27 replies to this topic

[shirish]

Hi all,
Newbie to the fora and newbie to the game. I was trying to see if there is a tutorial to the game but not. Then tried to see if I could spot a ticket for it, didn't see any ? Maybe its too early to have a ticket for it to follow ? Maybe tutorial is one of the last things people do when they design games ? Looking to understand.

[KayEhn]

There is this: Manual Link

And any other questions, just ask us :3

Edited by KayEhn, 11 April 2012 - 03:16 AM.

[Mythos_Ruler]

Welcome to the forum, shirish. Your avatar is funny/awesome.

[shirish]

Mythos_Ruler, on 11 April 2012 - 03:22 AM, said:

Welcome to the forum, shirish. Your avatar is funny/awesome.

It's the real me. While registering it automatically took from gravatar.

@KayEhn thanx for the link but that is BORING. Manuals and multi-page manuals at that are boring. Which means it would be sometime before we can have some sort of tutorial.

Edited by shirish, 13 April 2012 - 12:27 AM.

[Mythos_Ruler]

shirish, on 13 April 2012 - 12:25 AM, said:

It's the real me. While registering it automatically took from gravatar.

Would you be willing to provide more headshots? Front, side, then 3/4 view (without glasses, of course)? Might need some more face textures in the nearish future.

[Geek377]

Mythos_Ruler, on 13 April 2012 - 12:43 AM, said:

Would you be willing to provide more headshots? Front, side, then 3/4 view (without glasses, of course)? Might need some more face textures in the nearish future.

You're funny Michael. Welcome to the forums Shirish.

[Jeru]

shirish, on 13 April 2012 - 12:25 AM, said:

@KayEhn thanx for the link but that is BORING. Manuals and multi-page manuals at that are boring. Which means it would be sometime before we can have some sort of tutorial.

Can you be more specific about what you expect from a tutorial (vs. a game manual)?

I am asking so that we can see how to improve. Thanks.

[shirish]

Jeru, on 13 April 2012 - 08:41 AM, said:

Can you be more specific about what you expect from a tutorial (vs. a game manual)?

I am asking so that we can see how to improve. Thanks.

Jeru, an in-game tutorial would be like for e.g. how the freedroidrpg or crawl-tiles people have done. You go as a player who does not either know the keyboard or the mouse controls and everything is told to you step by step by a friendly narrator. Now of course, I have shared/used RPG's as that is what I have been playing the last few days/weeks but also remember something similar for RTS's as well. Before the campaigns you have tutorial campaigns where you do some sort of mock foraging, mock fighting, mock everything where the narrator hand-holds you and everything. Some games even have tips which make it easier when you are doing stand-alone fights with the computer-controlled AI (Talking single-player here).

If you go the manual way then you lose more than half of your prospective audience. There are plenty of people like me who would rather play a game rather than try going through a manual (because it would be visual and you are doing/forced to do something) rather than read . Also have music and maybe dialogues ( with or without voice-overs) which just make it complete.

Overall more bang for the buck (even if the price is zero). Also if you want to make it ambitious the in-game tutorial itself could have one or the other factions in the latter stage/s as well.

I have to admit that even though I have got your latest build (through Debian) the lack of it hasn't motivated me to play the game.

Some of the more fun features you could have for later on to be discovered during campaigns or something, secret areas or whatever.

Just 2 paise from a random guy.

[FeXoR]

Perhaps a tutorial video might be a mix. You don't have to read and everything is explained but since no in-game triggers are implemented yet it's much easier to provide.

[shirish]

FeXoR, on 13 April 2012 - 12:06 PM, said:

Perhaps a tutorial video might be a mix. You don't have to read and everything is explained but since no in-game triggers are implemented yet it's much easier to provide.

Actually in the short-term, next/upcoming release this might be the solution but at the end of the day nothing beats having an in-game tutorial having triggers. For the experienced ones, they can simply leave. If needed can give many examples, both for RPG,RTS and other types of games who have in-game tutorial to enhance stickiness as well as make the person understand both the game lore as well as control. Just as an e.g. see Medieval 2 http://en.wikipedia....al_War#Tutorial

If you go in the casual fare, then games like Virtual Villagers and its ilk have also softened the new player coming to the game. Both of the above are commercial offerings. I would have to hunt but I'm guessing similar in-game tutorials would be found also in good FOSS games.

