The first time I played World of Warcraft was almost five years ago. The most recent time I played WoW, the game was more than five years old. The newbie experience has… changed a bit. Digging a bit into the newbie experience of WoW 2005 vs. WoW 2010 vs. Allods Online, it’s interesting to see where things have gotten better… and perhaps, where they haven’t. These observations are mine alone in the newbie areas of the games.
These are relatively uncontrolled nonnormalized experiments, so this is far from scientific, but it has still been interesting to me to see the differences and changes.
Years ago, playing as a Tauren Shaman, I got the sense that the game was approximately 70% running from place to place, sometimes carrying various body parts for a quest. The remaining 30% was either combat or waiting for combat, since those were days when I waited for named critters to respawn. Ah, when the lowbie areas were populated, eh? I didn’t mind it much, since most of what I do in these games is look around at stuff and take screenshots, but I did get the vague sense that I wasn’t progressing very quickly at all. That only mattered indirectly, as I needed to level up and get better gear to go different places. It was a 14-day “buddy key” trial, but even so, I never even got far into the Barrens. I walked up the hill from the Tauren lands into the south end of the Barrens, got stomped by some giant purple Kodos, and then went back to roam the grassy plains for my remaining time in the game. It felt grindy even then, since leveling was fairly slow and new tricks and tools of the Shaman trade never did present themselves. I was just an anthropomorphic cow, casting spells and whacking monsters with a stick. I only remember getting one totem. It was a neat little trick, but I had hoped to see more of what the class had to offer.
Five years later, there are all sorts of new toys for the newbie. Sure, I was playing Mortiphoebe, a Forsaken Warrior, but leveling seems considerably faster. Critters have cursor-hover tooltips that tell me if they are part of a quest and whether I still need their body parts to complete my quota. The map has an integrated quest tracker, complete with locations conveniently marked to tell me where I should be, what I should kill, where critters roam, what fiddly bits I need to collect, and what the questgiver promised in return. I can even reread the quest text right there in the map. (The official quest log is still there and useful, but going through the map is simply a lot more informative.) Popup tips seem to be more common and descriptive, but that’s especially hazy, peering back into the distant plains of 2005. All in all, though, the game has a higher level of polish, is easier to understand, and as such, more fun. There is less running around blindly (except when I want to go off in the wilderness), more doing stuff. It also seems like drop rates of body part collectibles has been altered for the better. There is still some weirdness with liverless wolves and the like, but it seems like I can get the requisite components more frequently than I did years ago.
Allods Online’s newbie experience is similarly streamlined. You’re rushed through some carrier quests, a few kill quests, and leveling is fast… for a while. You get useful gear much quicker than you do in WoW, even today, but that makes sense since AO is even more gear-centric than WoW. You wind up geared to the teeth pretty quickly, at least giving the illusion of power earlier than you would in WoW. The pace of character ability development is still pretty glacial, though. You do have more tools earlier than in WoW, but once you’re out of the newbie zones/instances, things are pretty slow in both cases.
The AO map is more descriptive than WoW2005, but less useful than WoW2010. To be sure, this especially will be a matter of taste, as some players want to explore and wander the woods, while others just want to know where to go. I find myself ambivalent, since I do like exploration… but it’s also nice to have pointers when I just want to get moving. It’s worth noting that even with a superdescriptive map, I can still wander around if I feel like it, but without a useful map, wandering is pretty much a given, whether or not it’s welcome.
AO has no minimap, though, which is actually pretty annoying. Once you learn an area, or get used to popping open your full map every minute or so, you’re OK, but I’ve always seen the minimap as a way to compensate for the lack of peripheral vision and good spatial cues. Scale is way off, with simple building doors being easily 15 feet or so tall… but then, we get that in WoW, too. It’s a stylistic choice, but it means instinctive spatial cues are skewed. There are glowing icons that show you what direction vendors and such are in, which is extremely nice when you wander into a busy town, albeit a wee bit visually cluttered. Good UI design dances a fine edge between too much and too little information, but I tend to like UI that leans to “too much” rather than “too little”, especially when the spatial and directional cues of a game world aren’t what I’d like.
