Single Player Tutorial?

4507

I can't remember where I first heard of this, or if any MMO has done it yet, but the basic idea is to have a 3-5 hour tutorial set 5-20 years before the time the game is set where you play as a child/teen version of yourself through historical events that would otherwise just exist in lore books. There would be different tutorials for different races and factions, the object being to make you look at the game world through the eyes of your race/faction and feel a deeper connection to the lore of the game world.

For example, you might choose to play an dwarf character, so you play the tutorial as an eight year old dwarf learning to work in mines, forge metals, grow mushrooms, etc, as well as learning about dwarven culture, until the end where your mine gets attacked by a band of orcs and you are the only the survivor because you could fit through a ventilation tube to safety.

Do you think this could work in an MMO?

Scot

Brilliant idea, you could introduce new players to many features of the game and excuse teleporting them all over the place as this is their memories. After you climb through the shaft the camera cuts to a tankard of ale, zoom back to your beaded older Dwarf smoking a pipe talking about his close scraps as a youngster.

Lotro did something somewhat like this, but the past was not about you but some lore figure. Your version would be better for immersion, theirs for story.

Forgrimm

I liked that in Fable. It would be cool in an mmo.

iixviiiix

Most wow clones did it.

Po_gg

Scot said:

Lotro did something somewhat like this, but the past was not about you but some lore figure. Your version would be better for immersion, theirs for story.

Not somewhat, pretty much this. And was not some lore figure, it was you - if you were an elf since that's the only one with long enough life span.

Sadly at around HD and the arriving trait trees they've changed the tutorials, but originally the kickoff of the main storyline was the same for everyone (it still is, just shortened), which starts a few hundred years before the game's present, with the defeat of Skorgrím, and where the elf player is present.

The dwarf intro was much closer in time, when Thorin and his merry band (plus Gandalf) is departing the place for the journey to retake Erebor from Smaug. The dwarf player is present when they leave Thorin's Hall's rule, the seat of Steward, at Thorin's good buddy Gormr Doursmith.

Then a few months before the game's present Elrond has his dream and sends Elladan with a small company to the Refuge (the elf player is in the group because he was there when Skorgrím fell, so his/her memories could come useful). 
There they meet a dwarven company, since there's no word from Gormr for a while, and Dwalin sends a group to investigate (the dwarf player is in the group, since he was there when Gormr was made the Steward of the Halls). The two parties investigate the matter together, since Elladan feels it must be not a coincidence they were sent here at the same time. (spoiler, it is not. )


The man and hobbit players join in more closer to the game's present, when Frodo and the Ring is already on the move. The hobbit player meets them hobbitses on the road near Woodhall, while the man player meets Strider on his way to Bree. (where he should wait in the Pony for a Mr. Underhill, by Gandalf's request)
Those races only join to the Skorgrím plot later, in the Barrows.

Octagon7711

Great idea!  Like someone else said, it worked great in Fable.

Po_gg

I babbled too much and missed the point, Fable was really good, and - if your game is class-based - you could add even the class selection there as well.
If you play with woodden sword you will start as some kind of a fighter when you "grow up", if you wander in the forest you will start as hunter, etc.

Flyte27

I thought that is what happens in RPGs.  I used to watch a lot of fantasy movies and martial arts movies. 

They usually started with menial tasks like making tea, carrying logs, etc. for your master.  These things would always have a hidden reason.  They would be building strength in a certain area and teaching the character without them realizing it.

There were also the ones where the character was poor and just trying to survive by any means.  That might mean taking care of the dreaded rat problem for someone even though many people seem to hate this type of quest.

These themes are often part of the coming of age of the character.  I think that is supposed to be what is happening in MMORPGs during the leveling process, but it often doesn't feel that way.  You start as a hero who is powerful and it's easy to get great equipment throughout the game.

I think this concept works better in single player games, but it can work really well in MMORPGs that don't have a story.  This is basically what a sandbox game is if they toss you randomly somewhere in the game with no equipment, money, and idea of what to do.  From this point you make your way up in the world by any means you can. 