Update :- Megaglest (the fork of Glest FOSS RTS) features in-game tutorial as well.

Just my 2 paise.

Edited by shirish, 13 April 2012 - 02:10 PM.

[fcxSanya]

shirish, on 13 April 2012 - 01:56 PM, said:

Actually in the short-term, next/upcoming release this might be the solution but at the end of the day nothing beats having an in-game tutorial having triggers.

Of course it would be good to have tutorial scenario(s), but currently we don't have triggers and we want to release solid playable 1.0 version of the game as soon as possible and since properly implemented triggers are massive feature we plan to postpone them to after 1.0 version. I can't say this better than Erik said, so I will quote his words from another topic:

feneur, on 11 April 2012 - 06:15 PM, said:

Triggers (as in an easy way to create scenarios where things happen based on set conditions) are indeed postponed and unless things change dramatically will not be included in 0 A.D. part 1. (It should still be possible to create story based/event based scenarios with scripts though, and the reason why it's been decided that we will wait with including it is that overall scenarios/campaigns/triggers/cinematics will take so much time to both implement and then actually create the scenarios/campaigns. It's not too unlikely that 0 A.D. will have triggers etc quicker if we focus on having a released "finished" version rather than having every feature we might want from the start. A release version will ensure a lot more visibility, and will allow for 0 A.D. to be added to official repositories etc, which should increase the amount of possible contributors.)

[feneur]

I will add two things: First, adding an in-game tutorial before we've got all features implemented doesn't make much sense, so that's another reason it isn't added yet.

Second, while a full basic "move the mouse towards the left edge of the screen to move the camera to the left" kind of tutorial might be beyond the scope of 0 A.D. part one I definitely think we should be able to get something in. If nothing else we might have a special setting for the AI that enables helpful tips. "I see you haven't yet built any houses, you will have to soon if you want to continue expanding your empire" or "Maybe you should train some female citizens to increase your food gathering" etc (Maybe requires a special AI that can see what the player sees, and I don't mean just in terms of what's going on on the map, that's easy to share and for now the AIs can see the entire map by default. I also mean the player resources etc )

[shirish]

fcxSanya, on 13 April 2012 - 04:50 PM, said:

Of course it would be good to have tutorial scenario(s), but currently we don't have triggers and we want to release solid playable 1.0 version of the game as soon as possible and since properly implemented triggers are massive feature we plan to postpone them to after 1.0 version. I can't say this better than Erik said, so I will quote his words from another topic:

Thank you that's useful to know, so it's gonna take quite some time. Can any of the mods close the thread now.

[Jeru]

We usually leave threads open, if that's all right.

[feneur]

Jeru, on 14 April 2012 - 07:55 AM, said:

We usually leave threads open, if that's all right.

Especially since it's still relevant to discuss the eventual in-game tutorial. Just that it will be a while before it will be created doesn't mean it isn't relevant to discuss what it should be like once it's created

[BookishOwl]

would a video tutorial be helpful?

[Mythos_Ruler]

Video tutorials via YouTube might work.

[BookishOwl]

Mythos_Ruler, on 16 April 2012 - 11:26 PM, said:

Video tutorials via YouTube might work.

yep. easy to make and even embed within the actual game if wanted. A good stop gap at the very least... I bet there will be a lot of new players after the wall feature is implemented.

[shirish]

BookishOwl, on 18 April 2012 - 03:41 AM, said:

yep. easy to make and even embed within the actual game if wanted. A good stop gap at the very least... I bet there will be a lot of new players after the wall feature is implemented.

what is the wall feature ?

[Mythos_Ruler]

BookishOwl, on 18 April 2012 - 03:41 AM, said:

yep. easy to make and even embed within the actual game if wanted. A good stop gap at the very least... I bet there will be a lot of new players after the wall feature is implemented.

Yep. The gears are really turning now on this idea. A perfect solution for a game distributed via the Internet. What we'll have to do is decide on what features need tutorialized and then break them up into relevant chunks to make the videos.