DING! 0.22: Gets a “Ding” and a “Player Status” help box popup. Keeps the Player Status one open. Continues killing Vermin. Gets turned around again a couple of times. Still just using mouse. Comments that her character “moves too fast”. Kills the remaining required Kobold Vermin and a bunch of Kobold Workers. 0.28: Vermin 8/8 completed. 0.29: Comment: “It’s just carnage everywhere.” “Spells and Abilities” help box pops up. Closes it out without reading. Finds the Rogue trainer, interacts with him but doesn’t realize that he is useful to her. Comment: “I’d be interested to know why there’s people just standing around doing nothing”. 0.31: Hands in Vermin quest but doesn’t accept the next quest. Then gets lost in the Abbey. 0.32: Comes back and accepts next quest (Encrypted Letter, which ends at the Rogue trainer) and one to kill Kobold Workers. 0.33: Upset that she didn’t get credit for killing them earlier.
The Mine … almost 0.34: While killing workers, finds a bag item which triggers the Bags help popup. While looking in backpack, almost looks at the Character/paper doll window and the Abilities window, but doesn’t. Almost destroys a quest item, but chooses “No” correctly when prompted. Still having trouble turning and still using just the mouse. 0.40: Ding. Level 3! 0.42: Kills eighth Worker. Uses minimap to track down a yellow “?” NPC. It’s the Rogue trainer for the Encrypted Letter quest. Opens trainer skill window and looks at skills but does not buy/learn the available skill. 0.43: Hands in Encrypted Letter quest. 0.45: Back at Abbey. Hands in Worker quest and picks up Skirmish at Echo Ridge (kill Kobold Laborers) and Brotherhood of Thieves (get Red Bandanas).
Bandanas 0.47: Tries to swim in stream – it’s too shallow. Starts killing Defias Thugs. Has understood looting perfectly so far, so there is no confusion about getting loot items to fulfill a quest requirement. Gets upset when another character, “Gaylordio” tries to help out. She stares him down while standing in a fire and almost dies. Gaylordio leaves. 0.49: At 7/8 bandanas, prophetically comments: “Doing all this work, is like work” and becomes cognizant of the concept of “grind” for the first time. 0.51: Gets eighth bandana and tries to head back to the Abbey, but gets lost. Uses map to find Abbey, but instead heads to Echo Ridge.
Lost 0.52: Does not see the mine entrance. 0.53: Gets confused about what a Kobold Laborer might be: “What’s the difference between a Laborer and a Worker? Let’s kills a Worker and see”. 0.55: Uses the map again and tries to hone in on the Echo Ridge waypoint, but gets lost in the hills instead, possibly because the waypoint is subterranean. Verbally questions why her face and haircut are all messed up for the first time – it’s because of the Mr. T Mohawk grenade. Spends remainder of the session wandering in the hills. Time elapsed: 60 minutes
;)
Overall, I think Jeannie did really well. Her experience is not atypical. She was an order of magnitude better than the last person I tested this on.
Immediately we can see that there are some really key concepts that some new players just don’t know about. For example, Jeannie pretty much played WoW like it was Diablo. The concept of using a keyboard to move around and fire off abilities was not inherently obvious; clicking things on screen repeatedly with the mouse felt more natural. Clearly, for Jeannie, there was an assumption that an action-packed fantasy MMO would be played more like a button-masher console game. I’m sure a lot of first-time MMO-ers have made the same assumption.
I must admit that WoW’s new-player experience has improved dramatically in the last year. It’s great at teaching players who already know a bit about MMOs how to play. However, it’s really bad at teaching players like Jeannie. Nothing in the first 60 minutes above broadcast to Jeannie that she was doing anything wrong. It’s a testament to how appealing WoW is overall that it can retain so many millions of players while not initially teaching them what an MMO is.
The starter experience becomes doubly important if your game is based on a massive IP. Hopefully, you are going to attract lots of customers who are fans of the IP. Do they all know how to play an MMO? Clearly, they do not. If Jeannie were a massive Star Trek fan, as a complete MMO novice, would she have made it past the first 60 minutes of the beta? Given that the game doesn’t teach the player anything about what an MMO is, probably not.
And that’s a shame.
