My First Impression / Current Problem with Wildwest

NOTE: This is all based on my ~15 minute playtime of Wildwest (Server shutdown and whitelist started)

First of all, I want to applaud the amazing builders who built the giant map as well as the hard working coders (First time Brawl got something out in a reasonable time ). I'd also like to thank people who are actually playing and finding bugs for the community.

First Impression:
Now, you came to this thread to hear suggestions, not me complement the sexy Signubtured. Based on my 10-15 minute playtime, here's what I'll say... It feels like WarZ with lore/context thrown at you. When I started my game, I was asked to join a city however there wasn't any context whatsoever to advantages of any city let alone what was going on. Then, when I was spawned into the game, I was given a bunch of random items as well as given a giant drop down of text telling me the point of WildWest was. When I walked out of the spawn, I really felt confused as of what I was supposed to do. The lack of any real tutorial or anything thing in that nature really hindered my experience. Without a real tutorial, I was left playing around with the commands and compass. I decided the first thing I was going to do was find a drug farm. When I started running out into the world (Which is beautiful by the way), it really felt more like WarZ than anything. The landscape and buildings were really neat. When I finally reached the farm, I was met by @AndyinaBEARsuit who hit me ( ). Then the server was restarted.

tl;dr / Main point for First Impression:

• Beautiful Landscape
• A lot of potential for Lore
• Clearly, hours of play
• Confusing to start (without tutorial)
• Feels a lot like McWarZ
• Very little / no Non-PVP components/elements

Suggestion:
Just going to list a few suggestions not in any particular order...

1. Give me some Real Lore:
Some servers are designed specifically for lore. When playing WildWest, the landscape and architecture gave me this "vibe". I suggest that a clear lore is given for each city, location, etc. When we start WildWest, we are asked what city we want to live in. I think you guys could add onto that. I.E:

City #1: Known to be where the farmers live. (Expand w/ Lore)
City #2: Known to be where the farmers live. (Expand w/ Lore)
etc.

2. Add a lore themed tutorial set up:
Being someone experienced with how brawl works, I was able to figure out what was going on. However, for a newbie just joining Wild West, they will definitely have difficulty. My suggest, make some sort of interactive tutorial that does the following:

• Teach people the objective of wildwest
• Teach them how to play
• Tells people why they're playing and context (I.E lore)

With other MMO RPG servers and games, these tutorials are essential and quite helpful. They're a nice addition for the newbie as well as a great immersion aspect.

Suggestion, put the player on a farm where they are learning why they are going to grow drugs, kill sheriffs, etc.

3. If this is supposed to be Lore based which I hope, add Quests:
When I started the game, I felt like I was wandering endlessly. A very simple addition to the game as well as a story telling aspect would be to add quests to the cities. By adding quests, cities become far more lively which is awesome. I would also suggest making quests mandatory before certain actions can be done. For example, you cannot use your bank until you talked to the banker who has lost his key, accept a quest to retrieve a key from the bank basement by killing rats who drop them, and then return the key to the banker who then gives access to the bank as well as some money. Then the banker would explain the point of the bank etc. Another one (DJ KHALED) could be where when you go to the gun shop, a quest commences where someone in the pub has taken the gun guys prized pistol. You then go around the pub, fist fight some zombie that spawns, take the gun, and return the quest to the gun guy who lets you keep the gun (Tier 1 Pistol) and some money. Then the gun guy explains to you how guns work, where to get them, etc. (Hope you catch my drift ;v)

Simple quests like that, as said, make for much more interesting play for novices. These types of quests make the game feel fresh as well as divulge the basics of the game to the player without blatantly giving it away.

4. Caravans
This was completely inspired by the Borderland's 2 Rakkaholics Anonymous quest by the way... While traveling the plains of the Wild West, there seemed to be no mobs or any interactions whatsoever. I think that it would be great for there to be Caravans that travel around the WildWest. The Caravans (Block Structure resembling cart with horses and Villagers standing around it) would spawn in specific locations for an entire minecraft day, and then change. The Caravans would be in the PVP zones however they should be in areas that are near the edges of cities. These Caravans should be able to be interacted with in 2 ways:

• You can trade with them (Yawn). The items they have should be rare or possibly only accessible by trading with them.
• You can shoot the traders and steal their loot ( ). This should definitely increase your bounty.

Question for Coders/Builders:
Once again, you guys have worked hard and this server is great. My question is, is this supposed to be a lore/economy based server or is it supposed to be based on PVP? You guys add components for both that make it really messy. For example, you guys have villages for trading in the middle of PVP zones.

Also if you need help adding lore, this nerd can totally help you write it

 

@Lord_Roke @Devs


Few Questions in follow up to @Lord_Roke 's comments:

What's the point of choosing a town if there isn't an advantage? Why not just allow the players to spawn in a random town? There really should be some sort of advantage for selecting a specific town.
I.E. Town 1 gives you a 5% chance of an extra ore dropping
Town 2 gives you a 5% chance of a double yield in drugs

What platform will the tutorial be on? If it's on a wiki, you must realize the inconvenience for a newbie... Also, what does this "extensive tutorial" teach? Will it be first hand experience (Far more beneficial) or are you going to give us like 30 signs...

Why shouldn't the tutorial involve lore? The tutorial is the first impression of the server, what people will remember and tell their friends. Will someone share a server they played on for 10 minutes with a tutorial of 10 paragraphs of information on how to play or will someone share a server that gives an RPG aspect where they learn the game through a paced (but not too fast) simple first hand tutorial and some lore to keep them interested? Some servers (*ynncraft, Dakotafiles is a mod for them if you want to check out their tutorial) do an excellent job of integrating Lore and a tutorial together. I know for a fact that brawl can outdo this server in that department.

I should rephrase my comment on non-PvP. What I meant was, will there be non-objective based things to do? Other amazing RPG games add these components that make the game feel fresh. For example, GTA 5 allows players to play golf. I'm not saying the Wildwest should be Golf simulator 2015, however maybe it should consider other non-objective/murdering/making money, things to do.

Why shouldn't there be lore involved in the selection? Once you start Wildwest, you are literally given an option of what city you want to choose (a component of many Lore/MMO games/servers). Wildwest has a massive map perfect for lore yet you are ignoring it for already pretty good gameplay. Why aren't you prioritizing in the thing that all the amazing builders put so much time into?

Last, could I get a definite answer on whether WildWest is supposed to be a RPG/Lore based server with economic aspectrs or massive PVP server? If lore/RPG isn't the main point, than just in my opinion, the map is completely a waste (which is sad to say). You guys had to have put in hundreds to thousands of hours building this master piece yet so far, the server is advertised as a bland/generic shoot'm up PVP server. The map quality reminds me of GTA 5 where quests/lore are huge which is why such an extensive map is needed.

 

What if Quests gave you basic items to help newbie players as said above?
For example, rather than saying "You make money by mining", have a quest involving a miner and then once you beat the quest, the miner gives you a pickaxe as a reward and explains the mining system.