Coming up in v3.68 we have a lot of new features that probably do not concern most of you here directly, but are designed to ease the transition of new players into the game. This will be particularily important now, as the Waves marketing team is set to drop $30k on us starting in June!

The first is the new player signup flow. Previously, they were given an intimidating wall of text describing Shadow Era, asked to select one of 10 free starter decks with little information about them, then had to choose a player name and hope it was available, before they were dumped onto the campaign map. Not exactly a friendly welcome...

In the new flow, after the account creation the player will be ushered into a tutorial battle, where the deck is fixed and unshuffled to avoid the shuffle bug and also so that we can control the outcome. The player will get to play though a battle with simple scenarios explaining the game, including sacrificing, persistant damage on allies, active abilities, shadow energy, and board control. They will have full use of the normal game interface, meaning they can make mistakes and be taught the right thing to do and have their mistake erased. It's designed to be only a few minutes long, with a minimum of text to read, but still feel quick and interesting. (It will also be able to be replayed later from the options menu)

After this brief taste of the game, with the knowledge they have gained, the player then can choose their free starter deck. Instead of just showing the hero, the player can flip through all the cards included in the deck, as well as read more hints about the play style.

Instead of choosing a player name, their name will initially be set as "Player4342182" for example, and they can begin playing the game right away. When they are ready to select a name, they can do so for free with the new Edit Account feature. Other players can also use this to change their name, update their email address, or to set a new password without having to use the website support tools.

What else do you think will help new players get into the game? Let us know!

As a reminder, you can follow along with the dev progress at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing