Quests

[paolo]

Every round someone creates a thread about the beloved Quests of times passed. Every round people agree it would be a great idea for different reasons; be it a great increase in roids to the game or teaching new players the game by introducing cause -> effect relationships and making sure new players don't die of boredom when they wait for the 72hours of protection ends.

The increase in roids can be done in different ways (like in the thread created by ComeradeRob http://pirate.planetarion.com/showthread.php?t=193993)

I'd like to discuss the benefit to new(ish) players. When starting a game, not many people will start by reading the manual to be able to understand it. Likewise, not everybody is familiar with mIRC and thus will have noone to teach it to them so they have to figure it out by themselves.
- Problem: unknown game
- Solution: teach players
The question here is, how can we help new players to learn the game?

A better question would be, what is the best learning method? In schools and at home children learn most effectively by playing a game, so why not our new 'children'? Children in real life are tought the difference between good and bad by treats and rewards, so why not our new children?

If i press a button somewhere and doing so will result in a reward of 10 roids, i will think, hmm, maybe that's a good thing? Maybe doing that in the future would benefit me somehow? If we explain somewhere (maybe in the news screen or overview) why doing that is such a good thing, new players will understand the game faster and better. The game isn't really rocketscience, but it isn't easy either. Explaining the game in the game itself would be the way to go.

In my opinion, the biggest reason why quests should return is the extremely boring protection period. Give people something fun to do while they are waiting for the game to finally begin. I can understand if someone leaves the game if they find out they still have to wait two days before they can finally do what they are supposed to, cooperate with other planets.

Discuss what you think of this idea and why you think it hasn't been implemented yet.

[Veedeejem!]

Quests in general are a good idea, this has been discussed for rounds now and almost everybody has agreed that they are a good way to get people to learn the game.
I can't think of a reason why they haven't been put back in the game...

[jerome]

perhaps it's because pa is beng overflowed with coders willing to contribute their time for free

[Wandows]

Tbh i think quests are seriously overrated. They draw away attention from the reasoning behind certain choises or actions taken and i do not see a way where quests will manage to make a new player actually understand the game. They will obviously get new players to do something, but instead of explaining the reasoning behind certain choises made, they generally just learn the player that if he does action 'X' he gets a certain bonus. But i guess quests are better than having nothing at all.

I would personally like to see a tutorial like normal strategy games have, which would explain cause and effect and reasoning behind choises you can/should make. One for developing your planet and another one for understanding the basics of combat and perhaps one that goes through galaxies/clusters and alliance policies and setup and simulates the effect communication on irc could have (like a 'fixed' conversation where they manage to obtain defence from their galaxy m8 or something along those lines). This would eventually work 10 times better than any mile of manual you'd write, but unfortunately it also requires a reasonable amount of coding which makes it unlikely to ever exist (mind you i would be willing to look into coding a tutorial like it, but the problem is that depending on PA's changes each round it would require alot of work to update ).

[Kal]

I think quests would need to be more advanced than they were previously to have the desired teaching effect. I'd be inclined to have two types of quests:

1) similar to the tutorials system that wandows describes
2) something that can be sone at any time during the game that adds a bit of fun between attacks/defences etc.

However, I'm not in any way sure what the best way of going about doing either of theese would be, so any thoughts on implementation would be hugely helpful.

[paolo]

I guess the discussion will now be more about how we can get new players to learn the game than getting the quests back.

Originally Posted by Kal

I think quests would need to be more advanced than they were previously to have the desired teaching effect. I'd be inclined to have two types of quests:

1) similar to the tutorials system that wandows describes
2) something that can be sone at any time during the game that adds a bit of fun between attacks/defences etc.

However, I'm not in any way sure what the best way of going about doing either of theese would be, so any thoughts on implementation would be hugely helpful.

It depends on the coding time available.

