PTR 3.3: New Tutorial System Incoming

Hopefully This Will Cut Down The Information Overload Complaints

I love Nintendo, but there’s one game design aspect the company constantly employs that never ceases to piss me off, tutorials.  Don’t get me wrong, in-game tutorials are great, and very useful for introducing games to new players, but the Big N takes them to the extreme.  Take the new Mario & Luigi title for instance, the tutorial simply never ends.  At this point in video games who doesn’t know how to jump in a Mario title (or almost any platformer) by now?!  That being said, I don’t believe anyone would argue that platformers, FPS or racing games are as complex as today’s MMOGs.  Hence why Blizzard has decided to give World of Warcraft’s tutorial system an overhaul in Patch 3.3.

The tutorial is described in the most recent PTR patch notes as:

The tutorial pop-ups are now larger, contain images, and better try to direct players to the relevant locations or user interface elements on the screen. In addition, several new tips have been added, while some existing tips will now appear at more appropriate times for new players.

Sounds like a complete redesign of a rather basic, no frills system that has remained untouched since launch.  The update is useless to myself, and probably everyone reading ProjectLore, but the act is interesting.  Blizzard is basically saying that it expects an influx of new players in the near term.  Enough players to warrant an all new tutorial experience that will streamline play and make players, who may be new to MMOGs, far more comfortable.

I’m sure most of us will turn the system off right away, even though we may learn a thing or two.  From what we’ve seen of the system, I have faith that it will create a new breed of newbies that are more informed than ever before.  The visual additions are a marked improvement to the walls of text tutorials are usually littered with.

Here’s to low-level Cataclysm PUGs that aren’t full of fail!