[Corn]

So i have been thinking, how can we improve Jumpgate-E? So i went all the way back to EU beta and started and going to tell of you my noob story, i hope you share yours.
I started out Sol, because by nature i was greedy. I knew what i was getting my self into joining a game played mostly by german speaking players. I sat on station trying to figure out how to launch, spent about 20-30mins and got frustrated and quit. About 3 weeks later my gaming buddy who i showed the game to had found the launch button, and figured out how to navigate through chat using f1-f4. I launched out and slammed a pedal, it then took me about ten minutes to figure out how to jump, shortly after jumping i was raped by some flux and died. This was extremely frustrating, i was trying to configure by JS in realspace and learn all the button presses at the same time, and no one had told me about the sim. My friend was the one probing forums and asking questions and he helped me learn alot especially in the begining.
Most people give new games anywhere from 10min to about 1 hour, before they make an impression on it. Remember your mom always told you first impressions are everything. As a dev the first 10 mins a new player is in game is the time you have to get them hooked to play longer, if the first ten minutes is extremely boring and frustrating don't expect them to play much longer. The tips helped noobs, but in todays gaming no one wants to read little pop up boxes, they want to be imersed in the game experience not reading a how-to guide.
The first time you play Jumpgate Evolution, including open beta (remember this is most gamers chance to try out Jumpgate-E) and if they get frustrated and leave in the first 10 mins we'll be back to the hardcore 30-60 players a night. There needs to be a cool introduction video, maybe like a a comm window with an instructor teaching you the controls, docking, launching, and help immerse you into an RP universe. Heres a small script of what i would expect:
INTRO
Welcome pilot to the Jumpgate-E universe, is this your first time here?? (Maybe as i way for players already familar with Jumpgate-e to skip the training)
Jumpgate-e is a diverse world with haulers, miners, pirates, military pilots, and mercanaries. In Jumpgate-e you take your own path, choosing what ever you want to do.
On STATION CONTROLS
(this part should be either short and sweet, or moved to the end so the player gets to fly a ship in RS in the first 5mins.)
This is the market, this is where you can purchase equipment for ship, or trade for profit, every station has a market.
This is the ship selection screen, here you can purchase new ships when you start to advandce in lvls and credits. You can only purchase ships from faction station and squad hangers.
this is the simulator, here you can practice docking and fighting conflux aswell as fellow pilots.
This is the mission screen here is where you can choose missions to help advandce your lvl. cargo misson are... tranny missions are... etc.
This is the trade screen, here you can trade with pilots who have positvie ratings in your faction. (maybe even have the instructor trade you a beer )
This is the chat window pressing f1 will etc.
This is the launch button, once you press this button your ship will launch into space, go ahead and click it, don't be scared.
REAL SPACE
(from here the instructor shows you all the controls, aswell as things you can't purchase yet but will be equiped in by your instructor, maybe even have the instructor trade you the equipment and have you equip ffs and ecm. He will also explain how ecm works, ff works, and equiping guns. {how many times you see a noob with 1 ammo and 1 laser gun} Then he would teach you how to jump to a sector. fly through a beacon, kill a squid and finally dock your ship.)
OUTRO
You did good pilot, but now your on your own, its a dangerous world out there to be going it alone, we recommend you find a squad you'd fit into and try and join them. Remember theres lots of other pilots out there willing to help.

This is how i could see the first 10-15 mins of Jumpgate-e going. This would help explain everything, and you could even have an option to do it over again if you'd like. No one wants to play a game were you have no idea what your doing and just keep dieing everytime you play. I don't think there needs to be a noob flight system, but coprhensive guide to getting starting is necssary in such a high learning curve game. I would also advise videos for the first time you switch to millitary or the first time you switch to pirate. As well as some other benchmarks along the way, like for example the first time you buy a tow or a cargo hauling ship and explanation about mass and its effect on your ship would be nice, as well as maybe a docking guide to docking heavy ships.
the first time you go millitary there needs to be a video explaining the simple things like aiming, equiping your ship for battle, missles, circle fighting, jousting, using ffs effectively, and speed docking.

[Pyrophred]

Good concept. I might try putting the mission part in first, then flight, then the rest of the station controls, then an advanced flight mission, and finally a boot out the training room door.

The trainer tells you to go to the mission terminal, your first mission: take down a jelly that spawns automatically in the newb sim when you launch.
Then the trainer walks you through the controls. you kill the jelly then dock.

yer next assignment is to buy a missile, he trades you some other piece of equip(Duelist maybe?) and has you equip them and jump out to the next sector where you take down a squid.

maybe the trainer has his own ship and shows you how to go through the different chat channels, wing up, etc

Yer last assignment in the newb sim is to turn it off, and pray to Hamalzah you are actually ready for "Real Space"

[Wild_Bill]

or else it automatically launches you into the sim rather than RS so your initial stupid mistakes are very cheap. I got most of my death stats during my first year. Unlike Corn I got the original 3DO package with the instruction book, etc so I had some kind of idea of what I was doing. I didn't read the book well enough so I made a lot of stupid mistakes before Redleg recruited me to OAS. After that, things got better faster. Having a mentor is the best way to play the game.