Ungood

4507 said:

I can't remember where I first heard of this, or if any MMO has done it yet, but the basic idea is to have a 3-5 hour tutorial set 5-20 years before the time the game is set where you play as a child/teen version of yourself through historical events that would otherwise just exist in lore books. There would be different tutorials for different races and factions, the object being to make you look at the game world through the eyes of your race/faction and feel a deeper connection to the lore of the game world.

For example, you might choose to play an dwarf character, so you play the tutorial as an eight year old dwarf learning to work in mines, forge metals, grow mushrooms, etc, as well as learning about dwarven culture, until the end where your mine gets attacked by a band of orcs and you are the only the survivor because you could fit through a ventilation tube to safety.

Do you think this could work in an MMO?

TERA does something like this. 

But no doubt your idea is much more in-depth, and, like anything along these lines, it could be great.. it could also tank hard.

I will say.. a 3+ Hour Tutorial.. is not going to go over well. 

Loke666

Guildwars did a bit similar as well, putting the starting area a couple of years before the rest of the game and letting people see the beutiful pre-searing Ascalon before it turns into a wasteland.

Some people liked this, others got upset since they couldn't go back to it.

Ungood said:
...

I will say.. a 3+ Hour Tutorial.. is not going to go over well. 

I dunno, I feel that the entire leveling game of most MMOs have turned into a 3 weeks tutorial now.

AoCs had a 5+ hours tutorial (Tortage) and it was the most popular part of the game, if done right you certainly could have a starting area that was set years before your character becomes an adult.

The bad part is the single player thing, putting that much singleplayer time into a MMO from the start is a bad idea indeed. Just have a couple of starting areas you can't return to and set your character as a kid or a teen when they start there, growing up when they hit the real game and things are fine.

But having 3 hours forced singleplayer game at the start of a MMORPG? No way, particularly if you are going for a PvP heavy game.

Po_gg

Loke666 said:

AoCs had a 5+ hours tutorial (Tortage) and it was the most popular part of the game,
[...]
The bad part is the single player thing, putting that much singleplayer time into a MMO from the start is a bad idea indeed.

That's a bit weird, since one of the core features of Tortage was exactly the added single player portions... and the possibility to switch between the MMO and the single player, the daytime and nighttime, at will.

Loke666 said:

But having 3 hours forced singleplayer game at the start of a MMORPG? No way, particularly if you are going for a PvP heavy game.

Sure, it wasn't 3 hours, even if you include the jog from the shipwreck to Tortage too, it was maybe 1 hour total (up to 2-3 hours if you smelled the roses, explored, and did everything at night), but it was "forced". You switched to night when you wanted (for example no friends online, or nobody is willing to do the group quests), but sooner or later you had to do the singleplayer part too, if you wanted to dethrone Strom.
(true, you can leave Tortage while the blockade intact via the Smuggler, but then you can't continue your main story, just leveling up by wandering around)

Scot

Po_gg said:

Scot said:

Lotro did something somewhat like this, but the past was not about you but some lore figure. Your version would be better for immersion, theirs for story.

Not somewhat, pretty much this. And was not some lore figure, it was you - if you were an elf since that's the only one with long enough life span.

Sadly at around HD and the arriving trait trees they've changed the tutorials, but originally the kickoff of the main storyline was the same for everyone (it still is, just shortened), which starts a few hundred years before the game's present, with the defeat of Skorgrím, and where the elf player is present.

The dwarf intro was much closer in time, when Thorin and his merry band (plus Gandalf) is departing the place for the journey to retake Erebor from Smaug. The dwarf player is present when they leave Thorin's Hall's rule, the seat of Steward, at Thorin's good buddy Gormr Doursmith.

Then a few months before the game's present Elrond has his dream and sends Elladan with a small company to the Refuge (the elf player is in the group because he was there when Skorgrím fell, so his/her memories could come useful). 
There they meet a dwarven company, since there's no word from Gormr for a while, and Dwalin sends a group to investigate (the dwarf player is in the group, since he was there when Gormr was made the Steward of the Halls). The two parties investigate the matter together, since Elladan feels it must be not a coincidence they were sent here at the same time. (spoiler, it is not. )


The man and hobbit players join in more closer to the game's present, when Frodo and the Ring is already on the move. The hobbit player meets them hobbitses on the road near Woodhall, while the man player meets Strider on his way to Bree. (where he should wait in the Pony for a Mr. Underhill, by Gandalf's request)
Those races only join to the Skorgrím plot later, in the Barrows.

