The New User Experience (Landmark)

Character customization so I can be all the Ogre I can be!. A rusty sword and a limitless world to explore. That is what I want. No tutorial to ruin the experience...gods how I hate the mines of glooming deep. Have a help menu for me to pull up when I want information but not tips that pop up while I am playing. A raw open learning experience for me to enjoy without feeling like I am herded like a cat through a maze.

Camera controls should be a general thing that should be good, not just for new players.

As for what I feel would make things best...sadly I would say hand holding. While I have been able to figure out most games i've played, apparently I'm an exception. In many games I have seen many people asking for explanations of what might be simple concepts in my view. So if you want to do anything, walk them through mining, building, and possibly even uploading and all the steps within. In short, don't assume in any way a newbie is either motivated or capable of figuring it out on their own. Keep it short, but for the duration assume we are idiots. Sadly, some players will need this treatment.

I believe all of these are important to new players, some are also very important to old players.
However, what I view as most important to new players will be how to identify resources in the world. It's the first thing that most will be doing after character creation. (Which also is important to give a good first impression, but isn't as important to everyone)

After that I guess a pointer as to what the progression is like, to figure out what to do.
After a couple of hours ingame I suspect most will be out looking for a claim. They'll make a claim and experiment with the controls, here character control and camera becomes important aswell. I also think it important that once a new player creates a claim, he or she should be made aware that most building tools have to be crafted, perhaps with a short video showcasing the different tools and what they can do. Some hours later and the new player will have crafted a few new building tools, as Landmark stands now, most of the tools functionality are rather twitchy and how to use them properly isn't as obvious as it perhaps should be. This could be disheartening and here is where refinement of the building tools come into play..

So in short, all of these are pretty important to a new player, but it also depends on after how much time or at what point in the progression you stop calling a player new.

I know what you mean. It can be a lonely solitary game. Then I learned about General Chat.
I joined General over the weekend, and already the bond is starting to form. A lot of friendly people offering advice and joking around. You'll also get people to visit your claim thru chat.
I highly recommend joining General Chat. It definitely adds to the enjoyability of the game.

Nothing negative towards Homercles statement, at all, but if general chat must be joined in order to feel a part of the community, then there is something wrong with the game. I sincerely hope this is the result of EQL being more of a tool than a game, and EQN will be nothing like EQL in this respect.

I voted for character customization. Character creation is the first thing anybody playing the game is going to do, so it's important for it to make a good impression. It doesn't just affect new players either; the character that a player creates is going to represent that player for the entire time they play, which would (hopefully) be years. This may not seem important for a building game, but Landmark isn't going to be just a building game forever, it's supposed to be a fully featured MMO. In addition to this, Next and Landmark are being built off of each other, I guess you could say, sharing the same engine and the same systems, so I would assume that both games will use the same character creation system as well.

Landmark and Next are presumably both meant to support role playing, which character customization is a part of. If you're role playing as your own unique character, then it would be nice to not look the same as every other member of your race/sex combination; the appearance of a character is part of their identity, and you should be able to make the character that you want to play.

The first thing you might think of in character creation is the character's face. To make the character you want to play, you need to be able to change the shape, size, and position of each individual feature to a noticeable degree. EverQuest 2 is an example of character creation that doesn't give you enough control; no matter how much you change the sliders, you can still easily recognize the face that you started with, especially the eyes. I think the best solution would be to have several different sets of eyes, noses, and mouths that could be selected individually, assuming such a thing isn't overly difficult to implement for some reason. The size and position of each feature could then be altered. For example, you would select the eye shape you want, then change the angle, the spacing between the eyes, and the vertical positioning.

Then there's the body. Just like with faces, every character shouldn't have the same exact proportions. There could be sliders to change the proportions of every body part, but personally I think having a few preset body types would work just as well. Aside from proportions, there should be slider that changes the overall size of the character, like the one in EverQuest 2.

And finally, the character's age and voice. The voice is pretty self explanatory, but it can alter the way the character is perceived. The characters age isn't necessarily something that needs to be chosen in character creation, but it should be possible to create a character that looks and sounds young (like not-fully-grown young), or a character that looks and sounds old.

As for races: I would like more races in Landmark eventually, but new races shouldn't even be bothered with until the existing Humans have some good character customization.

My two cents.

Also, since Humans currently are the only race in Landmark, I suggest making full size statues of each race available as props, so that they can be used to build to the scale of each playable race.

Would like to see more character customization options! Get some dwarf power up in this joint!

We definitely need more races and character customization... Playing an everquest game and not being an elf is hard on my brain... no high elf, wood elf, dark elf options... *sigh*... and not being able to snub my elven nose at the ogres and trolls, ratonga and the like is just about to make me sigh again.. Add in, not being able to have elegant and sarcastically cutting conversations with drunken dwarves! ... it is just not an everquest game.... not yet

Mmmmyessss MMMMYESSSS....all the desire for more races. *taps fingers and grins*

I would agree with clear goals to start. It can be an optional NPC that you can ask questions of if you don't want this to be a tutorial base and can be easily opted out of for those that already know what to do.

