Give instructions for camera control to new characters on Silan - IDEAS FOR RYZOM

The first task of a completely new player arriving on Silan is to learn the basic controls for moving and looking around. When you first arrive on Silan, a pop-up window appears, explaining how to use the keyboard or mouse to move. However, nothing is mentioned about camera control.

Without knowledge of using the left and right buttons and scroll wheel for controlling the camera, looking around and controlling the view is very awkward. For instance, to look left, you would have to turn left using the keyboard. If you stoop over to kill a yubo, you are left facing the ground and it is unwieldy to get back to facing the horizon. Also, the Linux client (not sure about the others because I haven't used them) starts you out with the first person perspective, possibly leaving one with the mistaken impression that that is the only perspective available (and it's a difficult perspective to use exclusively). A lack of knowledge of basic camera controls can potentially leave a new player with the mistaken impression that moving and looking around in Ryzom is awkward.

When I first arrived on Silan months ago, I had all these problems and wasn't motivated to continue playing after the first couple of hours or so because the basic controls seemed too uncomfortable to use, and that made the game not very fun to play. It wasn't until later when I watched a video review of the game that I learned that you could control the camera easily with the mouse. Then I decided to give Ryzom another try and have been playing ever since. :)

I suggest that the first pop-up window that greets new players on Silan explain the use of the left and right mouse buttons and scroll wheel for camera control.