We wouldn't need tutorials if the highly arrogant guys who think they were gods gift to gaming would actually get off their high horse for a few seconds to lend aid to a guy who just asked a simple question.
On the flip side, we wouldn't NEED to ask those questions if the games tutorials weren't so shoddily designed or so forced in the first place.
The problem isn't that tutorials exist, it's that making good ones seems to have become a rare artform.
Tutorials are fine, and to be honest should be there the more complex your game is. Most of us on this site have progressed with this genre through the early days. So all of the incremental advancements and features throughout the years come natural to us.
However, throw a total newbie to MMO's or even a newbie to gaming in with out a tutorial and the out come is likely a brief period of frustration.
Think of it this way. A lot of console gamers grew up with NES games. All you had was a d-pad, A, B, select, and start buttons. That's it! Games were very straight forward and intuitive (at least good ones) so you didn't really need a tutorial. If you had questions, you could look at the manual.
These same console gamers have adapted and grew up with the console industry. When the SNES came out, we now had X,Y,L,R buttons added to the controller. This was an incremental change, and we adapted.
Now comes N64. We have an Analog stick, Z button, and acouple others! Again we adapted with it, because it was an incremental change.
Now fast forward to the current gen, and we have Dual Analogs, d-pad, Four face buttons, 4 Shoulder buttons (2 on each side), and the dual analogs are buttons too! Again we adapted because this was still incremental. However, throw a new gamer into a modern console game, and they will need time to figure out what the hell is going on. Some will learn quickly, others will take more time and that is where tutorials come into play.
With all that said, i think the idea of forced tutorials need to go the way of the dodo. The market obviously has many seasoned gamers, but at the same time new gamers as well. The older gamers should not be forced to relearn how to aim for the 1000th time, or that a quest is a thing you do to get loot and exp. So in short I say keep tutorials, but do not force them upon us.
Tutorials have there place, but allow me to skip them. DCUO; Christ that tutorial was painful, every new character I made I'd have to play through the bloody thing, and if I logged out halfway through I'd have to start again from the beginning.
Originally posted by Alcuin EQ1 had an offline tutorial from day one. It was entirely optional, and honestly more of a theme park type "quest" than anything else in that game.
Ahh haha...I forgot about that tutorial. I used to play that when the servers were down or was having problems with internet. Needed to get my fix.
Played: EQ1 (10 Years), Guild Wars, Rift, TERA Tried: EQ2, Vanguard, Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Runes of Magic and countless others... Currently Playing: GW2
I don't remember a tutorial for EQ1, might have bene there I just don't recall, it was a long time ago. I do remember not having a clue what to do for the first bit.
Games need tutorials for people who have never played before (any game), but they should have a way to turn those tutorials off or skip them for the rest of us.
I got my GF started in WoW 3-4 years ago, there wasn't a tutorial. She had never played a computer game before, she didn't know how to move, pick things up, swing a sword. Nothing.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Well, NWNO, Meridian 59, The Realm, and UO(not until years later) did not have a tutorial, Asherons Call 1 sure didnt, they just dumped you into the world and you had to hope you found the quest that sends you into the nearest town or you are pretty damn lost
EverQuest 1 had the first MMORPG tutorial and since most MMOs released after that were EQ clones, you may blame EQ for them.
Also, almost every game I have seen a tutorial in had an option to turn it off.
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
I think they do more harm than good for first impressions. After trying a new beta still under NDA, I just had to stop and say "man this sucks." Now I wasn't talking about the game it's self, because that felt good, real good, but the tutorial made me exit game.
Give me a clear concise help center/guide/maual then let me figure it out. Stop this bad tutorial nonsense.
/endrant
Back when I was a in game Counselor for Ultima Online on Baja Shard. I found that most players are stupid. i remember 1 time, i took a call from a player. The player didn't know how to get on the boat.
But most games you can turn the tutorials off right?
I have to admit I find tutorials are rather tedious (especially on alts), but they're usually over fast enough that I forget about them as soon as I've moved past them.
Boats in UO are actually a wonderful example of non-intuitive interface which is completely obvious only once you know how to do it, But for first-timers, it feels like some random code of secret clicks to place the boat, use the key on a particular small point on the side of the boat (from close enough), then click on it again to lower the gangplank. I have no trouble believing that perfectly intelligent players could get a mental block after trying the key a few times and having it apparently do nothing.
Do make them unobtrusive, plot-wise, so if you are doing the tutorial it isn't a whole awfull contrived artificial quest line.
Do make them compartmentalised, so that you can get help later in the game when a new feature unlocks.
Do make them repeatable .. in case you don't play a game for a month, come back, and find yourself staring at the screen for a few seconds beyond your comfort point.