Feedback from a newb on my first experience.

FYI I didn't realize windows (7x64) firewall was on when I started the game and it crashed to desktop so the firewall dialog box could pop up. I hadn't had time to put it into windowed mode yet. If the game started in windowed instead of full screen mode the very first time, that wouldnt have happened. Just a thought.

While creating a character, I scrolled forward to have a close up look at my character's face, but a part of it was cut off on the right by a straight mask line, as if there was an invisible window through which I was looking at my character. It is not intuitive why that window can't be the entire background behind the menus.

I felt compelled to fiddle with gamma and color intensity immediately upon first starting the game. So much blue in the rocks didn't feel right, even with the different graphics engine.

Moving from one place to another at the spire is just more of the same, will it be different later? It's difficult to find a spot to claim. I want to build in a wooded area but those are all taken. I am late buying into the alpha on 2/26.

There needs to be some kind of feedback when attempting to harvest something that tells me why I can't harvest it. It is not clear how to get a tier2 harvesting tool. I presume I will have to make it but there is no clear recipe for that nor is there any apparent pathway in lore that will point me in the right direction. The entire harvesting and crafting thing needs a pregame tutorial.

It is not clear just how much territory you are claiming when you attempt a claim. Do you get the Y axis in both directions to infinity? It is not clear why there must be so much room between claims. What if a person with multiple accounts wants to make a small village with neighboring claims? It is not clear how that works when first starting.

The documentation says EQN will have drops that make sense, but chopping trees drops leaves from plants and silk and all manner of things other than simply wood. Non Sequitur.

The first time I harvest something I opened the inventory window and didn't see it and was greatly confused. As a long time eq1 and 2 player this is a big change, I expected to find stacks of rocks in my bags. I realize now the mechanics are more like minecraft, but it was unexpected moving from EQ2, I would suggest that players need a bit of preparing mentally for that big difference.

Character slots need tooltips identifying what the slot is for. The tiny illustration in them is not sufficiently clear.

It is not obvious in the beginning that additional harvesting and building tools are available, other than the brief mention in the opening movie. I looked for a recipe book and did not find it in my menu. The new player's expectations for recipes needs to be managed by letting us know that we will find or make bigger better forges and crafting tables with more recipes available as we progress.

FYI the game is not playing nicely with Playon and Playlater. Killing Playlater caused sound in EQNL to mute.

That's it for now, will post more later.

EverQuest Next Landmark does not need a start of finish line, now goal lines?

Some kind of DOCUMENT that explains the UI should be some place a new player can find it, quickly.

EverQuest Next Landmark does not need many game elements at all, leave that for EQN.


Today from where I can see it, EverQuest Next Landmark just looks like a super beta project for EQN, I am not trying to be unfair, I just do not see good structure and delineation in the forums?

EverQuest Next might be a lot of fun, is it ok that EQNL is kind of boring, the strange thing I keep seeing in the forums is bleed over of combat and building between EQN and EQNL, they are different games and the forums need a band aid.

From my understanding, SOE seems intent on making EQN/L its own game with its own gameplay elements. There's talk of implementing more intuitive features down the line (allegedly incorporating programmable NPCs via Storybricks I keep hearing about, but I don't know if this is true or not). They are incorporating survival features and other gameplay elements, as seen in their road map.

So I could certainly see the reasoning behind the improvement in features, even if many see Landmark (justifiably) as a building game or a test bed for EQN, because Landmark are all the things mentioned. Test bed, building game, and apparently its own game and a engine to "create our own MMOs" as SOE puts it.

I am assuming that Landmark is the precursor environment for EQN, and as someone who plans to live as many years in EQN as I did in EQ1 and EQ2 (since '96), commenting with that history and intent in mind.

More observations from someone who has yet to craft anything but metal bricks:

I miss the dressing room that lets me view a zoom-able image of the recipe result before I make it. Perhaps this will come later, just letting you know it's missed. I built extensively in EQ2 in the breakout areas and was fond of making unexpected things out of object shapes and textures and angling capabilities of the build engine. The acquisition of ordinary objects I could use in adhoc fashion was a big draw of the game (never miss the 20th and 21st!) but the ability to view the item and envision how to use the texture of it or the shape of its exterior was integral to the process.

Thought: I hope the ability to stake a claim comes with a really high cost, because some of the things people are building are really, really ugly, things I would hope not to see in a fantasy world. I envision some sort of temporary building instance, where user construction occurs in an instance and must be committed as complete perhaps even judged as worthy with either admin approval or reddit-type upvotes in sufficient quantity to indicate awesomeness before being placed into the real world where others can routinely view it. I may take weeks to make something and I don't want prying eyes looking at my artwork before it is finished. I want to be able to say when it's done and wish the ability to prevent others from seeing it until I say it is available. I rather liked that part of EQ2, I got to press the button when it was ok for others to enter and view my handiwork.

