Newbie area idea

[Onstar]

So every MMO has to have a newbie section. Well it doesn't have to, but if a beginners area is properly implemented and fun then it benefits the game by giving beginners (to the game and genre) a chance to learn movement and UI controls. It also separates the newly initiated from the world inhabited by higher lvls trading and chatting. This type of separation also makes it harder for gold sellers and such from populating the game. (this is one of the reasons AoC is making a single player mode till lvl 20) So here is my idea for the start area!

Taking from this line in the story... " Now those that die find their way through the stream, but their story does not end there. They are reborn onto Kaos..."

Well my idea is having an area where everybody starts out the same (only having previously chosen their sex). You enter the world butt-naked (mature rating) with nothing but clenched fists and grin on your face. There could be some fighting or exploring and getting an intro to the game. Then after a selected amount of experience points or story line progression you would be presented with a choice... Like having to eat an apple (Humanity), eat a snake (Deva) or eat the man who offered you these silly choices (Algar/cannibal). Thus you get a pretty cut-scene and come to a screen that allows you to choose your looks and such and then get pooped out in the real world.

I don't know how well this fits into the story of Kaos War but I'm bored and just thought this would be interesting. Another good point about a starting area is if you want to offer a trial of the game. You allow people to play this "human" who is not a real part of the game, but they get an idea of how the game is played and if their computer can handle the graphics (a big thing which i think holds back a lot of people from trying out pay to play games). Also playing a character that is not a part of the real game would leave people craving to try out the different factions.

A downside to this would be forcing people to play a character that is not "theirs" every time they want to re-roll. So you could implement skill advancement in this character as to not loose any progress made.

[Mister Matt]

Wait so you're completely naked with your dong out until you get put in the real world?

[Onstar]

nudity is cool!! haha no you don't have to be naked. I'm just attaching silly things to the jizz of my idea... errr, gist.. gist o my idea. ;D

[Moloch]

A few years ago I was following a game (Mythica - which MSGS dropped for Vanguard, before realising what they'd done and on-selling) and writing op ed pieces on game design.

IMO ...

(There are) three stages of the game that really matter: the introduction, character growth and the metagame ...

In the introductory stage the toon is created and the gamer educated in the basics of the interface, the toon's characteristics and the game mechanics ...

The growth stage of a game is about having fun while interacting with the environment to grow a toon. This may involve gaining material possessions, increasing statistics and skills, choosing specialisations, and establishing a reputation among the NPCs and gamers of the world (which includes roleplaying). It also involves honing the gamer’s ability to manipulate the game learned in the introductory stage ...

(But it is the metagame) that keeps gamers playing and enjoying their play. Extrapolating from a British Educational Communications and Technological Agency report on gaming motivation we can say that a metagame needs to encourage active participation, worthwhile rewards and penalties, challenge, and a mix of uncertainty and open-endedness. Now I’ve already said that Dev designed content is almost certainly not the way to provide this. Instead the answer lies with the interactions of the Gamers themselves, and their guilds, clans, and other groups – gamer generated content.

[trast]

It would be cool to have a military inspired start area for the humans, you know with the frustrated, screaming seargent. Yelling at you, tellling you to do this and that, like picking up a ranged weapon and shooting on moving practice targets, going through an assault course, just basic stuff you would see in any war-movie. =P

[Mister Matt]

Trast just gave me an idea for a question. Will there be voice-acting for quests and stuff?

[Will]

Yup. We haven't decided how much voice acting, but we're recording voice overs for our first alpha stage stuff. It's more interesting and immersive when there's voices but it can push the filesize of the game up by leaps and bounds if you try to overdo it. Pretty sure there's a nice balanced place to be, and we'll find that. Needless to say, voice overs aren't exactly priority #1 atm

Definitely for the in-game cinematic-driven quest sequences though. Bosses and the like should say cool stuff when you fight em, no question.