Overly-pretentious verbose narcissistic verbiage goes here
Ideally, a tutorial should be optional. Furthermore, an expert and novice level tutorials should be provided if possible. But to get rid of tutorials altogether? -Sure way to shoot yourself in the foot.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
In City of Heroes / Villains you could collect badges in it. I thought it was quite innovative the way they made it so people actually hang about in a tutorial and made friends.
I think they do more harm than good for first impressions. After trying a new beta still under NDA, I just had to stop and say "man this sucks." Now I wasn't talking about the game it's self, because that felt good, real good, but the tutorial made me exit game.
Give me a clear concise help center/guide/maual then let me figure it out. Stop this bad tutorial nonsense.
/endrant
You simply should understand that you are more experianced then people who might enter a MMO for the first time.
Keep that in mind and just progress to the point the tutorial is over or when possible skip it.
Don't get me wrong I don't like them either, but I do understand why they are placed in a MMORPG.
Regardless what we might have experianced, for a new person entering a MMO for the first time it still can be somewhat overwelming without a little guidens.
Some say they loved Tortage tutorial in AoC, my opinion on that is that I was glad to finaly have left Tortage and finaly stepped into a more open world, simply because I don't play MMORPG's for it's single player campaign which I felt Tortage was. It's not to say I felt Tortage was bad, but it gave a overall false promise about the rest of the game because nothing like Tortage was seen else where after leaving the place.
Originally posted by Drevar For every person that actually uses their brain to figure out something in an MMORPG, I can show you 200 that will spam global chat asking a question that would have been answered if they had gone through the tutorial.
So true it's not even funny. They could also google it and get at least 3 or 4 websites that would also offer the info they seek...like the OFFICIAL WEBSITE. But they don't usually. =/
Optional pop-up tutorials are fine, at least if the game is complex and non-intuitive at first (like EVE and AoW, two games with a vast quality difference between their respective tutorials btw).
Personally I hate tutorials and prefer figuring things out on my own (one of the things I liked about MO was that it just dropped you into the world and let you find your own way), but I know that I'm in the minority here and that tutorials help bring new people in.
Originally posted by Drevar For every person that actually uses their brain to figure out something in an MMORPG, I can show you 200 that will spam global chat asking a question that would have been answered if they had gone through the tutorial.
So true it's not even funny. They could also google it and get at least 3 or 4 websites that would also offer the info they seek...like the OFFICIAL WEBSITE. But they don't usually. =/
Often I get the feeling these players were born with a silver spoon in their mouth. The concept of having to take a few seconds to look it up for themselves is absolutely beyond their comprehension.
Heck, simply take a look at a Tech Support forum of any existing game, and on the same page you'll find several threads concerning the exact same issue, and yet if they bothered to look for a second they'd see the answer they're looking for is often found in those "Pinned" threads at the top of the forum conveniently named something along the lines of "(Please Read) Information concerning X".
Mind-boggling. And people wonder why the genre is so dumbed-downed nowadays, the answer is right in front of you.
Comments
We wouldn't need tutorials if the highly arrogant guys who think they were gods gift to gaming would actually get off their high horse for a few seconds to lend aid to a guy who just asked a simple question.
On the flip side, we wouldn't NEED to ask those questions if the games tutorials weren't so shoddily designed or so forced in the first place.
The problem isn't that tutorials exist, it's that making good ones seems to have become a rare artform.
The first experience I ever had in a MMORPG tutorial was in '99 with EQ... they have been around for a long time.
I honestly cannot see why anyone would have an issue with them, let alone enough to post about.
Is it a slow news week?
Tutorials are fine, and to be honest should be there the more complex your game is. Most of us on this site have progressed with this genre through the early days. So all of the incremental advancements and features throughout the years come natural to us.
However, throw a total newbie to MMO's or even a newbie to gaming in with out a tutorial and the out come is likely a brief period of frustration.
Think of it this way. A lot of console gamers grew up with NES games. All you had was a d-pad, A, B, select, and start buttons. That's it! Games were very straight forward and intuitive (at least good ones) so you didn't really need a tutorial. If you had questions, you could look at the manual.
These same console gamers have adapted and grew up with the console industry. When the SNES came out, we now had X,Y,L,R buttons added to the controller. This was an incremental change, and we adapted.
Now comes N64. We have an Analog stick, Z button, and acouple others! Again we adapted with it, because it was an incremental change.
Now fast forward to the current gen, and we have Dual Analogs, d-pad, Four face buttons, 4 Shoulder buttons (2 on each side), and the dual analogs are buttons too! Again we adapted because this was still incremental. However, throw a new gamer into a modern console game, and they will need time to figure out what the hell is going on. Some will learn quickly, others will take more time and that is where tutorials come into play.
