I wrote yesterday of the benefits of DarkFall’s smaller power curve and how it allows a new player to jump right into playing with his friends/guild, and today I want to talk about the other side of that equation, the negatives of such an open and free roaming world.
My example from yesterday worked because the ‘new’ player was already familiar with the game having played the EU version, and he had an established base of people to play with thanks to the guild, but what about a totally new players? Once they get passed learning the basics of the interface and controls (which notably is harder if they HAVE played another MMO, especially one that uses a WoW-like UI ), what can a totally new player expect? For starters, the game places you in front of an NPC, one that starts you on the somewhat long chain of noobie quests designed to teach you all the basics of DarkFall. Starting the chain is of course totally optional, and if you don’t talk to the NPC, you might miss the quests altogether.
But let’s assume our new player understands the UI/controls, and has picked up the first noobie quests, what now? The game will direct you to a goblin spawn, marked on your map, and ask you to kill a few. While this is very standard for an MMO, a new player in DarkFall has a few more hurdles to overcome before he returns to the NPC to claim his reward. For starters, the mobs in DarkFall do more than just run up to you and wait to die. Goblins generally agro 2-3 at a time, most will shoot you with a bow before switching to melee, and will run when they get low on health at a speed that makes chasing them down not all that trivial. Most new players are going to die from their first encounter with mobs in DarkFall, which is all but impossible in most other MMOs. The goblins are certainly possible to kill solo as a new player, and the average MMO gamer should get it, but even then things are not that easy as at any point a PK may show up and kill you with brutal efficiency. It’s likely you won’t have much of anything to lose, and the first time you get PK’ed is a very “Welcome to DarkFall” moment, but it still sets you back and makes finishing that goblin quest that much harder.
Even with success against goblins in PvE, DarkFall presents other challenges. Until you know to bank often, stick to ‘safer’ spawns, learn when to trust people, etc, it’s going to seem like a very harsh world at times. Which is not to say that at ALL times a noobie in DarkFall is going to be miserable and get picked on, most likely they will live a normal noobie life and learn the basics while just enjoying the game, but it’s certainly possible for someone to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, more than once a day, and have a really rough first few days. Depending on the player, those first few setbacks might be enough to cancel an account, and that’s not good for business.
The reason these initial problems exist is rather complicated. For one, you can’t make just noobie goblins super easy and still allow them to drop loot, as that would just cause everyone on the server to farm them over other targets (this was the case before the PvE patch that made other mobs easier and drop better stuff), and the last thing you want to do is give veteran players MORE incentive to hang around the starter zones. Another issue is the combat system in DarkFall, in that it’s more player-skill based than other games, which means when you are a noobie not only are your character skills low, your player skills are also low. It’s nice that BOTH can improve over time, but at the start it does put you at a larger disadvantage. At least in WoW you can be totally clueless and still auto-attack all the mobs around you and win.
Another issue is that when you first enter DarkFall, you get placed right into the world. Starter cities are still used by veteran players, PKs swing by, and if you travel just a little too far in any one direction, you will quickly find yourself overmatched and very likely lost. It’s possible for someone to mistakenly kill another player, go red, and be re-bound to a chaos stone. Chaos stones are in the middle of no-where, with no bank or NPC access, and getting back into ‘blue’ status can be a more or less impossible task for a starting player. The system is needed to keep players from rampantly ganking people in town, but it does have its downside.
Those issues, among many others, are what make getting into a sandbox MMO more difficult for the average player than a themepark. It works great for knowledgeable players or those with a higher level of patience, but as we know that puts you into niche territory. Designers can only bend the rules so much for new players without hurting their game overall, and players are very smart in exploring/exploiting any advantages given to them. Ultimately I believe that like most things in a sandbox, it’s up to the player community to try and soften the learning curve for new players and get them into the game. It already happens in EVE with EVE University Corp teaching new players, and many guilds in DarkFall will advise their members not to raid starter towns, but that’s only the beginning. A combination of developer tools and player community initiatives is needed to get perspective players past the noobie phase and comfortable with the game.
Hardcore Casual 
Still no comments? What in de hail?
What do you think about the City of Heroes solution of buffing the newbie who groups with his big buddy?
(Play WoW)
Sidekicking is a pretty neat feature, but its really a band aid. I think the most interesting part of the post is when Syncaine mentions that developers can’t make too many concessions or else people will take advantage/exploit. This is the main problem I see in multiplayer games in general right now, and especially MMOs. I guess it isn’t at all surprising, but you really just have to cover all your bases. If the most efficient thing for earning resources or levels, or anything, in a game, is horribly soul crushingly awful, and there is some awesomely fun content sitting right next to it, but doesn’t give a reward that is good…well, we know which one people will do.
