#Unbiased Tutorial walk through with a 22 year old non-gamer

78 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

mild sundial
#

Hey! so i managed to convince one of my friends who doesn't play videogames to try runescape and just wanted to share some notes about her thoughts and opinions on the tutorial. This is someone who knows NOTHING about video games or Runescape. So Maybe these can be taken and used to reconfigure tutorial island! Let me know your thoughts!

*Was not aware that using arrow keys would rotate character. Needs to be informed prior to fishing. She seemed suprised that it was told after the fact.

*Thought she needed to constantly click the npc in order to constantly attack, tutorial needs to explain that once a red click is made the character will stay in combat unless some other action is done.

*Could explain drops from monsters prior to killing.
When told about bones in the prayer section, player was not aware about any drops. (That may be her a little overwhelemed and focused on all the info she was getting, so that might be negligable)

*Explaining how trading works would also be ideal.

*Granted these are things someone can be walked through, but if someone was without guidance, this could be hard.

*This was a 22 year old female, brand new to gaming, but a pretty competent person. Just wanted to give some unbiased feedback.

Try and see these as someone having no-one to walk or guide them through anything. No wiki, YouTube, etc. just a full adult, trying a video game for the first time! thought this would be fun to do and share as I watched her go haha! lmk your thoughts!

dire jolt
#

skill issue tbh

#

nah but for real, the tutorial would be 6 hours long if it were to explain everything about not only runescape, but gaming in general. I think some base knowledge is expected

mild sundial
#

thats a fair point, just wanted to give some insight as its very rare to have someone never play videogames before and start on runescape! just wanted to give a different perspective!

#

granted this is true, some things you kinda need to figure out!

#

but i think for example knowing how to move your camera as a first step is a good idea.

dire jolt
#

It is interesting to see how someone who has never played games doesn't know the things I would just kind of instinctively know from previous experience

#

as for adjusting tutorial island, I think a few extra messages about basic controls and trading could be helpful

alpine wind
#

*Could explain drops from monsters prior to killing.
When told about bones in the prayer section, player was not aware about any drops. (That may be her a little overwhelemed and focused on all the info she was getting, so that might be negligable)

this is just a client/setting issue no? i know the official client at least has the option, but the default runelite settings display names above items on the ground

mild sundial
#

i mean the items were definitly there!

#

i just think she was focused on the tutorial.

#

like i said, probably negligable

alpine wind
#

yeah im saying did she miss them because they werent displaying a name over them to help indicate they can be picked up, or did she just not notice them regardless

#

if its the former i dont blame her

#

if it's the latter, that's not really the tutorial's fault

mild sundial
#

honestly i would have to watch her and tell her to share the screen to know haha

mild sundial
alpine wind
#

yeah hard to say what's a fault of the tutorial and what's something that someone who's played other games would pick up on

tall pond
#

Tutorial Island is great and is the gold standard for most initial tutorials but I agree, there could be a smoother skill curve once in the main game

frank kite
#

I think tutorial island could use some minor tuning or additions for some less intuitive mechanics or content but it should not be designed to hold the hand of someone with literal zero gaming experience

desert inlet
#

Needs a skip button

slender pasture
#

As far as tutorialization goes osrs is pretty bad, and tbh that's part of the old school feel. The game already asks your level of familiarity with the game when you spawn in, I think the game would benefit from a much more hand-holdy experience if someone chooses the "I just discovered what a mouse is" option

mild sundial
mild sundial
#

she was picking up quick tho 🙂

slender pasture
#

I've seen some new runescape players struggle a bit starting out too, here's what I would change:

  • Add a flourish when clicking on the Gielinor Guide to highlight the chat box. This isn't 2001 anymore and new players don't use the fixed sized client. It's surprisingly easy to miss the chat box if you don't expect it to change when clicking on an NPC

  • If new player mode is selected, inform them they can move the camera with arrow keys and middle mouse click

  • Have Vannaka tell the player battle is to the death unless one person flees

  • Have the prayer tutor make the player pick up the rat bones after killing them to bury. Have them mention what right clicking does (the player will need to pick up rat meat to get to the bones with left click only so this could be good practice)

  • Have the bank instructor make the player deposit an item (not gold) into the bank, like the bronze dagger they made. Have it stay in their bank after leaving so they can see that all banks are connected after arriving in lumby

  • Have an NPC recommend going to the GE when they make it to lumby

desert inlet
# slender pasture I've seen some new runescape players struggle a bit starting out too, here's wha...

