[Poetic] EVE Online's Oral Tradition and Contextual Help
EVE Online's Oral Tradition and Contextual Help
Take directional scanning, for instance. It's a reasonably simple system to use for most (if not all) players. Yet, most of us were taught how to use it. Few of us just dived into the d-scanning window and figured it out by trial-and-error. This is how we learn most of what we do in EVE Online.
There is no in-game help for directional scanning. Myself, I learned via my time in EVE University. D-Scanning 101 and 102. The course consisted of an audio lecture and a practical lesson, searching out the instructor in Aldrat. The first thing taught in the class is the orientation of the scanner, that it is a function of camera facing, not the direction a ship is pointed in. This is a fundamental piece of information on d-scan use, yet it's not at all obvious, and it is not documented in game. This is information that is passed player to player.
D-scanning is, perhaps, an overly simple example to use, but it is illustrative of the point that most information we have about EVE Online is taught to players by players. There are certainly more complex systems in the game, the knowledge of which is passed on player to player. Missile mechanics, for instance. Angular velocity, with respect to damage, the art of spiralling into a target versus flying straight at them. These are all systems that are not documented in-game, but rather learned via the playerbase through various means.
The EVE Online tutorial system is probably about as big as it should be. We certainly shouldn't expand upon it any further. It's already a lengthy, mostly boring, process for new players.
How else might we get information to players when they need it, and in a way that's as unobtrusive as possible? Pop-ups and the like can get annoying quickly, and a lot of players immediately start poking around on where to disable them. What about contextual help?
Every window, next to the little close and pin buttons, might have a question mark button, which would bring up contextual help for that window. If you have a Show Info window for any missile open, perhaps the contextual help button will bring up information on missile damage. Perhaps the contextual help button for the directional scan window would bring up information on how to use d-scanning. Perhaps the contextual help button for the overview would bring up an article on how to change overview settings.
Contextual help could have all new text (a lot of work for CCP), or perhaps it just opens the browser, with an appropriate EVElopedia page loaded into a new tab.
Obviously all the information we would ever want on EVE is already available outside of the client. There are any number of valuable resources. But perhaps some method of accessing this information, contextually, from within the client would be a huge step forward in helping new players understand the game and at their own pace.
Source: EVE Online's Oral Tradition and Contextual Help