I was struggling to remember exactly who you played. You seem to have had an avatar for every race.

It was much like the OP suggests then, but his idea would be better for getting you used to mechanics. Lotros is better for introducing you to the story, and that's what they come back to again and again, a hallmark of the MMO. Thanks for bringing back fine memories!

cameltosis

As others said, LotRO did this. Each of the four races had their own starter zones, but absolute beginners were walled off in their own instance, separate from the main game (though shared with other beginners). You got an introduction to the story from the perspective of your race (though, hobbits were shoved in the human tutorial) as well as an introduction to some mechanics, then once you finished the tutorial you left the instance and joined the main game. 


I felt it worked well in LotRO. In fact, I think most MMOs do a good job of introducing you to the story and mechanics. I think they could go a lot further, for example, not many MMOs introduce new players to grouping and roles and so a lot of people miss out on the unique selling point of the genre. 


The Fable comparison....not for me. I personally hated the Fable tutorial. But then, I disliked most of the game to be honest, far too linear, far too story based, far too easy. 



Rather than a tutorial, single player or otherwise, I would want MMOs to rework the difficult of their entire game. It should be a sliding scale, starting off really easy then steadily introducing more mechanics and more difficulty as you progress through the game. So, you start off solo, and perhaps the first 10 levels (if your game uses levels....) are quite easy and focused around basic rotations, quests, story and an intro to crafting. Then later it introduces grouping, roles, gets you involved in the stats. Then later you have harder group content, pvp, proper player economies etc. 

At the moment, it really feels like you get 1 hour of super-easy tutorial, then 2-3 weeks of easy tutorial, then endgame. 

Po_gg

Scot said:

You seem to have had an avatar for every race.

I do   and yep, in LotRO it is more for the story and not the mechanics, for that the Fable-like approach would be better.
Forgot to mention (and the post was already lengthy ) the "growing up" part in OP's idea.

With LotRO that is there too, but only for the dwarves - obviously, elves live much longer than this mere few hundred years could matter, and the other races enter near the game's present time. Dwarven characters however play both at Thorin's departure and near the game's present, and between the two there's more than 60 years, which is quite noticeable in a dwarf's life span.

The game handles it (as far as I remember, long since I rolled a new dwarf character) as the character is a youngster at first, a novice miner on the way to work when bumps into Gandalf and he asks the player to accompany him on his walk. (probably he has a good eye for adventurer types, like Bilbo later ).
60ish years later when the player arrives back to Thorin's Hall he is older, and the spokesperson for the group.

(on a sidenote, when later in Bree the players first meet with Gandalf, there's no separate dialogue for dwarves, and for them it is clearly not the first meeting. You could see it as the dwarf character was a really young lad and Gandalf doesn't recognize him... but I guess it is just simple laziness on Turbine's side )

Amathe

It's a better idea than most, but I still hate tutorials. 

Sovrath

4507 said:

I can't remember where I first heard of this, or if any MMO has done it yet, but the basic idea is to have a 3-5 hour tutorial set 5-20 years before the time the game is set where you play as a child/teen version of yourself through historical events that would otherwise just exist in lore books. There would be different tutorials for different races and factions, the object being to make you look at the game world through the eyes of your race/faction and feel a deeper connection to the lore of the game world.

For example, you might choose to play an dwarf character, so you play the tutorial as an eight year old dwarf learning to work in mines, forge metals, grow mushrooms, etc, as well as learning about dwarven culture, until the end where your mine gets attacked by a band of orcs and you are the only the survivor because you could fit through a ventilation tube to safety.

Do you think this could work in an MMO?

Here's the thing, I think mmo's (or any game) should have a tutorial and it "should" be amazing.

I also think the tutorial should always be optional.

Some people can just figure things out and don't need one. Some people need one.

