Keeping the new players playing

[Rokiyo]

Speaking for myself and a friend (both of us started within the last week, and have only played single player): We did not start in a faction, we had to create one ourselves, which we only did to stop our home planet from getting damaged by NPCs pirates (which actually did happen to me).

What I'm suggesting here is that the crashed-landed starting ship you suggested also comes with a faction block, and that this faction block starts out already having claimed the planet that the player crashed on. Take your idea, slap on a faction module, preconfigure it, and there you have a protected starting planet for newbies, using a pre-existing game mechanic.

 

[nightwalker_007]

Take your idea, slap on a faction module, preconfigure it, and there you have a protected starting planet for newbies, using a pre-existing game mechanic.

That would work too, and then some of these multiplayer servers that currently don't allow single-player factions would have to stuff it :P

 

[StormWing0]

Another thing that would help new players is a number of easier to kill starting opponents. 300 mass ships aren't fun to go up against when your starting stuff can't help you much if at all. So in this case having some enemies under 300 mass to start with might help a bit. Yes someone could build a ship that can kill those current starting AI enemies but are very many new players going to think of using rockets off the bat? My first try was with the cannons and needless to say it didn't end well.

 

[Ithirahad]

I think we're losing new players because there's just so much... stuff, and it's not all very intuitive. Rail switching is probably the worst among these, but things like power generation rank in the list as well.

 

[Blakpik]

I came from Minecraft, as many of you have, and I am going to tell you my first impressions of the game when I started playing.

1/ It feels sluggish to play, I am sorry, but Astronaut movement in this game just feels slow and painful, even when on a planet, it feels like slowly sliding along the ground.

2/ Nothing feels like it is effective, now, in MC you punch a block until it breaks, when it breaks it makes a satisfying breaking sound. When you place a block, you slam it on the floor. In SM, you laser a block and get a little click noise. When you place it, it magically materialises. It feels weaker. (Also, the Personal Mining Laser doesn't have a clearly defined range.)

3/ Space is terrifying, you're afraid to get lost, but don't know where to go, there are pirates and it seems very scary, so when a player dies for the first time, it is easy for them to go 'too hard' and stop playing.

Now, those were my very first impressions, they aren't any practicality issues, but they are about the feel of the game. But there have been other ideas.

Q. Why not start on a planet?
A. NO! Have you been to a planet in SM? They're horrible and they murder your computer immediately, there could not be a worse first impression than 5 minutes of 12FpS followed by a crash.

So, what do I suggest? well, perhaps find a way to make the Personal Mining Laser less... Boring, but whatever. My main suggestion, is to make a tutorial, not a lame and annoying one like the current one, but an optional tutorial in the form of quests, these quests will introduce the player to how SM works and give the player a sense of understanding for the world they're in and how to make progress. These quests can be given by the NPC in a shop, make them obvious but optional, so the first thing a new player will do is talk to him, then it is their choice.

tl;dr:
Make the tutorial into quests.

 

[shadowulf]

As a realitively new player myself, I agree with most above points, and would like to add that the tutorial is somewhat confusing. Also I propose adding parts to the tutorial to better explain adv build mode features such as symmetry and perhaps copy/paste.

Also, as an addition to the starter ship idea, perhaps have bare hulls in various designs to give players an idea of creations of their own and use the tutorial to help them finish one of the ship shells. I'm thinking 3-5 barebones hulls.

 

[Lecic]

(Also, the Personal Mining Laser doesn't have a clearly defined range.

How does it not have a clearly defined range? When you right click, you fire a short beam. You can only mine things within that beams range. I don't see what you're talking about here.

Q. Why not start on a planet?
A. NO! Have you been to a planet in SM? They're horrible and they murder your computer immediately, there could not be a worse first impression than 5 minutes of 12FpS followed by a crash.

Maybe use a very small planet? I'm pretty sure you can get them even smaller than r50, even though that's the minimum the server cfg will let you set them.

