New player experience on installing disco

[sindroms]

I will be posting here after getting ahold of a few people who have never played FL or disco.
All I gave them is a TL;DR of what the game is and the name of the game and the game mod. Told them to get on the server, no other help from there on out.





1.

Code:

User dumps the term into google
Finds the forum download page
he skips instructions to the download section (misses 1.3, has to be reminded manually by observer (me) )

User describes that searching letter for letter for what is stated in the tutorial does not give the exact result we are looking for, it needs to be appended with the right name. Which is "Turn windows features on or off"

User thought that specifically 3.5 NET framework is required and was looking at activate dieacvate windows features to force 3.5 on their system. Tuitorial needs to be appended by renaming it to ''latest net framework''

After installing the game, the user did not think to go back to the installation walkthrough at first, tried to run the game without the mod (did not work).

User got lost after performing the necessary Windows 10 features. After performing all necessary installation, user forgot that there was a previous tutorial outside the Windows 10 changes tutorial and tried to launch the game using the original. Which did not work.
As such, the windows 10 feature enabling needs to be a collapsible spoiler under the original tutorial.

1.8 needs to be merged with 1.7 as the user did not read the next step before they downloaded the installer an launched it.

User interpreted the ''COULD NOT FIND A REGISTRY ENTRY'' that they need to register a forum or freelancer account. After closing it and clicking to patch the game, the popup returns and cannot be closed. (Bug?)

User has to manually kill the launcher.
Task manager is unable to kill the process through the Process tab on windows 10.

(User states that he would need to be VERY much interested in the game to continue past this point)

This is solved by telling them to manually create an account before patching the game.
Installs everything else, everything else works.
User uninstalls the game.

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PSA: If you have been having stutter/FPS lag on Disco where it does not run as smoothly as other games, please look at the fix here: https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid2306502
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[sindroms]

2.

start time 2:20 AM, Oct 16
went to discovery freelancer website
mod installation guide on discovery forum
2:45 AM - Freelancer installed
2:58 AM - installing discovery freelancer
3:02 AM - discovery freelancer installed
3:06 AM - need to create freelancer account
3:10 AM - finds forum post by sindroms, still unsure how to create account, but will not patch launcher until account is created
3:23 AM - steam community discussion says ignore create account message and launch game
3:26 AM - patch game
3:30 AM - launch game
3:35 AM - joined server

It looks like we are having issues with the account creation step. Newly installed machines reffer to it needing an account, but in todays games it implies a forum/site account, not a on-disc account the old FL games use.

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PSA: If you have been having stutter/FPS lag on Disco where it does not run as smoothly as other games, please look at the fix here: https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid2306502
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[Durandal]

I'm beginning to think a video tutorial may be the way to go.

[Shiki]

Well, we are having a launcher that is able to update itself and the client. Why not host the full client on the server? Like the best solution seems like the players downloading small DSLauncher that will download all necessary files as an update procedure. It should not load the server machine too much. Download times maybe not the best, but it's a much more user-friendly approach.

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[Chiper-No]

I did the whole installation process a few months ago and found the guide on forums sufficient enough. It helps you step by step through the whole thing but you really need following it. Perhaps the guide can clarify what the launchers wants when it says you need creating an account.
Otherwise the only improvement I can think of is that the guide itself is tricky finding on the forums. I think this thread LINK: Discovery Freelancer Mod Installation Guide should appear at the very top of the sub-sections or threads.
What #Sicicega suggests is sounding like the best solution because that is how all games are working these days.

[Shiki]

Halfway solution is to at least make one unified installation package that is having all necessary files. With one giant DOWNLOAD button.

So people don't have to bother with .iso mounts and then installing the mod on top of it.

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[Avalanche]

I'm beginning to think a video tutorial may be the way to go.

Give me a few hours. I'll make a mock up video for discussion.

Also, Sindroms, damn nice work. Love the initiative and out of the box thinking. We really do need to improve the newcomer experience.

While I have your attention can we please get this request done as soon as is convenient Durandal/Mods/GMs

[Durandal]

Redistributing vanilla Freelancer's files would require hosting them on our servers which is illegal. The links provided are to files hosted offsite.

[Avalanche]

Prepare your PC [0:23]

Install Freelancer [0:39]

Install Discovery [0:59]

[Avalanche]

And then if we wanted to get more creative we could put images with urls behind.

Edit: I do propose we edit the main install tutorial thread however. It's very wordy and could do with some polish.