I also think one should be able to revisit it any time they want should they find that they have forgotten something. Especially combat tutorials and ESPECIALLY if the combat does things that are different.

Octagon7711

Most starting areas you could always go back to one shot stuff just for the fun of it.  A lot of games started putting advanced quests in starter zones also to utilized the zone more, plus it was nice as a newb to see higher level players running around which gave you something to look forward to.   Aion was good for that too.

sunandshadow

Octagon7711 said:

Most starting areas you could always go back to one shot stuff just for the fun of it.  A lot of games started putting advanced quests in starter zones also to utilized the zone more, plus it was nice as a newb to see higher level players running around which gave you something to look forward to.   Aion was good for that too.

On the other hand several MMOs have gone back and added a newbie tutorial area after the game launched, and these are almost always restricted from higher level players because there's a one-way, one-time passage from this starter 'island' to the rest of the game.  This tends to reduce newbie exposure to scammers and bots, but also to guild recruiters and higher-level players.  A Tale in the Desert, Dofus, and Ryzom are 3 examples of games with this kind of newbie island.

Pr3sid3ntSkr00b

A short 1 time tutorial fine. Not hours. But yes Fable and Horizon Zero Dawn did it. 

Loke666

Po_gg said:

Loke666 said:

AoCs had a 5+ hours tutorial (Tortage) and it was the most popular part of the game,
[...]
The bad part is the single player thing, putting that much singleplayer time into a MMO from the start is a bad idea indeed.

That's a bit weird, since one of the core features of Tortage was exactly the added single player portions... and the possibility to switch between the MMO and the single player, the daytime and nighttime, at will.

Loke666 said:

But having 3 hours forced singleplayer game at the start of a MMORPG? No way, particularly if you are going for a PvP heavy game.

Sure, it wasn't 3 hours, even if you include the jog from the shipwreck to Tortage too, it was maybe 1 hour total (up to 2-3 hours if you smelled the roses, explored, and did everything at night), but it was "forced". You switched to night when you wanted (for example no friends online, or nobody is willing to do the group quests), but sooner or later you had to do the singleplayer part too, if you wanted to dethrone Strom.
(true, you can leave Tortage while the blockade intact via the Smuggler, but then you can't continue your main story, just leveling up by wandering around)

There was a dungeon and some exploratory zones, I spent 5 hours there the first time I played it but then I saw no reason to rush things (and since the rest of the game was a buggy mess then it was certainly the rigght thing to do). Me and my guild tried things out together, it was pretty fun.

Yes, there was some singleplayer content in it but I still think that was the part AoC handled best. And I certainly didn't spend more then an hour in the solostuff (then again, it was 10 years ago so take or give 25% on any estimate).

In any case, too much forced solocontent is bad. That you can get out of it if you aren't interested in the main story is a good thing.

A starting zone is a place where you should learn the game and meet other new players. Do a basic dungeon to get the group dynamics right and figure out how your class work. Just putting a long solo mission there kinda sets people up for just soloing the entire game without teching them how group combat actually works. And that is a large point of having a starter area, if you just want to teach people how to solo you can let them loose from the start with a few easy soloquests instead and save all the work for adding more endgame content instead.

Cryomatrix

DMKano said:

If I am not killing and doing mass genocide within 30 seconds after logging in - something is wrong.

Hilarious post. 

Po_gg

Loke666 said:

There was a dungeon and some exploratory zones, I spent 5 hours there the first time I played it but then I saw no reason to rush things (and since the rest of the game was a buggy mess then it was certainly the rigght thing to do). Me and my guild tried things out together, it was pretty fun.

Yes, there was some singleplayer content in it but I still think that was the part AoC handled best. And I certainly didn't spend more then an hour in the solostuff (then again, it was 10 years ago so take or give 25% on any estimate).

In any case, too much forced solocontent is bad. That you can get out of it if you aren't interested in the main story is a good thing.

That's what I said too  
It was a great move to give singleplayer into the player's hands. There's no "ok, you finished that mission, now you must do this single player part", neither "ok, you've reached level X, now you have to do this single player part to continue" like in many games.

