dorotea said:((It wouldn't be hard to have both, honestly. You could have the 'island' area where trial accounts start. Once they hit level 10, they're locked - can't leave the island, can't chat, can't trade, etc. If they decide to subscribe, they're taken to character creation and can start a new character in the typical starting areas.))
Not a chance of this working. The level 10 character would have to remain playable after it took a boat to one of the starter areas or maybe to one of the level 10 areas.
I don't see why not? If I were to try out Pantheon for free, that's actually how I would prefer it.
One of my main reasons for signing up for beta was the chance to try out the game and learn the basic ropes with no fear of making bad decisions that would haunt me forever. At launch (read: after subscribing) is where the real journey begins.
Trasak - I agree with you in general but for a free trial to really do its job and give potential subscribers a good taste of Pantheon I think it needs to be in the real world not just a scripted tutorial. By real world I mean one where you can move around as you see fit, harvest a bit, craft a bit, chat, group and so forth. A starter island (or remote location - need not be an island) where you have no access to any chat outside of that area but get the full range of game experience within that area strikes me as close to perfect. The one weakness is it doesn't put you with all the subscribers - but few of us *want* free trial accounts able to spam chat, sell gold, grief or harass on the mainland and we all know that free play attracts too many people that will do all of these things. Because they are not nice people or because they are 12 years old.
Jabir - I have no data to prove it and therefore I may be wrong but I think that most potential subscribers would be less likely to do a free trial if they knew any time they spent would be "wasted" since their character would go poof when they subscribed. I also think that when the time came to subscribe many that liked the game would be more likely to click on "pay X to subscribe and continue your adventure" than "pay X to subscribe and start a new character".
This opinion is based in part on the expectation that it will take significant time and effort to get to level 10 in Pantheon. Not weeks or months of full time play to be sure but more than just a few hours. If we were theory-crafting how a free trial should work in a game like SWTOR or Rift or LOTRO or EQ2 etc. where you could get a new character back to level 10 in 1-2 hours now that you knew the game a bit I would be more likely to agree. Though I still might think that enforced ...toonicide ... would discourage potential subscribers.
Here is a link to a video that was made by one of the players. It didn't show crafting or diplomacy that was available on the island but it gives you an idea of what it was like. It was seemless as far as graphics and game play going from it to the subscription world of Vanguard. Virtually everything was available aside from a bank.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWLf3AcqIL4
I think one of the things I liked so much about this trial area was it was familiar to me after I played it. I took all my characters through it because there was valuable gear for one, but it really made you learn your character. You had an idea of what your character could do before you ever got off the island. The dungeons were tough, not many people could solo them. So it also required you to group up and learn to play with others quickly. I ended up with 4 or 5 max level characters in Vanguard. I enjoyed them all honestly. Vanguard in the end had really good class balances and needs.
But getting back on topic, the Island set you up well for when you were ready to exit. The quest lines and gear/weapons they had were class specific and really useful for quite awhile. You kept everything going from the Island to the subscription land. They had quests where you learned how to control flying mounts. But they didn't hold your hand either, you could go to a place and grind to level 10 on mobs if you so choosed. It was all a matter of what you wanted to do.
Everyone seems pretty intent on overcomplicating things. No need for any tutorial setting that shows off every aspect of the game, no need for entirely different servers or zones, just slap trials with a handful of restrictions and let them run off in the world like anyone else.
Iksar said:Everyone seems pretty intent on overcomplicating things. No need for any tutorial setting that shows off every aspect of the game, no need for entirely different servers or zones, just slap trials with a handful of restrictions and let them run off in the world like anyone else.
Yep. Nothing more is needed.
Vandraad said:Iksar said:Everyone seems pretty intent on overcomplicating things. No need for any tutorial setting that shows off every aspect of the game, no need for entirely different servers or zones, just slap trials with a handful of restrictions and let them run off in the world like anyone else.
Yep. Nothing more is needed.
Agree!
Maybe one pop-up that says something to the effect of. "You're in Our World Now" and send them on their way!
Iksar said:Everyone seems pretty intent on overcomplicating things. No need for any tutorial setting that shows off every aspect of the game, no need for entirely different servers or zones, just slap trials with a handful of restrictions and let them run off in the world like anyone else.
While that introduction tactic works for heroin it’s a pretty terrible user experience. Any game more complicated than “I slap you” requires some form of instructions or directions. The more complex and deep a game is, board, console or computer, the more rule explanations and instructions are required to have a good new user experience.