 

[Vennex]

Servers need to get creative a build their own 'tutorial' stations that the newer players can spawn into and learn hands-on. Single player could use a better tutorial as well, but that's another story.

tldr; We as players and server owners need to be more creative in our approach to this game, offer new things to players and teach. Don't get stuck in faction warfare so much and extend a hand to the community, this is still alpha, we still need testers out there pioneering ideas like this one.


I do NOT believe giving a newer player any sort of blueprint will help them for 2 reasons:

1. They don't know how to use them, or what it is (thus we need servers that explain it when you spawn)

2. They will not learn how the game is played, most ships have a good amount of their 'important' parts hidden in the void. How will a starter ship teach them how to play or build and what if they lose it in the first five minute? Won't this prompt them to quit sooner as they will not know how to build nor will they have another starter ship (unless you make it some kind of 'non-abusable' player command)

Just food for though. I learned the hard way years ago, luckily I had someone to explain stuff my first time, but it was all very easy to grasp. The issue lies more on the noob player's initiative to learn the game, or if they expect it to be a voxel version of EVE in which you just point and click for things to get done, but with a MineCraft flair.

The reception of the game comes across this way and I'm sure we are familiar with how much everyone likes to synonymize 'MineCraft' with this game. Well it's not the same game, and for the most part, not by a long shot. So I certainly believe a lot of the issue is up to the players expectations of the game as well, most of which are greeted with lag (thanks to a-hole players that disobey server rules)

So most of it lies in the psychological aspects of the game, does it feel good to play, does it perform good, does it make sense. Unfortunately a lot of players can agree that SM does not have these traits. For some people the game runs great, and these are the players that continue to play to this day. But for the rest of those who have spawned into a server with large ships parked near spawn, or just generally large spawn stations, it's just not enjoyable.
As someone mentioned previously, astronaut controls are very sluggish and sometimes hard to understand. I have seen quite a few players get stuck in tight hallways because they don't know how to align. Getting stuck without knowing how to deal with the issue will hurt more than losing a few ships (at least when you die you become informed of your ships strength and those that have killed you, so it's a good thing to fight and die to learn the game)

-V

 

[The Judge]

I don't know about this, it kinda squelches the wonder of creating your Dinky Raft and flying it around the universe.

 

[nightwalker_007]

As someone mentioned previously, astronaut controls are very sluggish and sometimes hard to understand.

The biggest problem here is that astronaut flight controls and ship flight controls are different. Want to rotate? Oops, you just hit the key to a ship. It's also not visually apparent if you're under the effect of gravity or not. If your arms came up in the few window and showed the astronaut holding EVA controls, then it would be obvious.

A better way to handle spawning stations and ships is to "use" the block in the inventory, rather than hit a key on a keyboard.

 

[Blakpik]

How does it not have a clearly defined range? When you right click, you fire a short beam. You can only mine things within that beams range. I don't see what you're talking about here.

But you don't know the range is, in MC you can clearly see the outline, in SM, I'm pretty sure the outline is there regardless of how far away the block is, so you can't really see how long your beam travels, you just have to sorta hope you are within range.

Maybe use a very small planet? I'm pretty sure you can get them even smaller than r50, even though that's the minimum the server cfg will let you set them.

Perhaps, but even then they might still murder the FpS, I dunno.

 

[hunterRAE]

Giving a player a blueprint off the bat is in my opinion not giving respect to design or construction, because if new players are anything like me, they will be in that ship until it literally can not move or I have a bigger toy to use (a.k.a. Mothership class). Starting a player on a planet seems fine in hindsight, but you have to take in consideration that if you can not figure out it from the tutorial, you will not figure out how to escape that planet and will cause said player to never to starmade ever again. This would be like if someone would be stuck on a skyblock server in minecraft until they made 10000 cobblestone, which would drive someone mad if they had literally no idea what their doing. Forcing someone to learn is not good, but gradually teaching through some type of progression might be doable.