I know that everyone would prefer if origins were unique or left open, but I'm recalling something from early in the development information when they mentioned how the game would be working on these fragments of stories that you pick up to find plots, among other ways.
What I'm getting at is that, everyone has a power set, and an origin. Wouldn't it be nice if they had a set of origin areas, missions, and story fragments that you could pick from to start off your characters tutorial. The tips and things wouldn't have to change, just set to trigger in three different places. Badges could be done, plus if you have friends or others on the same mission you could choose to share tutorial experiences. Every tutorial could exit from your unique starting instance to a group tutorial about proper power usage blah blah blah, mask for explaining the system.
Plus with a template like this in place people could build tutorial instances like AE, tutorial scenarios, etc. (Though with heavier limitations to keep tutorials from being farmable, that wouldn't be at launch, hopefully? LOL)
i agree u
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whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster and when you look into the abyss, the abyss also look into you, -Friedrich
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The main reason why "everyone would prefer if origins were unique or left open" is that it became increasingly obvious during CoH's 8.5 year run that trying to lock people into specific Dev-based interpretations of what "origins" were supposed to mean to each character was problematic at best. For instance when you say someone is of the "Magic" origin does that mean you cast spells like Merlin or are you more like Wonder Woman with divinely inspired powers?
I'm not technically saying your idea to have tailored tutorial threads is necessarily a bad idea. I just don't think the Devs could ever have enough types of default story ideas ready to go that would ever perfectly fit every character concept to begin with. The only way you could make sure any tutorial completely matched a given character's backstory would be to have players retroactively create their own unique tutorial stories themselves via the CoT mission creator. At that point you'd have CoT's verison of "the chicken before the egg" happening there.
So I'm fine with the Devs giving us a single "origin-neutral" tutorial to keep things simple and easy. It's going to be hard enough for them to get a working game ready to go for launch without making things overly complex anyway. I'd say leave it to players to make up their own unique "origin stories" for themselves.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I'm with Lothic on this. One tutorial for all worked pretty well for 8.5 years, and you were free to skip it if you'd rather. The origins they offered in CoX were pretty broadly interpreted by the players, and aside from dictating which freebie power and device you got, the identity of your first contact in City Hall, and which SO/DOs you were allowed to slot, they didn't really serve a mechanical purpose. If the devs include the origins element from CoX, I'd like to see it have more impact on character development, but I don't think that tailored tutorials are the way to go, especially at launch. After launch... well maybe you could choose a faction that is tied into your origin story, and the tutorial would be stocked with mobs from that faction, or variables in the mish would be defined by elements of that faction. But I can't see more than that.
And please, devs, do not follow the example of CO when designing the tutorial. One of the (many, many, many) mistakes Cryptic made was having each individual player acclaimed as the saviour of MC. It's an incredibly hollow experience to have a signature npc praise you for single-handedly saving the city, then turn and say the same thing to the character on his left while a civillian npc behind you is saying more or less the same thing to a third player... especially when every character you have experiences the same thing on an hourly basis.
Too right. Champions does the same thing. I'd rather have the origin story just be a rather low-profile introduction to the city and its overall workings. You're starting out as a relatively weak, and essentially unknown personality, after all. You wouldn't realistically want to announce your presence, or have it broadcast, to the whole world. Not until you could hold your own against potential enemies. For me, part of the fun, at least at first, would be learning the lore as I go. Doing missions, meeting significant personalities, etc.
I rather liked the tutorial for CoV. Remember the "Prison Break"? that was nice 'cuz you were just another bad guy breaking out in the confusion. You had to retrieve your gear and do some favors to get through. I also liked the intro mission to Praetoria, where you ultimately had to choose a faction, at least initially.
I'd like CoT to have some of those elements in its tutorial. Remember, it serves as an introduction to the City as well as the game. Entering some chaotic circumstance is pretty standard for this kind of thing. It has the advantage of introducing you to combat and having to find contacts and items via the HUD, etc. And it creates excitement for the new player right out of the gate. Of course, it would be nice if you could skip it later on in your multi-alt future.
Given the freedoms that we have asked for, and the devs have alluded to, regarding alignments, it would be great if our progression through the game (again, at least at first) was as much about learning about the City as we learn about our characters. The way I see it, we're discovering HOW to make it as a hero/villain in this environment. I always think of the "Batman: Year One" series. Bruce Wayne says: "I have the skills, but not the means."
I know this won't fit everyone's back story perfectly. But it's way better than DCUO's version: "Yep, there's an alien invasion, a side effect of which is you get super powers to help fight it off. What? Of course it makes sense!"
I think a generic tutorial for a game like this should have the "chaotic" elements you mentioned while at the same time be relatively limited/isolated in scope. Based on what games like CO and DCUO did it is silly to think that your newly created character could instantly play the "staring role" in saving the world from an Earth-shattering threat - what would there be left to do after that?
To be honest something like CoH's original tutorial (where a bunch of "Contaminated" civilians start tearing up a neighborhood) might be the most workable, non-origin specific idea. This would allow players to jump into the chaos created by the third-party emergency to learn about the gameplay in general and also begin to make meaningful alignment choices. For instance will your character choose to help the police/superheroes contain the crisis or will you choose to loot stores and/or otherwise take nefarious advantage of law enforcement being preoccupied?
I wouldn't even assume your character would end up being primarily responsible for single-handedly affecting the crisis one way or the other - in fact it'd make more sense for the established big-named NPC heroes to eventually "save the day" regardless of what you do. The point of your new character's involvement at all would be to establish a path towards "choosing a side" so-to-speak and being noticed by the established factions which would lead towards further missions down the path you've chosen.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
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I agree with the positive comments about pre-Freedom CoX-like tutorials compared to other attempts we've seen. Especially with the "saviour of the city" trap, which in some games is granted when you've just carried some letters from one NPC to another and killed 4 giant rats.*
Another thing that annoys me about some MMO tutorial missions (including Freedom's Shooting Stars arcs) is the way they constantly refer to your character as a kid or a noob. Our backstories may include an extensive history with only a recent event causing a loss in abilities (i.e. lvl 1) -- that doesn't mean our characters are necessarily clueless about everything. I think the key to avoid being patronising is for any tutorial to treat the character as new to the [i]city[/i] and make no other assumptions.
Anyway, back to the OP, didn't MWM already state pretty definitively that origins would be only in our heads and not in the game mechanics?
*Paraphrased from something Darth Fez said a while ago.
Spurn all ye kindle.
Another point that occurred to me is that even a level 1 superhero is quite beefy, compared to the average person. So this level 1 superhero could have been a level 15 cop or a level 18 scientist in their prior life (so to speak).
Some writers do fall prey to that romantic ideal of the military, so we get the drill sergeant type (who usually makes me wonder if they forgot to mention the part where my character enlisted). At the very least such characters make me wish for the option to come back and help them once they've switched to decaf.
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The Going Rogue tutorial in Praetoria makes a point to mention you enlisted. Even lets you deny that and try to quit (not that it helps).
If the tutorial treats the character as new to the city, Cinnder, doesn’t that do the same thing to the PC who grew up in the city and recently gained super powers?
If I create a character who's just gained his powers after living in the city most of her life, then I don't care about the NPC treating her like she's new to being a hero. I would rather that contact didn't babble on and on about "Welcome to the big city, how are you liking your first day here?" and so on.
It would be nice if you could check a yes or no on either one - yes I'm new to the city, no I am not new to having super powers.
But that might be asking for a bit much for a simple tutorial.
Longtime City of Heroes player, longtime writer. :) Working in Nebraska.
COT: Mission tips writer, studying Cinema 4D animation program
Well they tried to explain it by saying "these were the origins the well is currently handing out". But yeah, if the origins had an actual effect on the character other than determining which enhancements you could slot I could see holding onto them, but as it is they were pretty superfluous.
As for the tutorial and "saviour of the city" - I agree with the sentiments above. I don't mind starting out on the bottom and WORKING my way up to saving the world. I think the original CoH tutorial - Outbreak - hit the right notes for me - you are helping out in an emergency - an isolated crisis but a crisis nonetheless. Similarly the CoV tutorial Breakout (I loved that little trick with the names by the way) felt right. The part about instantly being drafted into Arachnos kinda wore thin after a while, but the breakout fit IMHO.
And I don't even mind if the signature characters/group (Freedom Phalanx/JLA/Avengers, etc.) are more powerful/recognized - they probably have a right to be (or are at least more established) while I am the new kid in town so to speak. Just as long as they aren't jerks about it. lol.
This is why I suggested something more dynamic, some villains aren't the sort to have ever been caught when they start making trouble, or ever, demons, or anything immoral. The point was that you could choose some options at th start so that right before you get in game it asks you thinks like that, sort of like a survey, then tailors it to your answers. The pool of variables the idea I suggested doesn't have to be large at first, Some stages could be entirely uniform, depending on your side. Heroes and villains could have darker origin tutorials.
I don't think that 'one tutorial' covered it for CoW though. We had 4 if I recall, one for CoH, one for CoV, One for Praetoria and then the City of Whatever tutorial. I enjoyed all of them all but other than badges they annoyed me, especially losing the 'free level' you get. I don't think we need to make it too complicated at first, but if the system is in place to begin with that either through path choices or before entering the game, you set up some of your starting path, it would be easier than adding it in later. Plus it could add life to the game in old players and new if the experiences at all areas of the game changed or expanded. I would have loved to stop a kidnapping, or rob a bank for my first mission.
I see all the gripes that I have as reason for wanting something like this, I've played enough MMO's that while the tutorial is 'fun' to get into the world, I want the experience to be like entering a comic about the character. CoH did well the first time through since it was establishing that Heroes are pretty much routine, and you're new, so you're being trained. That might be a good thing to keep standard but shorten, while the rest of it could be as simple as this:
Movement tutorial: A, B, C.
power activation/accident/training: A, B, C,
Incident report to police/running from them: A1, A2, B1,B2, C1, C2,
Training/anarchy/plotting: A, B, C, (All basically the same except dialogue)
First mission!: A, B, C, D, E, F.
These could serve several purposes, allowing each player to have a 'unique' starting experience, and encourage creation of new characters so you can experience the tutorials new options. Some people with no idea how to get into the world in character, could use it as a spring board of unique experiences as a hero.
Origin specific tutorials could be interesting but as has been pointed out you run into the problems of the tutorial not fitting your character or be so general in nature that it becomes redundant.
I would personally like an optional story arc wherein you have tutorial popups that can be disabled. In other words give us an intro story that we can choose to do or not AND choose if we want popups or not. If this optional story arc could also be randomized to not always be the same group and same goals that would be ideal.
Using CoH groups as a guidline, one time you run the optional intro arc and its about how the hellions are tearing up a city park, the next time its the skulls tearin up the park, the next time the skulls and hellions are fighting at a rave...next time its the contaminated polluting the city water supply....Its just a series of random missions to introduce you to the city and game which you can do or not (maybe even choose which one you want to do) and choose if you want the popups or not.
As I said its ideal....(for me at least) to have multiple intro missions but that's a lot of work for a tutorial As long as the mission is optional and the popups are optional I am happy.
I think the very most simple parts of the tutorial, like these, should be handled in a 'Testing Room' attached to the character generator. Create your character, then take it for a test- spin against dummy-targets, to see how it looks and how it works. Then shift to the 'real game' and your first mission.
Be Well!
Fireheart
Ummm... I'm not so sure it would make sense to include that on the Tablet/Mobile versions of the Character Builder. :P Maybe on the PC/Mac.
Hmm, Could be part of the stand-alone Character/Avatar Builder, but I envisioned it as part of the integrated one, leading into the game itself.
Be Well!
Fireheart
Good point! I just realised that CoX's pre-Freedom tendency to treat us as new to the city resulted in my creating characters who were just that! They always came from somewhere else, and I never thought about why before now.
I like your idea of options instead. We can't pretend that our new characters are at the peak of their powers because they are indisputably level 1, so if we had the ability to choose the reason, e.g. new character, came her from somewhere else where powers are different, recently lost powers, etc. that would be ideal.
But, as you say, that may be asking for much. At the very least, I'd ask that the early NPCs not assume in dialogue that my character is young just because he/she is lvl 1. I think pre-Freedom CoX at least avoided that.
Spurn all ye kindle.
If the devs agree with this logic, maybe they could consider an idea I call "mark and acknowledge."
Let you pick from a few basic options to begin with, like the ones you covered. New to the city, not new. Recently gained abilities vs had abilities for a while vs. formerly more powerful.
Then to start with, just acknowledge the circumstances in the first few opening screens. As development of the game progresses, they could add references later in the game for this as the game grows. So eventually, what starts out as a single acknowledgement could get several new acknowledgements a year or five into the game's life.
IE.. let it grow over time.
That is of course, assuming the players developing the game agree it's worth doing, obviously.
I definitely prefer a game that tends to avoid making generalizations about the character whenever possible, though. If I wanted a game that tells me what my PC is like, I'd play Kingdom of Loathing.
J
Longtime City of Heroes player, longtime writer. :) Working in Nebraska.
COT: Mission tips writer, studying Cinema 4D animation program