Author Topic: New Player Experience  (Read 27936 times)

Antonine

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Re: New Player Experience
« Reply #75: September 07, 2017, 09:49:12 AM »
. . .

So, instead of doing a bunch of stuff in the game's database and teaching it how to track events, you all want to teach the game how to edit the wiki so the wiki's database can track events?

What?

Actually, I have an image for how little sense this is making to me:


Anyways, I did talk to Anaris about newspapers being moved in game on IRC, and it sounds like it's approved as a CONCEPT for them to be moved in game assuming someone is willing to do the work to add them. Which lines up nicely, because I'm going to start reworking M&F's own publications system soon, and I'm not a fan of re-inventing wheels.

In regards to database storage issues, it's not so much that you can't add things to the game, it's that you need to add them in a way that keeps them from just taking up extra space.

Say you added newspapers or books, or just in general: publications, right? How do you add them in such a way that they take up the least amount of space for the least amount of time.

That same principle applies to the game as well. Storing things in the game, will take up less space.

Let me give you an example. Say you edit the realm page of Perdan (they're still a realm, right?) with a new description. The wiki will log who edited, what they changed, and the new page, all to it's database. If you want to edit the realm description in game, the game will just track new description, and not care about the old one or log who did it.

The advantage of in-game content is also that it's IN the game. Players are more likely to interact with it, and it automatically makes it IC info.

Sorry but you've completely misunderstood what I was saying.

I initially suggested that things like the Realm History, Realm Summary, character descriptions, estate descriptions, newspapers, etc. should be included as in-game things that players can view and edit in-game.

I was told that issues with this might be that it could a) give players even less reason to visit the wiki, b) cause problems in terms of database storage and c) mean that earlier versions of things like realm histories get lost.

Now I don't know what the database situation is or how it's structured but one way around these problems would be to use the wiki API so that when something like a character description is written, the wiki API is used to automatically create that as a page on the wiki at the same time. When a player goes to view a character description in game, the API is used to pull the content from the wiki to display in game. When a player edits the description then the wiki page could be updated.

This would solve the problems that other people have raised. So yes, it would involve teaching the game to edit the wiki. But if people are concerned about keeping records of past versions of things and making sure they're not just temporary things which can only seen by a limited number of players in game then that's the most logical solution.

However, I would equally be happy if these things were added solely in game and were, just like the realm council bulletins, overwriteable at any time and lost when the realm dies/character dies/estate is deleted/newspaper goes inactive/etc.

I don't really care which approach was followed as long as the content is made available in game for players to see and interact with it instead of being hidden away on the wiki.

And, as I've already mentioned, I would be happy to do the coding involved to implement these changes, including the newspapers, if that's something that the dev team would be comfortable with. I don't like to just suggest a solution when I'm not prepared to do something to make it happen


For what it's worth, I think that one advantage of teaching the game to edit the wiki is that, provided the code was done as a 'black box' and properly encapsulated, it could be re-used in lots of places. I think the best way to start would be with something already existing in the game (like region descriptions) and then, once that was working, it would be fairly trivial to use the same functionality for lots of other bits of in-game fluff.

But if the preference is just for the simple, in-game solution, then I really wouldn't object to that either.

Andrew

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Re: New Player Experience
« Reply #76: September 07, 2017, 11:52:16 AM »
While I agree with Chenier that the wiki history can be interesting in itself, I don't think I misunderstood you. If a concern is about database size, the wiki isn't the way to go. That's not me saying it's a bad idea to use the wiki, it's just a statement based on how the wiki functions compared to the game.

I guess the best question here, for Anaris, is where he thinks things should be. Game vs Wiki vs Something Else.

Adding descriptions in game is easy. It's just text loaded in specific spots with a page to submit it.

Adding newspapers in game would be doable. They're mutliple text boxes associated to each other, at the minimum. At the maximum, the game keeps track of who has what editions or what guild runs them and you can only read those you have.

Adding realm histories would be a considerable amount of work. It's a lot of new code that would need to go in a lot of different places. I'm pretty confident in saying that, based solely on the amount of places I have to do event triggers in M&F. That's also a HUGE database addition, one I'm certain would see the size of the game's database significantly increase.

As for your black box concept, yeah, that should be the goal of anything like that. The game already has a similar implementation for the forum. Ideally, you just pass a few variables to a php method and it just does everything as necessary. Once the methods are all built, include a use statement where you need it and presto, it's done and good.

The impression I get, is if you're willing to contribute to the game's development, they're not likely to turn you away. To code for BM, the bulk of what you need to know is HTML and PHP. There's some JavaScript in places, and while the game is slowly getting away from it, still a number of SQL queries in places.
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Antonine

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Re: New Player Experience
« Reply #77: September 07, 2017, 02:11:51 PM »
Adding realm histories would be a considerable amount of work. It's a lot of new code that would need to go in a lot of different places. I'm pretty confident in saying that, based solely on the amount of places I have to do event triggers in M&F. That's also a HUGE database addition, one I'm certain would see the size of the game's database significantly increase.