I think trial accounts should experience the real game from the get go, let them play with other players and have adventures. I agree with restrictions but they have to be done right, you cant just say "No chat" in a game that is about grouping and socializing. I can understand restricting trade, if they want to get free items from nice souls they can subscribe to the game to receive items. It does run the risk of having low level troll accounts that just want to cause mischief for a few hours though and I'm not sure how to tackle that other than making the starting areas hard to troll in.
I don't think putting them on a starter island is the solution as they should start in their founding city and grow a real connection to the area and its citizens.
The problem with this content has historically been that it is so cookie-cutter-y. Every single "starter continent" or "starter quests" or "tutorials" is _exactly_ the same. We all know how to play MMOs.
Run up to a mob. Press A to attack. Click on the guy with the exclamation point over his head. We don't need tutorials for those things, man.
xrotzak said:The problem with this content has historically been that it is so cookie-cutter-y. Every single "starter continent" or "starter quests" or "tutorials" is _exactly_ the same. We all know how to play MMOs.
Run up to a mob. Press A to attack. Click on the guy with the exclamation point over his head. We don't need tutorials for those things, man.
Games are a lot more complex now days than Everquest was. Lot more add ons, features, game mechanics. More than just running up and hitting a mob. If I would have known how easy smithing was to make banded in Everquest I wouldn't have spent hours killing skeletons at level 7 in gfay for cracked staffs. I didn't even know smithing existed. I just ran out and killed mobs. Sure I had fun but I could have been a lot more efficient with my time.
Kellie said:I think trial accounts should experience the real game from the get go, let them play with other players and have adventures. I agree with restrictions but they have to be done right, you cant just say "No chat" in a game that is about grouping and socializing. I can understand restricting trade, if they want to get free items from nice souls they can subscribe to the game to receive items. It does run the risk of having low level troll accounts that just want to cause mischief for a few hours though and I'm not sure how to tackle that other than making the starting areas hard to troll in.
I don't think putting them on a starter island is the solution as they should start in their founding city and grow a real connection to the area and its citizens.
People can group and chat on the starter area. Nobody ever said they couldn't. They just can't log in free accounts and bother paying subcribers with gold spam. Everything in the starter area is just like the game, it's just separated with small amounts of tutorial explaining what all the game offers and show casing its features.
xrotzak said:The problem with this content has historically been that it is so cookie-cutter-y. Every single "starter continent" or "starter quests" or "tutorials" is _exactly_ the same. We all know how to play MMOs.
Run up to a mob. Press A to attack. Click on the guy with the exclamation point over his head. We don't need tutorials for those things, man.
Except it isn't going to be quite that simple. There won't be any NPCs with a big yellow ! over their head. Also consider, it's possible that Pantheon will attract people who are new to the genre (it won't be a first person shooter, for example). Those folks might appreciate some time (especially since it's free) to be educated in things about the game, like tradeskills, harvesting, the perception system, etc. Running up to a mob and pressing A might not be the smartest idea if some mobs have a root/alarm mechanic and you suddenly find yourself with half a dozen mobs instead of the one you whacked initially.
Kellie said:I think trial accounts should experience the real game from the get go, let them play with other players and have adventures. I agree with restrictions but they have to be done right, you cant just say "No chat" in a game that is about grouping and socializing. I can understand restricting trade, if they want to get free items from nice souls they can subscribe to the game to receive items. It does run the risk of having low level troll accounts that just want to cause mischief for a few hours though and I'm not sure how to tackle that other than making the starting areas hard to troll in.
I don't think putting them on a starter island is the solution as they should start in their founding city and grow a real connection to the area and its citizens.
I agree with this. If Pantheon is trying to promote community-based play then player separation should never be considered under any circumstance for any reason. New trials are potentially long term players and as such, they should be exposed to the community and the world that they are wanting to be apart of. People make the argument that pantheon is aginst instancing so I don't see why they would ever consider creating a separate trial area designated just for trial accounts.
However, on the topic of instancing, zone lines are technically a form of instancing and zones are basically just instances on a large scale. Pantheon could make it so trail accounts couldn't progress past the first zone line. This would keep the whole trial zone concept, while not removing these players from the rest of the community and world. These players could also have restricted trade, auction house capabilities, mailing capabilities, banking capabilities... etc.
I understand people making the argument of gold spammers, however, these will always be present in any game regardless of free trails. From experience, if someone wants to do something bad enough they will find a way to do it. It's not fair to group a whole population of the player base away based on the negative actions (and potential for those negative actions) from certain members within that group.
xrotzak said:We all know how to play MMOs.
