Veshta Yoshida
PIE Inc.
Praetoria Imperialis Excubitoris
238
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Posted - 2012.07.31 05:14:00 -
[1] - Quote
Previously I have suggested that CCP hire/consult with a sociologist or similar to help you understand human nature to create better mechanics as you are apparently surprised every time someone takes a less travelled (read: not working as intended, but not illegal) route to one goal or another. Would be hugely beneficial when it comes to revamping the sov system I'd say.
Now I'd like to expand on that and suggest you hire/consult with an professional educator, preferably one specialized in early developmental psychology/learning, so that you can make your Eve intro as good as can be .. some examples where such experience would have been beneficial:
Quote:...and some bad spots (most notably the bit right at the very start where we try to teach the skill queue before you've even undocked)
Your solution is to eliminate it .. hmmmmm. What one does when dealing with noobs children new comers who exhibit disinterest in something that will ultimately help them is to play into their natural curiosity but not forcefully. Introduce the skills as normal (assuming the bad spot doesn't extend that far) and rest assured that they will poke around until they press the queue button .. at which point you can tell them there is a guide available should they want/need it (you can use one of those fancy new pop-ups!) .. most like figuring stuff out themselves though.
Quote:...This experience led us to rework our teaching throughout the tutorial to use right-click and the context menu, which subsequent testing confirmed as a much smoother experience.
If a child refuses to eat nothing but pizza, the absolutely worst thing one can do is to let the little bastard eat nothing but pizza  . Yes, the context menu has improved a lot since I started out .. to the point of usefulness even .. but to base the entire introduction to Eve on nothing but will come back and bite you very, very hard as said usefulness is dwarfed by the keys and key+click combos used in competitive Eve gameplay. The right-click will always be there as PC users are very well acquainted with the "when in doubt, R. click" dogma so keep working on the menus to make them perfect failsafe's rather than use them as the starting point and sole content.
Again play on the natural curiosity .. take the new player on stroll through the ESC menu at some "early" point, can even be an optional thing as people like to kick tyres and poke engines, or you could mention in the pop-ups when there is a key assignment available and possibly even what the current one is. Computer players will always seek to optimize their gameplay which is what keys and key+click allows.
In short: Good work so far, but you must be careful not to "dumb things down" too far so that the post-tutorial experience suffers. Iconography/menu based interfaces may be alpha-omega on smartphones and other input limited devices but it is because they are input limited not because it is the best interface solution around.
Now let's talk noob ships and blow some up!
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