With all that said, i think the idea of forced tutorials need to go the way of the dodo. The market obviously has many seasoned gamers, but at the same time new gamers as well. The older gamers should not be forced to relearn how to aim for the 1000th time, or that a quest is a thing you do to get loot and exp. So in short I say keep tutorials, but do not force them upon us.
Ahh haha...I forgot about that tutorial. I used to play that when the servers were down or was having problems with internet. Needed to get my fix.
Played: EQ1 (10 Years), Guild Wars, Rift, TERA
Tried: EQ2, Vanguard, Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Runes of Magic and countless others...
Currently Playing: GW2
Nytlok Sylas
80 Sylvari Ranger
I don't remember a tutorial for EQ1, might have bene there I just don't recall, it was a long time ago. I do remember not having a clue what to do for the first bit.
Games need tutorials for people who have never played before (any game), but they should have a way to turn those tutorials off or skip them for the rest of us.
I got my GF started in WoW 3-4 years ago, there wasn't a tutorial. She had never played a computer game before, she didn't know how to move, pick things up, swing a sword. Nothing.
I would say tutorials are a must for people who want tutorials.
What they coud do is give a player the choice. "Enter Tutorial mission" or "enter world".
Make it so that the tutorial can be entered at any time should the player want it.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Well, NWNO, Meridian 59, The Realm, and UO(not until years later) did not have a tutorial, Asherons Call 1 sure didnt, they just dumped you into the world and you had to hope you found the quest that sends you into the nearest town or you are pretty damn lost
EverQuest 1 had the first MMORPG tutorial and since most MMOs released after that were EQ clones, you may blame EQ for them.
Also, almost every game I have seen a tutorial in had an option to turn it off.
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
I believe Tutorials are very well needed for A LOT of players.
they serve as introduction to the game and...
they usually give you some kind of reward for doing them anyway!
Usually u can skip them after the first run....or even b4
Some MMORPGS really need a Tutorial....
I disagree srry OP.
Back when I was a in game Counselor for Ultima Online on Baja Shard. I found that most players are stupid. i remember 1 time, i took a call from a player. The player didn't know how to get on the boat.
But most games you can turn the tutorials off right?
And besides......who reads the manuals, really.
Boats in UO are actually a wonderful example of non-intuitive interface which is completely obvious only once you know how to do it, But for first-timers, it feels like some random code of secret clicks to place the boat, use the key on a particular small point on the side of the boat (from close enough), then click on it again to lower the gangplank. I have no trouble believing that perfectly intelligent players could get a mental block after trying the key a few times and having it apparently do nothing.
Um .. no, please don't.
Do make them optional/skippable.
Do make them unobtrusive, plot-wise, so if you are doing the tutorial it isn't a whole awfull contrived artificial quest line.
Do make them compartmentalised, so that you can get help later in the game when a new feature unlocks.
Do make them repeatable .. in case you don't play a game for a month, come back, and find yourself staring at the screen for a few seconds beyond your comfort point.
Overly-pretentious verbose narcissistic verbiage goes here
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
You simply should understand that you are more experianced then people who might enter a MMO for the first time.
Keep that in mind and just progress to the point the tutorial is over or when possible skip it.
Don't get me wrong I don't like them either, but I do understand why they are placed in a MMORPG.
Regardless what we might have experianced, for a new person entering a MMO for the first time it still can be somewhat overwelming without a little guidens.
Some say they loved Tortage tutorial in AoC, my opinion on that is that I was glad to finaly have left Tortage and finaly stepped into a more open world, simply because I don't play MMORPG's for it's single player campaign which I felt Tortage was. It's not to say I felt Tortage was bad, but it gave a overall false promise about the rest of the game because nothing like Tortage was seen else where after leaving the place.
So true it's not even funny. They could also google it and get at least 3 or 4 websites that would also offer the info they seek...like the OFFICIAL WEBSITE. But they don't usually. =/
I definitely appreciate a clever tutorial/ intro to immerse me in the gameworld.
See LoTRO for an example of what I'm referring to.
Personally I hate tutorials and prefer figuring things out on my own (one of the things I liked about MO was that it just dropped you into the world and let you find your own way), but I know that I'm in the minority here and that tutorials help bring new people in.
Often I get the feeling these players were born with a silver spoon in their mouth. The concept of having to take a few seconds to look it up for themselves is absolutely beyond their comprehension.
Heck, simply take a look at a Tech Support forum of any existing game, and on the same page you'll find several threads concerning the exact same issue, and yet if they bothered to look for a second they'd see the answer they're looking for is often found in those "Pinned" threads at the top of the forum conveniently named something along the lines of "(Please Read) Information concerning X".
Mind-boggling. And people wonder why the genre is so dumbed-downed nowadays, the answer is right in front of you.
P.S RTFM
First time MMO players WILL need a tutorial to get started. So, an optional tutorial is fine.
And, OP, i you dont think new players need one, you have been playing for far too long... :-)