Making INF more newbie-friendly...

This has been posted by Anonymous at another Thread:

The biggest problem there is that INF is not newbie friendly. Simply that.
Now after playing inf for some years I don't know where the problem is, but if I watch someone new playing it ...
I showed INF my older brother and there were so many things which I forgot to tell him because they are normal for me. And if you know all the weapon-modes, the moving ... you still don't know the maps and don't tell me there is a compass, a compass helps much against possible ambush-positions ...

The only way he played it a bit was TDM and less DTAS. These are the userfriendliest modes (btw. I want Kosovo in DTAS ). If someone doesn't have anybody he won't stick long to inf (my brother doesn't play it now, but maybe I'll get him ), only a few will.

So we can't hope for new inf players. Only few came and even less will come.

Click to expand...

I think the main point is right, Infiltration has just too many features to be mastered within half an hour. Unfortunately the major part of FPS-players is not interested in reading manuals, practicing weapon handling and studying map locations. They want to join and play right after installing the game.

To make this clear: I DO NOT want Infiltration to be different than it is now! But we have to face the fact that Infiltration (and especially EAS) is an infantry-simulation rather than a first person shooter. Anyway it's quite unknown beyond the FPS-communities.
So my point is this: I think that Infiltration needs to be introduced to the various simulation pages rather than the gaming sites. If there are players out there who are interested in tactical, realistic teamplay, we will find them amongst the Simmers. Most of them don't pay attention to sites as planetunreal.com, counter-strike.net, etc. But it's these players who will stick to INF.
So how about promoting INF throught simulation sites? http://www.simhq.com would be a good place to start with. http://www.thecombatzone.net could be another.

What do you think?

I really like geogob's idea...
We could start with the very basics: Movement, Aiming, maybe basic weapon usage (such as reloading, no NO KIDDING) in one tutorial.
Then add several little tutorials which deal with the more specialized features: Fire modes, attachments, acog/scope, 40mm, handgrenades....
This would cut it down to little pieces which can be handled more easily.

I just made a little DEMO file on Trainingground. It takes less than 5 minutes to make all the moves. If you want to take a look at it, download the attachment below and rename it to ".dem" Then launch your Infiltration, open the console and type "demoplay tutorial_1"

All we would need now is a graphical menu to launch the demo files, and some help with coding, especially in order to add the tutor's voice to the DEMO.
This shouldn't be so much work, aye?

Edit:
Err... well.... I just took a complete review of that demo. There are still some issues. One is that you can't see leaning in FIRST person view, though you do see it at THIRD person view. And i remember a problem from 2.86 where jogging / running wasn't showed properly until the viewer pressed the right keys on his own keyboard. I don't have the time right now to test that, but this would mean somewhat more coding: At least we would need some codes to change the viewing-perspective WITHIN the demo....
@Coders out there: Are such things possible?

So if i understand you correct, Crowze, you're talking about a scripted bootcamp?
Something like in Hitman, Ghost Recon, etc?
This would mean significantly more work, there you're right. We would need a new map with lots of triggers and movers. In order to make it RIGHT, we would also need some coding. Then we could add text messages to the HUD, like: "Hit your Weapon Mode Key ("A") to switch to semi fire!" with A being the key which the user actually bound to Weapon Mode. Such things can be extracted from the USERINIs.

Anyway this would be something out of my abilities. I am quite a good mapper, but my hardware causes some very strange issues with the Unreal Editor. I can't manage to build the most primitive geometries without getting serious BSP - errors which even REMAIN in EMPTY maps... So i could only provide support with planning the structure of such a bootcamp.