'tip of the day'

[lisar]

I know that when I open a product that has a 'tip of the day' at the front I tick the 'don't show me this again' but perhaps we should have something in the campaign where at the beginning of each scenario there was a tip like if you are lawful you are better during the day. This will give the player some head's up so they don't have to figure out everything by themselves. It could also have the 'don't show this again' box also, so that when you are going through the campaign for the 17th time you don't have to see it. Or perhaps even just have it show up if you are choosing to play on 'easy' level. I would assume that people playing on easy level would appreciate the tips on how to improve. This will also give people that want to skip the tutorial an opportunity to learn some of the basics of the game.

[erl]

I think that one of the problems with "tip of the day"s is that they usually have nothing to do with the context the user is currently in. I think a far better approach would be to give the tip when the context in which it is useful occurs. For example, the first time it gets dark, a tip could appear saying that you should be careful because the chaotic units are much more powerful in darkness. An other example could be that when you recruit a mage for the first time, it could tip you that a mage's attack always have a high chance of hitting. And so on. Of course, a checkbox should be in these tips too to disable them.

[Dave]

I think that one of the problems with "tip of the day"s is that they usually have nothing to do with the context the user is currently in. I think a far better approach would be to give the tip when the context in which it is useful occurs. For example, the first time it gets dark, a tip could appear saying that you should be careful because the chaotic units are much more powerful in darkness. An other example could be that when you recruit a mage for the first time, it could tip you that a mage's attack always have a high chance of hitting. And so on. Of course, a checkbox should be in these tips too to disable them.

But a problem with this approach is it tends to place all the information toward the start of the game, and this leads to 'information overload' for the player.

One of the big ideas of a 'tip of the day' system is to provide information that the player missed when playing through the introductory sequences, and there will inevitably be things that the player misses.

It's likely that a player may play to scenario 10 on easy level, far beyond where the 'helpful hint' messages have stopped, and still not know some aspects of the game. This is where a 'tip of the day' is useful -- they can pick up things casually and remember them for next time they're useful.

I do think your idea has merit too though -- e.g. when the player gets a healing unit for the first time, it might be good to explain how healing works.

David

[Boucman]

I'd rather add tips of the day the way they are handled in FPS, which is particularely non disruptive for experienced players...

they are just the bottom line of the "loading" screen, so you read them while waiting for the game to load.


unofrtunately there are no long loading under wesnoth. It might be nice to find an ewuivalent place to put them

[erl]

But a problem with this approach is it tends to place all the information toward the start of the game, and this leads to 'information overload' for the player.

You got a point there. When I think of it, I usually only remember a fraction of this kind of tips. The rest of them I only browse through quickly and close so that I can continue playing.

One of the big ideas of a 'tip of the day' system is to provide information that the player missed when playing through the introductory sequences, and there will inevitably be things that the player misses.

It's likely that a player may play to scenario 10 on easy level, far beyond where the 'helpful hint' messages have stopped, and still not know some aspects of the game. This is where a 'tip of the day' is useful -- they can pick up things casually and remember them for next time they're useful.

This sounds very nice in theory, but does it really work in practice? It does for sure not work for me. I click the "don't show this again"-box on the first tip of the day I get and then hardly ever look at them again. I'm blatantly assuming most people do this, which effectively prevents them from picking up the tips casually.

It happens that I return to look through the tips and see if I can learn something, but this usually occurs when I know the game quite well and I end up clicking through all the tips and finding at most one thing I did not already know. What I would appreciate more when I have reached the stage when I click through the tips, is a collection of all tips, divided into sections, so that I quickly can find tips that really interest me.

Conclusion: I don't see the need for tips of the day since I don't look at them, and when I do, I usually don't find something interesting. I'd much rather have a collection of tips that is easy to get an overview of and where I easily can find the section of tips I'm interested in.

I see now that these both suggestions do not exclude each other. We could have a tip of the day-system while also having the tips collected and structured for easy browsing. Yeah, I like that system! It's not that much work to hit the "don't show again"-box for the anti-"tip of the day" community like me, so it wouldn't hurt I guess .

[Dave]

they are just the bottom line of the "loading" screen, so you read them while waiting for the game to load.

unofrtunately there are no long loading under wesnoth. It might be nice to find an ewuivalent place to put them

We'll just have them show up every time you load a game, with a "Don't show this again" option.

---

@erl: Personally I leave tips of the day on, if they're useful in the application I'm using. Sure, some people will turn them off, but some people will find them useful.

David

[Sangel]

How about them showing up on the main screen of Wesnoth? We've got lots of space there, and they wouldn't interfere with starting a game (as pop-up tips usually do, which causes people to turn them off). Of course, you could still have a box saying "don't show tips at startup".