of the frustration of new joiners, leading to their incredibly important first impressions and hopefully positively affecting some of this game's immediate turnaround.
-Dirty Cash
Interesting. Thanks for the post. I have planned for some time to improve on tutorials via the new three-stage "New users and Early Advancement" system, hopefully getting people "out in the action" right away, and helping them more "on the fly". But in the meantime I've always had trouble finding a way to get all the required data across clearly (and there's a lot of it) without boring the hell of out the player.
I need to do some tutorial debugging sometime soon, so I may also look at rewriting some of them, trying to keep your suggestions in mind.
More feedback on this topic is welcome.
I need to do some tutorial debugging sometime soon, so I may also look at rewriting some of them, trying to keep your suggestions in mind.
More feedback on this topic is welcome.
Incarnate, it is my pleasure to help.
Maybe I'll have a second look at those other tutorials and give it a similar treatment. Hopefully it won't be moot if like you said you are overhauling most of those tutorial systems anyways...
Wow, beefy link. However, since I am interested in everything design I plan on digesting it. Only at the moment, I feel the need to get back to actually PLAYING the game. :)
Maybe I'll have a second look at those other tutorials and give it a similar treatment. Hopefully it won't be moot if like you said you are overhauling most of those tutorial systems anyways...
Wow, beefy link. However, since I am interested in everything design I plan on digesting it. Only at the moment, I feel the need to get back to actually PLAYING the game. :)
I think evoros has a point here, and things can be revamped for the tutorials. I'm sure I just might have been one of the players that suggested that new players also take the tutorial missions first.
All in all, evoros has good detailed examples that I like.
All in all, evoros has good detailed examples that I like.
I think one reason the tutorials are somewhat wordy (though I didn't find them so, personally - I like words) is that features in VO have accreted over time and not everything is documented elsewhere. The size of the FAQ vs the Manual is one example of this phenomena. Just a caution.
Plus, it allows veteran players to yell at newbs (not n00bs...) to do the tutorial.
In all seriousness though, I too think that evoros is right.
In all seriousness though, I too think that evoros is right.
Further evidence supporting what evoros said.
Maybe two versions of the Tutorials: a more wordy, RPish version (default) and a more streamlined goal-oriented version (bullet-pointed lists). Choice left to player either in-Mission or as a global option.
I think you bring up an excellent point about separating RP (role playing) content from the tutorial. In the end, RP content should be part of your regular game experience and not dependent on the tutorial. This would give you a way to choose to absorb or skip ahead without mixing in tutorial concerns.
In my post, I was attempting to resolve wordiness that had nothing to do with role playing, nor useful information at the time.
As far as actual tutorials go:
1) I would disagree with having two versions of a tutorial, I think the choice between tutorial or no tutorial should be enough. The player wouldn't be in any informed position to make a choice between the two either way. Moreover still, it wouldn't strike at the heart of the actual problems; you could write a long one and a short one and they could both be terrible. I think what needs to be done is write one tutorial that is great.
2) I disagree with the concept of a bullet form tutorial. Bullets identify subjects but are really poor at explaining anything. Also I think it would create an unwelcoming, dismissive attitude towards the player. Like any relationship, I think the trick is to make the player feel they're being taken care of, without being too needy (for their attention) :) Unlike relationships however, this should be the work of only the game creator, not the player.
As far as missions go:
Having a bullet form summary of a mission's objectives, especially ones that update as you go, is superb. I would think most successful mmos implement this.
-Dirty Cash
In my post, I was attempting to resolve wordiness that had nothing to do with role playing, nor useful information at the time.
As far as actual tutorials go:
1) I would disagree with having two versions of a tutorial, I think the choice between tutorial or no tutorial should be enough. The player wouldn't be in any informed position to make a choice between the two either way. Moreover still, it wouldn't strike at the heart of the actual problems; you could write a long one and a short one and they could both be terrible. I think what needs to be done is write one tutorial that is great.
2) I disagree with the concept of a bullet form tutorial. Bullets identify subjects but are really poor at explaining anything. Also I think it would create an unwelcoming, dismissive attitude towards the player. Like any relationship, I think the trick is to make the player feel they're being taken care of, without being too needy (for their attention) :) Unlike relationships however, this should be the work of only the game creator, not the player.
As far as missions go:
Having a bullet form summary of a mission's objectives, especially ones that update as you go, is superb. I would think most successful mmos implement this.
-Dirty Cash
Same tutorial, merely presented in different ways - verbose v. brief mode, as it were. In fact, the only difference may be the addition of text to the Verbose mode to make it more friendly. Example:
Brief:
Mission Summary
- Strafing Left and Right: A and B keys
- Strafing Up and Down: C and D keys
Verbose:
Glad you made it this far, nugget. Now we get down to the nitty gritty - here's where you learn to maneuver that hunk of junk you call a ship. To strafe left you use the A key and to strafe right you use the B key.... Etc.
Mission Summary
- Strafing Left and Right: A and B keys
- Strafing Up and Down: C and D keys
EDIT: I post this in anticipation of the new tutorials that Inc is working on and not to suggest that we leave the current tutorials in place and merely reword them.
Brief:
Mission Summary
- Strafing Left and Right: A and B keys
- Strafing Up and Down: C and D keys
Verbose:
Glad you made it this far, nugget. Now we get down to the nitty gritty - here's where you learn to maneuver that hunk of junk you call a ship. To strafe left you use the A key and to strafe right you use the B key.... Etc.
Mission Summary
- Strafing Left and Right: A and B keys
- Strafing Up and Down: C and D keys
EDIT: I post this in anticipation of the new tutorials that Inc is working on and not to suggest that we leave the current tutorials in place and merely reword them.
Your example makes sense to me. Sorry, I was thinking of "tutorials" like the character creation one that didn't have any mission objectives, it was just orientation.
Your verbose example is exactly how I would like to also see missions and tutorial missions. Actually, players will get used to finding the mission summary so there might not be a need for having a brief mode. (Maybe you could collapse the text with a button.) This is exactly how I played Guild Wars and I loved their point form. In fact, once you accepted a quest, they put the point form on top and they went so far as to bold and colour the keywords inside the story text as well. Beautiful.
Your verbose example is exactly how I would like to also see missions and tutorial missions. Actually, players will get used to finding the mission summary so there might not be a need for having a brief mode. (Maybe you could collapse the text with a button.) This is exactly how I played Guild Wars and I loved their point form. In fact, once you accepted a quest, they put the point form on top and they went so far as to bold and colour the keywords inside the story text as well. Beautiful.