I thought about this before and think it would be nice for starting elo "penalty". It could also change things displayed in the "new player guide" I mentioned various times.

quote: "Have you played real time strategy games before?"

This has been suggested before, and it is generally a great idea.

People who feel confident in their knowledge of RTS genre are almost guaranteed to skip a generic "Tutorial". You need to tell them it doesnt contain all the extra info they already know, you need to make sure it is full of useful information and nothing else.

This is probably one of the best tutorial videos to a game (game mode) i have seen. Right to the point, with the visuals perfectly matching the narration.

The ZK tutorials i have seen so far are not "fast" enough. They spend too much time panning the camera, watching the units slowly move, and doing too much extra explaining of obvious points etc.

The proper tutorial just goes through all of the points: "This is X, it does Y", it doesnt give a 3-minute long commenary about the situations when Y can be helpful and how to counter it.

LMFTFY

[when a new user account is registered the questionnaire page opens]

"Welcome to Zero-K!"

"Have you played real time strategy games before?"
A) Yes
B) No
C) Maybe? I've never known or cared what "genres" my games were.

"Have you played real time strategy games competitively before?"
A) Yes
B) No
C) Maybe? I've only played with local friends or special game modes online.
D) [Click this answer if you picked "B" or "C" for the first question]

"Please select each of the games below that you have played before."
>>[checkbox grid of all TA-like games, with one "none" option, one "other" option, and one "unknown" option]

"Thanks for answering these questions. Please click the "Submit" button to recieve a response."
>>[depending on selected answers, one of these text boxes replaces the "Submit" button]

>>{when Q1

A, Q2

A, Q3 = other}
"Even if you are a veteran of competetive RTS, the game you are about to play offers a number of tools (i.e. "widgets") that allow players to automate many in-game tasks. Learning to use these tools to your advantage is mandatory in order to win against veteran players. When you have completed the tutorial, feel free to ask about these widgets on the forums; many of the veteran posters/players are active widget developers who enjoy discussing how various widgets function and will investigate bug reports posted by players."

>>{when Q1

B, Q2

D, Q3 = none/other/unknown}
"Tt looks like you've (probably) never played a 'real time strategy game' before. EXCELLENT!!! I won't spoil anything for you, go and play the tutorial!"

>>{when Q1

A, Q2

A/B/C, Q3 = any game except TA/PA}
"Welcome, kindred spirit! Zero-K is a TA-descendant built on the open-source and free (as in freedom) "Spring RTS Engine". This has allowed the Zero-K community to create tools ("widgets") that allow players to optimize their in-game play even futher beyond the TA-likes you have played. If you are an experienced modder, or simply know how to code in Lua, you can create your own widgets to shrae with the Zero-K community and the greater Spring RTS community. Go ahead and start the tutorial to see these time-saving automations in action! (P.S. press F1 to trip balls!)"

>>{when Q3 = Total Annihilation or Planetary Annihilation}
"Welcome Home, fellow fan of Total Annihilation! Zero-K is a TA-descendant built on the open-source and free (as in freedom) "Spring RTS Engine", a C++ rebuild of the same physics and modeling engine used by Total Annihilation! Thanks to the community, many functinos you wished existed in TA are now reality thanks to the community of Zero-K the greater Spring RTS community programming these through Lua scripts knwon as "mods" or "widgets"! Feel free to go onto the Spring RTS forums to suggest or edit a widget or mod, and submit your own widgets and mods for other to use! Activate the tutorial to familiarize yourself with the units of Zero-K and the many convenient automations that have already been added to the default game!"

Well it probably is a good idea to further split the "Good at RTS" stream into those who are familiar with TA-like games, and those who arent.

For those who are, the explanation of economy and unit orders could be condensed a bit.