Are you suggesting the game will only be played by old players already in the genre, which is a playerbase that will ultimately decline because we are all born to die and the older the faster ?
There need to be new players, and pantheon can be their first MMO.
Trasak said:While that introduction tactic works for heroin it’s a pretty terrible user experience. Any game more complicated than “I slap you” requires some form of instructions or directions. The more complex and deep a game is, board, console or computer, the more rule explanations and instructions are required to have a good new user experience.
I am not suggesting there be no tutorials or helpful information, just that there doesn't need to be a specific tour guide tutorial of all the features that each player might encounter in the game.
I imagine there will be optional interface help in the settings that can go over the various parts of the UI if someone is lost. If a player wants to know more about the basics of their class they can ask (or skip) their starting class/guild master (I'm imagining an EQ style starting note that leads there). Same thing for crafting etc.
Or even an in-game, menu accessible encylopedia that gives general explanations of all the various features like caravans, progeny, crafting, perception/questing, trading, stats, etc.
The argument "we all know how to play MMOs" has two problems, one major and one minor.
The major one - as others have said - we want, and VR wants, new players to be attracted to join we old fossils in the game. People that may have just dabbled with the genre - not long enough to have learned at a deep cellular level that in a MMO "tab" typically means target nearest mob amd "r" typically means reply to a message and ....... Maybe even people that have never played any MMO and want to try it out. These are people that quite reasonably will be confused by things we consider so basic that we can't imagine a player not understanding. Like what the term tank means. After all in the real world tank is a dps class <. Or what the term mob means. Some of them will not have been *born* when the term mobile in the MUDs was shortened to mob and then simplified to include even stationary enemies.
The minor one - we and VR want Pantheon to be very different. Someone moving over from WoW may have never been in a guild - may have never been in a *group*. Until endgame you don't need to be in a group.
As long as the tutorial is optional we are talking about a quick simple introduction for those that *want* it. I find it close to incomprehensible that some of us get all excited and upset at the thought of people that want a five minute introduction actually getting it.
Now a starter island is very different from a short tutorial and I can understand quite well why some of us might object to that. This post is focusing on the objections I notice above to even having a tutorial.
That was my main reasoning for the trial, or isle, or however you want to do it. Is attracting new blood into the game. Every MMO that has been released has been relatively easy by most standards. At least the ones I've played. And if Pantheon is truly trying to get back to that EQ feel it's going to hit people like a truck. Especially those that don't understand common MMORPG lingo, or hotkeys.
So many games go free to play shortly after release because they basically fail. Or the people running the show decide a cash shop would net more money. This will be a subscription based game and if you want to draw people in that have never played an MMO or at least one to this difficulty it might be best to give them a bone so to speak. I'm not saying it's going to make millions more for the game. But if it's an added feature that people can choose I don't see the harm in having it.
There has been good points for and against it. And ultimately it's up to the developers to decide how they want to handle it. It's been a long time since a major MMO title was released and successful and maintain that success and build on it. Most all of them start out great then fizzle out and become a ghost town. I say the more options the merrier for people. This game doesn't have to obtain WoW type subscription status to survive and thrive. But it shouldn't be shutting its doors to any random casual or other type of player either.
dorotea said:Jabir - I have no data to prove it and therefore I may be wrong but I think that most potential subscribers would be less likely to do a free trial if they knew any time they spent would be "wasted" since their character would go poof when they subscribed. I also think that when the time came to subscribe many that liked the game would be more likely to click on "pay X to subscribe and continue your adventure" than "pay X to subscribe and start a new character".
This opinion is based in part on the expectation that it will take significant time and effort to get to level 10 in Pantheon. Not weeks or months of full time play to be sure but more than just a few hours. If we were theory-crafting how a free trial should work in a game like SWTOR or Rift or LOTRO or EQ2 etc. where you could get a new character back to level 10 in 1-2 hours now that you knew the game a bit I would be more likely to agree. Though I still might think that enforced ...toonicide ... would discourage potential subscribers.
That makes a lot of sense, but I disagree with the premises. The free trial should be a chance to get to know the game a little better than watching the plethora of videos available at launch. The goal should be to make as many people as possible buy Pantheon, not to have as many people as possible try it for free. You mention that it would take a significant time to progress to level 10, but why should that even be seen as a goal in its own right? If you know that you cannot take your progress with you, and you like what you see, wouldn't you be more inclined to purchase the game before you reach level 10? And wouldn't that be the ideal outcome?
