Beginners Update

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pig001
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Beginners Update

Post by pig001 » Sun Aug 27, 2017 12:37 am

Getting new players to join and stay is always an issue, and we want to make it as easy as possible for players to see all of craftlands amazing features, and have a basic idea how to go about them. Sure they could ask ingame, but many new players can feel intimidated when looking at the online players and seeing 1000 hours+.

So, if you can... cast your mind back to when you first joined. What do you wish that you had/had been told/had been shown when you joined? And if something that you saw was the defining moment that made you stay, what was it?

Current ideas in progress are:
- Task System/Quests, works as an ingame guide - http://imgur.com/a/Ttuhe
- "Main Menu", acts as a portal to the website, forum, teamspeak etc. As I mean for a new player, who knows about /wiki, /forum etc. They are useful to us older players, maybe not so much for newer.
- In-game Poll, allows non-forum users to give their opinion on server-wide issues.
- Daily Tasks/quests - Quests that can be set a few days in advance by a staff member, likely to be achievements to complete or other wise.
- Menu tutorial - A quick overview of the many many menus on craftland.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
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Mogubea
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Re: Beginners Update

Post by Mogubea » Sun Aug 27, 2017 11:48 am

The issue with new players, is that each and every person is unique and has their own "need" or "requirement" within a server in order for them to want to stay and play. Some desire assistance, some desire a simple direction, some desire to prove that they deserve to stay etc. Then there's the features, are they good enough, is there enough, is there too much thrown at them at once?

With me, on my older account which I stopped using since I wanted a new start, joined in 2012. What kept me playing was the desire to want to explore the Aether and see what it was for myself. At the time, I was an experienced Minecraft player and Craftland offered so many new things for me to learn and I had never even seen the Aether before. When I started, there was a newbiezone, which restricted you to only being able to build/live in that zone for 2 hours (I tried just afking there for a bit, but that didn't work so I decided to mine a bit within the zone, I even had my own little house in the side of a mini generated hill with 2 double chests), then you could be set free to your own devices. For me, it was a little annoying, but I loved having to prove my worth. And because of this, I was forced to only make regular stuff, until I was allowed out of the newbiezone and warped to the Aether and figured out slowly how to make everything. I remember mining my first Zanite still, I was in awe at the view (The zanite was in the side of an island and I had to build to reach it). But as I said, every player is different.

When I joined on that account, it was a simple; read the rules, stay in this area, figure it out. What also helped me stay was the pure amount of newer players online, which allowed me to make a friend and start building, get a region, and learn a few things instead of being forced to ask the 300+ hour people online. The defining things would be; having new friends to help me out, the first time seeing the aether on a server, having to figure everything out myself, achievements (I love love love achievements) and I'm a sucker for unique UI's... I love the craftland UI so much.

Let's also say I'm glad that there's no longer a chest that will ban you if you steal from it, with a sign tempting you to do so. It's a nice way to prevent stealing, but kinda childish.

Things that didn't help me stay.. I would be temp-banned on that account for the stupidest of reasons that were out of my control and weren't mentioned in any ruleset at the time. For example; I broke a silver dungeon pillar, got banned until the region issue was fixed. Also a certain "super-special" Admin really hated me for some reason, never understood why (Begins with a V :p). I would ask them for help and they would just ignore or badmouth me for whatever reason.

Regarding daily tasks - I personally suggest them not being achievements, or if they are, make them newer ones? A lot of players have the achievements that would typically be set as a daily, and you can't really set something like Holy Miner 6 as a daily. Maybe make them unique achievements for the day and add them to your achievement score and list in a different colour, maybe pink to show that they were infact a daily achievement.
Regarding in-game poll - I am interested to see how this would play out, definately excited for it.
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fin344
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Re: Beginners Update

Post by fin344 » Sun Aug 27, 2017 4:56 pm

When i was new i had no idea whats going on i only knew the aether so i figured everything i know out myself...i remember when i first opened the CL UI and thougt:"wtf ist das modpack geil"
then after dying some times i think i decieded to get in the aether, then i found a nice place to build
and asked in the chat if he could protect it but they answered that i have to build something first so i build something in a montain,then made some dungeons where i died often and found swissdungeons what were much easier for me and after a time i got a house in asgard and found a way to store experience so i stored every time my experience when i had 30 level and found out that here is a valkyrie armor for what i wanted to waste my exp but then i found end colletion and was a little bit disgusted thats so easy to make level and after some time i figured out that there is an arena becouse i didnt know where i should get a valykrie armor and thats all i remember...i remember too that i wasted months to get a valkyrie sword what was just annoying.

u could make a tutorial world for newer players or give them as starter kit a book wheres everything u need to know about items..where u get them...dungeons and how u do them...what u can do here
or soemthing like a big book of lore where u can put a item in and it says what it does or just give them all 3 and add 2 more for the shadow aether and deepvale but dont tell them everything and let them figure out something themself what makes more fun then knowing everything about that modpack.