1) We wouldn't really need quests for learning purposes if there was a more thorough explanation underneath every choice. Not so much as WHAT you're choosing, more so as to WHY one whould choose it.
If you would want to create that in the form of a quest, the quest would be:
- read this here peace of text and answer these questions about the text correctly. This will get you x amount of roids.
- the quest would create artificial incoming where you have to build certain kind of ships to destroy it. The combatsystem will be explained this way. (it might be wise to start everybody with fi/co already researched so this quest can be done within the first 72 hours) This will generate salvage, xp and maybe even a reward. You can explain all of that before protection ends, what a great way to start every players round, a safe and simple introduction to the core aspect of the game.
- Maybe even introduce planetarion offline by mrLobster so everybody can play around with the stats and game quickly so they can get a feeling how it actually works.

2)
- Get the community involved on IRC between ticks. Organize events where everybody can win something for their planet every tick.
- Get feedback of new active players, what are the main problems when starting the game? What do they think would get rid of that problem?
Getting feedback from people fresh to the game is equally important as feedback from expierenced players. It's a low vs high level problem kind of thing or early vs end game if you like.

Also a simple action, put the information about the page at the top of the page in stead of the bottom. At least for the first 72 ticks. This way everybody will start by reading that before they do anything at all on that particular page.

What i mean is:
INFORMATION
This page gives you the most critical info and an overview of your planet. Your planet is under protection for the first 72 ticks after it is created, so you have a little time to build up and prepare for the oncoming conflicts. Use it well

That information

More ideas on this subject will follow, but as i said earlier: it's more an available coding time type of problem i foresee, not so much a lack of support.

[Spinner]

- A "Tip of the day" could pop up a little DIV once every 8 hours unless turned off, with some pretty nifty information.

- The Information texts could be improved and made more visible

- Quests are nice for teaching the very simple stuff, like how to send messages, how to use the gal-forum, how to perform a scan etc, and it creates a little something extra to do. Not very hard to implement, and I think it would be worthwhile. It was back in the old days anyway
(And you can use it to shift the balance of power in a certain direction, like "Launch at least 1000 ships in tick 1020 against Fury Headquarters to gain 100 roids" heheheh )

One last thing on quests:
Don't list them all, keep some hidden, so you reward the curious "Congratulations! We have been waiting for you to do this or that, here is a cold beer and a brand new shiny <insert shipname here>"

- Why is it so hard to advertize for this game here and there?
Is it Jolt being unwilling to try? Is it Jolt not being able to afford it?
Is it the principle of whipping a dead horse that puts them off?
Is it just the money they do not wish to spend, or is it the time and effort?
As I see it, there is plenty of advertising-opportunities out there, that would cost 0 dead presidents. It may take some time and effort, but such things can be found.
Also, why not get a proper affiliate-system up? It's not that hard, and exisiting users could get free credits for bringing in fresh blood.
This works like a charm over at ManagerLeague and I see no reason PA can not do the same!

- Spinner
Sad to see what has happened here...

[Wandows]

Originally Posted by Spinner

- Spinner
Sad to see what has happened here...

We all are .

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by Spinner

Is it just the money they do not wish to spend, or is it the time and effort?

I think it's both.

It appears a little like a modern "alliance" scheme really. The adminstrative team. There's very few people interested in actually working hard, and those are probably burnt out by now. Then there's a dandy support team worth 50 odd people, most of whom major in collecting the free credit for the round and not being arsed to carry a stick further to it. This is easily elaborated by the fact that Kal once stated the manual as one of the three main aspects of work for the support team. Of the 21 people on the support channel (current status), nobody has succeeded in revamping the manual into actually corresponding to what happens in game, and features like the stick-assed combat engine (yes, this is a bitter example, there are better ones around) are described bad if at all.

The manual, the spiritual product of the support team's 20++ members, is ridiculously shit, and definately will not help introducing new people into the game. The two other aspects of "introduction", internet relay chat and the forums, are not "appealing" or even available for all of the first time loggers in. A first time player can easily drop off after one login, as he faces an interface that doesn't explain itself, supported by a manual that explains very little (and where it explains, it definately does not provide a good intro to the game).