[Onstar]

Voice acting in an MMORPG is what I've been wanting for a long time. If you include it for the main story driven quests i think that would be pretty involving. I know most people would probably skip past it but those who care about having an actual mmoRPG experience would really benefit from this. I know diablo did this and i really enjoyed it. Another style is making in-game cut scenes like Guild Wars. Those were decent but i never really liked the whole idea of cut-scene progression in a MMO. Plus when you want to watch a cut-scene and have 5 other guys wanting to skip it you either watch it nervously or just plain skip it as well. Sounds do add a whole lot more to game size but by the time this game comes out game size shouldn't be a problem.

[trast]

I still remember the first time I encountered the boss Vaelastraz in WoW.

You enter the room where Vaelastraz is, then set up for the fight, the tank goes there to talk to him and you can hear this massive and loud voice saying : "Too late… friends. Nefarius’ corruption has taken hold. I cannot… control myself. I beg you Mortals, flee! Flee before I lose all sense of control. The Black Fire rages within my heart. I must release it! FLAME! DEATH! DESTRUCTION! COWER MORTALS BEFORE THE WRATH OF LORD….NO! I MUST FIGHT THIS!"

And then everyone just get's a red lightningbolt into them, and the fight starts. It's was awesome ;D

[Spartan]

FYI,

For the Cutscenes / Cinematics / VO's, why don't you have those download and auto install as a patch, to save CD/HD/BR space. :)

The really important scenes / vo's can be on disc.

[ToN]

i dont know about everyone else but some intro's are bad

for example "you have found an apple right click on the apple to eat it"

perhaps an ingame manual instead of newbie quests?

[a chewy rock]

i dont know about everyone else but some intro's are bad

for example "you have found an apple right click on the apple to eat it"

perhaps an ingame manual instead of newbie quests?
Noobish quests are indeed boring but are often times required. It's a a part of almost every game.

[Senuma]

I really like newbie areas. I beta tested a game called Immortals US that just dumped you right into the game and when you left town you were mobbed by 10 lvl 1 monsters that pretty much killed you before you could even sneeze lol (very embarrassing being killed by lvl 1 frogs). You soon learned to be very careful and to find a good spot to try to lure mobs to you very carefully.

For someone new to the game newbie areas are a good learning ground to get your feet wet before you go out into the big bad scary world. hehe.

[Damon]

I like killer frogs...
Great idea!

[Valkazon]

Been playing Voyage Century lately and one of their starting lvl critters are hedgehogs - lmao when I first encountered them, brilliant :D

[Nighthawke]

You may be able to implement a system similar to Guild Wars (the original version). During your newbie phase, you're in an 'earlier' version of the same world, before a cataclysmic event. Scenes are idyllic and tranquil, and its a perfect haven for new players-- there are even characters who never progress farther than that point, but rather make a living (so to speak) in it without ever going to end-game areas.

What may be a possibility is creating a similar 'early' world that introduces a player with a relatively easy-going beginning to help set a nice gradual learning curve, without the dangers and hazards (such as, in WoW, walking into the wrong passage and getting slammed by a a Fire Elemental four or five times your size and level).

[Brionntateg]

Here's the problem I see with that. You limit your playing base to almost exclusively men, and you loose a fairly large number of the teenage male crowd whose parents are paying for their gaming.

You lose almost all of your adult female base (and yes we play, we pay, and we LOVE our games) and a fair number of the younger females for the reason above.

I think it would be a huge marketing mistake.

[Brionntateg]

A great newbie area sells the game to all the friends and family who come by and get to knock out 20 minutes on your account goofing off with a brand new little you let them try out. Ok so you aren't supposed to ... but it's a common way for people to hook their friends and get them to join up for some real campaigning.

Also, I have always many characters. I like to try out various combinations, skill sets and such. So I'm playing in the newbie areas a lot. I love quests that are actually challenging for littles but that give them real rewards ... that signature newbie armor set ... woohoo!

For the diverse character player starting new selves shouldn't just be doing a simple grind of boring gameplay to get to level 10 or 20 ... whatever the magic level is. It should all be fun and diverse. It's the initial impression of the game, it solidifies our desire to play, it sets the tone for everything that comes after it, and it's where some of the best and most lasting friendship among players are made. It's also the right place to start learning group dynamics.