Daily task´s
like beandon said it will be better if theyre not achievements or tasks, i think a new tab for them is better

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Re: Beginners Update

Post by Crovan » Mon Aug 28, 2017 6:12 am

When I joined fall 2016, Grimlock was on the rise. Grimlock and it's features as well as Asgard made me stay in first place.
Why not combine "restricted zone" and "beginner tasks" in a cool way? Having a hypixel-like adventure map where you learn all the basics would be cool.
--> /register
In case of a new tutorial based on my idea, why not making registration accessible after the whole.
People should be told how multi-chat works in the very beginning or make some sort of "apprentice-channel" instead.
Like this they can go through the "tutorial" with other apprentices without spamming global.
Also, there should be some ender chests (inside the tutorial-area) to store the gained stuff.

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Re: Beginners Update

Post by Kye » Mon Aug 28, 2017 11:00 pm

When I joined I was into Craftland for the first 400 hours then once you have nothing left to do you leave so if there were more interesting things people might stay longer
Busy firing potatoes out of my butt.


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Re: Beginners Update

Post by Diesel » Wed Aug 30, 2017 5:17 am

Crovan wrote:
Mon Aug 28, 2017 6:12 am
When I joined fall 2016, Grimlock was on the rise. Grimlock and it's features as well as Asgard made me stay in first place.
Why not combine "restricted zone" and "beginner tasks" in a cool way? Having a hypixel-like adventure map where you learn all the basics would be cool.
--> /register
In case of a new tutorial based on my idea, why not making registration accessible after the whole.
People should be told how multi-chat works in the very beginning or make some sort of "apprentice-channel" instead.
Like this they can go through the "tutorial" with other apprentices without spamming global.
Also, there should be some ender chests (inside the tutorial-area) to store the gained stuff.
I would love this!

I also agree with Kye. I think with 400h
I had enough archievements to see my name on the first or second page of the Players List. Then i trained mcmmo, but when you are over level 10k it takes too long to do it in ones"pc-time (1,5h)
Now I dont have anything to do and went inactive.


I decided to stay in 2013 (old acc), because I had "friends " with who I trained my english and found step by step out, what to do.
I remember I started in noob town (Old greycliff spawn ) And built a "House"with Metakirby. Then we saw that there is an aether ingame, and I learned about Smart moving (the greycliff parcour). This wasnt that easy because instead of the german "Strg" there was the "cltr" or somehow like this.
After metakirby left Iivedwith Diamondqueen and another person in the aether. The point of my story is, that I enjoyed the freedom, but I was dependent on freshmws help, who told me how to do some stuff.

Note: Dear helpers, pls explain the word "Caps" if somebody does it, because not everybody knows what it means.
Kye wrote:
Mon Aug 28, 2017 11:00 pm
When I joined I was into Craftland for the first 400 hours then once you have nothing left to do you leave so if there were more interesting things people might stay longer

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Re: Beginners Update

Post by fin344 » Sat Sep 02, 2017 12:37 pm

Kye wrote:
Mon Aug 28, 2017 11:00 pm
When I joined I was into Craftland for the first 400 hours then once you have nothing left to do you leave so if there were more interesting things people might stay longer
i agree with u, after some time CL gets more and more boring

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Re: Beginners Update

Post by pig001 » Sat Sep 02, 2017 1:39 pm

Well, I mean having over 400 hours of content in the first place is pretty good... Most games have much less than that (http://www.gamelengths.com). Issue is how do we quickly show a new player, "hey there's so much content to do here!" something I'm hoping the task system will accomplish well.

It's a difficult trade off adding content to extend the game for older players, or focusing in bringing new ones in. Ideally a system can be used by new players, but the difficult stuff in it is only accessible to older players, something I'm trying hard to balance well in a new system I'm working on which no hints are available right now.

So as far as I can tell, server events like grimlock and others are a bit appeal to players, new and old as its something completely new? And possibly changing over time.

A tutorial World has been thought about many many times, but it will be very hard to go over all the content quickly and not boring enough so that players are either overwhelmed or just are like "nah". Also, think of another game you played, I don't know about you, but the first thing I do in a game is skip the tutorial. What would people suggest being a vital part of a tutorial world?
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Re: Beginners Update

Post by fin344 » Sun Sep 03, 2017 1:21 pm

add a book where are some usefull tipps at some pages and information about dungeons, infusement altar, cooking, plants, worlds, the portals at the spawn, how to make regions, arena, smart moving and when u put an item in it then its like a big book of lore that explains the item and show u what use it has

and after this pls add some new mechanics like steampunk machines or magic things for the older players to keep them playing.

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Re: Beginners Update

Post by Crovan » Mon Sep 04, 2017 7:43 am

Fin? all in all nice Idea, but as it is so much, why not making a "CL-Spotlight"-video linked to the new Ingame-Login screen?
Or maybe just add the video-link on the first page of the book you suggested so players can choose.
I don't know if another video contest is going to work. Also, no idea if all this can be explained in 5-10 mins video length.
A Craftland-yt-channel suggestion has probably been made earlier, I don't think it would be much of a bad idea.
Is there someone in our community who's experienced with stuff like this?

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