So, yeah, perhaps a fourth medium in form of Quests would help people catch on the game easier. I suppose the major issues are the time and effort spent into someone actually implementing them into the code. Secondly, what it necessarily won't fix, is the total lack of advertising and bouncing new flesh in to the game. How much it is of game mechanics that very few people nowadays play, how much of the advertising, how much of the interface, are good questions. There are other browser games that attract loads.

To top it, when there's someone willing and interested in helping out with the administrative duties, he'll be thrown into the support team for a test period of unknown length. A roomful of idle (idiots?) is definately a good way to use the few coding assets available to the game.

Over and out.

[robban1]

well you know spinner you just listed the diffents with the old admins and the present ones you did stuff the new ones have "visions"

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Spinner

Why is it so hard to advertize for this game here and there?

I don't think its worth advertising *yet*, I think a few things need to happen first to get the most value out of it. But the plan is certainly to get back on track this year.

Originally Posted by Spinner

Is it Jolt being unwilling to try? Is it Jolt not being able to afford it?
Is it the principle of whipping a dead horse that puts them off?
Is it just the money they do not wish to spend, or is it the time and effort?

PA makes very little if any money currently based on my estimates of all the costs and revenues. Additionally to this its hard to put together a good business case for advertising the way things currently are.

Originally Posted by Spinner

As I see it, there is plenty of advertising-opportunities out there, that would cost 0 dead presidents. It may take some time and effort, but such things can be found.

I'm working to make PA more prominent on variosu sites, one of the problems I'm facing however is that at some point someone else has registered PA on them, so I'm having difficulty getting access to them. The plan is to have news on new PA rounds and special events go up on all the relevant sites and to increase PA's prominence on the various voting sites. Since simply putting a few links for voting in the MOTD our prominence has been raised significantly - if we connected them to say free resources ingame we could do even better with ease.

Originally Posted by Spinner

Also, why not get a proper affiliate-system up? It's not that hard, and exisiting users could get free credits for bringing in fresh blood.
This works like a charm over at ManagerLeague and I see no reason PA can not do the same!

In ML (correct me if I'm wrong), you effectivly have a passport system i.e. single username/pass for life. This makes the sort of scheme you suggest much more manageable as people become more attached to their identity and as such abuse of the system is less likely. This is one of the key reasons we want some kind of passport system for PA.


To sumarise, we know we are failing in some areas, but we are working hard to get things back on track.

[Benneh]

The fact spinner can come back and say things like that just makes me wonder. WTF are jolt doing

Its saddening.

[The Real Arfy]

Hands up who uses facebook?

Personally I wouldn't join it because I'm still in the closet - but somebody should make a group.

[wakey]

Theres a myth that the quest system was a learning tool. Leading people by the hand to show them how to send messages, launch ships and such like didn't really teach anyone anything that they didn't know.

What the quest system did do was is gave 'everyone' something to do during the initial period of the game which can be pretty boring. The benefit of this cant be underestimated especially for new players who can often signup and lose interest in the first 72 ticks as theres not really anything for them to do.

If you really want to teach people to play whats needed is a better system that makes them think, rather than just guides them by the hand. For example the advisory system someone mentioned on another thread which if done right (and probably with some more depth added to the micromanagement side of the game) would offer you a number of different opinions on what you should be doing, all which have some usefulness but which would force you to decide which one to go with. You just need to make sure while a wrong choice can be damaging to progress it isnt so damaging it totally screws them because while mistakes are some of the best learning tools if they are too big it can drive them away

[Red-]

Do risk style missions instead.

I.e. you must land x amount of roids from random 3 x of coords or land on 3 planets in a certain galaxy etc within a certain timeframe to recieve the reward of xxx resources or roids.