Jabir - you and I think much alike. I have done free trials but never have I kept the test character(s) even though I normally could. If I like the game I take an hour or so looking around and making sure it has features I consider essential and then I subscribe. By features I consider essential I mean interface features and camera angles - things that only actually playing the game will demonstrate well. If the camera angle hurts my neck and I cannot adjust it adaquately I leave (spouse and I both had that problem with SWG). If I cannot increase fonts to let me easily read text - in UI elements not just chat - I leave. If I need to memorize 2.000 slash commands to control ...wait that is how EQ and to a far lesser extent Vanguard worked - never mind.
You may be right that most people think the way the two of us do but comments I have seen on forums over the decades tend in the opposite direction = that a lot of people want to just keep the character and keep playing without having to go back to the start. Thus my comments which as I noted are based on no data whatsoever.
This is a critical issue to VR - I am content to assume that they have far more experience than we do and may even do a survey or poll to test the waters before making a decision if they are not sure. Not here - directed to the wider audience.
Moloka said:xrotzak said:The problem with this content has historically been that it is so cookie-cutter-y. Every single "starter continent" or "starter quests" or "tutorials" is _exactly_ the same. We all know how to play MMOs.
Run up to a mob. Press A to attack. Click on the guy with the exclamation point over his head. We don't need tutorials for those things, man.
Games are a lot more complex now days than Everquest was. Lot more add ons, features, game mechanics. More than just running up and hitting a mob. If I would have known how easy smithing was to make banded in Everquest I wouldn't have spent hours killing skeletons at level 7 in gfay for cracked staffs. I didn't even know smithing existed. I just ran out and killed mobs. Sure I had fun but I could have been a lot more efficient with my time.
Have you watched the streams at all? Combat so far is exactly that...See mob, run to mob, hit A, spam a couple of other buttons..profit. I hightly doubt entry level content is going to get any more difficult than that. As for all the non-combat stuff? What player wouldn't immediately run off to some wiki page giving them everything they could ever want to know about crafting? Those will be up and running the day the NDAs are finished. There is no mystery anymore.
One of the things that kept me in EQ in the early days when I was struggling to just kill skeletons, was random stangers aiding me, and providing tips and help, random buffs, the mid 30's cleric who /whispered "need a rez?" when I wandered too far into Nektulaos and had no idea where I was as I ran around randomly tryingt o stay alive.
You won't get that on a newbie isle. Most newbie isles are full of people just trying to complete the isle so they can get into the real game.
Vandraad said:Have you watched the streams at all? Combat so far is exactly that...See mob, run to mob, hit A, spam a couple of other buttons..profit. I hightly doubt entry level content is going to get any more difficult than that. As for all the non-combat stuff? What player wouldn't immediately run off to some wiki page giving them everything they could ever want to know about crafting? Those will be up and running the day the NDAs are finished. There is no mystery anymore.
You're missing my point entirely I guess. There are other aspects in the game other than just whack a mole. Take Vanguard for instance. I started playing and got to level 30 before I even picked up crafting, and 50 before I started diplomacy. Had I known crafting was so much fun in that game and I could make my own armor and get key recipes and materials as I leveled it would have made things much easier on me. Diplomacy, I could have raised civic buffs that would have aided me and my group along the way.
Things like this enhance an experience. Make it more real for some people. Make the game more enjoyable. Sure there is databases flooded with this stuff once the game is out, but I don't want to tab out and look at some website every time an item drops to see if I can use it for something. I want to play the game and enjoy it. I want to feel like I'm in another world, not one dictated by what a website says. Not every person wants to be spoon fed how to do something. They want to figure it out their way.
Moloka said:I want to play the game and enjoy it. I want to feel like I'm in another world, not one dictated by what a website says. Not every person wants to be spoon fed how to do something. They want to figure it out their way.
A little ironic, no?
Wanting the game to explicitly show new players all the different things they can get into like crafting, diplomacy, whatever else... sounds a little spoon feedy, like something that would go against a "world not game" feel that people who like to figure things out their own way might not like?
The problem with a tutorial/trial area (or even server) is one huge draw of Pantheon is community. Impossible to get a feel for that if you are just in a noob zone (which is possibly, later in the game life cycle, very empty).
It would be very different to what VR want (different character levels and player experience levels mixing is hugely important for community and an open world feel).
Yes, there are many issues with trial users mixing in the live game world, but hopefully the experienced VR team can mitigate those.
I don't see another way of properly 'trialing' Pantheon than joining in with the main game.
