I’ve been playing quite a bit Star Trek Online lately. Well, I say quite a bit – I think I’ve logged maybe 10 to 12 total hours in the game of actual playtime, so I guess it’s not all that much. But this post isn’t so much about Star Trek Online the game, which might be fun, as it is about what the game serves as only the latest example of – and that is Cryptic’s absolutely terrible new player experience. Now when you use words like “absolutely terrible”, obviously you’re going a long ways down subjective road, and everyone has their own chocolate and vanilla. But for me (and it’s my blog), each game Cryptic makes seems to only make the starting experience worse, until the point has come when I’ve got to say my piece. Read on if you’d like to hear it..
It’s an emergency! You’re our only hope! Now read this wall of text!!
It started with City of Villains. In CoV, when you created a character, you were placed.. in prison. And there were sirens. And flashing lights. And smoke. And your initial contact is.. a prisoner, in an orange jumpsuit. You talk to him, and he tells you you’re in the middle of a prisoner breakout, and it’s every man for himself! Make a dash for the wall! First though, I need my pain meds.
The point is, every visual and audio clue you have screams at you with a sense of urgency. That this is a huge action moment! But it is against this incredible, immediate sense of imminent peril that they then ask you to learn the game. And to do it by performing relatively menial and chores and tasks, and by reading incredibly large volumes of text which attempt to explain the game’s very complex systems – all of them – while chaos reigns around you. In other words, just about the worse scenario imaginable in which to learn something.
Now I know where this philosophy comes from. It comes from what I think is a misguided attempt to correct the blasé beginnings of MMO’s of the past. Back in the bad ‘ol days, when you created a new character in an MMO, you were essentially a farm boy with a stick. And you were told to go out and use that stick to beat rabbits senseless until you were given a slightly bigger stick and told to go beat up wolves. And players complained vehemently (and rightly so) that beating up rabbits with sticks wasn’t heroic. They wanted to feel like a hero right from the get-go, they didn’t want to wade through 40 hours of play to feel like a hero, and if games wanted players to stay, well then by gawd they better let them be heroes. So in attempt to make that better, some game designers decided that the best way to let players be a hero is to throw them smack into the middle of a dire situation. And the player is the only person that can save the world from the dire situation. The action gets going, you do some quests, and by the end of the action you’ve saved the day and feel like a hero. Or at least you should.
No where is this more evident than in Champion’s Online. You’re even given a sweeping cinematic of just how bad things are, with the city in chaos and flames, evil nasty looking bug creatures swarming over the city, and a camera fly by that drops you smack in the middle of the chaos and a voice-over that urges you to go get them hero! No one can save them but you! And in Star Trek Online, it’s the exact same design choice all over again. You’re thrown smack into a pitched battle that rages across view screens against the most dangerous foes the series ever presented! And you have to take control and save the day!
There are a myriad of problems with this philosophy though. The first, and foremost of which is – MMO’s are really big games. No seriously. Even if you’ve played them all your life, there are a lot of systems there. And if you’ve never played one, or if you’re playing one that is significantly different from ones you’ve played before, there will be a lot of stuff to learn. So as a designer, you don’t want to dump all the systems on top of the player at one time. Your goal should really be to ease the player into the game, introduce the systems a little at a time, by allowing the player to achieve success using the systems you introduce, and then introduce new systems. But this goal of easing a player into the game by allowing them to perform tasks that introduce each system one at a time flies directly in the face of a goal of throwing the players into the middle of a huge action sequence. And this contradiction pervades every aspect of the new player experience. Because on one hand, you’re being told in every way possible that the world is about to end and you need to get to saving it, but on the other hand, you’re being given tasks that are trivial in nature (or have enemies that have been greatly watered down — I’m looking at you “erratic borg”) because they’re intended to teach you game systems.
The situation is made even worse when you rely on text to explain the game’s systems. Don’t get me wrong. Text is a perfectly fine way of explaining many of the game’s systems – especially those that don’t lend themselves to demonstration by action. How do skill points work? What happens when I die? What items should I sell and what should I keep? Players will want to know these kinds of things, and you should put the answers directly in front of them, not make them dig through categories and subcategories of topics in an esoteric help system off of a menu they’ll never find. But if you want player’s to learn those systems, to read that text, then you should provide an environment in which they feel comfortable taking the time to read that text. And does anyone really think an environment with warning klaxons blaring, explosions going off all around you, and angry bug creatures or borg running up to you and attacking you is really the best environment to learn about how skill points work? And if you do take the time to read all that text, and it’s okay, then you’re immediately struck with the contradiction again. Because as a new player, if the game is telling me in every way possible that there’s imminent danger, but the game is also telling me it’s okay to take the time to read this wall of text about skill system, then I know the game is lying to me. And suspension of belief is immediately destroyed.