[amz181]

Bad example i know, but im gonna say it anyway, because it is actually pretty good. Im gonna mix this with my own ideas

In runescape theyve got a really good way to do a tutorial and a newbie area, you start off on an island, and you follow around guides that teach you to do various things, actually letting you do them. You could have a sort of accademy for each of the races, so three different maps, all with different NPC's an teaching style. so a Human accademy, Deva cathedral, Algar whatever, i thought of those off the top of my head. So from the start your seperated from different races making the gaps in between larger.

Then when you complete the island then you graduate, you then go to a town, which is mainly based with noobs, in runescape this would be lumbridge, and this thus lets people get to the basics before they go into the real world. And to make sure that its a noob area only have the shops with low armour and weapons so that the other cities will immediately become the better cities for trading.

This would be so easy to do and would already create hate between races, and i forgot to metion when you go to noob town its seperated again, like how it says on the site that all the people are in different cities.

[Kayden]

Voice acting in an MMORPG is what I've been wanting for a long time. If you include it for the main story driven quests i think that would be pretty involving. I know most people would probably skip past it but those who care about having an actual mmoRPG experience would really benefit from this. I know diablo did this and i really enjoyed it. Another style is making in-game cut scenes like Guild Wars. Those were decent but i never really liked the whole idea of cut-scene progression in a MMO. Plus when you want to watch a cut-scene and have 5 other guys wanting to skip it you either watch it nervously or just plain skip it as well. Sounds do add a whole lot more to game size but by the time this game comes out game size shouldn't be a problem.

For my first post on this seemingly long thread. I had to stop and quote this person. The bold text was my main focus of this post. There isn't enough gamers in this world who see this way. The story that is thought out by the developers. Many people don't play these games for the story, so why have it. If most of the gaming community are just gonna skip through it and say "I'm only here cause my friends thinks this is cool." then why go through the trouble of producing that much information in your gaming codes to make it that interesting story wise?

Answer; because those of us that do play a game for the never ending story or the story that may have an ending. We enjoy to kick back and read, or watch or even listen. I found out thats why when a game is live it takes me forever to lvl because I'm to busy with the story. Though durning my beta testing I can fly through the lvls cause the story isn't fully devoloped and I don't want to emerse myself in a story untill the game goes live any way.

Now I'm generally falling in love with the concept of doing in game cut-scenes, I think that will be the setting point of the a great game for people who play games for their story as well as their game play value.

Okay back to the rest of the thread.

[Kayden]

I really like newbie areas. I beta tested a game called Immortals US that just dumped you right into the game and when you left town you were mobbed by 10 lvl 1 monsters that pretty much killed you before you could even sneeze lol (very embarrassing being killed by lvl 1 frogs). You soon learned to be very careful and to find a good spot to try to lure mobs to you very carefully.

For someone new to the game newbie areas are a good learning ground to get your feet wet before you go out into the big bad scary world. hehe.


Lol you got mobbed by the frogs too? Man I thought I was the only one. yeah I threw that game in my trash bin. I thought it would be pretty cool, but you have no sit fuction or a way to heal yourself over time. Its kinda like, "well here you go, your gonna die now." and your off.

