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Tutorial Quest Redesign Part 1 - My ideas and your feedback

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Hello. For the next while I will be working on a redesign to the tutorial. My goal is to make

it better and more friendly to new players. As a noob myself, I have a view from a new player's perspective. I want to share my thoughts and get critiscisms and tips from more experienced players before completing my redesign, as I want to make it as good as possible because, even as a noob, I love Eternal Lands and I want to make it even better and easier for more people to love it.

 

First, I want to share my main issues with the current tutorial, to show why we need it modified.

 

For starters, it is, in my opinion, too long. I don't want to have to play 6+ hours to beat a tutorial. I just want to learn the game and get a good idea if I like it or not. People should not be expected to sink multiple days into a game to get a feel for what its like. Most people will quit before they even get to the good part. This length is partially due to my next point.

 

Secondly, the tutorial NPC is relied in too heavily. Why can't Ios, who needs summoning supplies like rat tails, ask you for 10 rats taiks making you kill 10 rats? Why can't Ayelle, who has you make fire essense, teach you how to gather the materials in various places and make the essense? Many tasks are stuck to the tutorial NPC when there is a better alternative that is already used in the quest. Walking (or teleporting) to the tutorial NPC just to go back where you were seems pretty useless, when you could save over an hour of players' time by using the other NPCs while at the same time having it make sense. The tutorial NPC should still be used in the tutorial for tasks where it makes sense to use him, such as telling you to talk to the wraith and talking about pick points. I just dont like how the NPCs in the quest are either over or ubder utilized, when they could easily be used productively.

 

And my final point, it doesn't feel enough like a quest. Thjs ties into my previous point. Increased use of NPCs makes it feel less like an extremely long tutorial, and more like a sereis of quests. It may seem like no big deal on paper, but in reality it can have a bigger effect than you might imagine purely because of the psycological factor. You may not fully understand the ig difference between making the tutorial quests called quests instead of tutorials, but if there is such little difference, it might as well be quests, right? No harm, now fowl, and it may even provide a benefit.

 

You may be wondering why I think we need a redesign of the tutorial now. There aren't many new players anyways, why do we need to cater to them? Well, 2 reasons. Firstly, the amount of new players that stick around can make ir break an MMO. A better tutorial = more players =more sustainability and potential profit for the devs. The second reason is the Android client that is coming soon. An adroid client for a game that will run nicely even on phones as old as mine (Samsung galaxy exhilerate thats even slower than usual due to use) is a good selling point for an MMO. If properly advertised and well made, it should bring a new batch of players to the game. And the mobile market has the least patience for stuff like long tutorials, but it is one of the biggest markets in gaming, if not the biggest. We want all these new players to have a better experience to increase how many stick with the game, and better yet, reccomend it to their friends. It is a huge market and we need to cater to it, or the android client wont be a success for bringing in new players.

 

Thank you for reading my long post. Please leave any ideas, critiscisms, questions, and complaints on this thread. My goal is not to say the current system is terrible because I didn't like it, my goak is to take the current system and make it better, which anything could use, no matter how good. I will take all feedback into account when redesigning the tutorial, so if you have any thoughts at all, please share them. Thanks you. Expect a Part 2 relatively soon.

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In MY opinion the tutorial should be changed especially because some of the steps are not marked/logged and with game and computers crashing you also logs. Many players get stuck and frustrated. The NPCs should recognize you have visited and completed step before (i.e. Kane and Arona would give different prompts to players who have completed their part of quest. Maybe achievements such has Tutorial I, Tutorial II, etc would help since they are not lost.

 

The whole past thing IMO is wasted time. It does not factor into game except for explanation how magic works.

 

The tutorial should not require any nexus; it is open nexus meaning characters should not have to take nexus and remove it if they do not want it. From what I remember you need to complete the Buni break armor quest, one of the worst quests in game since there are no reminders of what need to be broken by NPC, and that requires human nexus. Tutorial is not requiring fighter types to harvest Quartz, Emeralds, etc so why should harvest types have to break armor? Separate it out from tutorial. And frankly it is too long which violates your goal.

 

I would think in a true tutorial for this game players would do at least one thing from each skill:

 

Skills
Alchemy - make a FE (included)
Combat - kill a rat (included)
Crafting - violates rule requiring nexus - thread IMO should be 0 nexus
Engineering - make ashes (not included)
Harvesting (included)
Magic (included)
Manufacturing (included)
Potion (not remember if included) - easy enough to add potion of mana
Ranging (not included) - very difficult since game disassociates kill from killer EXCEPT for Haidir (and Novac?) quest
Summoning (not included) - very simple to add summoning of rats or rabbits
Tailoring (not included) - add white fabric

 

I also think a tutorial should handle the tricky thing of PK maps - players will kill weaker characters and it is part of the game hence should be part of the tutorial especially since there are required maps for Xaq quest with no passes (and no one would use a pass). Yes it may make players leave but players leave anyways if they get quest and lose items too many times on dailies they cannot pass (I know several players who got tired of getting killed for White Asiatic Lillies and quit.

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