Topic
Salt and Butterflies
I know this has been discussed in several threads as a passing point, but I think it is important enough to merit it's own topic.
I am on the help channel whenever I am in the game. Probably 80% of the discussion on there is just chit-chat, well 10-15% more is people asking random questions. It is the last 5% that bothers me. At least 5 or 6 times an hour, someone comes on and asks "Where do I get salt?" or "Butterflies are really hard to click on. How do I milk them?" The issue is not so much that people are asking the questions, but that they are so common. I think something should be done to make it abundantly clear to people how to perform these two actions.
Replies
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To me, part of this is what I think of as "storyline bugs", as I posted about previously.
Particularly in the beginning of the game, users are going to need more help understanding what the possible actions are and what the possible sources are of various resources, and even that part of the game is intended to be that the player has to:
a. wait, which most of us are terrible about
b. explore, to figure out what works and doesn't.
I think there are some nits with what the rock and other sources are communicating... but I also think that most of us playing in these brief moments of "open" are ridiculously impatient.
I think most of us players should have to do some storks or something to chill out.
(I have also suggested previously that there might be something like a seer in game that one could go to for hints.) - It would be nice if players used Local Chat for these sort of questions. Or experimented more [myself included].
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I say that the problem is that the Help Channel has turned into the Global Chat Channel. It would be impossible for someone scroll back and see a question they have that has been answered anymore. Local Street Chat doesn't seem to be used too much and sometimes you are alone in a location and there is no one to chat with. I think everyone in the game has asked those questions, I have.
I like the experimentation of the game, the lack of instructions to a point. But early on you don't know if you should buy all the equipment, or if you can use it and need to budget what coins you have. -
help chat should be more focused on chat, though some general chit chat is good for the game culture. let's understand that too much of it is a problem, but don't knock it TOO much.
I posted an idea here:
alpha.glitch.com/forum/idea...
which should address a large number of the queries made repeatedly in help chat. if you are interested in the help chat/new player confusion issue, I'd appreciate your thoughts on this idea. - +1 for striatic
- I agree with Suzy, help chat is no longer about help. But you know what I also think is that people ask questions without searching for the answer because the game is only open for short periods of time. They want to get as far as they can before it closes, not spend two hours exploring in the hopes of figuring out how to make salt. They don't want to buy equipment only to realise they won't be able to use it because they'll never have the necessary skills before the game closes. So I think this problem is due to the nature of alpha, not so much to salt and butterflies being particularly difficult to understand.
- Interesting thoery, Cefeida. Makes sense to me.