Newb areas are generally the intro. Lets say you walk into a store and see Kaos War sitting on the shelf and you pick it up, read to see if your computer won't be stupid trying to play this game. Read the back for the very short discription of the game, and the game features. Set it down, look around some more and have that games very short discription stuck in your head while your walkin' around the store. You start to think, Maybe I should get that game. You spend the 60 dollars it is for games nowadays, you spend another 15 for the monthly fee(unless you happen to go with a 14day free trial). So far you've spent 75 dollars on a game that you only bought because you thought the damn discription was cool. Well might as well try it anyway. You pop it in and wait for it to install. During this time you decide to clip your toenails and watch the game instale. After installing you finally load the game up and come to find out that you have 7 1gig patches you have to wait to download cause your a newb. So you decide to take a shower, while in the shower your thinking about this damn game you picked up at the store. Why did you buy this game. You don't even know why, though you bought it anyway, might as well play it to see if it was worth it. When the patches finish you finally get to make your account(unless you did this while waiting for it to install or the patches to download), log-in, and make your character. Once you've decided on the looks, the class, the race, and the name your aloud to enter the world of Kaos. Now think, lets say you've never played an MMO before, or even worse you've never played an RPG before. Your not going to know what the hell your doing right. Well lets say Kaos War has no tutorial zone. What then huh. You try your best to learn, ask a bunch of questions in chat hopping someone isn't going to be a dick and say look it up. No your not. Your gonna quit the game and chuck it out the window. Plain and simple.

Sorry about the long senerio but thats the gist of things. With out the beggining area people can't really just pick it up and learn. They have to have a MMO and RPG gaming experience before they can even consider this game. A good way to solve the mess of doing this over and over again when you reroll or your an alt-aholic, like myself, you can have the option of joining "boot camp"(for instance) and have that be the tutorial zone or you can choose to join the world right away. Thus saving the people who have already done the tutorial to skip it. Though lets say you added some tutorial exclussive equipment to it. Stuff you can only get by doing the tutorial. That will be the deciding point of the use of the tutorial zone.

As far as how you wanna go about it its generally up to the devs to design it. All we're doing is adding to the imagination pool.

*Gonna add my idea to a good way to start a tutorial out.*
I'm gonna play off of the original posters idea.

By starting out and just picking a gender, you can be entered into the game by a cutscene, by clicking you can skip this cutscene. But if you watch it you get a general idea of what is going on in the game. You never really get to move at this point. You learn about the three different factions. Some things about them. Then your taken to a spot where the body of the gender you selected is standing there. In the sence naked. Only thing convering them is cloth for the private areas. This point allows you to select your race, character features(hair, height, size, eyes, color, all these kinds of things). Now having a little discription of each race is a good idea for determining what faction they want to join. Moving on. Once you've decided on your looks and race your taken to a small map, be it personal or a community map. You'll learn the interface, controls, and a little bit about each class. Thus starting out as a civiallian, once you have finished the tutorial your next quest will be to choose your class. Thus being simple and easy to learn.

Now as I said before, having the ability to skip the first cut-scene, and also the ability to skip the tutorial would be pretty nice, for those people who just skip through everything. You click and your automaticaly in the part where you choose your race and looks. then you have the option of going to the tutorial area or being sent straight into the battle field. This leaving it open for both parties.

Anyways, I gotta go kick my brothers ass. Its his birfday. take care everyone.

[Mister Matt]

I agree with Kayden on the boot camp thing. I can't stand always starting out in the instanced noob area in LOTRO. I would like to have the option to skip it for when I make a new character.

Here's the problem I see with that. You limit your playing base to almost exclusively men, and you loose a fairly large number of the teenage male crowd whose parents are paying for their gaming.

You lose almost all of your adult female base (and yes we play, we pay, and we LOVE our games) and a fair number of the younger females for the reason above.

I think it would be a huge marketing mistake.

I really think if the nudity is done right/tastefully, it's alright. Like in Mass Effect. Now something like that new Conan game, that's done wrong.

[Mister Matt]

Here's the problem I see with that. You limit your playing base to almost exclusively men, and you loose a fairly large number of the teenage male crowd whose parents are paying for their gaming.

You lose almost all of your adult female base (and yes we play, we pay, and we LOVE our games) and a fair number of the younger females for the reason above.

I think it would be a huge marketing mistake.

I really think if the nudity is done right/tastefully, it's alright. Like in Mass Effect. Now something like that new Conan game, that's done wrong.

[Kayden]

Oh the did the nudity wrong in the new Conan game? crap and I was waiting to check that one out too....oh well I guess I can still check it out.....anyway I'm really lookin' forward to this game comin' out. I'm getting board with all the cheesy ones I've been passin' the time with....