So when I say realm histories I mean two things, the second of which is non-essential.

The first thing is just a link on the Information page to something called Realm History. This, like the ruler bulletin, would be blank by default and up to the players to edit. At its most basic it would literally just be a text box which the users and could function in a very similar way to the existing ruler bulletin.

It would be nice if the game were to automatically record and display a list of rulers, with titles, for each realm (to be displayed either as an addition to the Realm History or as a standalone thing on the Information page) but this isn't essential and, if it were to be done, should be relatively straight forward to implement.

Ideally the game would push the above content to pages on the wiki as well (I have some ideas on how that could work and be done) but that's not essential either.

What I'm certainly NOT suggesting is that the game automatically generate a history for each realm based on in-game events.

Andrew

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Re: New Player Experience
« Reply #78: September 07, 2017, 04:21:02 PM »
Ah, you mean a realm propaganda page! That's just a text box, and should be an easy add, if approved.

A history of rulers wouldn't be hard to add either. The only downside is that it'd probably start now, unless they find a way to pull it from the family histories somehow.
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Antonine

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Re: New Player Experience
« Reply #79: September 07, 2017, 07:08:52 PM »
Ah, you mean a realm propaganda page! That's just a text box, and should be an easy add, if approved.

A history of rulers wouldn't be hard to add either. The only downside is that it'd probably start now, unless they find a way to pull it from the family histories somehow.

Yup, exactly. Basically the same as what a lot of realms already put on the wiki - an official history presented from their perspective. So just another way for players to add fluff in game to flesh out their realm and its heritage and to demonise their enemies :)

JeVondair

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Re: New Player Experience
« Reply #80: September 07, 2017, 10:50:52 PM »

Lots and Lots of good ideas

I wasn't even aware of most of these as it has been so long since I started my last character, much less my family. And since I check daily, I am familiar with all the ins and outs already and never really considered all the room for improvement you just flashed a light over.

I really hope you decide to draft some specific feature requests.
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Antonine

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Re: New Player Experience
« Reply #81: September 07, 2017, 11:17:37 PM »
I wasn't even aware of most of these as it has been so long since I started my last character, much less my family. And since I check daily, I am familiar with all the ins and outs already and never really considered all the room for improvement you just flashed a light over.

I really hope you decide to draft some specific feature requests.

I think turning these into specific feature requests is going to be most of my Saturday :)

JeVondair

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Re: New Player Experience
« Reply #82: September 13, 2017, 10:29:37 PM »
I think turning these into specific feature requests is going to be most of my Saturday :)


Good!
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Antonine

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Re: New Player Experience
« Reply #83: October 04, 2017, 12:27:01 AM »
UPDATE:

Haven't turned even most of these into feature requests yet but I've started on improving the info for new players:

https://imgur.com/a/pzP9K

(Screenshot taken from the development version of the game rather than the live one). Feedback very much appreciated :)

Wirrander

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Re: New Player Experience
« Reply #84: October 23, 2017, 05:56:08 AM »
Hello, new player here. I got into the game from a Discord clan that I joined for unrelated reasons, and their discussions got me interested. I joined the Kingdom (Highmarch) that several of the members helped to found and found it to be quite lively, with constant messaging and communication. A new noble coming from another Kingdom also said something similar, that he had gotten more messages in his first 5 hours in Highmarch than in the entire time he was at the other kingdom. I also got A LOT of help from my clan with the crash course of what things meant what, and how to navigate the menus and where to go to help out. I even got to participate in a few battles, which was interesting.

Unfortunately, I got wounded in the second battle, so I'm stuck twiddling my thumbs at the healers, and from what I can find on the wiki, after I'm out of the healers I'll be unable to travel anywhere for even more time due to recovery and since I'm in enemy territory and need to get back to the capitol to resupply (I have all of 3 guys left of my unit), it means I'll be stuck doing nothing even longer. I'm willing to suck it up and wait because of the support of my clan and because this game really interests me; but i can easily see another new player dropping it after essentially loosing the ability to play for multiple days in a row due to participating in a battle. I understand why wounds are in the game, but I feel that at the very least, the chance of new players (lets say less than 30 days playing) getting them should be reduced and/or they should heal the wound faster.

Anderfhstim

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Re: New Player Experience
« Reply #85: October 23, 2017, 06:07:38 AM »
I actually agree. New players shouldn't even be wounded for the first 3 months at least. If you are in a peaceful realm, you won't even see a battle for the first month. Good that there are plenty to fight these days.

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Re: New Player Experience
« Reply #86: October 23, 2017, 08:03:35 AM »
Welcome (again) first of all and glad you like it so far. Highmarch is indeed quite active and has some interesting dynamics also in terms of its nobility.

I actually really like your suggestion of wounding of new chars and will check later today if there's already a feature request for that, otherwise I'll make one.
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