New tutorial ideas

[Entropy]

I was thinking to remake the whole newbie tutorial. At the time I made it, back in 2004, the scripting engine was not as advanced as today (no support for popup messages, for killing monsters, for harvests, for making stuff, etc.)

So the idea is to make it more fun, and a bit more rewarding as well. Preferably to even have some sort of story to it, and make the player visit at least WS, preferably DP too.

 

So here is your chance to design the quest. Make a list of objectives, and the messages the NPC will give you. The best one will win a prize, and will know that they designed the tutorial.

 

P.S. make sure the tutorial can't be exploited by people using alts to get prizes and then give them to their main. That means, the item rewards should be towards the end of the tutorial.

[bkc56]

Removed as not applicable.

Edited April 7, 2010 by bkc56

[The_Piper]

Tutorial NPC:

 

Only one tutorial instead of 3.

 

"First,i will teach you how to use the TAB map. Press TAB to see a map of the place where you are.

When you move the mouse, you see at the left the "cursor position", that are X and Y coordinates.

When someone, a player or a NPC tells you X/Y coordinates, you can press the TAB key to see the TAB map, move the mouse cursor to those coordinates and click. And your avatar starts to move to there.

Try it, press TAB, then click on the map to move to some locations (you can't move into rocks, houses water), then try to come back to me. My coordinates are 162,139."

 

New option "Continue tutorial quest"

 

"Welcome back, so you can use the TAB map and map coordinates now.

Now, harvesting, getting resources: Go to 93,162, there are Tiger Lillies. Harvest 50 of them (right click until the cursor shows a pickaxe, then click on the flowers), then bring them to Lasud. She is at 64,136. Click on her and choose the option "Tutorial Quest".

 

Lasud:

"Thanks for the flowers, now try to enter this Tavern. Click on the door to enter. Thats how you enter houses, if there is a map inside. Inside the Tavern is Reca, another NPC. She might have another job for you. Click on her and choose the option "Tutorial Quest""

 

Reca:

"Hello $PLAYERNAME, yes, indeed, i have a job for you. Leave this building again by going close to the door and clicking on it. Then kill 10 rabbits and come back to me with the stuff they dropped. (When you kill a creature/player, they might drop stuff in a bag. Step on that bag and take the stuff, thats your bounty)."

 

Reca, part II:

"Oh, you killed those rabbits? Good, i am interested to buy the meat and bones, here are 30gc for it.

Frukas in Grahms Village, at the Whitestone map might be interested in the furs. To find him, leave the tavern, go south (TAB map), there is a small harbor with a ship. This ship has a flag on it. Click on the flag to move to the Whitestone map. There, press TAB again and click at the cursor coordinates 125,130, thats close to Frukas. When there, click on him and choose the option "Tutorial Quest".

But beware, at night gargoyles roam the Whitestone map and will kill poor newbies. When they get you, don't worry, just try again to go to Frukas. As a newbie, you dont lose items and the Tutorial NPC will heal you for free.

Next thing you need is food. Keep your food level, the yellow bar at the bottom of the screen positive, and you will regain health and mana, and harvesting wil be a little bit easier. Go down to the south, around 73,74 of Isla Prima, there are some newbie bags spawning, which have some bread and gold coins for you."

 

Frukas:

"Okay, the quality of the furs seems to be good, so my customer, Kalana, might be interested. Find her on the Desert Pines map. Go back to Lakeside, to the docks at 720,145 (TAB map), there is a second ship, which will bring you to the Desert Pines map. Kalana is there at 224,350 (TAB map).

Btw, i am a book seller. Later, you will need knowledge to be able to do/make things. And you wil get this knowledge by reading books.

So, maybe later, you might come back to me and buy some books to gain knowledge. If you don't want to write down my coordinates on a paper sheet, you can use map markers to mark my position on the TAB map. While you are standing close to me, type #mark Frukas and a mark reading "Frukas" will appear on the TAB map. So, to come back to me, you can just click on the mark on the TAB map. You can do the same with other spots, like #mark Sunflowers, #mark Secret_place and so on."

 

Kalana:

"Oh, yes, those rabbit furs are very nice. Listen, i will teach you how to make warm fur gloves. You need those rabbit furs and some thread. How to make thread? Thats the crafting skill and you need some cotton and food, hopefully you still have some bread from the newbie bags from Isla Prima. If not, dont worry, go to 251,295 (Tab map) here, there is a patch with cotton and vegetables. Harvest 20 cotton, and if needed, some vegetables there, thats food like bread. then come back to me."