Speaking of UI, though, major bonus points to Guild Wars for being almost completely customizable out of the box. Yes, WoW has addons and scripts, and Allods Online is moving in that direction, but when you can change your UI without third party nonsense, that’s a thing of beauty.
At any rate, it’s fairly clear to me that AO benefits from being a part of a generation after WoW hit the mainstream, and similarly, that WoW itself has made good moves over the years, trying to make the newbie experience better. Some will certainly call this the “dumbing down” of the genre or WoW in particular, but it’s my experience that getting newbies up and running with the fun stuff as quickly as possible is a good idea. Making new players grind through twenty or more levels before the game starts being fun isn’t good design.
Speaking of which, however, I’d like to see a couple of changes for Cataclysm.
Hunters should be able to tame pets from the beginning. Apparently, there’s a not-insignificant number of characters who never get past level 10. Ignoring for the moment that such data tells us all of Jack Squat about retention, conversion, monetization or anything truly useful to the financial guys, and that there are probably many bank alts and the like clogging the data, there are some game design implications. Level 10 is when you first start to understand the Hunter class since you can finally tame a pet. If you never get past level 10, it’s entirely possible that your impression of a Hunter is of a gun/bow-wielding, weak melee, sting-y… mess. Those first ten levels are completely wrong for getting a handle on the long-term interest of a Hunter. I call that Bad Design.
Similarly, Druids should get Bear Form and Cat Form before level 5 or even earlier. The core of Druid appeal (at least for me) is shapeshifting and flexibility. Why make the first ten levels of a Druid be Just Another Caster? You may as well play a Mage. (Shamans are lame in the early levels, too, before totems, but not quite to the same degree.) Sure, keep Treeform and Moonkin form deep in their talent trees, Aquatic and Travel forms are fine where they are (better as early as they now are than as late as they once were, though), but the core “caster/healer-tank-melee DPS” flexibility of the Druid really should be embraced as early as possible. It’s a matter of getting a bead on the way a class will play over the long haul as quickly as possible.
Also, I find it weird that some professions are available at level 1, but others require level 5. If I can manage to explore my way to the capital cities where I can find NPCs to teach me professions, let me learn them already, whatever level. Sure, keep the Expert crafting and such for those who have spent some time learning the ropes, but Journeyman professions can and should be opened to all. (Of course, I’d also let anyone learn as many professions as they like, but that’s probably pushing too far. Then again, it’s not like the economy really functions with all those level-capped characters throwing around their gold. The scale of the economy is pretty crazy at times, too.)
The newbie experience is crucial to pulling new people into your game world. The intro cinematics of WoW, with a flyby through the live world (I showed my wife how other players will occasionally run through the scene in these flybys, and she was impressed; that’s the magic of these MMO things after all), really set the scene well. Going from that (even as old as it is) to a pedestrian “kill ten rats” just isn’t going to cut it any more.
I can’t help but wonder if the MMO genre could benefit from some Metroiditis. Metroid Prime and even Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (so it’s not a new trick) start you with a powerful character, letting you play with a lot of toys right at the beginning. The player soon loses access to many of those options, but at least they have been teased properly, and the player knows what to expect later… and they itch to get there. MMOs that dump you in the world as a dude with a stick are perhaps more “realistic” (whatever that means in context), but they are also downright boring at times. Yes, this does seem to pull more to the “gamey” than the “worldy” design I’m so fond of, but that’s just working in the current framework; I’m talking of MMOs that are indeed more “game” than “world”, and they may as well play to their strengths.
Is it any wonder that we get the refrain “the game starts at the level cap”? That’s when everything comes together and your class reaches full potential. I’ve argued before that WoW could sell level-capped characters for immediate raiding (not unlike the instant level-capped PvP characters of Guild Wars) if that’s the part that really keeps players invested. Sure, that won’t be everyone, and you might need some restrictions on them, like making them raid-and-capital-only (no open world ganking on day one), but sometimes it’s nice to let players have more toys when they start playing, rather than doling them out via a drip feed of leveling. There’s a fine balance there, to be sure… but in a saturated market, you need to get people interested and having fun fast; you can’t tell them to wait for a month before it gets fun. Arguably, WAR did that, with early public quests and PvP craziness. They have other problems, but they do get up and moving fast, to their credit. Age of Conan’s best part is the first twenty levels (or so I hear, not having played it m’self).