The very basic tutorial to level 5 is solo (from the beach to the gates, tooltips on how to move around, loot, taking quest, the basics of the combat system, the first 2 skills), but after that it is totally optional when you switch to night - if ever, since you can play the whole game without the main story, if that's what you want.
You will miss some great moments that way, but besides a few story dungeons nothing will be gated from you, every zone, every group content, every mechanic and skill and gear is at your disposal even if you skip the main storyline.

And if you don't skip it, you still can play it the way you want, leaving it until you finish all of Tortage and then rushing through the singleplayer story part, or mixing it inside your multiplayer questing when you feel like it, evenly spread out those parts while you level from 5 to 20, it's up to you.

(a correction, there are no "classic" group dungeons in Tortage, everything there is open to all, with lots of ad-hoc grouping on the go. Which is good, because there are plenty of bosses and quests which need a group of people.)

Loke666

Po_gg said:

That's what I said too  
It was a great move to give singleplayer into the player's hands. There's no "ok, you finished that mission, now you must do this single player part", neither "ok, you've reached level X, now you have to do this single player part to continue" like in many games.

The very basic tutorial to level 5 is solo (from the beach to the gates, tooltips on how to move around, loot, taking quest, the basics of the combat system, the first 2 skills), but after that it is totally optional when you switch to night - if ever, since you can play the whole game without the main story, if that's what you want.
You will miss some great moments that way, but besides a few story dungeons nothing will be gated from you, every zone, every group content, every mechanic and skill and gear is at your disposal even if you skip the main storyline.

And if you don't skip it, you still can play it the way you want, leaving it until you finish all of Tortage and then rushing through the singleplayer story part, or mixing it inside your multiplayer questing when you feel like it, evenly spread out those parts while you level from 5 to 20, it's up to you.

(a correction, there are no "classic" group dungeons in Tortage, everything there is open to all, with lots of ad-hoc grouping on the go. Which is good, because there are plenty of bosses and quests which need a group of people.)

Do you mean "instanced"? To me is public dungeons more classic and the sewers and tunnels were certainly an public dungeon in my eyes.

Anyways, we are in agreement.

Po_gg

Loke666 said:

Do you mean "instanced"? To me is public dungeons more classic and the sewers and tunnels were certainly an public dungeon in my eyes.

Anyways, we are in agreement.

That's it, just so rarely used nowadays that I forgot the term...
Tortage has the main zone with the city, and 3 large* (plus a few more smaller) public dungeons around, each with a normal and a hard mode.

*with large I mean White Sands Isle for example is larger than Tortage, so in practice it is a public zone   but technically it is a public dungeon, since the whole zone has a hard version too.

Loke666

Po_gg said:

That's it, just so rarely used nowadays that I forgot the term...
Tortage has the main zone with the city, and 3 large* (plus a few more smaller) public dungeons around, each with a normal and a hard mode.

*with large I mean White Sands Isle for example is larger than Tortage, so in practice it is a public zone   but technically it is a public dungeon, since the whole zone has a hard version too.

I blame Blizzard, they decided that public dungeons always were bad and skipped them in Wow, you don't see them in many games today.

Personally I thought they had a certain charm but it could get annoying if you got too many teams in the same dungeon, particularly if it was on the smallish side. I guess Blizz cut them out since they mainly went for smaller dungeons or something.

Po_gg

Loke666 said:

I blame Blizzard, they decided that public dungeons always were bad and skipped them in Wow, you don't see them in many games today.

Personally I thought they had a certain charm but it could get annoying if you got too many teams in the same dungeon, particularly if it was on the smallish side.

That personal thought was just confirmed at the launch of the Saga server. With too large player's number, even the "smallish side" criteria is not needed... I posted this in an earlier Saga thread after the launch:

"It definitely brings back the memories of the original launch 10 years ago, when you see the totally empty White Sands Isle or the Underhall... Seriously, like after locusts, everything is wiped clean, and more players running around than mobs used to be present. And as soon as a poor mob respawns, players jumps on it and kill it right away. It is very hard to questing now, and ranged classes have a clear advantage in tapping mobs."


I can't decide whether it's a pro or a con in the topic of having single player tutorials...   probably both.