Pox Nora

Tried out Pox Nora for the first time this weekend. Some of my initial experiences:

• clicked through from a banner ad on some other site - they have some fantastic art for the game, enough to get me to download and play it.
• After installing, realized I had downloaded it before a year or so ago, but never played it because it was multiplayer only.
• MP-only games are extremely intimidating. I don't like learning how to play a game while immediately competing with potentially rude strangers online.
• Tutorial was generally good, but I had difficulty successfully hosting and starting a game - couldn't figure out how to select a starting deck. Got to watch a series of people to sign into my game lobby, hear me say "Help, this is my first game, it won't let me start the match," and then immediately log out without offering any suggestions.
• Like I said, MP-only games are extremely intimidating. I haven't even started my first match yet, and already feel like an idiot surrounded by jerks.
• Eventually got a match started, and I looked to be clearly winning, at which point my opponent quit out and it registered as a victory to me. Bailing out before the end of the match is pretty annoying, but hey, I won my first match! That helps me feel alot less dumb.

Pretty good initial experience. I wonder if there's a way to strongly bias MP games towards letting a new player win the first time. Just about the best way to encourage your player to stick around, although for most multiplayer games that's largely out of the developer's control.

I really prefer games like Star Chamber that give you a limited AI you can play against to initially practice the game. Even if the AI sucks (like in Star Chamber), it allows you a stress-free, public-humiliation-free forum to practice and learn the game. Reminds me of a Valve GDC talk about learning new gameplay mechanics:

"The speaker explained how their testing showed that the learning rate diminished if the player was put under any type of pressure during training time or, even worse, exposed to any sort of peril or even combat situations. Clearly, stress makes us go back to basic survival strategies rather than trying new ones. "

Even though a competitive-player AI is hard, and would only really be used as an extended tutorial, I think you have to sink the time in to make one for a game like this, or you lose half your customers. Hell, I clicked-through, downloaded, installed, and booted-up the game a year ago, only to never play it because I didn't want to look dumb online.