Yes, I’m pretty powerful at level 1 compared to equal-level critters in WoW, but I’m boringly powerful. Cracking skulls with a stick while mild-mannered rats nibble on my toes just doesn’t give a fair representation of what the game will always be like. At least, not for everyone.
Tesh, they heard ya.
WoW.com reported that Hunters now start with a race appropriate pet. Ammo got removed. Hunters will also be able to swap between 3 animals out of combat and have a much larger stable.
I slightly disagree on having a pet right from the start. At least I would make it your FIRST QUEST. “Yo, young hunter! It is time for you to tame your first pet soul mate and become a man! To the left is the valley of the scary vultures and eagles, to the right the cave of night stalking predator cats. You can ask Counselor Longasc (with a ! over the head) for more information to find the right companion.”
I would of course let the NPC ask the player questions to determine his preferences and then give him advice on pets based on his answers.
The process of taming your first pet is a magic moment that should not get lost IMO.
But proper players play Warlock anyways. I hope they do not only revamp soul shards (a much needed complete overhaul was annoucned, so far looking good!) but also allow players at least to summon a different demon if you do not like the name. Renaming demons is not possible, unlike pets. Makes some sense. I do not want to see Succubi having the names of porn stars tbh. So maybe allow at least random rolls on the demon’s name…^^
I agree that forms should become available earlier. In the first 20 levels. Level 5 is a bit too early IMO. People level fast nowadays, and it is not good to overburden them with complexity early on.
MMOs are a bit a learning process, and you don’t want to throw them everything at the face right away.
Guild Wars struggled to find the right pacing and size of a “tutorial”. Nightfall probably did it best. Factions allows the fastest levelling and has the shortest tutorial, good for veterans. But newbies new to GW were then thrown immediately onto Canthan mainland which was DEADLY especially for Assassins early on. Exploding mobs and all that, very bad for weakly armored close combat specialists. My Necromancer was probably at the height of relative char power in Factions, tons of mobs and corpses. ^^
Factions allows fast levelling – but it did totally fail to teach players the gameplay basics/tactics beyond just pressing which button and did not give them time to get a feeling for the game. Which was already quite complex at this point. And Canthan mainland was and is really tough – for veterans. Poor noobs!
Nightfall was really an improvement in this regard, even the sloooow levelling in Prophecies was probably more likely to retain players and keep them interested.
Sidenote: I already said it on Gordon’s/Weflyspitfire’s blog, “quality of life” improvements are great in general. But there is also the danger of oversimplification. The game has already become a progress quest PEZ spender for rewards.
Ymir really nailed it in a comment at Wolfshead’s blog: http://bit.ly/9Oh1u8
Dead on about Factions!
First time babynugget tried Factions, before finishing Prophecies even once, babynugget ran away crying. XD
I love Factions now, but that’s beside the point…
To someone totally new to the game, I found Prophecies’ snail’s pace (to me now) much kinder.
“I would make it your FIRST QUEST.”
Agreed. It’s a great way to introduce questing and pets all at the same time. Good call on Warlocks, too; “rerolling” the names should be possible.
I just don’t see Bear and Cat forms as being all that complex, or Warrior stances, for that matter. Yes, I’m a “gamer”, and some newbies are completely clueless… but think of earlier complexity as a way to counteract the “dumbification”. If nothing else, as with the minimap example, if those options are there, people are always free to ignore them, but those who want them early can get on with playing. If *everyone* goes through the same slow drip feed of progress, the slowbies will be fine, but those looking to see what the game has to offer will leave when they have to qualify for the good stuff.
That’s why GW worked nicely with the instant PvP characters. They gave a good sense of how a class would handle, and then players could go back and do the leveling bit if they wanted to. Options and fun out of the box are a Good Thing.
Longasc, from what I understand Inscriptors create a sort of document with which you can change the demons name.
Tesh I think you already summed it up in two words: saturated market.
In 2005 although the genre was not new, it was new to most of us. Three Gnolls on a Camp fire, were really dangerous and you had to learn observing your environment for Respawn or Patrols.