I want to build on a cloud or space island of my own in the sky. Nuff said.

Please point alpha users at the location of the keyboard map .xml early on, tyvm.

I can tell you right now without having built a single thing I am going to want a snap grid that I can turn on and off during construction. That includes angle snap-to's to whatever degree the software can support.

There are all these brightly colored flowers telling me I am supposed to pick them, but I can't.

Heal tool is not needed yet.

Minor easily corrected point, I see seams in the geometry, some of them so large I can tell they are multi colored and striped.

I have a fairly well appointed gaming box I built myself that can play anything I throw at it, but as I am running I see the gears in lower right corner and the screen starts jumping up and down. The only way to stop it is to stop moving forward and wait for the server to catch up, even then sometimes it doesn't stop and I have to escape to a safe place to make it stop. Client side should be more seamless than that, it should be possible to move freely and let the client save a temporary state if need be until it can catch up with the server. I know I am moving across zone seams when that happens (think early EQ1), work to be done there.

What do the numbers in the banner on the left of my screen mean? Not the FPS window, I get everything there, glad that is on by default.

At this moment in time, the game feels like Vanguard early Beta. I hope EQN goes better than that. I get the feeling EQNL is what was sort of promised and what players wanted in EQ2 but there wasn't time or resources to develop it in time.

That's all for now, more later as I gather my thoughts.

FYI people like me create content that people like you can make money from. That is the whole point of EQNL, isn't it. Get the tools right, let us get a cut, and this will work for EQN. So far, I can work with it.

Sadly there was no all of the above option

Same i feel you totally human only kinda feels non Fantasy to me..and no Dwarves in a crafting / building game, that's unforgivable

Character customization is fun, and I think the more options the better.....but rarely has the customization options caused me to struggle with a game.

The games I remember giving up on early on, were ones with either horrible, confusing controls, or games that leave you completely clueless as to what to do.

If the controls are horrible, and are not taught as you play, the game will just feel awful, and anything else going on doesn't matter, because you will be focused on reading the manual, hitting random buttons, trying to find a help function, or just dying to boards because you cant figure out how to run. You must have user-friendly controls first and foremost. It is good to have extremely flexible, customizable UIs, especially in an MMO.....but for a new player, controls are everything.

The next thing is the goals, or early quests. Again, I am all for freedom, and exploration, but when you enter a game, and wonder aimlessly for 20-30 minutes, and it is not clear what the heck you're supposed to do, it is just frustrating. We don't need to be on rails, but there should be some very clear indication of where to go, what to do, how quests work etc in the first 15-20 minutes of the game. having the option to blow that of, and run wild and explore should definitely be possible.....but the "right" goals and path should be very apparent. I have played games the better part of 30 years, and if I cant figure out what to do, young kids and older folks will be clueless, and probably quit on you. The metric I always use, is if my 64 year old mother can pick up the game and figure it out.......the UI is user friendly!! But if I cant later customize it to my needs, it frustrates me, than it's too inflexible or simple. There is a balance to strike, but I don't think it's terribly difficult to find it.

Making sure goals are clear and well defined is always a good thing. I would say that more customization is good but if they aren't well defined and easy to understand; they won't be much good at the start. Things should probably start out simple and grow in complexity, each step of the way goals being well defined and game play clarity.

I chose Refinement of Building Tools, but I would also vote for Clear and Established Goals if I could. I don't need the game to hold my hand through everything, but it would be nice to point an arrow at the forge at the start and tell us how important it is before we stray too far away. Ultimately though, I didn't really enjoy building until I had all the tools, and I have a few friends who haven't logged back into Alpha since the beginning specifically because they felt the initial building experience was limited and frustrating. In guild chat on my primary game the other day, someone asked how the building worked in Landmark, and the reply was given, "Just like Minecraft, but with smaller blocks." This is, of course, a gross oversimplification, but that was the impression this person had gotten from her experience as a new player.

You don't necessarily have to throw away the whole building tool progression process either. There just needs to be an earlier hint to the new player of what potential exists in the tools. Maybe the new player could receive a quest that gives them temporary building tools that decay after the quest is over, so they can get a taste of what they're working towards. Maybe new players could all receive one free template for a simple cabin that is basic and rustic but that demonstrates all smooth surfaces and doesn't look 'blocky' at all.

Currently it is in alpha. It is basically bare bones gameplay and game development. All the extra niceties make it too cluttered and such for the more developmental stage of game testing. They will probably have most of it up for beta. This is to those who enjoy complaining about Alpha.