 

Kalana II:

"Ok, to make thread, you need an artificial nexus of 1. Since you don't have it, i will make the thread for you. here are 4 thread. If you want to increase your artificial nexus to 1, go back to the Wraith at Isla Prima.

Ok, here have 2 needles.

Now click on the icon with the hammer and the anvil, thats the manufacturing window.

Click on the upper part of the window until you have 3 brown rabbit furs and 2 thread in the lower part of the window, then click the ">" button. And if all goes fine, you should have made a pair of warm fur gloves. That is the manufacturing skil. Well, you should have made at least one warm fur glove, now go and sell it to the General Store here. The General Store here is at 330,334, enter the shop and click on the NPC Stephan. Then choose the option "Tutorial Quest".

 

Stephan::

"Oh, you have fur gloves to sell? Thats really great, i will buy them with pleasure

Yeah, i have to buy your stuff, the god of the game forces me to do that, or i will lose my license for my shop. Next i might have to buy rat tails and sell them as shoelaces... If he really forces me to buy infected rat meat next, i will really move to ClicheQuest and run my own trouser shop!

But well, i'll buy your stuff, and even Kalana forces me to give you a reward. Here, this helm might fit, and this leather torso too. Lets see what else i have... Oh, a mighty sword and a shield of a mighty warrior..

Do you know already what a storage is? That is a place, where you can deposit your items. Later, when you leveled up, you will lose stuff when you die. But if you put your stuff into a storage,it is safe. Go down to 166,99, there is a cave with a NPC named Grim, he is the storager there. Click on him and deposit your stuff there. There are more storages in game than Grim, like Raven at the Whitestone map, the Newbie Storage on Isla Prima and such. Deposit your stuff in one storage and withdraw it at another one. Now go and find the storage."

[Entropy]

It is not bad, but there are a few problems.

- First, under no circumstance you should force a newbie to get a nexus, since you don't know what they want to do later in game, and it is very expensive to remove it.

- Options such as "Continue tutorial quest" sound ghay and are out of character. I'd rather have some RPing in it.

- There is no easy way to check if a player moved to some coordinates or not. Most of them will cheat and pretend they went there.

- There is nowhere in your tutorial where the player is told about the quest log, and how to check the objectives again.

- Finally, I would like to have the tutorial a bit more RPish, to make the newbies feel like they are into some story, not just do some objectives. That's the reason why I want to change the current tutorial.

[The_Piper]

It is not bad, but there are a few problems.

- First, under no circumstance you should force a newbie to get a nexus, since you don't know what they want to do later in game, and it is very expensive to remove it.

Agreed, that text of Kalana is not written very well. I meant, that kalana takes the cotton and makes the thread for the player. And explains, that there are nexus available and needed for some things. Well, i guess, this part must be rewritten for sure >.<

 

- Options such as "Continue tutorial quest" sound ghay and are out of character. I'd rather have some RPing in it.

True.

- There is no easy way to check if a player moved to some coordinates or not. Most of them will cheat and pretend they went there.

There is no need to check, if the player was at the given coords. If they dont move there, they wont find the NPC's, the newbie bags, wont be able to harvest cotton and veggies. If a newbie really cheats, for example, and harvest the veggies in DP near the old barn and not near the cotton, who cares? The quest still works.

 

- There is nowhere in your tutorial where the player is told about the quest log, and how to check the objectives again.

>.<

mentioning the quest log makes somehow sense....

- Finally, I would like to have the tutorial a bit more RPish, to make the newbies feel like they are into some story, not just do some objectives. That's the reason why I want to change the current tutorial.

Yeah, ok, i'll try to rewrite it a little bit more RPish. My only problem is, that all those technical explanations like, how to enter a house, how to kill creatures, how to use the TAB map etc. are not really good for role playing, they are still technical and a wall of text.

 

I'll try to rewrite it more RPish, when i get a good/better idea

 

Piper

[Entropy]

The non RPing stuff (like how to enter doors, etc.) can be given in a different color.

 

One more thing: Try to use the Tutorial NPC more, not just only in the beginning and that's it. Have him give various missions, like go to this NPC and deliver this book, stuff like that. And would be really nice to have a story behind it, not just use RP words.

[Elssar]

If you want more RP'ing then a good idea would be to change the TutorialNPC's name. Can't think of anything off of the top of my head, will come back with a name & more later

[Silvatica]

A better name for TutorialNPC given that the other NPC is called Wraith is Saint.