1, nice
2, nice
3, why? If you engage in combat it seems pretty clear what the possible outcomes are to anyone above the age of 4?
4, nice
5, sure but i’d up that to no stackable items can be banked on tut island
6, let them enjoy the game and exploring before they fall into the trap of just interacting with the ge ui everytime they want to quest, skill, pk, pvm or anything else in this game. They’ll find it in due course

slender pasture
# desert inlet 1, nice 2, nice 3, why? If you engage in combat it seems pretty clear what the p...

Well yeah maybe sending them to the GE out of the gate isn't a great idea

For 3, actually that's not how pretty much any other game works, including other MMOs. If you haven't played runescape before it's not obvious that your character will continue swinging a weapon if you don't tell them to. Sure they'll probably figure it out eventually but don't think it's worth forcing the player to fatigue to realize they only had to click once

desert inlet
slender pasture
#

Welp I thought that wording was clever for Vannaka but it probably should be worded better than that

mystic imp
#

They should make an option for people that never played game before in the tutorial to teach the controls

tall pond
#

I mean if you have no idea how to interact with a video game then you have some other issues

#

like not even memeing here

mystic imp
#

dude can you even read

#

"Non-gamer"

tall pond
#

I mean I don't see the need to devote game time to teaching people how to click on things

#

even most non gamers can figure out to try and use their mouse to interact

mystic imp
#

It's a 22 year old

tall pond
#

this is like a 0 computer literacy issue

#

and?

mystic imp
#

uh

tall pond
#

unless this dude is Amish this is beyond a skill issue

mystic imp
#

i think they should make an option like this

tall pond
#

I do agree that there could be better on boarding past tutorial island and maybe some minor revisions here and there but the initial area is extremely well designed

#

yeah I don't think making an option of "I have never interacted with a computer before" is worth the time it would take to prototype

#

like, an option for people who have never played a point and click game maybe

#

since a lot of younger people never interacted with that style of game growing up and Runescape at it's core is an evolution of the classic point and click adventure titles of the 90's

#

but it really doesn't need that much and most of the initial quests teach you to try using items on other items

#

making it a bit more obvious or a suggested early quest route might be useful

#

but that's kind of already in the game as is

#

Tutorial Island as is stands as one of if not the best tutorial systems in all of online gaming, it is genuinely almost perfect besides a few nitpicks

bold folio
desert inlet
#

If you’ve managed to navigate to your browser and download osrs, you’ve already learned all the computer control required to move in the game. The rest is just experience.

mild sundial
#

yea i mean she knows how to use a computer haha, just never played a pc game before

#

i love the feedbacks!

#

im glad some of the thoughts were good and agreed upon

#

and i like the idea of a secondary or more indepth tutorial regarding controls and all that.

#

and i still STRONGLY agree with there being a tutorial skip

#

fuck that would be so nice haha

cyan tangle
#

Tutorial island should have wiki links everywhere, and a runelite guide who teaches you about the quest helper plugin.

#

And a skip option too.

desert inlet
cyan tangle
short elm
#

Figuring stuff out is part of the experience, it creates a conversation and the need to socialise within an mmo, asking for help.
Being baby'd will turn videogames into big red arrows pointing at everything you need to click / automating everything the player can't be arsed to figure out themselves.
Those are not videogames

austere tiger
#

When the official client comes out tutorial island could def use a bit of love as it can be a bit confusing to new players

grim cradle
#

I honestly think it’s a problem that people use it for first-time quest completions tbh

#

Like even if you fully use a guide, you have to at least think about and acknowledge the contents of the quest

#

But quest helper disengages 80% of the questing activity and becomes click highlight

spare path
#

This post is a bit silly. When you play your first videogame there will be some things that it expects you to know that you won't, the same is true for any kind of hobby.

Someone who's not familiar with boardgames might not know what "drawing" and "discarding" a card means, but explaining that stuff in the manual of every board game would be excessive

Getting into watching sports as an adult is also nearly impossible. You need someone to help you understand and even then you're not likely to 'get' it.

The average new player in RuneScape is likely on the younger side so they likely want a shorter tutorial and they can figure all the stuff out by them selves by exploring the game.

shrewd zephyr
#

For example a hint system, a "tell me what items to bring" system, and a way to automatically turn off again after using it for one step

slender pasture
#

Iirc there was a quest hint system added around 2008. I don't remember all of the specifics but you could get hints in the quest UI (?) on what part of the quest you're on

Tbh though it would be better if the wiki didn't exist and players had to talk to each other to figure quests out. This isn't 2005 anymore though

spare path
desert inlet