Nice article.
I tell my friends that the first 20 hours of play in Darkfall is what separates the men from the boys.
I also tell them it is what weeds out the whiners from the game (my guild chat is filled with so much less crying than in other games…).
That being said some serious effort to smooth the learning curve and control scheme really needs to be made.
The opening tip structure etc all need to be front and centered more, better key defaults and some non-annoying but obvious method of leading people to the questlines (and in turn improving those).
At a larger level it seems like some kind of pvp metagame should be added that is more geared toward the newbies and the “townies”.
Perhaps something oriented around the race faction wars that encourages players to go kill opposing faction players. Something that isn’t just “go kill an orc” but something that causes unguilded orcs and humans to fight over but that in turn holds no interest for guilds.
Nice post. After my experiences with starting out in EVE, it does seem very hard to balance “noob friendly” mechancis with the harsh mechanics of the real game. EVE has a particularly bad newbie experience and I only survived through sheer determination. I know several people who gave up and it makes me wonder how many players EVE could have gotten through to if had just been a bit easier to learn. I’m not talking about dumbing own or changing the game, just making it easier to get to gripes with initially.
I don’t know if it’s the case with Darkfall, but the biggest danger I see with these types of games is that they don’t give enough direction to the player.
In other words, they log in and have nothing to do. And if no one is there to help them figure out what to do — they’ll get bored with the game without ever realizing the potential.
See, I’ve always thought the fun of it was getting to decide for myself what to do.
That’s not what I’m commenting on. What I am talking about is the perception there is nothing to do because it’s not intuitive.
I would compare it to being given a Tinkertoy set and they forget to tell you the wooden connector spools are in another box.
The possibilities might be endless but the odds are that you’re just going to get frustrated and quit.
It’s really the last statement you made that is debatable. Or at least varies from game to game. Certainly EVE today is easier to get into than EVE in 2004, so while the odds of frustration and quitting are lower, they are of course still higher than WoW’s. How low does that need to be, and at what cost? AoC has a very ‘friendly’ intro area for the first 20 levels, which while great the first time, is (reportedly anyway) hell the 4-5th time you play an alt. Worth including? Would DarkFall benefit more from something similar? I think it really comes down to what kind of player you are going after, and ultimately what the developer decides to focus on.
I am not 100% convinced of free for all PvP in the newbie zone, as a) gankers will decide that repeatedly ganking a newbie who is trying to find out which keys to press is good for their self-esteem and very entertaining (who in turn don’t have a guild to turn to for defence), and b.) if you are wary of every other player, how are you going to find a guild/group, that does not backstab you in 5 secs?
Because of that, I think the PvE island in Shadowbane was actually quite good to get too know some people before venturing out, and finding out what to press when without having a dagger in the back. Even in EvE you start in empire space, where you can hang around at zero risk and learn the ropes.
A single player demo level like in the original EQ would already help a lot just to get a feeling for the game.
First of all I think that everybody entering Darkfall will have some idea about the concept of the game. Even I whon don’t plan on entering this world know how the starter cities work. So ending up rogue at a chaos stone should really only happen to very little amount of players. (I know it happened to Ixobelle, but he asked for it.)
Then there should be as little as possible incentive for experienced players to kill newbs. I understand that the newbie weapons are non-lootable and beginners usually don’t carry that much money with them. So the only reason for ganking newbs will be pure spite.
There is not much you can do against that. Maybe some experienced players or guilds will act as guardian angels and protect the starter areas.
Maybe some highly skilled player with equally high character skills would enjoy posing as a newbie and drawing the attention of gankers. I would like to read such a story. But of what I’ve seen from the gaming-population I doubt they will happen.
One problem is that a newbie mining ore is worth just as much as a veteran mining ore, only the noob is usually easier to kill before he makes it to safety, which is one reason people still sweep the starter areas.
Also the idea of veterans posing as noobs in the popular noob hunting spots has been done, and it works very well (since usually the PKs don’t notice they are fighting someone skilled until it’s too late), it just does not happen ENOUGH right now to make going there as a PK unprofitable.
On the other hand, if the starter ares never saw a PK, it would be a somewhat false representation of what DF is all about; the possibility of danger at every turn.