I think the best MMO’s are the ones that recognize this, and account for it. In WoW, no matter which race you start off as, you start in a small, relatively peaceful village that is facing some relatively small perils, and you’re asked to pitch in and help the village while you learn the game and it’s systems. In Guild Wars, you start in either a monastery, or a fishing village, or a farming community. Again you’re asked to fight off some relatively minor threats to get the feel of combat and to give you a feeling of success. In DDO, you start on a beach, and soon join a band of seasoned veteran NPC’s, whom teach you the game’s mechanics as you help them fight their way through a small cave complex, with the NPC’s going the really hard stuff. In all these cases, the player is given fun things to do, but at the same time given them in an environment where they feel invited to take the time to read up on the game’s systems or to learn them as they go. They aren’t killing rabbits with sticks. But they aren’t being asked to save the world in the very first moments of a game in which you don’t know which end.
Thoughts? Comments? What do you think of Cryptic’s method of introducing you to the game. Love it? Hate it? Post it up!
January 18th, 2010 on 12:56 pm
Good higher-level observation. I HAVE found that there’ve been a lot of times in STO where I’ve loaded into a zone and felt an immediate sense of urgency: something is out there, heading towards me. Shields up! Load the torpedos! And then the dialog box pops up, and my throttle has been reduced to full stop. Or my Away Team is standing around smoking and playing cards.
I also dislike how it seems that there are far fewer instances of the starting area then there are of a exo-tutorial area. More people were packed into the new player zone then in any other, which meant that one has to contend with not only the Michael Bay-sized ’splosions, but also the jostling of legions of other players. How much of an emeergency can it really BE? We have 99% of ALL OF STARFLEET in this instance?
January 18th, 2010 on 1:07 pm
I agree with your analysis.
“And suspension of belief is immediately destroyed.”
This is a real important point you make: the concept of suspension of belief. A poor quality computer game, whether it be MMO or single-player often fails in creating that suspension of belief, so that the player can buy into the world they are experiencing.
There are a number of different approaches to creating suspension of belief: realistic visuals, convincing story-lines, crafting systems that have depth and are useful to player, a working player market like in Eve Online, or simply a well thought out PvP system.
Just one of these elements does not necessarily lead to good suspension of belief: it often takes a good combination of many of these game design elements.
I have become cynical about STO. Been reading player reviews on Internet now for last few days and overall – they are not that good, and many point out some of the flaws you write about.
Perhaps the best comment I have seen went something like: why is the bridge like a football field and looks like nothing out of any of the Star Trek franchise – i.e. Cryptic somehow came up with a Bridge that is uniquely their own. The Star Trek bridge being perhaps the central
set of the series … and Cryptic creates one that is barely functional
and goofy looking.
January 18th, 2010 on 1:15 pm
Also, last week someone on Twitter had been talking about something akin to this…They had mentioned games where you’re still learning the ropes well into your teens, 20s and beyond. It keeps the game fresh later on by introducing new systems, and doesn’t cram everything up front.
January 18th, 2010 on 1:22 pm
@jamenta – I’m glad you mentioend the suspension of disbelief thing, cause it allows me to segway a bit more into that, which I didn’t have room for in the post. WoW doesn’t lie to me in the first 5 minutes of the game. It doesn’t tell me I’m here to save the world, or that I’m the only person that can do it. It tell’s me I’m one of a number of adventurers, which is reinforced by seeing the people running around, and that if I want to help out, here’s how to do it. Same for EQ2, and a number of other MMO’s. But when games tell you that you’re the only person that can save them, or that you’re the “chosen one” (AoC), but then you look around and you see a zone full of other people doing the same thing, you immediately feel lied to.
@scopique – This touches on my current problem with STO, which is exactly the opposite. I feel like there are many systems in STO which the game expects me to know by now, but I don’t. I don’t know if it was because I felt so rushed through the NPE that I missed the explanations, or they just weren’t present. But trial by fire is not the best method of teaching, imho.