[Aphelion]

I whole heartedly believe that this is a huge topic and I was about to post on it actually.

I also keep coming back to the Mechwarrior series of games since they were one of the best simulator games out there for a long time. You always had a nice starter mission where everything was taught to you through nice scripted events. Just have a nice big, training sim button in the station with the same sort of tutorial. Just enough to teach someone to fly, dock, jump and kill a snail or two.

There could also be seperate tutorials for mining or arti hunting, etc, but those should be seperate since you can only expect a new gamer to play a tutorial for 5-30 minutes. Always give an option for no training though, aka a bypass button, or totally optional training.

This way, n00bs can launch, jump through a gate and get pwned by a c1 sanddollar, pod home and then hit "Flight Simulator (tutorial)" when they realize that they're not going to "pwn n00bs with HS's" in this game.

[Lordopic]

Sort out the help channel, either by scrapping it altogether or having the so called EP’s in there ( what is they do any way ) Im not one but I think I have spent more time in the help channel than most EP’s ( excluding Regan ).

I used to go in there all the time and now I see more and more new players messages popping up I find my self in there again, but not to sit there and help noobs, but to tell the m to come onto :chat

I like the idea of training missions a bit akin to the ones in EVE, which hold your hand through the basic‘s and each stage unlocks a new part of the interface, and a little bit of the game.

So a whole new :help or such like for Jumpgate Evolution, I used to take noobs buy the hand and fly with them teach them how to kill flux mine, flip beacons, jump, etc anything that do’s this from the outset would be a huge help to the new player.

As for my first days, I chose Solrain more for the trading side of things as this is my main love when it comes to Elite style games. . I started out by playing Jumpagte like I used to start in Elite, selling the shields and hauling to the nearest station, to cut it all short a player by the name of Eightlegs saw me gave me 100k I joined the lords of Honour and well the rest the say is history.

Back on EU and here I did a bit of everything trading, hauling, mining , production, and even did PVP over on EU for a bit, but now all I do is log in chat to me squad mates and pop a few flux.

[Pyrophred]

dump the Help channel. If anything it should be used for reporting bugs and things.

Unlocking the interface is a neat idea.

They should definitely keep the mentor system too. regardless of how good the tutorial is newbs will always need a little handholding at the beginning.

When I started playing Jumpgate I got used to the feel before logging on. the first mission I got was through ZR though and if I hadnt gotten a mentor real fast (he caught me on my 3rd or 4th attempt) to help me I probably would have given up.

[daslog]

In another thread, I proposed putting nobs in a special newb squad automaticlly. Also, I think there should be a lot more offline training via scripted events as well.

[Scorch]

So new user experience is where we are spending the majority of our time right now. I hope that we can get players into the game playing quickly without any tutorial whatsoever. Watching a tutorial is a bad first experience in my opinion.

I think we lost a lot of players from Jumpgate from the first experience which is launch, try to dock, crash, die, quit.

We are also trying to expose the users to many of the cool features that they may not even know are in the game like medals.

We are going with the mantra of easy to learn, difficult to master. It will be fun to see what you guys think once we can get you in game. We are trying for the best first minutes of game play ever made.

[Aphelion]

Those are high goals and here's to hoping you guys accomplish them.

I would also like to state that I would have probably given up on Jumpgate if not for three lucky circumstances...

1. I had a lot of free time being a freshman in college and recently moved out of the parents basement.

2. I had a RL friend who played two of the beta's and knew how to play.

3. It was my first MMO so EVERY experience was completely new to me.

I really feel like the old Mechwarrior PC games are the closest thing to Jumpgate out there and that some good lessons can be learned from their 20-some-odd-year run.

[Poseidon]

Depending on what type of cockpit/hud you go with, maybe it would be helpful to have some kind of checklists that a player can bring up.

Landing Checklist:
1. Slow down or stop
2. Line up with docking rings
3. Slowly enter the docking port (no faster then 100)
4. At last moment, light off AB and FF.

More experienced pilot may not use that stuff, but it'd be helpful in beginning, and it could be used for help/explanations of other stuff (that my morning mind cant think of).

[Pyrophred]

it depends on how the tutorial is done. If all you are doing is watching, then yes thats bad. If OTOH the tutorial has you learn by doing, and goes quickly, I dont see how it could be a bad thing.

Try the Lord of the Rings game, its a good concept but they drag it out a little long IMO