Today, it’s as you said a saturated market, with one looking like the other and only marginal differences.
Fallen Earth takes a similar attempt to give people a impression of what Power will feel like. The Tutorial is held with a End-Level Character, while the Charater starts later on with Level 1.
Besides what you mention, never underestimate social aspects at the start.
You and I will never find as an efficient way to convince someone of a game as his peer will.
If you allow an already existing player to take his newbie friend to exact the aspect he loves at the game, you won him.
As you mentioned WAR found the right way in a level based game. But to some extend I think the importance of levels should at least be reduced so far, that it does not create progression barriers.
Since you are on consoles, let’s try an example:
Your enter the game with a Soldier in Basic Armor, freshly from the Drill ground.
It’s a Action based game, you Aim and Dodge personally.
Button 1 controls your Sword, Button 2 your Shield.
Pressing Button 1 will make your Soldier perform a normal forward Attack. He will take half a step forward and stab with his sword. This will roughly take one second.
To hit your target, it must obviously in front of you during the one second your soldier needs to perform his attack.
If you fight another soldier, you will probably wait until you see your enemy starting his attack animation, move to the side and attack yourself. Your enemy is “trapped” in his attack for said second, so you will hit him.
If you hold Button 1, your soldier will raise his Sword for a powerful swing, hitting everything in front of him. LEt’s say, this action takes 2,5 Seconds, and will be interrupted by any attack.
Button 2 controls blocking. Holding Button 2, your soldier will execute a Shieldbash. If the Shield hits the opponents Head, his crosshair starts to shaking (making targeting difficult), aiming at his knees will reduce his movement Speed.
Holding Button 2 while running, will force your Character to throw himself and his Shield against everything in front of him, knocking the Target back.
Our soldier only has two abilities in the game, but a lot of combination and situations to learn. Instead of giving a mimicked learning curve through levels, you just apply the gamers own learning curve.
Slower and easier Mobs will be at the starting location, while faster and more tactical mobs will be in the outskirts providing a challenge for experienced players.
Gained Experience can be directly invested into improvement of skills. The costs increase, creating a softcap. Possible improvement of skills could be, increasing movement or targeting a bit, faster execution of skills etc. In general, giving the player a possibility to customise his skills to his needs.
I do not have that fast reactions, so I will probably increase my characters speed, covering up my weak reflexes.
Since I already have every Skill I need in the game, and trying the game, because you told me, how much fun it is. I already have the best possible guide in the game: you.
You are able, to catch up with me at my starter Region, where I am practicing on slow pray. We will travel to your favorite location, where Mobs are probably much faster but since we are teamed up, they are a match for us.
Still you are probably the better equipped and experienced Guard, but we can really fight our way together.
I do run into a lot of translation issues when explaining the following game feeling related aspects, but I think you get what I mean eventually.
Usiel, indeed, a level-free game based on player skill is one direction I’ve written about a few times. I like it a lot, and it’s one reason why I’m still a huge fan of Puzzle Pirates. It’s not the same sort of game as you describe, but it’s still based on player skill.
“you just apply the gamers own learning curve”…
Exactly.
You’re right on the social side. It’s worth noting that a narrow power band means players can play together easier, too.
Nugget and Longasc, I still haven’t played Factions or Nightfall. I have actually started both, but haven’t gotten far. I really should to compare and study them.
The confusing thing about Druids as they currently are is having Talent points affect Spells and Attacks that you won’t have for another 5 to 10 levels.
I think getting Cat Form from a level 6 Quest is a good idea. That’s about when most people arrive at the first town (outside the start area) so it would be a great place to introduce Druid Forms. Forget getting Bear first though, that’s Tank form. Who wants to Tank at level 6? Not you! No! You want Cat Form at 6, then Bear at 10-12 so you can get a handle on it before you PUG your first Instance at 15-16.
It’s been a while since I played a Druid (and I’m saving it up for Cataclysm and a Worgen Druid! Yeah, baby!) but I also seem to recall Druid combat being not much more than: Wrath! Wrath! Wrath! OOM. Er…use my staff?
Whack. Whack. Whack. Ooh! Wrath! OOM.
Whack. Whack. Whack.
Gee, this is fun.
