New Player Experience

The New player experience was the big push during my time at Carbine. The higher ups wanted us to create a new Tutorial experience for new players. The idea was to get players involved in what was believe the best parts of Wild Star in the first couple minutes of playing the game. The Zone was broken up into sections, A hover boarding section, Combat area, Story Area, and Player housing. The artist task to create this zone was Kristy Moret. I oversaw her work, collaborated with Design and kept in contact with the Art Director to make sure that zone match the overall vision of Wild Star and of course was fun to play.

   I gave Kristy the reigns to take as much control over the project as she wanted to take. Keeping in constant contact with her throughout  the process. We talked about the progress every day and I gave her feedback on what she was currently working on. I made sure she was on task with the schedule we created for her and even got into the zone and to do some  terrain sculpting during the layout phase to help design while Kristy was sick. The Art Director wanted each section to look like different zones in Wild Star, so I worked with Kristy to make sure each section had the essence of the zone she was replicating. I also created some prefabs for Kristy to used and completed a run though of the whole zone during her polish phase to give feedback on things she might have missed or areas that needed more love. 

The Hover board section was the first area player would experience. Working with the Art Director, Kristy and Design to create a short but fun course. We broke down each turn to make sure players weren't lost and could always see where to go next. Making sure that players were greeted with a fantastic vista during the high points of the course. 

The Combat area is where Design taught the players the combat mechanics of the game. Because there are two factions in the game, I help Kristy layout two separate paths for each faction. Making sure both paths were visually interesting but also help guide players which way to go next. The composition and directional flow of each path ways were tweak constantly to ensure that design had enough space for combat.

The quest/story area of the zone was made to look like Arcterra. Because Kristy had previously worked on Arcterra this was a relatively easy task for her. Once again I help her with the directional flow, terrain sculpt, terrain texture painting and clutter.

The Player Housing section was the final area the players got to see before they headed out into the world of Nexus. We wanted to show the cool aspects of the housing system. Plots were placed in that players could interact with, that built houses/ structures players could obtain in game. We also looked at current player housing to see what they built themselves. Inspired by what they made I created some prefab set dressings that Kristy was able to place down to decorate the area. Including the Skate park, Picnic/ party area, and the tree of life.