What do you think should intro experience look like?

[Magpieman]

We are well aware the new player experience is something we have not touched on in a long time and that currently, we leave players to go it alone very early on. As a result, the younger audience tends to drop out early on as they don't have a clear direction. This is something we are going to be addressing next, so I'd like to give everyone the opportunity to leave some ideas and thoughts on what it should look like (in your opinion) below.

The Current Intro Course

As you know we've been running this server for over 9 years now and in that time have tried pretty much every intro experience under the sun. As a result, we are fairly confident we know what works and what doesn't. We believe the intro course should accomplish the following 3 things:

1. Tell them the most basic rules and server concepts/aims (e.g. don't hack, it's PvP survival etc.)
2. Engage new players with something exciting and give them a taste of the server to get them hooked. (at least willing to give the server a shot)
3. Weed out people joining just to spam, advertise and hack.

The current course clearly hooks new players, gets them engaged, and a large number of them comment on how cool it was once they arrive on Loka. It is also long enough and hidden from enough from the community to prevent spammers, advertisers and hackers causing problems (the intro fight has also been quite effective at stopping bots getting through). Finally, it tells players the most basic rules (which is more than adequate) and that it's PvP survival, but an area it could improve is explaining more about what the server is and its aims/goals.

What a lot of comments from the community appear to suggest is that the intro course should act as a giant tutorial, teaching players the servers custom mechanics. We strongly disagree with this and even the notion of teaching them some more basic mechanics. It is critical that the intro course is short. People have short attention spans and if it's any longer than it currently is, people will leave before completing it. Players are also are going to have no interest in trying to take in the info and learn new things if they don't know if they are going to stick with the server or not. It's incredibly naive to think that we can teach people T Gen mechanics or how towns work when a player joins for the first time.

What We Plan On Adding/Changing

Other than small tweaks to messaging to players in the intro course our planned changes are focussed on the player experience post-intro course. This will start with taking over Minecraft's advancements system and using it as a guide/tutorial on what to do next. This would start off with things such as go to the docks area, get on a boat etc. and possibly reward players along the way with things like the basic keep on death armour. Then move them towards our next new feature which is camps.

Camps (which stem from froggyfruits original suggestion) can be started by any nomad in any non-town tile (perhaps some further restrictions) and would be a land claim on a 'mini hex' within a tile (wouldn't appear on the map). This would grant block protection and could be run with a single member. Advancements would be used to show you how to progress your camp and provide tasks to do. Any nomad can be invited to your camp (this may unlock an extra mini hex per player). You would be able to talk to other camps through a global camps chat channel, which would hopefully encourage them to join each others camp so they could form a town. Once you have completed the progression and have at least 3 players in your camp you can upgrade it into a fully-fledged town. (This means the new town fight will no longer be a thing and instead, you have to build a camp and work up to a town)

This would then unlock a new advancements page for towns and would contain advancements that would help build up your town and in the process teaching you about the various town mechanics. Once they are complete NPC's within the town will replace the advancements and help players by suggesting things they could be doing. This would also start to lead in to post level 25 town progression but I won't get into that here.

Other ways we will be improving the new player experience is expanding upon our dynamic tips system and using it in as many places as possible. These tell players about a mechanic as they discover it. For example, if you walk into a red wilderness for the first time, a tip will pop up telling you about it. This way players are not overwhelmed with info and are only told what they need to know when they need to know it.

The final improvement comes in the form of YouTube videos. We want to produce some quick, to the point tutorials, that explain various mechanics on the server. These could be linked when dynamic tips show up and act as a more accessible Wiki page/tutorial. We could also make them accessible in a /help menu. In a perfect world, we would also have multiple in-game tutorials, in the form of a command that takes you to a special tutorial world. This would take you through each mechanic and have you physically do it, such as locking doors or setting a town zone. However, currently, we feel this would be a waste of time/resources (would mean we couldn't work on other things as our time would be taken up on this) and 95% of players would ignore it, preferring to watch a YouTube video. As a result, the current plan is to only do YouTube videos.

