About the "New Player Test"

[Thorny]

Everyone who plays here knows about the test that new players need to complete in order to play on heRO.

There is an NPC at the novice starting area which subjects you to a completely brutal, long-winded rant about server rules. This would not be so bad, as I personally have great respect for the rules which govern each server (and because I have a degree of common sense), but the GMs/Devs/Owners of the server have decreed that anyone who wants to play has to answer a completely unforgiving test on the rules which have just been shoved down our throats.

I say unforgiving because there is absolutely ZERO room for error, and because there are a number of questions which seem to be written incorrectly. For example there is at least one question where you are presented with a two exact same answer options in the list, but one of them is wrong - particularly frustrating because on my first run through the test this happened to be the final question that needed to be answered correctly in order to pass. I chose one of the two exact same answers, and was informed that my response was incorrect, thus immediately failing me from the test, and forcing me to start over.

There are also questions which seem to have little or no relevance to the casual player - questions relating to WoE (which I do not personally participate in), questions about personal opinion (where if you do not share the same opinion of the NPC scriptor you are deemed unworthy of playing on the server), and questions where there has obviously been no thought given to grammar or syntax.

One question in particular really bothered me - It was the one asking about (forgive me here, I do not have the exact script from the NPC, but this should be close enough for understanding) "the illegal practice of attacking something that another player is attacking". This is clearly referring to Kill Stealing. You are forced to type your answer to this question. I wrote in the box "kill stealing" and was told it was incorrect. I was booted from the test to start over. I happened to get the same question again the next time around and typed "ksing". Okay. So, let me get this right. The proper term "Kill Stealing" is incorrect, however the grammatically incorrect, non-descriptor "ksing" is correct. This term would have absolutely no meaning to someone who is new to the game. In fact, in the rules, "kill stealing" is referred to as such - "kill stealing". Then, come exam time, it switches gears and expects the user to predict the answer that the scriptor wrote as the correct one. KSing isn't a word. Kill Stealing is correct.

Moreover, there are questions where you need to type out specefic spell names which are not allowed for use in WoE. (As a reminder, I do not participate in WoE). I guessed at the most common spells which could cause devistation and lag, but all were incorrect.

I know what the argument here will be - That the answers are in the rules, if you read them start to finish. I did read them, but my problem with the rules are as follows:

They are written in a dry fashion. Its like reading a text book about something as uninteresting as the genetic differences between plankton found in the Atlantic versus the Pacific ocean.

On top of that, they have found a way to make the rules sound so preachy that I personally get red faced trying to swallow them all. It's as if the scriptor (or GMs, or Devs, or Owners) is writing everything with their noses held high, commanding peasants and fools. The first time i read through the rules I was more than just taken aback at the tone of superiority and entitlement in which they were written. I felt as though my intelligence was constantly being challenged and insulted.

After four exhausing and frustrating attempts to finish the test I was able to join the world of the living. All answers that I gave (with the exception of WoE spell rules) were 100% correct, but the NPC, as I said before is unforgiving.

In my opinion, subjecting users to this kind of harrasment and frustration is unfair, and is unwise if the server wishes to grow in any meaningful fashion. The test left such a bitter taste in my mouth that I am unsure if I can continue to play here - which is sad, because despite all of this frustration, I can see that this is a thriving server with good natured people.

I know that I will never need to go through that test again, but it just seems completely unfair to punish new players before they even begin to play.

And thats all I have to say about that.


**EDIT** I just wanted to add that I recognize the irony of complaining about long-winded rules in a long-winded post.

[Shikari]

So, in theory, they fixed the test you could spam enter to? nice.

Alas, in practice they screwed up? lol.

I always thought they should change it. I havent seen it but it sounds a little over killed lol.

[Cobbinator92]

I was wondering about this.... I'm not sure why that have it though....

[Shikari]

So, I just did the test for lolz

[quote=Thorny]
I was booted from the test to start over. I happened to get the same question again the next time around and typed "ksing". Okay. So, let me get this right. The proper term "Kill Stealing" is incorrect, however the grammatically incorrect, non-descriptor "ksing" is correct. This term would have absolutely no meaning to someone who is new to the game. In fact, in the rules, "kill stealing" is referred to as such - "kill stealing". Then, come exam time, it switches gears and expects the user to predict the answer that the scriptor wrote as the correct one. KSing isn't a word. Kill Stealing is correct.[quote]

I'd have agreed with you, but at the end of the rule it says Ksing.