January 18th, 2010 on 1:44 pm
But you’re contradicting yourself. When you start out in WoW you are literally killings small-ish animals or tiny humanoid rat things. Which you say is the wrong way to go about doing things. But then you say WoW does it right.
I don’t mean to be argumentative. I just think for any new player experience out there, someone is going to find fault with it. I’d forgotten CoV but I *hated* that NPE because of those seizure inducing strobe lights. I had a headache within minutes of playing.
I didn’t find the STO NPE to be too bad until Open Beta when a 10 minute breezy intro turned into 30 minutes of laggy frustration. I didn’t even think about Skill Points until I was safely back at the Space Dock being told to go talk to some officer about Skill Points.
I find the DDO NPE to be god-awful to the point where I really never went back to the game. First I trail along with a high level group being useless then I’m dumping into a quest hub with no clue as to what’s going on. I hated not feeling like I had any control during that first part. I don’t want to be an NPC, thanks just the same.
I thought CO had a good NPE. Yes, you had to pause to read text, but if you’re going to complain about that, then aren’t you going to have to complain about that all through the game? How come I can stand here within site of a baddie but out of his “aggro range” and spend 20 minutes sorting through my inventory? Isn’t that just as immersion breaking? In CO the city was under attack. First you had to help the cops with those pod things, then you needed to grab some gear and run out to help the Mayor try to restore order. Once he was taken care of it was off to help citizens in need and then finally you went after the core of the problem. That was the smaller tutorial. Then you transitioned into the larger, longer tutorial where more systems were gradually introduced at the same time that you were given a much larger system to play around in.
Have you played Fallen Earth? I’m wondering what your opinion of that NPE is? It lifts some ideas from many single player experiences… you start at max level and then die (even though it really feels like you could avoid this…but you can’t) and your clone starts at level 1 with a sharp stick, more or less literally.
I’m not stating definitively that any of these NPE were good or bad, I’m just relating my personal reaction to them, which clearly doesn’t really jibe with yours (except for CoV).
I just think its nearly impossible for a developer to introduce all the systems in an MMO without going either too fast or too slowly for some portion of its players. As an experienced MMO gamer I want everything thrown at me quickly, via text boxes that I can skim rather than interactively. When a game makes me walk around and look up and down as a ‘quest’ before I can advance I’m tempted to quit and uninstall (Chronicles of Spellborn was awful about this). I don’t want audio, I don’t want interactive. I can read the info much faster than it can be fed to me via audio or an interactive triviality.
Whew! Kind of a rant… sorry! Bottom line, I don’t envy MMO devs. No matter what they do, some segment of their audience is going to think they’ve made the wrong choice.
January 18th, 2010 on 1:58 pm
To be honest, I can’t recall too many MMO starter systems in detail. To some degree, there’s knowledge that you have to start off with: Knowing who to talk to in order to get the ball rolling. At that point, there’s two design options…Wall of text, or segmented instruction through action.
I like LotRO’s solo instance method, and also DDO’s because each one has you MOVING while going through the systems; how to move, how to pick up, how to equip, etc. Each one then drops you off into a “starter” area which is not solo, but it’s also not connected to the game world at large. It’s a staging area. Finally, you get into the world at large, and you SHOULD be ready to go, for the most part.
My take home message in this article is that Cryptic seems to want to start you off with a bang, but with so many people in the starter area, doing it up big feels like trying to get on public transportation at 12:01 AM on January 1st. It’s a sensory overload, AND they are trying to teach you the systems at the same time.
January 18th, 2010 on 2:13 pm
I wonder if the shared instances for the new player experience in STO are because of the default open group setting for a new character. Might be a better design to force those initial instances (imagine how much more crushed the servers would be then) to be solo.
January 18th, 2010 on 2:15 pm
@Pete S: hehe well as I’ve said before, the first mantra of game design is that no matter how great, or terrible you may think a system is, there’s someone else equally convinced of the opposite.
But to address a couple of your points..
As to contradicting myself, well those kobolds were *much* more fierce than your average rabbit..
Seriously, the creatures you initially fight in Wow are not viewed as incredibly dangerous, but that’s the point. You learn the mechanics while not feeling all that terribly threatened. And within the first 20 minute’s of playing you’re killing defias henchment, which is certainly more heroic than your average bunny.