Feedback

One thing that our changes doesn't address, is getting the key concepts of the server across to new peeps. Such as, teaching players what the goals/aims are, what gameplay is like etc. Perhaps encouraging them to watch a server overview video in the intro course would satisfy this, but it's definitely one of the harder problems to solve.

Hope this helps everyone to better understand our views and why things are the way they are. I want to encourage everyone, but specifically, those of you who have given feedback in the past on this subject to respond. Do you agree with us? Have ideas on how to improve it? Are there things missing?

 

[koi0001]

This would take you through each mechanic and have you physically do it, such as locking doors or setting a town zone. However, currently, we feel this would be a waste of time/resources (would mean we couldn't work on other things as our time would be taken up on this) and 95% of players would ignore it, preferring to watch a YouTube video

This was really the only massive suggestion to the current system I have. But sadly I don't think this would be insanely on somewhere like Loka.

From an experience I've had recently which I can somewhat related to Loka is Hypixel Skyblock. Like Loka, it's a totally unique experience with an insane amount of from the ground upwards work which is not found on many other servers. What really worked here was the level of figure it out yourself which was encouraged by hand held starter quests and completion of certain quests before being able to advance onto the next stage of the game.

How could this be employed into Loka?

This would then unlock a new advancements page for towns and would contain advancements that would help build up your town and in the process teaching you about the various town mechanics. Once they are complete NPC's within the town will replace the advancements and help players by suggesting things they could be doing. This would also start to lead in to post level 25 town progression but I won't get into that here.

This is exactly it, the only problem with this to that it's kind of limited to the town owners which might leave the average instantly town joining new members feeling still left out.

A bit of an out there suggestion but, it could be useful if there was some way players completing quests or guidance such as 'go to the RI' was directly advantageous to a town e.g. town achievement of helping new players and possible titles from new players.

 

[FoxyBearGames]

I like all the ideas listed by Mag, however, I have a few of my own. Number one, fix the town progression when this update comes out. This would help new players who are leveling up their towns overtime know what each level does, and not be confused by a town perk that doesn't work anymore. Another idea that I had would be to allow Slicers or Sentries to have access to the camps channel, or allow for the help channel to be accessed until a certain town level. Finally, the Wanderer role should be applied to anyone within a camp, until they join a proper town. Finally, my last suggestion, make the tutorial start out with the basics, however, allow for players to walk about spawn before they are able to finish the intro. This could be beneficial, in that, you would learn so much more about Loka without the buzz of Public chat and recruitment towns. Overall, I really like the ideas listed above and think this could work extremely well if done correctly.

 

[SayreSlayer]

As mag said, it's extremely stupid to have some bloated 2 hour long intro course on how to play Loka. No one at all would bother making that time investment for a server that they hadn't begun playing yet.

Perhaps a better substitute would be a rather short intro, explaining the general concepts of Loka, and then several quests for the big concepts? For example, you could have a short intro on the general conquest system, lore, towns, how to use portals, and then just launch the player into the server. Then, you guide them towards a few NPC's at spawn that can send them on more detailed, longer tutorials of things of their choosing, like making a town, ris, conquest fighting, alliances .This allows people who soley want to focus on pvp/conquest to be able to quickly join their towns and get ready to fight , and also allows new players to explore a little bit and start learning what THEY want to learn about first. Perhaps small, first time rewards to give incentive to doing these tutorial quests aswell? I feel like loka would really benefit from a indepth tutorial system, but a long intro course would be way too obtuse. Having optional, but heavily suggested starting quests, like an MMO, could be a good compromise. It probably would take up too much time though, so maybe youtube videos would just be better.

I somewhat like the camps idea but it just feels like it would take forever and make players who quickly get acclimated to loka jump through a bunch of hoops that could be optional instead.

 

[FroggyFruit1357]

I somewhat like the camps idea but it just feels like it would take forever and make players who quickly get acclimated to loka jump through a bunch of hoops that could be optional instead.