As for the WoE skills part, I put Ice Wall, and last time i checked Ice Wall isnt allowed...

other than that I completed it pretty easily.

[Neuneck]

Those Free-Text fields are really hard if there's only one correct answer. If there was the opportunity to misspell or abbreviate in the most common ways that'd be better. Also maybe you could put some of the questions closer to the parts where the rule in question is explained, which would make it somewhat easier for newbs that don't know skills or other stuff and need to remember 'ice wall' out of the blue...

[Former-GM-Circe]

This post will probably seem blunt, but I'd like to address some things straight forwardly.


The answer "Kill Stealing" will not work, you're correct. The very reason for this is stated as the last thing you see before you actually get asked the quiz questions.

Quote:[heRO Guardian]
Don't forget to type all your answers in lower case only.
(UPPER CASE) vs (lower case)

Be ready!

Then he goes directly into the quiz. As the K and S in your answer are upper case letters, they won't be accepted.
The text inputs do accept multiple answers, and the kill stealing one especially leaves room for at least one misspelling that I can think of.

Shikari bought up Ice Wall. Again, it contains upper case letters when the guardian specifically states NOT to use them.



As for the questions about things such as WoE that you feel don't resonate with the everyday player; we don't sort each player into whether they intend to WoE, PvP or be social. We sort them by one standard: their desire to play heRO. As a heROer, we expect them to have read all the rules, and to know them if they should ever one day apply to them. We have a great many players who never came here with the express intent of WOEing, but as time has gone on, they have, and as such they know the rules.
The majority of players would claim that the botting, AFKmisting and macroing rules do not apply to them, as they have no intent to do it anyway, but they are still required to be aware of the existence those rules, too.


The rules are intended to be, as you put them, "dry". They are rules. They are not a happy chat about the weather, or a topic to be joked over and taken lightly. They are to be taken seriously, as are the consequences of breaking them.
Contracts with businesses, ToS, even the laws of one's own country are never put down in a joking way. In the land of heRO, our rules are all of the above to us, and we take them seriously. In essence, they are commands, as you put it.



As for the language of the rules.
heRO has many international players who do not speak English as a first language. For this reason, we have written the rules to be as basically understandable as possible. It may sound like a bunch of "preachy" Do Nots, but we place understandability over nicety in them.
As friendly as "We'd really rather prefer that one was not so personally inclined to engage the use of third party programs to bypass the manual labor of mouseclicking, pretty please" sounds, it would be lost on a portion of the server when compared with "Do not bot/macro or you will be permanently banned"

The language/grammar in some of the menu choices is a little awkward too, I'll admit. Rearranging/rewriting those fell in to my domain with only two intentions on my mind.
1) Making sure all the important parts were in them, and
2) Making them actually fit into the menu.

In essence, the room for text in a menu is very small, and not calculated by a set amount of characters before it cuts off, but rather, by the space taken my characters. If the menu option is filled with is and ls, it will fit a lot more text than one filled with ms, ws and ys.
Making sure they fit was a cycle of changing them in the script, jumping ingame on a test server to see if they were cut off, then reditting it in the script again, and retesting until they fit, and were understandable, even if a bit awkward sounding.



I think the only thing left is to address why the NPC was changed.

Firstly, he was due for an update. Rules that were listed on the forums/site needed to be added to him.

Players in the past had brought up the concern that players could enter spam through the quiz, and pass it without actually reading the rules, or understanding English in the first place.
They also brought up the concern that the previous menu options for the entire two menus were easy for someone who would not understand English ("yes/no" and "yes/???")
The staff had seen this reflected in the amount of times they'd had to tell a player the rules, and got told that the player had never looked at those on the site, and when the issue that they had to agree to them at an NPC before they could even reach the game was brought up, we frequently got told that they had not read those. They'd simply spammed through the text.

So, we set out to fix that, to make sure that players had read the rules, and had actually paid full heed to them.
What you see now is the result, though I'm not too sure it is stopping the spam entering, if quite a few people are missing the UPPERCASE vs lowercase part of the dialogue, even though it appears as the last thing before the quiz starts. :/

[Incarn]

thread derailment:

is the cut-off thing the reason why the elemental wing creation NPCs have "no thanx" instead of "no thanks"? that's always bothered me

[Former-GM-Circe]

No. The menu text areas are longer than that.

Not sure why she says that, personally.

[Cobbinator92]

Off topic but thorny you forgot to add Buff Me in your icon thing.

[Rankin]

Circe, anyway you can change the variable to account bound so after we do it once, we dont have to do it again? Thing is driving me CRAZY.