May Contain Nuts

Welcome to part three of an ongoing series wherein I try to learn something from Uru’s second lack of commercial success. Hopefully by now the standard “not trying to tear anybody down, just pointing out problems” disclaimers aren’t necessary, so I’ll spare you that whole paragraph. This time, I want to take a look at the way that new players come into the game, and discuss the potential issues that may arise from the approaches that Cyan took the past two times.

When Uru first came out in 2003, players started in the Cleft. They were alone, and had to complete an initial task before they could continue. As everyone reading this no doubt already knows, that task was to collect the seven Journey Cloths that had been scattered throughout the Cleft’s environment. If players got stuck, they could always go back to Zandi for a hint (followed by a fairly obvious pointer). After completing this initial “level” of the game, players advanced to Relto, where they were still on their own. From here, players had a one-in-five shot of finally making it to a public area (the neighborhood), though given the distribution of new players across ‘hoods, it wasn’t very likely that they would have run into anybody there either. Some basic signage in the ‘hood instructed players to get their KI without going into any further detail about why they needed to do so, and getting it required them to once again venture into a private area with little to no assistance from signs or other players. So far, you’re looking at probably an hour of play in an MMO without running into or even being able to speak to another person. That’s something of a problem.

The second time around, Cyan got a bit more overt, which was nice, because vague and cryptic introductions worked for Myst, but for Uru, not so much. The “explore together” and “explore alone” bits were nicely done, I thought, and served to better introduce players to the different aspects of the game and how to get involved in them. At the same time, though, players start for the first time in Relto, alone, with no further instructions. The vast majority of players will figure out what to do, no doubt, but my hand to God, as a ResEng I took a support chat from a guy who asked me if there was anything else to the game besides that island (I wanted so badly to tell him that no, he was paying $9.95/month for that island, and he’d better make the most of it), so it could certainly stand to be made ever so slightly more obvious what’s going on for the criminally dense.

One of the really nice things that Cyan did for visitors later in the game was automatically link them to the Guild of Greeters Bevin when they used their ‘hood Book. I thought that was a really nice touch, and provided a way for players to immediately get involved in the multiplayer aspect of the game and get help from the people best suited to give it. However, if you were already a paying GameTap member, or you signed up for MOUL but weren’t sure what the premise was, you missed out on that opportunity, as all paying explorers were still taken to their default (and very often completely empty) ‘hood instead.

The biggest issue I have with Uru’s first steps is that there is very little hand-holding, which is important in an online game built on such a deep history. Newcomers to D’ni are completely lost, and even veterans of the D’ni civilization have a lot of learning to do. Apart from a few vague signs, there’s simply no indication of what you need to do or why you need to do it. I get that the game’s supposed to be very open-ended, but you do still need to walk players through the setup portion where they get their bearings and pick up the single most important piece of tech in the game so that they can enjoy the rest of this open-ended game world. Further, there’s no really intuitive manual provided for the KI, either in-game or on the website, which has been a failing since the original launch (beta testers got a really nice PDF KI manual every time it got updated… why were players deprived of this post-launch?). Given the device’s complexity, not providing a graphical manual is a serious oversight. Not to discredit the work that the GoG put into their in-game text-based manual or the PDF they have on their website, but these two resources are either overly verbose (a failing of the device, not the manual, since it’s virtually impossible to briefly tell someone through text how to do something with the KI) or off the beaten path for most players - especially the ones who would have the most need for it.

To resolve some of these problems, here is what I would propose doing instead:

1. Start players in a public location right off the bat. It can be on the Surface, or it can be in D’ni… doesn’t really matter as long as it’s public. Get them interacting with other players right away in a newbie-friendly environment. There should be minimal puzzle-solving required to advance out of this area, and before they leave, players should have everything they need in their possession to get around in the game world.
2. Give players the KI immediately, and stress what it’s used for. Provide a hologram of a DRC member or some other individual telling players, in clear English, how to acquire the KI and why they need it. How to use the whole thing may be a bit much for that initial message, but at least get them going with the basics (text chat). Make getting the KI a requirement for advancement, and be sure that the hologram describes how to proceed from that point. In all, this message should be no longer than a minute or two, or players will lose interest in it and get frustrated if they can’t advance. Additional signage should be placed for those with no interest in listening to a recording.
3. With the KI being a requirement for advancement, teaching players how to use the Nexus is the next obvious step. Again, make this as newbie-friendly as possible; if need be, provide a “newbie-Nexus” for first-time users with additional instruction on how to use the Book Machine (not like the Nexus is hard to use, but you’d be surprised…), or perhaps a limited selection of locations so that players aren’t overwhelmed.
4. Finally, players should still have a private space such as Relto to “escape” to, should they want to get away from the crowds or launch off on a private expedition through an Age. I think this is an important element of Uru’s design, but I think that beginning in a place of isolation is a poor design decision for an MMO. Make it a respite that you get after spending some time with other players (but perhaps not too much time, for those who prefer solitary explorations), rather than a starting point. That makes finally getting there all the sweeter, and nudges players outside of their comfort zone just a bit (and many players have noted their initial reluctance to visit the public areas, and ending up being very social after knuckling down and taking the plunge, so perhaps nudging people is a good way to get them to come out of their shell a bit).

Ultimately, a lot of this entry comes out of my experiences with new players as a ResEng. There is quite possibly no better way to see what people are having trouble with than by working at the customer service desk, and while there’s simply no helping some folks, a lot of the people I helped were sincerely having trouble with the same areas of the game. I can’t even imagine the number of people who didn’t manage to find a ResEng to help them if they were stuck…

An MMO can only be successful if people are actually able to play it. While Uru is/was certainly playable, I think more could be done to help pull newcomers into the fold.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 13th, 2008 at 11:07 am and is filed under Game Development, Myst, Uru Deconstruction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.