....With special guest appearance from Mod Sova for a quick teaser of this week's game update! Trying to get more sneak peeks of content into the streams, we hope you enjoy!
I think all the youtube timestamps are missing an "&". &t=897s, for example.
Slack is down atm but I’ll make sure to pass this on so it gets corrected. Apologies about that!
I am prepairing my torches and pitchforks just in the offchance Masori isn't the golden-plated-armoured-tank-bird-beast that has been sent by Ra armor set I didn't know I wanted.
The updated concepts are honestly sick just saying, we are hoping to share them with u as soon as we have gone through our usual checks
I like the updated design of the Masori armor. Seems to be a mix of the old design where it looked more historical with additional flashiness that people wanted from suggested redesigns
Edit: Y'all harassing me in DM's over this mistake are truly unhinged.
We haven’t released the updated concept images just yet so these ones in the summary are from last week and are thus subject to changes
Any time new player experience comes up I always wish the mods seen this video on the topic. Especially when Squid went down the line of mentioning "squiring for a knight to kill a dragon" basically 1 for 1 repeating the mistakes from the "Learning the Ropes" tutorial.
Hell they even exchanged experiences that got them to get membership and 2 or 3 of them involved the social fashionscape aspect.
Hey, I totally agree about social factors! It's something I feel strongly about improving across the board and have talked a bit about on previous streams as well.
Just to expand a bit on what I was getting at with the tutorial: I think Tutorial Island's main problem is context and information relevance. We can't really expect players to understand the game when we're not properly showing it to them and are teaching them unconnected things outside the context the player actually needs them. That's not a great way to learn.
My suggestion boils down to teaching things to the player at their own pace with meaningful context, in a non-linear, less guiding fashion within the main game world, not an isolated area. So the squire quest example would start in Lumbridge and be as naturally integrated into general gameplay as possible while introducing various core aspects of the game at a pace the player controls. So there wouldn't be any gating or hint arrows and if the player wants to fish more or go visit Varrock, they absolutely can without finishing the quest. They'd actually be able to continue parts of it elsewhere as well because if the quest asks for fish, for example, it doesn't care where the player gets fish from and wouldn't point them to a specific location, just like any other quest. Throughout all of this you could absolutely run into players and group up or chat about whatever you're doing.
The idea of having social interaction right out of the gate is fantastic and something I aspire to cultivate more throughout the game, but it's unreliable as the sole teaching mechanism. They're not mutually exclusive after all but I totally agree any sort of tutorial/intro shouldn't retract from potential player interaction.
At the end of the day, the game needs to explain what it is, what it offers and provide some better tools to help players get goal setting and generally find out what they can do and I don't think Tutorial Island provides that.
More importantly than anything, I think the game should emphasize Grand Exchange for normal accounts. Not just as a mechanic that will help them earn money, but even just as a way to find themselves moving towards the social hubs of the game.
I've spent time "helping noobs" in W301 ftp, and almost every time I get them through the chicken -> combat dummy phase I bring them to the GE and they immediately get deep in with all the hilarious discussion/ craziness happening there and totally forget what they were doing. Even though online socializing isn't novel to games anymore, people still find it really interesting.
In the past I've tried brainstorming ideas like having a caravan merchant in lumbridge that will act as a limited GE or a way to "taxi" you to the Grand Exchange (NPC with a right click follow function that takes a long path through Varrock to GE)
Interesting idea and definitely worth considering further. While I have mixed feelings on the Grand Exchange as a whole, it is here to stay so putting it on a new player's radar as both a useful/familiar tool and a social space could be a positive thing. A caravan or some other guiding mechanic is interesting, though I'd like to ensure the player can figure out where they're going themselves, rather than following something then wondering where on Gielinor they are and how they get back! Perhaps a basic drawn map/flyer that can be picked up around the Lumbridge area would give more control to the player as well as introduce a bit of exploration and learning to the matter as they'd have to follow the map via landmarks.
Just some thoughts off the top of my head, but the G.E. is an interesting one to consider if we were to take another look at the onboarding experience.
The idea of having social interaction right out of the gate is fantastic and something I aspire to cultivate more throughout the game
(Related; I LOVED the "way of the forester" thing you made for the gazette)
Thank you very much, really appreciate you saying so! :D
devtrackers.gg