Actually it was probably more fun than a Paladin…
Hmm…er…cast Blessing of Might on myself, I guess.
Okay. Now…er…run in and…Auto-attack, I guess, and…
Watch as the two characters fight.
Watch. Watch. Watch.
Okay, Mob is dead, Health is okay. Find another Mob I suppose. Auto-attack, and…
Watch. Watch. Watch.
New Mob is dead? Ok, better heal myself.
Now. Oh, there’s another Mob. Auto-attack and…
Watch. Watch. Watch.
Ooh! Level 2! I wonder if get a cool new spell? No? Okay, back to Auto-attacking and watching I guess.
Cap, true enough, the Bear can wait a little while. I actually did like it between 10 and 20 for when I did wind up dealing with OOM, rather than staff bonking, but I much prefer the Cat. (Though perhaps that was the initial design goal; introduce the tank early and hope it sticks, since tanking tends to be less popular than DPS?) Oh, and yes, the talent weirdness is less than desirable. Glyphs follow a similar pattern, affecting abilities not yet learned. How often does this show up in other classes?
And yes, that sort of boring Paladin play is exactly what I’m trying to address. Autoattack + self-buff and spectator combat is just so… boring. I do love buffs and passives, but if we’re stuck with those for the introduction to the game, well… it’s no surprise that some players don’t get far.
Speaking of UI, though, major bonus points to Guild Wars for being almost completely customizable out of the box.
I haven’t played Guild Wars, but my prize for highly customizable UI goes to LotRO. Hit control-\ and an outline for every window pops up. Move stuff around to your heart’s content. Admittedly, it can be a bit overwhelming for a new player, but it’s nice to be able to move everything around.
They recently added commands for saving and loading interface layouts, too, which is nice. No more having to spend time setting up a new character’s layout the way I like it. When I started playing DDO, I was kind of surprised they didn’t have some of those UI options available….
The concept of slowly dripping core abilities to classes over several levels has always frustrated me. If I roll a Warrior, I want to be a ‘warrior’ from the start, not from level 20. WoW isn’t too bad in this regard actually and Cataclys will improve things and, for instance, give Hunters pets right from the start.
EQ2 was particuarly bad this when it came out and I loathe any game that has a unlocking class hierarchy system. I don’t want to be a generic melee class for the first 20 levels until eventually I get to choose my class, I want to enjoy it right from the start.
Brian, I *wish* I’d known that about LOTRO. That sounds very similar to the GW system, and I love it.
“I want to enjoy it right from the start.” Exactly, Gordon. DIKU-flavored MMOs can’t be Team Fortress, but they can sure be a lot more fun out of the box.
You two don’t have to tell each other about the one the other doesn’t know. Look at Warhammer, which the two of you know and has a fully customisable UI.
But don’t stress that topic to much, because it is a very nerdy one. Most people simply do not care about it much. What use has customisation, if you have no idea what the UI is about?
Keep in mind, you are veterans. So even if you don’t know the game mechanics, you intuitively know to evaluate the different displays. A Rookie might already be lost to figure out the value between Health and Action Points.
Now with that being said, help me on the track again with DIKU. All I found was Datalogisk Institute Kopenhagen University. So as long as you are not going to do Datamining on danish ladies, I guess you mean something else.
Usiel, I’ve linked to this before, it’s a good starting point:
Raph’s article on DIKU:
http://www.raphkoster.com/2009/01/09/what-is-a-diku/
Here’s a bit of a lateral question – why do the faults of this one particular game actually matter to you? I mean, there are many games out there, some made by one guy, many with glitches as well.
Have you been hooked somehow, that the faults of it matter to you?
Though in regards to myself I’d mostly think that about certain table top RPGs.
Three reasons:
One, this is the most recent MMO that I played, expressly with an eye to poking and prodding it. It’s a follow up from months ago, when I gave away the Arthas novel that I won randomly from a book review site.
Two, it’s big. It’s good to keep an eye on the gorilla in the room. WoW, for better or worse, is a mover in the industry. It’s good to try to see why.
