I thought I'd try out the missions on gateway, so I tried to think like a new player and give it the full noob treatment.
1st. Movement. I'm guessing as an established player this will be handled by the startup process and let me know what to press.
2nd. The npc's look like normal players no special icons above their heads to point them out, that needs changing (same goes for the mission brokers planet side). How's a noob supposed to know which is player and which is npc?
3rd. Honestly I think we need established players there otherwise I just think that new players will be left confused and wondering wtf they're supposed to be doing. It might be because I'm an old player tp'ing to gateway so didn't get the real noob introduction but I was just left on the tp thinking 'ok what do I do now?'
It needs a structure i.e. a lesson in how to play EU. It should walk the player through with simple instructions that appear on screen. So if the first task is to go to the information desk and speak to the officials then it should be flashing on radar and a big flashing arrow above the npc in question.
There needs to be far more interaction between the player and the system Hanne (I think) has already said there are plans for this so no point in carrying on, but things need to be made totally blatent and they're not.
For instance, doing the mining mission I clicked on the broker and got the equipment (no help in how to equip it
) I dropped all the bombs (all nrf as well) before I should have
and only found out after clicking on the mission broker for the second time that I should be outside in the testing area dropping bombs I had just used
.
For an introduction to FPC and Calypso it kinda works but as an introduction to EU it kinda fails. Honestly MA need to be doing this. They need to create their own planet to introduce players to basic concepts like the terminals, how to equip and the inventory. At the end of that let the player decide which planet they will to start on and then start with the introduction to each planet and its story.
Why not build it into the game so it runs locally, that way everything can be interactive but not put any strain on the servers. Like the avatar creation screen but as a self contained world. This way they can be shown how to buy things from the terminals, how to craft, how to mine, how to equip armor, how to drive
and how to shoot with no need to worry about people doing things wrong. Stop them from entering EU proper until they've followed the list of things to do unless they choose to ignore them at which point they have to acknowledge the choice.
They should also get the option to run around with their avatar and see if it looks ok or not
and adjust it as many times as they like until they're happy. Why not allow players to try the area again (with certain things locked) if they want to, if we're going to beta test stuff then we need to try it out as well.
