Information Overload - HT - Coupla ideas

[kfsone]

HiTech;

I can't compliment you enough on the progress this game is making, BUT, at the same time a lot of these things only seem to be documented in patch notes. I have a batch of friends who are daunted by all the kinds of little 'bits' that aren't written anywhere "official" since there's no obvious way to know whether you know them all...

First example: it would be nice if the industrial facilities of a country were marked on the map with small green 'x's. That way novice players would ask "What do the Xs on the map mean"? At the minute people by and large don't KNOW that their country has a refinery, so bombers are allowed to bomb the crap out of them with impunity... They CERTAINLY don't realise that it has an effect on their fuel production. Flip side: They have NO IDEA that they can use this strategy in their tactics.

The other is the "WTF do I do now"?

I've seen at least 10-12 people that I can think of who have arrived in the Main Arena because they couldn't figure out how to get started *offline*, but HAVEN'T gotten the help they needed because there was a war going on at the time (yeah, most do get the help, but I'm seeing a lot not).

Suggestion: How about 'first time' dialogs. All you need to remember is which 'position' it is like 'tower' or 'b26 cockpit' or 'lancaster gunner' or 'bombadier'.

Write a function which looks up the key / joystick buttons mapped to a particular function and displays something like:

Use the z-axis on your joystick to
or
Press b or joystick button 5 to
or
You don't have a key or joystick mapping to

Create a script for macro-substitution on 'first time' text files, and then
create a 'dialogs' directory, and populate with files like

b26cp.dlg   (b26cockpit)
twr.dlg     (tower)
maprm.dlg   (map room)
lancgun.dlg (lancaster gunner)
tbmbmb.dlg  (tbm bombadier)

These dialogs could explain a little about the vehicle, describe some of the things you can press or do (e.g in the tower explain that you can press ESC to bring up or hide the clipboard, that you click on 'Hangar' on the clipboard to choose your aircraft, and that you click on the little [N] or  buttons to choose your runway for takeoff; or in the B26 explain that to drop your bombs you press %%BOMBADIER_VIEW%% to go to the bombadier view. The b26bmb.dlg would explain you need your doors open to drop bombs, that you press and hold '0' to look down the scope, and that you can zoom your scope in or out by pressing 'z' for zoom and then useing [ and ] to change the level of zoom).

It might take a while to generate all the text, but I'm sure plenty of players will be willing to donate stuff.

In fighters you could explain a little about each aircraft, "this is an FW190, it's not a turnfighter mate". But you might also want a first time dialog for the cockpit, period.


Purpose of all this is to break the little 2-mile steep vertical rise that is developing at the foot of Aces High's learning curve. I wanna see people a little less intimidated by the knowledge base that seems to be required just to get started  

Oliver

[Seeker]

You have some good points, but it can be taken a bit too far.

AH is a flight sim. I've heard people on Ch 1 asking how to set up game pads. This is too much.

Asking how a particular function works is fine, such as some one asking "how do I drop tanks", etc. Asking "what does a joystick do" is too simple, and that person needs to work on his own a bit.

Nonetheless, as we gain more planes/options with the updates, it would be nice to see some explanation of the more esoteric stuff i.e. what's the difference between the IL-2 rockets, or a short primer on ship gunning. Some of what AH is doing is new to online gaming, and it's a bit optimistic to expect casual gamers to know it, or to expect some one like funked to be on hand to explain it all.

As far as I can tell, being realativly new to AH myself, AH has until now been in the main populated by sim junkies, experienced flyiers looking for something new/better. As such, most flyers have had an idea what flaps are for, and when to use them, etc.

But we're leaving beta days far behind. AH is now a full paying, fully in production game, and it's being noticed. People completly new to flight sims are being drawn in, and it's surely time for a profesionaly produced FAQ/help file. This is still the ace card that the older, established sims such as Air Warrior excell in; getting newbies in the air. After all, we're using a BBS because AH customers are considered too dim to configure a news reader, yet we expect a newbie to understand a unix-like interface with dot commands? Surely a mis-match in expectations there...

[kfsone]

Seeker,

If you take a look at my 'concept', it's very much focused on explaining how things are achieved in AH, rather than on how they are achieved =) But also, as a way of making people aware of things that they might otherwise (and regularly appear to be) missing.

Conciseness would be the key, in the tower, it should mention quickly what the buttons do:

[Map] takes you to the map room where organised Missions are posted

When you go to the map room, it might explain that in more detail.

Thing is a lot of players are missing out on MUCH of the richness of AH through basic lack of documentation. There IS documentation but you have to know what to look for first, and if you're new to AH you may well find it overwhelming... Land, sea and air, gunners, bombers, fighters, tanks, carrier battles, ditching, scoring, perk points, rebuild times, functional bombing targets, radar altitudes, configurable fuel loads (keep meeting people who've been flying months without ever knowing they could fly less than 100% fuel).

It all adds up to players who see what they see and wander off when they find a game that says "And this is how you select how much fuel you are carrying".

=)


K

[kfsone]

Point in case:

[ Join ] button in the hangar.

Doesn't say what you are joining. The hangar - aircraft selection - doesn't seem the most logical place to go to become an aircraft gunner. I've already seen newbies thrown for a loop when they click the 'Join' button to 'join' the aircraft they have selected.


K