As for the suspenstion of belief throughout the game, you’re absolutely right. At some point you’re going to buy into the game’s mechanics. You’re going to learn the “gaminess” of aggro management, and “eternal now” of MMO’s (that time passes as you move through the game, but stands still at any particular place in the game), and that you’re a hero in a world of other heroes, each of which is “the special one”. The question is how soon do you hit the player with those suspension of belief moments. I would prefer to keep what the player percieves, and what the game is telling you, as consistent as possible for as long as possible. That’s not to say that you don’t eventually have to teach the player the difference, but not necessarily in the first 5 minutes.
And no rant worries – my post was a rant in and of itself.
January 18th, 2010 on 2:21 pm
I’m glad someone mentioned Fallen Earth. This felt like a really different new player experience for me and I really enjoyed it up to the time I was asked to start playing.
I felt like they were able to bridge the gap between a ‘boring’ start that had me doing something meaningful and at the sametime educate me on the basic mechanics of the game.
On the flip side, once I was ‘reborn’ and started as a level one I felt I had a rough grasp of mechanics but that I had no concept of ‘advancement’ in the game. That is, the whole skill and crafting system seemed to consist of random trainers who could sell me books like ‘handguns 1′ and ‘handguns 2′, ‘firearm combat.. and so on and so forth. I had no idea which books were worth investing in or what their impact to my character would be.
January 18th, 2010 on 2:58 pm
Ya know… maybe it’s time to separate the two — one tutorial to learn basic game-interacting concepts (inventory, where are the windows and how do I open them, how do I equip something, wtf are skill points) and one to learn the more advanced stuff or just to get started in the game world.
Hell, if you gave me an unlimited budget (I’m very persuasive!) I would probably do a slew of tutorial experiences. Have them linked with a logical progression but let each one be done on its own or entirely bypassed, depending on the player’s level of familiarity with games / MMOs / that particular MMO. Learn-systems tutorials I would make fairly dry (not boring, just not strobing lights). Learn-the-world tutorials could be more colourful — or just integrated into the “I’m a level 1-10 newb” experience.
Ah, if wishes were development-budget horses…
January 18th, 2010 on 3:02 pm
It is an “you learn swimming by getting thrown into the water” approach that only works somewhat because it is enough to press some buttons and “F” in STO early on. But I agree, it feels too frantic and rushed, and I also still somehow did not get the feeling of an attack. The first room you enter looks like a bar, some people run, others stand around. If you turn left, you see the Borg Cube. You can admire it for a while, if you want. This is quite peaceful compared to the alarm atmosphere…^^
They also fail at something else. They immediately send you from space to planet and back and you learn nothing but mashing buttons.
Even at level 16 I still have no idea what some of my modules actually do, like +5 Astrometrics. The powers you can buy later or are not described and people have trouble to find the ship requisition yard to get a new ship at level 11.
STO is very different from other MMOs out there and it would need some more explanations. If I would not have known Starfleet Command III I would have been totally overwhelmed by the space combat for sure.
The next thing is the Azura distress call – apparently also part of the starting experience. Distress call, suddenly pirates attack a ship. Your reward is an officer. Then you have to assign an officer with certain powers and you have goddamn no clue what they actually do.
This is not Champions Online – they have a bit more to explain this time. A “Starfleet Academy” you can skip for your next chars would have been nice.
January 18th, 2010 on 4:37 pm
BTW: The first experience in Allods is that the World/Allod you are on is about to explode. Or that your ship is getting boarded by the other faction in case of the Empire.
In contrast to STO this is a better guided step by step experience with much better explanation what to do next and why, despite the emergency start scenario you get quite well introduced to the game.
But the next areas, the extended starter area AFTER the tutorial, are quite peaceful and easy, even easier than Elwynn Forest. I found the Empire starter area to be rather trite, but that’s another story.
January 19th, 2010 on 9:51 am
[...] my old pal Dusty — who owes me money from a poorly-played poker hand last week — busted out an excellent article about mishandling the MMORPG new player experience, using Cryptic’s titles as [...]
January 19th, 2010 on 10:33 pm
I’ll throw in on FE as well as having the worst NPE I’ve seen (although I believe they’ve retooled it substantially since launch). The NPE started you off as a max level character and gives you lots of equipment / ammunition, to the point it played more like an FPS. Then it comes to the game, the pace is dramatically reduced and you find out every bullet costs money. The tutorial did a poor job on letting the player experience the game.