 

But other possible names is Angel, Entropy or just plain Tom.

 

As for the tutorial quest. Why not make it so Tom need some items and the player have to go out and get them for Tom. The "continue the quest" can become "Tom needs help"

Edited April 11, 2010 by Silvatica

[Raytray]

Tom usually helps others with items but he has ran out of supplies for new players. So now he needs your help in getting him "ingredients" so he can make you, the newbie, some starting gear. Along the way you can learn too.

[dipi]

- There is no easy way to check if a player moved to some coordinates or not. Most of them will cheat and pretend they went there.

There is no need to check, if the player was at the given coords. If they dont move there, they wont find the NPC's, the newbie bags, wont be able to harvest cotton and veggies. If a newbie really cheats, for example, and harvest the veggies in DP near the old barn and not near the cotton, who cares? The quest still works.

 

 

Use the eye icon in some object like Bertan ask for.

[Nova]

x

Edited September 20, 2012 by Nova

[Entropy]

Ok, that's not bad at all, but I would like you to elaborate on the NPC dialogues for various tasks, not jsut say: "he wants this". Also, "story: has the player kill a few animals, reminds them that the tutorial will heal them till ## OA. Gives info about armor and weapons. Mentions that the taverns will buy animal bits. Maybe mentions hidair. Warns about dying and droping items after lvl ##. Explains that there is a chance to get the bag back and that people sometimes find and loot bags so run back to where you died fast.". Make it a dialogue.

 

Furthermore, it would be nice if the tutorial mentions Haidir, Ayelle, and Xaquelina, so that the player will know where tog et the daily tasks and do the alchemy quest.

[Nova]

Ok, that's not bad at all, but I would like you to elaborate on the NPC dialogues for various tasks, not jsut say: "he wants this". Also, "story: has the player kill a few animals, reminds them that the tutorial will heal them till ## OA. Gives info about armor and weapons. Mentions that the taverns will buy animal bits. Maybe mentions hidair. Warns about dying and droping items after lvl ##. Explains that there is a chance to get the bag back and that people sometimes find and loot bags so run back to where you died fast.". Make it a dialogue.

 

Furthermore, it would be nice if the tutorial mentions Haidir, Ayelle, and Xaquelina, so that the player will know where tog et the daily tasks and do the alchemy quest.

 

Like i said, most of this is really rough. I put in enough info for now to get the basic idea of this quest across. You can see what I am going for and obviously compare this draft to the first one I sent you and you can tell that I am able to work with your ideas and wants. Fleshing this out fully and writing dialog is going to require a lot more time. I am willing to put that time in if this is the entry that you choose to put in the game. As it is I have been putting off some NPCs that Ace has been hinting about lately

 

Once the player gets thorough the basics like moving around, entering buildings, storages and all that jazz (which I am hoping won't take very long since most of the tasks are fairly simple and all are based right on IP), Farmer John can mention Xaquelina, Kyra can mention Haidir, Ios' first mate can mention Ayelle.

 

Good luck to everyone else who has ideas about the tutorial

[Shujral]

I like both of them, I wonder what Learner thinks about the first lesson being about coordinates?

[Nova]

Radu, I was just wondering if you had an idea of how long this contest/objective is going to run? Any rough ending date?

[nathanstenzel]

The very name "TutorialNPC" has meaning. In my opinion, the most that name should change is to "Tutorial_Guy".

 

The point being that the first thing that a player sees after they spawn on IP for the first time is "Tutorial" so they know they can get a clue as to how to do things from that character.

 

Sure, you could say his name is Tom, but he should have the tag of TutorialNPC or Tutorial_Guy and he should mention that he is better known as that.

 

On another note, there have been many npc's added to the game to help new players figure things out. Do the newb hints that show up till a certain level mention "You might try talking to the folk with the blue tags. They may have quests or interesting stories or information for you." or something like that?

 

Please excuse me if I strayed a little off topic, but since it is about helping the newbs get quests, I figured it was appropriate.

[Entropy]

Radu, I was just wondering if you had an idea of how long this contest/objective is going to run? Any rough ending date?

 

A month or so. Depending how many people want to participate.

[saxum]

One thing I learned later than when it would be most useful was using Mortar & Pestle. I think a good addition would be explaining to player about bone powder and have the player get a Mortar & Pestle, get 30 bones and grind them bringing the bone powder to Tutorial. The Tutorial could explain that rather than leaving bones behind when bag is full the player could grind bones getting bone powder, save space in bag and get alchemy experience.