Re: [GD-Design] Training Advice

[Paul H. <ho...@ma...>]

At 11:17 PM 6/3/2004, you wrote:
> > I'm currently writing the intro training level to our game.  I'm
> > curious if anybody has any advice on how much to teach the player
> > before the game starts in earnest.
>
>Nothing.  The game starts THEN you teach the player.  The last thing
>you want to do is sit a player down, tell them show to play, then have
>them go off and play.

I want to add that people need to be [more] careful about the decision to 
be immersive or not with the training.  There's the tried (and tired?) 
method of Basic Training interrupted by a major event and "you're the only 
soldier close enough to the action to help out.  It's time to show us what 
you can do... now go save the day!"... it's been done very well and very 
poorly, but this is an example of trying to sink the player into the 
environment and stay there during training.  However, I really think this 
went terribly wrong in Knights of the Old Republic, where you have a 
quickly engaging storyline and characters (and mood) which is instantly 
disrupted as the guy you're talking to starts telling you to click with 
your left mouse button and push the space bar.  Major "shake my head" 
moment for me and ruins a mood that I now have to get back into.

Thief, Call of Duty, Deus Ex... you're being taught how to use the game but 
I felt more like I was already playing.  If I recall correctly, when the 
tutor was telling me how to do something, he never yelled out "now hit the 
'R' key to reload", but instead he told me to reload the weapon, and text 
appeared on the screen telling me to hit the "R" key.  I think this is a 
decent balance in most situations.  If the drill Sergeant is trying to 
sound authentic, talking about my keyboard is just silly.  I accept a quick 
GUI display with much less penalty to the suspension.

Magic Carpet.  I think still the most fun I've had learning a game.  Things 
were uncovered as you went along and explored.

Hrmm.... now I'm not sure where my rambling is going.  I'll just sluff back 
into Lurker Mode!  :-)

Paul Hoza