The point of camps is to allow players to instantly jump straight into Loka and not have to wait for other players. The main issue with new players making towns is the fact that you finish the fight and it says invite 2 other players to finish the creation of your town. Camps are the idea that you can run a small outpost by yourself or with another friend immediately and have a small claim of land that is hidden from the people that come to raid new players. It allows them a sort of grace period from the start of their town. The second point of camps is to in a way, prevent proxy towns. We have all at one point experienced a proxy town getting set up at the last week of the month with a bunch of pvpers ready to wipe your continent with little time left for you to prepare for next month's conquest. Camps are that in-between step to allow you to get acclimated to the server (or continent) before making the jump into conquest.

 

[SayreSlayer]

The point of camps is to allow players to instantly jump straight into Loka and not have to wait for other players. The main issue with new players making towns is the fact that you finish the fight and it says invite 2 other players to finish the creation of your town. Camps are the idea that you can run a small outpost by yourself or with another friend immediately and have a small claim of land that is hidden from the people that come to raid new players. It allows them a sort of grace period from the start of their town. The second point of camps is to in a way, prevent proxy towns. We have all at one point experienced a proxy town getting set up at the last week of the month with a bunch of pvpers ready to wipe your continent with little time left for you to prepare for next month's conquest. Camps are that in-between step to allow you to get acclimated to the server (or continent) before making the jump into conquest.

my main concern then is camps being seen as a replacement to traditional intro content like quests/tutorials and not a helpful addition. im not against camps as a concept, im against camps more as the ONLY solution to the current learning curve and retention problems. i actually think camps r the best thing to happen to loka for a while as many new towns die instantly. I think a good addition to camps would be turning pvp off, but I guess that goes against the lokan experience too

 

[Cryptite]

Camps are only one of many parts of the intro experience. The #1 thing players want to do after joining Loka if they aren't immediately added to a town is start their own/setup a base. Camps let them begin basebuilding quickly without having to find 2 other people or be told how Conquest Fights work.

The intent is to give you something/somewhere to "own" so that you already have an investment into the server. I observed 2-3 players yesterday join, ask questions about how things work, or try to ask to join a town only to be met with silence and thus quit.

Another part of Camps is that all camp denizens are linked with a global "Camp Chat" so all the "nomad types" can be a community while they organize among themselves whether they want to merge, where they are, etc.

 

[SayreSlayer]

Camps are only one of many parts of the intro experience. The #1 thing players want to do after joining Loka if they aren't immediately added to a town is start their own/setup a base. Camps let them begin basebuilding quickly without having to find 2 other people or be told how Conquest Fights work.

The intent is to give you something/somewhere to "own" so that you already have an investment into the server. I observed 2-3 players yesterday join, ask questions about how things work, or try to ask to join a town only to be met with silence and thus quit.

Another part of Camps is that all camp denizens are linked with a global "Camp Chat" so all the "nomad types" can be a community while they organize among themselves whether they want to merge, where they are, etc.

In that case, I think it would be a welcome addition. I'm still skeptical with advancements as tutorials for towns for some of the much larger mechanics of loka, those that a youtube vid really wouldn't do justice. If the tutorial for conquest was kept, available AFTER you start a town, and given the proper context w/ a youtube video or a quest, it would be much more effective. The only other things that really even need content would probably be ris and leveling, but they could be tackled quickly w/ a couple of small quests. Other smaller mechanics could def be explained how mag suggested before, but the big ones would probably be definitely worthwhile to make ingame explanations of so they're more accessible.

 

[FoxyBearGames]

The point of camps is to allow players to instantly jump straight into Loka and not have to wait for other players. The main issue with new players making towns is the fact that you finish the fight and it says invite 2 other players to finish the creation of your town. Camps are the idea that you can run a small outpost by yourself or with another friend immediately and have a small claim of land that is hidden from the people that come to raid new players. It allows them a sort of grace period from the start of their town. The second point of camps is to in a way, prevent proxy towns. We have all at one point experienced a proxy town getting set up at the last week of the month with a bunch of pvpers ready to wipe your continent with little time left for you to prepare for next month's conquest. Camps are that in-between step to allow you to get acclimated to the server (or continent) before making the jump into conquest.