Three, I’m curious. It never really hooked me like it has many of my contemporaries and friends. I want to see why, and try to derive a sense of what it really has to offer. There are parts of WoW that appeal to me, certainly, but all in all, it still just doesn’t do it for me, at least, not enough to become an unabashed fanboy and spend $15/month for years. It’s not a terrible game, but it’s not perfect. Looking at what it does right (and wrong) is just another bit of research for me.
I really don’t have a stake in this. I don’t work in MMOs, they just interest me, especially as a vehicle to explore game design. They are also a good way to write about game design without writing about what I’m working on, which can be touchy at times for political or NDA reasons. I have some ideas that I think would be good for MMOs, but little sense that anything I do here will really change anything.
If WoW specifically were to crash and burn tomorrow, or all the other MMOs were to crash and burn instead, I don’t particularly care as a player. As a designer and artist, I think it behooves me to pay attention. Maybe, maybe not, but that’s where I’m coming from.
Once I’ve exhausted what I have rattling around on this (perhaps boring everyone and causing assorted flame wars), I’ll move on to other topics.
*shrug*
Well, okay – it’s just that you phrase certain qualities as just failings – yet this sucker has around 10 million subscribers.
In a fiscal sense, that works. Granted it might be working despite all the stuff you point out, but it still works at a mercenary, fiscal level.
Since you didn’t appear to be noting that mercenary functionality, I thought you were working from a personal stake of some kind?
I mean, from a personal level myself, I agree on making the hunter pet first level, or that end level characters could be sold if end game is so great.
But if I was thinking from a mercenary fiscal angle, I don’t care about that stuff – I’d look at what does make the money, then after that how to stream line it even more so.
It depends on what you mean by professional – it can mean making well crafted, superbly made cabinets, for example. Or proffesional can mean making as much money from selling cabinets as possible – which doesn’t necessarily corellate with the former idea of professionalism.
Yeah, I do think that the “can’t tame until level 10″ is a failing. Players play their newbie experience totally differently from how the class actually will wind up playing. Ditto for the Druid. Progress is one thing, but players should know what they are getting into as fast as possible. Especially, if as noted, many don’t ever even get past level 10.
The “selling level capped characters” angle is a bit of a thought experiment. I’m not sure I can recommend it from a mercenary point of view. Players still grind up through the leveling content, after all, paying all the way. Selling characters would have to be more profitable… and I don’t think it would be. I think it would be better game design and customer relations, but I don’t think it would be more profitable. I think it *would* be profitable, but not more so than the current plans.
Agreed on the difference between profitable and professional, by the way.
But, in terms of profitable ‘players should know what they are getting into as fast as possible. ‘ – well, perhaps while this might seem profitable, perhaps it actually works (atleast with a certain demographic) to hook them in.
I’ve read alot of forum posts where someone writes ‘Does this get better’ and then a whole bunch of people chime in saying ‘Oh yes, just wait until…’
I mean, the whole thing about traditional mmorpgs is the ‘fun latter’ design – where you just have to wait and supposedly it’ll get better. When really it’s just about training people to wait.
The trouble with this design is that getting people to wait within the first five to ten minutes where they might give up on the whole thing, is tricky.
But speaking at a mercenary level, if you can hook them in then I think the pet at level ten makes sense, as it repeats the whole ‘wait for your reward’ mantra.
So as a games designer I think it’s flawed.
But my inner bastard thinks it works perfectly fine.
(Oh yes, I have an inner bastard. It helps me understand and predict people who have outer bastards >:) )
wow that was a quick response from Blizzard. grats Tesh
Here is a tiny nitpick:
In the world of MMORPGs, AO = Anarchy Online.
Acronyms are great and useful, but I think we would all do our industry service if we at least don’t allow new games to overtake and steal the acronyms of other games.
Similarly, I wouldn’t want a shiny new MMO to come along, perhaps named something like Universalis Online, and have people call that UO.
Nor would I like a sci-fi MMO called Eternal Quazars to become the new EQ.
It also seems like drop rates of body part collectibles has been altered for the better.
I understand what they actually did is implement a progressive drop system, so that if body part X doesn’t drop in a given kill, the drop rate slowly increases until you get one, after which it goes back down again. The average drop rate stays the same in that you need to kill 3n wolves in order to get n livers, but the variance is greatly reduced.