Tutorial is badly out of date and buggy

[ethankaminski]

We need to get the tutorial updated, especially if we expect an influx of new players (ahem_Kickstarter_ahem).

Feel free to leave comments about exactly WHAT needs fixing below.

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[fergus-dall]

• It doesn't mention opening and closing windows, or that you can draw their curtains.
• It also doesn't say anything about construction or crafting.
• It doesn't have anything on the XP/Mental Focus system

[ethankaminski]

Not saying anything about XP is probably good, because that means one less thing to fix >_>.

It doesn't mention anything about zombies reviving, which is important information to provide.

There's no mention of getting water from toilets, or boiling water.

It doesn't really give you any advice about how to not die early on, it's just a mechanics tutorial (and some of those mechanics, like guns, are things that players won't see if they don't learn how to not die).

[JimboJamerson]

Something on how to build fires properly would be good, i still cant do it right the fire goes out so fast and just leaves me with a million 'burnt log' which are good for bugger all

[terribleperson]

• There should probably be a section on crafting, with a focus on cooking, and maybe how to acquire the easy starting weapons (pipe, crowbar, pointy stick). Definitely cover acquiring and cleaning water. Cleaning bottles of water needs to be fixed (that is, make the system prioritize filling half-empty bottles of water over empty ones, or allow the player to pick).
• Cover starvation, dehydration, lack of sleep, diseases, and environmental protection.
• I recommend a combat section that covers both melee and ranged combat.
• I agree with a mention of zombies reviving. A larger tutorial (I don't think we want to do this now, but something to consider in the future) would guide the player through a mini-city, having them kill a few zombies on the way through. At the end they'd have to complete some sort of time consuming task, and the dead zombies would start to revive.
• A section on construction is probably a good idea. Perhaps have them board up windows, since they'll be doing a lot of that.
• A tips section wouldn't be a bad idea. Ideally I think we'd do what I suggested up there; that is, run the player through a mini-city, but that's probably a time-consuming task to set up.
• Mention the help system, and rebinding keys. A good one to use as an example would be the 'repeat last crafting' command. Maybe do that during the crafting tutorial?

I'm inclined to agree with ethankaminski on not saying anything about XP.

[yobbobanana]

Starting the tutorial, dismissing the initial two message boxes with space, and then waiting for a turn with "." spams the player with "Wacky scent at x,y (131241233)" messages. Can't easily see why this would be the case. But as pressing "." is just what the second of those message boxes tells you to do, i figure it's a pretty serious flaw.

I turned the messages off to see what would happen and it segfaulted.

[Wuzzy2]

• Everything of the above
• Vehicles: Usage, maintenance and construction basics
• Disassembling items

Addendum:
Since the tutorial tends to become big if all suggestions have been added, I suggest to build the entire tutorial area into multiple sections. The player starts in a central area (where probably the most basic basics are taught) from which he/she/it can access all other tutorial sections simply by walking and can choose which ones to visit in any order. All tutorial sections are more or less independent of each other.

You may know this tutorial style from a game called “The Dark Mod”. I found this way of tutorial-making very helpful and really makes me hate those linear tutorials which force you to go through everything in a fixed order.

[Wuzzy2]

There is now a discussion thread for this topic: http://smf.cataclysmdda.com/index.php?topic=6238.0

[mugling]

Discussion continues in #17984