I have to agree. One thing I'd like to stress is that the progression system in towns needs an upgrade with all this other stuff. Possibly you start as a camp, become a village, then a town (you can then join an alliance at town level), then become a city (these levels would show how established you are). I really think this would be the perfect time for a revamp of town levelling as a whole and for perks to be revamped. I'd also like to see this prevent proxy towns. Maybe add a player limit to villages and camps that prevents huge pvp armies from jumping continents. I know that proxies are a huge can of worms themselves, however, they just are not good for giving players a chance at claiming any land whatsoever.

 

[SayreSlayer]

This would then unlock a new advancements page for towns and would contain advancements that would help build up your town and in the process teaching you about the various town mechanics. Once they are complete NPC's within the town will replace the advancements and help players by suggesting things they could be doing. This would also start to lead in to post level 25 town progression but I won't get into that here.

i think they're gonna do that soon foxy

 

[Cryptite]

Don't think of Advancements as tutorials, they're more meant as guides of "what should you/can you be doing on Loka atm". They're more like goals to keep people on a track. They aren't good for full-on teaching.

 

[TheFreshLemon]

Camps (which stem from froggyfruits original suggestion) can be started by any nomad in any non-town tile (perhaps some further restrictions) and would be a land claim on a 'mini hex' within a tile (wouldn't appear on the map). This would grant block protection and could be run with a single member. Advancements would be used to show you how to progress your camp and provide tasks to do. Any nomad can be invited to your camp (this may unlock an extra mini hex per player). You would be able to talk to other camps through a global camps chat channel, which would hopefully encourage them to join each others camp so they could form a town. Once you have completed the progression and have at least 3 players in your camp you can upgrade it into a fully-fledged town. (This means the new town fight will no longer be a thing and instead, you have to build a camp and work up to a town)

"can be started by any nomad in any non-town tile" Are they able to start in a town's territory? If you make it so they won't have to fight for the tile, it gives the town who owns that territory no chance to fight this, and I don't want a Los Alamos & Gotham situation. Other than that it's not a bad idea at all.

 

[Magpieman]

"can be started by any nomad in any non-town tile" Are they able to start in a town's territory? If you make it so they won't have to fight for the tile, it gives the town who owns that territory no chance to fight this, and I don't want a Los Alamos & Gotham situation. Other than that it's not a bad idea at all.

We have not worked through all of the nuances with the system yet, but the general consensus is we don't want towns preventing new players from setting up camps/towns. It just drives new players away. Even if you look at the current way new town set up works, you cannot prevent a town being set up forever. Sure you can delay and stall it, but eventually, they will attack it when you're not on.

The current idea is for them to be able to be set up inside territory and while they remain a camp the town will still own the territory. This could also improve new player retention as they could build a relationship with the town who owns the territory, get help from them and eventually become an ally if the camp becomes a town.

We may want to add further restrictions on where camps can be placed like not being able to place camps adjacent to towns or not in locked territory or something like that. I'm sure the feature will go through many changes as we develop it and we'll most likely open it up for testing and feedback before launching it.

 

[Magpieman]

Perhaps a better substitute would be a rather short intro, explaining the general concepts of Loka, and then several quests for the big concepts? For example, you could have a short intro on the general conquest system, lore, towns, how to use portals, and then just launch the player into the server.

Could you go into more detail for what level of information you would expect and how you'd portray it to the player (walls of text?). To me what you are describing as a 'short intro' would be very long. On average how long should it take a player to get through the intro? 'The general conquest system' for example could mean anything from Loka is split up into tiles and you fight for them to conquest fight mechanics to the larger goals of capital.

