Official forums for BZFlag.org

Well, as many have cited before, BZ can be intimidating to new players who are technically challenged. The new players tend to join the first server on the list, and then team-kill, get frustrated with the controls and leave the game forever. I think that a simple tutorial video, placed in an easy to find spot on the website hosted by YouTube or some other service, could be beneficial. It would simply explain default controls, universal rules, and the benefits of registering within 5 minutes or less. This way, more players will be informed and start out not frustrated/confused. Many people don't read the manual, and that manual is the wiki. People do not mind a video however. (I am one who loves huge users manuals that are as long as a textbook, but I digress.) I would gladly produce something for this purpose.
Anyone else see this idea as beneficial?

That sounds like a good idea, so you would use Hypercam, or a similar program to show them how its done?

I will be using fraps on a windows PC to film footage, then use Final Cut Pro and then have the simple 101 "course" done. Its registered fraps, so no watermark. It will go over the basics-how to move, jump, pick up and drop flags, basic game rules for CTF and FFA, and how to tweak the settings so players can have faster 3d rendering on their end, lowering lag for us.

Yeah, that would be great. I do agree with you, that if you are not computer savvy, bzflag is hard to get started on, and I think that would help quite alot. A good place for it might be on the front or downloads page.

Can't it just be included in the game somewhere on the main menu?

dartman wrote:Can't it just be included in the game somewhere on the main menu?

If you're gonna put a tutorial into the game, a 3D graphical interactive tutorial would be ideal.

Agreed. That way you get basically the same experience as the actual gameplay. That's how the best tutorials usually work in actual console games, so I don't see why BZ's should be different.

Here is an idea:
You could set up a tutorial server.
The server sends messages to the player as the player does certain things, like "Press your mouse button to shoot. Shoot at the target over there.". When you do the things (like shooting the target), the server sends you the next set of instructions.
Get my drift?

I like the idea of a tutorial plugin server thing. That is indeed most ideal-and have it accessible from the main menu. I scrapped the video-it was too long, too bulky, and not really that interesting.

there would have to be a tutorial server, and you would not be able to shoot someone else. You can shoot, but you can't hurt anyone with it. you also couldn't hurt people with flags like steamroller. I guess there could be bot rogues that you could shoot so that you can try out the different flags.

Ragnarok wrote:there would have to be a tutorial server, and you would not be able to shoot someone else. You can shoot, but you can't hurt anyone with it. you also couldn't hurt people with flags like steamroller. I guess there could be bot rogues that you could shoot so that you can try out the different flags.

Or, just make the game capable of having different "sessions" on the same server. Each player starting off would have their own session with nobody else visible. Once they got to a certain point in the tutorial, they would be moved to a shared session with other players that were just learning the game too (or bots if they were not enough players).