A Noobs thoughts on the game.

[Druid]

Anyone who wants this game to work and be successful should understand how modern life works these days. Ok I'm an old git and I was used to getting my info myself with a little effort but life just doesn't work like that any more does it?

For most people time is precious and limited . People who want to play a game, and despite what others may think, ED is just a game nothing more. As a recreational product it should use all modern techniques to aid players a seamless progression from starting the game to actually enjoying what it has to offer. Making a player look up the basics is a pointless time sink when all that has to be done is add some small tutorials as a story line in the mission system to do the basics . Even EVE does that for new players.

Yes if you delve deeper into the game you want to know more and that is when you should be researching not when you buy the game and click "play". Spewing comments about how the game is easy just get on with it and look it up all the information is there for you to find is totally irrelevant. It should be in the game you are playing from the start for new players who want to take advantage of what should be in the game from the start.

If you don't need it fine don't use it but this kind of information in tutorial mode is just common sense . If you cant see that fine just ignore the fact that there are others who do need it . Yet again what difference does it make for anyone else if there are actually basic tutorials that are common in practically every game format these days.

Just stop with the high and mighty speel and think what is good for the game not what you think others should be doing. I

 

[Indy Original]

Although I don't agree with all of the OP's points, I do agree with the sentiment - Elite would benefit enormously if it had a good tutorial.

People saying that 'All of the information is there if you just look for it' are missing an important point, which is that if you don't know that something exists, you are unaware that you don't know it - so it will not occur to you to go looking for it! Months ago I helped a new player on these very forums, and in the process I mentioned that you could target individual parts of a ship, so that you could (for example) destroy their cargo hatch and steal their cargo, etc. The new player was really impressed, and was enthusiastic to play the game again so that he could go and test it... but if I had not mentioned it to him, he might never have found that out, and a key aspect of the game would have completely passed him by.

I do think that finding things out for yourself is preferable in most cases, but Elite is a very unique kind of game, and most new players have never played anything like it - so they don't know how to play it, and they don't know how to find out because they don't know what questions to ask. It's all very well criticising modern gamers for not reading the manual etc, but if literally every other game that they have ever played was simple enough that it did not even need a manual, then it's understandable that they would never think to read the manual for Elite Dangerous.

Also, remember in 1984? The manual that came with the original game was an absolute masterpiece, it was written in a wonderfully 'in universe' kind of way, which made it a joy to read, rather than a chore. The manual for Elite Dangerous is functional, but it just doesn't have the same charm... so new players will not actively WANT to read it, the way we actively read and re-read the manual that came with the original. (Remember the bit about Extra Energy Units? "This is the Energy Unit with the copper-coloured top. No other Energy Unit looks like it, or lasts like it." XD)

Also, if Frontier took the trouble to craft a good tutorial, it would serve a whole bunch of other purposes as well. For a start, it could have a simple story, one that helps to set the scene for new players. When the first stage of the Alpha came out in December 2013, each mission had a little bit of flavour text that introduced it, and then a bit more if you successfully completed it - and it helped make those little missions immensely more satisfying, because it felt like you were actually playing a game, rather than testing an Alpha. If there was a tutorial in Elite Dangerous similar to that, people would play it FOR FUN - and as they did so, they would learn the basics that would allow them to take their first steps into the galaxy of Elite, not just in terms of which buttons to press, but also in terms of what "frame of mind" they will need to be in (hint: it's not about the destination, it's about the journey).

Potentially, Frontier could even make the tutorial its own mini-game... for example, I seem to remember David Braben once said that he had originally wanted players to begin Elite 4 without a ship, so that they would have to do missions on a space station before they could afford to actually buy a Sidewinder and start flying around. Well, the tutorial could do something similar! What if you started with a Sidewinder that only had a Class 1 Frame Shift Drive, big enough to let you super-cruise around a system, but too small for you to jump to another star... the aim of the tutorial could be that you have to do missions to earn enough money to buy a Class 2 Frame Shift Drive, and each mission you take teaches a little bit more about the game. Within that one star system, you would be free to fly around, trade, and choose which missions you wanted to do - so if you wanted to learn about mining then you could travel to the mining outpost and take the "Mining Tutorial" mission from the Bulletin Board, but if you had no interest in mining, then you could skip it entirely. There could even be a simple kind of branching storyline - if you choose to make money Bounty Hunting, then the final part of the tutorial could see you facing off against a notorious pirate who escaped from you in an earlier mission, but if you instead choose to play the tutorial as a pirate, the final part will be a showdown between you and a bunch of bounty hunters! However you want to play the game, the tutorial could teach you the basics of how to do it, and the dangers that you are likely to encounter... the rest is up to you to discover for yourself. (And if the tutorial was playable offline, it would even offer an olive branch to all those players who wanted an offline mode!)

This must be my longest post ever, but I think I've made my point! The original game had a brilliant manual that really set the scene and enhanced the game - but at the moment, Elite Dangerous is lacking in this department. I sincerely hope that Frontier are planning a new and improved tutorial of some kind, preferably before Elite Dangerous comes out on the XBOX and Playstation - and if they are not planning anything, well, then I urge them to do so!

 

[Bugman_oO]

Or... reading the manual?

Yeah this guy pretty much summed it up