 

[Mr_Void99]

Camps (which stem from froggyfruits original suggestion) can be started by any nomad in any non-town tile (perhaps some further restrictions) and would be a land claim on a 'mini hex' within a tile (wouldn't appear on the map). This would grant block protection and could be run with a single member. Advancements would be used to show you how to progress your camp and provide tasks to do. Any nomad can be invited to your camp (this may unlock an extra mini hex per player). You would be able to talk to other camps through a global camps chat channel, which would hopefully encourage them to join each others camp so they could form a town. Once you have completed the progression and have at least 3 players in your camp you can upgrade it into a fully-fledged town. (This means the new town fight will no longer be a thing and instead, you have to build a camp and work up to a town)

Bruh, this is such an awesome idea!I kinda wish this was already in place cause I just made my town XD

 

[SayreSlayer]

Could you go into more detail for what level of information you would expect and how you'd portray it to the player (walls of text?). To me what you are describing as a 'short intro' would be very long. On average how long should it take a player to get through the intro? 'The general conquest system' for example could mean anything from Loka is split up into tiles and you fight for them to conquest fight mechanics to the larger goals of capital.

Maybe not wall of texts, but just going as briefly brushing up on the major, unique concepts of loka, with a visual aid for each concept, perhaps. Start with conquest by saying something like "Land in loka is split up into zones called tiles, with varying levels of security. You can make your town in one of these tiles, in the wildnerness. You can control these tiles through "conquest battles", which are instanced fights that you can warp to. Go to x npc in spawn to get started on your town, and x npc to learn about pvp conquest battles!" Essentially, EXTREMELY short bulletpoints on what makes loka unique, and where to get more indepth tutorials at spawn. Probably only 1-2 minutes so people don't get bored and leave. You could add some pictures or whatever of the concepts as the text shows up to make it bearable.

 

[TheFreshLemon]

Maybe not wall of texts, but just going as briefly brushing up on the major, unique concepts of loka, with a visual aid for each concept, perhaps. Start with conquest by saying something like "Land in loka is split up into zones called tiles, with varying levels of security. You can make your town in one of these tiles, in the wildnerness. You can control these tiles through "conquest battles", which are instanced fights that you can warp to. Go to x npc in spawn to get started on your town, and x npc to learn about pvp conquest battles!" Essentially, EXTREMELY short bulletpoints on what makes loka unique, and where to get more indepth tutorials at spawn. Probably only 1-2 minutes so people don't get bored and leave. You could add some pictures or whatever of the concepts as the text shows up to make it bearable.

I agree. Loka's dynmap is unique and people don't know what tiles are. I also think the current get a charge + core is useless because I've only seen about 2 people actually remember how to do it out of a bunch. I like Sayre's idea because instead of just having a path of emeralds you can add these along the way to the path of spawn so they can read and learn as they go.

 

[Magpieman]

I also think the current get a charge + core is useless because I've only seen about 2 people actually remember how to do it out of a bunch

The current course clearly hooks new players, gets them engaged, and a large number of them comment on how cool it was once they arrive on Loka.

What a lot of comments from the community appear to suggest is that the intro course should act as a giant tutorial, teaching players the servers custom mechanics. We strongly disagree with this and even the notion of teaching them some more basic mechanics. It is critical that the intro course is short. People have short attention spans and if it's any longer than it currently is, people will leave before completing it. Players are also are going to have no interest in trying to take in the info and learn new things if they don't know if they are going to stick with the server or not. It's incredibly naive to think that we can teach people T Gen mechanics or how towns work when a player joins for the first time.

 

[TheFreshLemon]

All I'm saying is... a bunch of people come out of intro and still don't know anything about charges and core. Plus on the way to the bridge it's literally just emeralds on the path, so adding pop ups with some of Sayre's stuff ain't a bad idea. It hooks em, but it only shows one aspect that being conquest. A lot of people also come out of intro not knowing what to do.

 

[Cryptite]

I think the TGen fight is cool and shows the server is different, but when teaching players something; you typically teach them something they need to do/apply shortly. For many players they may go days, weeks before doing a real conquest fight so they've already forgotten what the into course fight was even for.

Our overall feeling isn't how we teach players, because most players are unwilling to be taught anything until it suits their interests. Even then the only way most people prefer learning is frankly just a YouTube video. What we feel is missing more than anything isn't teachable moments, it's a guide or a set of persistent objectives that keep players on a path of "things I should be doing next". They can learn along the way.

Most players expect a server to be McMMO, Towny, and Factions; three things nobody has to learn and so being told lots of things on a fresh server is a turnoff for a great majority of players.