I don’t mind STO, ChampO’s or CoV’s NPE at all. Personally I can ignore the conceit of “it’s an emergency – read this text” because I think they give a good overview of the game and teach players what the game will be. Not everything, of course – Cryptic is bad at explaining the detail behind its systems – but enough to get me out there and playing fairly quickly.
I’m just finishing off playing a trial of Vanguard and the Isle of Dawn is actually a very long and very detailed area that teaches you how to play the game. Too bad the final temple then rises up to kick you in the groin repeatedly.
January 20th, 2010 on 4:21 am
[...] Ofcourse wrote But it is against this incredible, immediate sense of imminent peril that they then ask you to [...]
January 20th, 2010 on 12:27 pm
[...] Of Course I’ll Play It! thinks Cryptic is mishandling the new player experience [...]
January 20th, 2010 on 3:48 pm
I think the grand scale introduction to games is quite appealing and I’m sure very good at influence newcomers to the MMO genre (unlike us jaded veterans
).
Still, it does suffer in that immediately after the grand event, you’re forced to run mundane tasks and build your way back up again. If you start off saving the world from aliens, it’s a lot harder to scale the player experience than if you start off by killing a bunny rabbit.
January 22nd, 2010 on 5:27 am
[...] I’ll Play It has been playing Star Trek Online beta and has come to the realization that Cryptic Hates the New Player Experience. Check it out, it’s a good [...]
January 22nd, 2010 on 12:39 pm
I think as Dusty points out it the grand intro can be overdone though. What are we trying to do in the early stages of the game?
1. We want to ‘hook’ people. So flashy stuff may seem appealing, but if we kill the story or ‘return’ them to a state of killing mice how does this fit with their long term impression of the game.
In this respect, its almost an art of managing expectations. Where do I set the bar that shows yes this is a fun game to play? If I set it too high, then when actual ‘play’ begins the player will most likely be disappointed. Too low, and I’ve lost their interest.
2. I’m also trying to educate the player about a complex system. For some of us, learning is hard
. We need to make the game as easy to transition into as possible and at the same time ‘teach’ someone to play without overwhelming them.
3. What about reuse of the ‘introductions’. We understand that once a player has been exposed to the NPE, it could be very cumbersome or evening annoying to be repeated. The replayability needs to be adjustable so that the second time through, things are streamlined.
I think that Blizzard has done a fairly good job. You aren’t saving the world at the start but they give you just enough to take on at first. And I think one of the most important factors, is they start REWARDING you early.
The rewards come in that the game may walk you through how do I find and use something in my inventory, oh neat now I have something equipped. How do I accept a quest from that guy with the big exclamation? All the graphics and sounds are catered toward letting you know that you are making positive progress even doing small things.
Your first levels come early as well. This is GOOD for getting people hooked, we want to them to feel that rush of reward. Its also good for reuse. I can level 1-5 in under 30 minutes in WoW now that I’ve been playing for years. That is important to me as a veteran user of the system because I’m above killing grells
.
January 24th, 2010 on 10:46 am
The CO tutorial convinced me not to buy the game. There’s a piercing, grating siren sound effect that plays constantly throughout the entire tutorial that made me think of CO as an unpleasant place I didn’t want to return to. So I didn’t.
(Yeah, I know I could turn the sound off when I play the tutorial, but that’s beside the point. It’s like someone welcoming you into their home by trying to pour a cup of scalding coffee over your head. Even if you manage to sidestep the coffee you still don’t feel welcome, and it really makes you wonder about who thought this was a clever idea in the first place.)
January 28th, 2010 on 2:33 pm
Nice writeup, Dusty!
I agree — I am tired of playing MMOs and being told I’m the ‘chosen one’. It’s the one thing that worries me about The Old Republic although I’m willing to give it a chance.
I think WoW did it best — just start you out in the world in a nice pretty evocative area and let you learn things at your pace. I never felt lost nor did I feel hand-fed.
I don’t play MMOs to be the lone savior of the world — that’s for single player RPGs. I play an MMO to be part of a living world! Show me that world and why I want to live there.
I will say for a hybrid starting area, I think LOTRO does a fine job. You get to do something exciting and see the world change but never felt like you are the lone savior either.
Also, I don’t mind starting out small — why else do I play an RPG other than to see character growth?