Allegiance as private club

[Camaro]

MrC is a noob,

Ptero for Alleg Newb-Relations Manager (NRM)!

[MrChaos]

QUOTE (girlyboy @ Jan 17 2010, 12:48 PM) Mr. C., not everyone can believe that your self-deprecation could be that genuine. I know it is, but most people, when saying something like that, would be sarcastic...

Its really not self-deprecation rather simple truth. If I was some new guy watching that display Im pretty damn sure my impression would be a lousy one. If you are going to call the kettle black it is always best to admit your the pan when doing it around these parts

[Camaro]

When i was a newb i sure don't recall anyone berating me. Sure there was some stern lectures about what i oughta be doing or how i should do it, and some friendly taunting but nothing i perceived as hostile. IMO you improve faster with criticism because now you have something to work on.

Even Gest, never known for his affection towards newbies, was helpful to me inbetween his taunting.

So unless new guys these days have no sense of humor or are just really thin skinned, i don't understand why there is a problem.

[Makida]

+ 1 for the general point that there doesn't seem to be much taunting of newbies going on. I hardly ever see any. In fact, I can't remember the last time I've seen any, except occasional -- and very mild -- mocking of newbies who are over-eager to command. The only problem I think would be if newbies see how much taunting of *voobies* there is, and the general harshness and negativity and "dis is serius business" stuff in the game, and might be discouraged by that even if *none* of it is directed at them personally. Or something.

But, eh, you can't fight that stuff, and if you try to you'll just cause backlash and make it worse. Many just see it as a normal part of the game as the replies here show, and it's usually not too bad anyway. The best way to create a friendlier overall environment in game is just to be nice to people yourself as much as you can, and hope that this either rubs off on others, or at least shows newbies that the community has its soft fuzzy spots too.

[SaiSoma]

As I see it, the problem with newbies is that they get into a high tension game and are not given any direction or help. Most games have "skill levels" that prevent a newb from coming up against a weed. That this is possible in Alleg is one of its greatest strengths and weaknesses.

I am newbie friendly, but when I am commanding a game (small or large) I don't have time to spend telling new guys what to do. What happens to them? They fly around aimlessly and get bored or they get killed repeatedly because they are in a lt int when we have adv figs. This is nothing new, right? Wrong.

When I started playing in 2005, the newbie server was very active. I believe I played my first 15-20 games there. Everyone says that staying on the newbie server builds bad habits and is worse for a player, but I have to disagree. For those of us that don't have the automatic situational awareness of spidey or the aim bot skills of weed or the plethora of skillsets that exist within other individuals within this game that allow them to grasp the concepts faster than the average person, that newbie server time is critical.

Compare Alleg to any other game and this is where we fail. We don't have the xbox pairing system for random games where you usually come up against ppl of similar skills. We don't have the slowly increasing difficulty of other mmorpgs that allow you to build your character's points. We toss our newbs into the midst of a professional gaming tournament and expect them not to get bored or frustrated. We push them to fight the mid-level or higher "bosses" without letting their character gain experience and weapons. We force them into a struggle where only the top 3% will win. We force them to lose 97% of the time.

I have stated in the past that our means to greater retention is to enforce a newbie server policy that allows @HELP to play on the newb servers only. If you have on your @HELP tag, you can ONLY join the newb servers, period. Grow @HELP so it almost always has someone on. Make the newb servers more active. Yes, it's hard without community as small as it is. That was the same answer I got 3 years ago when we were still up around 800 actives. Now we're much smaller. While I don't believe it's time to lock <5 out of the main game, we need to make the newbie servers more active. Make sure they get an ASGS message the first time they login that @HELP is around on the newbie servers and that they are ENCOURAGED to join those servers.

Just my $0.02.

[Adept]

I believe that bump to (5) is being looked at, and hopefully removed. That will help. A lot of those (5) rank people are actually allegskill 1..3. The bump to five distorts what commanders see, and may place too high expectations on them suddenly.

Those "newbie only" games could well help even things out. Sure the games will not be super competetive, but it's much easier to learn and have fun when you aren't being blown out of the sky every 30 seconds like they will in the main.

[Clay_Pigeon]

What we need is a balls-of-steel commander like DrS, who is willing to lead a team of newbies against the faceless hordes.

-T

PS. MrChaos gave me scabies

[raumvogel]

Stop scratching his privates.They aren't trained yet.

[notjarvis]

Sigh.

I wrote this along time ago, and I still believe it to be true.

QUOTE (notjarvis @ Oct 29 2008, 10:20 AM) Is part of the problem that I now rarely see newbie games going on in the newbie server where people can shout/shoot/screw up unitl their heart is content, and many peoples first experience of the game is in the horribly confusing Main Game, where people do whinge if their team is losing. And often the only response to a newbie is "have you read allegacademy?"

There is sterling stuff on the academy and the Cadet courses seem great to me, but both need some persistence from the player to get into.

I know the Allegiance Community is aware of the steep learning curve, but sometimes when a new player comes in there is nowhere thay can just have FUN which surely is the whole point of any game.

Part of me thinks we should encourage the newbie server to be used more, yes I know it encourages bad habits etc. But at least the players will learn some of the mechanics of the game, while having FUN, which often isn't had for a newbie waiting 20 mins for a main game, before getiing podded repeatedly.

Bad habits can be beat out of people, if they get discouraged and leave - we've often lost them forever.....

Of course replace where I've referred to the Academy/CDT where appropriate

[Makida]

+ 1 on the newbie server. I, too, have said in the past that it has to be brought back up to where it was before.