I would like to give perhaps a different perspective to the NPE. So to give a little background to this, I am not a new player. My first MMO was GW1 and have played others in between the two games.
MMOs in general have core concepts such as armour, weapons, upgrades, crafting, loot drops and countless other things that most players who are GW2 veterans or gamers who have played other MMOs will take their understanding of for granted.
So my Girlfriend decided that after a few years of moaning at me for playing GW2 all the time she would give it a try during the free trial. I ultimately brought her an account as it was in the sale.
My Girlfriend has no experience of an MMO, her typical computer games are things like Sim City and the odd PS4 or Xbox One game like Kinect Sport.
At first when she created a character and did her first starting levels, she was getting really into it. I followed her around in the low level areas trying to explain the basics like navigating, killing mobs etc.
At the end of her first few hours she seemed quite into the game. Yesterday she went back onto it and continued doing hearts until she hit level 10. At this point she had what can be described as a mini melt down as to how confusing the requirements are. She got very frustrated at not knowing what the armour types are for, what to do with loot, why we have bank storage, what to do with crafting materials, why we needed crafting materials, what the purpose of food buffs are and all of the things that a seasoned MMO player would know instinctively.
She felt that the game did not do a good job of explaining these elements during the initial game play.
Based on my girlfriends experience so far, I believe that the changes to the NPE are most definitely a good idea as having everything available from the get go would have been even more overwhelming.
I also believe that the NPE should introduce some of the points mentioned above at an earlier stage so her confusion could have been minimised.
She hasn’t rage quit yet but we will see how her next few days go.
I think the point I am trying to make with this post is that most people who are moaning about the changes are not new to MMOs or GW2 and should think about what it would be like to start this game with no understanding of the mechanics or MMOs in general.
I believe further changes could be made in order to help new players learn these concepts within the game, perhaps tutorials that could be accessed within the game rather than having to access the wiki.
