IDEAS FOR RYZOM

If this guy here is a typical newcomer, we (or rather, Ryzom) might have a problem to solve. Note how he doesn't understand how to speak with NPCs; he manages to initiate a dialogue with Chiang purely by accident, not knowing how he did it.
Taking the video as an user test, I'd say it might be worth adding some additional info (basic controls and stuff) into the "Welcome to Atys" window. Also, some explanation texts to Specializations and some description to Races would be useful (I realize there's an "info" button, but it's kinda out of sight.)

ah so our one mac user is a complete tool eh, lets not bother supporting it anymore. :p

It took me about 5 minutes to figure out the user interface when I started several years ago, and it's not changed since.
I think that's the case for most people starting around that time (I never did hear people complaining about it at the time, nor since until very recently).
So if indeed the majority of new players find it "sorely confusing" it can only mean the majority of new players isn't as smart as the majority of new players several years ago, which is troubling.

The basic controls (left, right, forward, back) are all mentioned at the character creation screen. In fact you can select what they should be right there. Can't think of a better way to make those clear.
The rest is simply applying some simple logic and looking through the menu for the different windows, which includes the key binding window.

Ok, I just spent ten minutes typing out a reply and it was replaced by the quote when I sent it (?!). Now that's weird.
I won't be typing it out again, so I'm gonna be short this time. :-)

- Five minutes isn't exactly fast, I'm afraid many today's players don't have that much of an attention span. Nobody (perhaps except us geeks) wants to study their key binds instead of playing the game.

- Ryzom controls are rather different from other MMOs. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but it should be taken into consideration when trying to attract new players. I don't know if you've been to Silan lately, but there's literally several players each day asking "How do I get out of this annoying first person view?" That's not right.

- There's this Help window, full of awesome tutorials. Maybe it should be open by default for new players, instead of that useless "Welcome to Atys" window. Most of players probably never find those tutorials, because nobody told them they are there.
I mean, somebody thought it's necessary to make a pop-up warning players that "There is a night on Atys", but nobody thought of a pop-up saying "Go run your tutorials, it's a good for you"?

- Also, it might be a good idea to rename "Other 1" keyset to "WoW keyboard layout". There's no obvious way to switch between those premade keyboard layouts later, and most people will probably pick "WASD", not knowing that "Other 1" is much more familiar to what they're used to. Just sayin'.

Speaking of tutorials... they are somewhat outdated as well:

The guy's problem seemed to be purely that doubleclick-mode is on by default for newcomers. I always thought that was a bad idea. Other than that "click on the NPC" is really about as straightforward as it gets.

I don't think throwing even more additional info at new players is going to help, this guy was already clicking through most of his dialog cause he thought it was too much.

<nostalgic mode>Back in my days, just trying out all the keys on my own and seeing what they did was part of the excitement of a new game. I weep a silent tear for the current generation of gamers who ragequit if the controls aren't identical to WoW's.</nostalgic>

"How do I get out of this annoying first person view?"

The mouse-wheel zoom/unzoom is common among games. The first thing I do when visiting a new game is scroll the mouse wheel to zoom out and see more of what's going on. Some games reverse the direction needed, but the idea is the same.


The largest problems we face is the person who does not have the patience to read anything and the person who has had life handed to him or her. I've played both games extensively, and Ryzom is a more complex game than WoW, and in many ways much harder. For example, failure is a real option in Ryzom (ie: crafting). WoW, and almost every other game and even society today (at least in the US, and maybe other countries), tries to make sure you never really fail at something.

If the person playing the game doesn't have the patience to read the information presented, or isn't willing to accept the fact that he or she is not THE hero and cannot fail, there's nothing we or the devs can do to change that.

+1 pour les changements sur silan en cours