Why we REALLY need playerbase growth
as a noob myself, I play the game, simply because it's about space, and open ended (except for zone games). My life is really $#@!ed up, and really, just like most every adolescent out there, I play games, and live for the final bell every day. The fact that allegiance is complex doesn't bother me as much as that some people are such lazy asses that they don't want to learn.
advertising in more places is a good start (i've never seen any Allegiance adverts), but if we dare to grow, expand (not the int whore type necessarily) and prosper, we have to be known, then be likable. Everyone who plays should be able to read and (mumble: speak ) somewhat fluently either english, or whatever language you comn in... be amiable, and be helpful.
advertising in more places is a good start (i've never seen any Allegiance adverts), but if we dare to grow, expand (not the int whore type necessarily) and prosper, we have to be known, then be likable. Everyone who plays should be able to read and (mumble: speak ) somewhat fluently either english, or whatever language you comn in... be amiable, and be helpful.
Lutra Also known as Lupara 
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Aquamarine
- Posts: 27
- Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2010 3:54 pm
- Location: Germany
one thought on a stripped down newbie core, we have a similar issue with Falcon as well:
Whenever a new player joins us on Falcon (yes, this still happens occasionally) , we usually advise him to play on maximimum realsim settings! You don't learn things while using the simplified game modes. An exception is maybe air to air refueling and unlimited fuel and / or countermeasures, but you won't learn the essentials of the game if you set those to a simplified mode.
As soon as our Newbies are able to get the plane in the air in one piece, we offer one on one training with an instructor pilot.
When I started flying falcon, I had no internet access and no online training material (which was hardly available in 2000), and I started with simplified modes. It took me maybe 2 weeks until I could land the plane, and it took me years to learn the basics about situation awareness. Today, a decent skilled Newbie needs maybe a training session of 2 or 3 hours for basic aircraft handling including navigation and landing, and a few months until his situation awareness starts building up.
As code maintainance for Allegicance seems to be a critical resource, I would focus on maintenance for the cores and not 'waste' energy on yet another limited use functionality like a newbie core.
Whenever a new player joins us on Falcon (yes, this still happens occasionally) , we usually advise him to play on maximimum realsim settings! You don't learn things while using the simplified game modes. An exception is maybe air to air refueling and unlimited fuel and / or countermeasures, but you won't learn the essentials of the game if you set those to a simplified mode.
As soon as our Newbies are able to get the plane in the air in one piece, we offer one on one training with an instructor pilot.
When I started flying falcon, I had no internet access and no online training material (which was hardly available in 2000), and I started with simplified modes. It took me maybe 2 weeks until I could land the plane, and it took me years to learn the basics about situation awareness. Today, a decent skilled Newbie needs maybe a training session of 2 or 3 hours for basic aircraft handling including navigation and landing, and a few months until his situation awareness starts building up.
As code maintainance for Allegicance seems to be a critical resource, I would focus on maintenance for the cores and not 'waste' energy on yet another limited use functionality like a newbie core.
I may not be perfect, but some parts of me are brilliant!
When I was in the single digit ages (around 2000) I was playing the cheap novalogic flight sims.... I would always do "simple" things like not shoot at max range (you have 160 bullets, 56k lag, and pinhole hitboxes) returning to base (yes, you can land, and get more explody things, not just die) and even, guess what? Talk to people!Aquamarine wrote:QUOTE (Aquamarine @ Feb 28 2011, 03:23 AM) one thought on a stripped down newbie core, we have a similar issue with Falcon as well:
Whenever a new player joins us on Falcon (yes, this still happens occasionally) , we usually advise him to play on maximimum realsim settings! You don't learn things while using the simplified game modes. An exception is maybe air to air refueling and unlimited fuel and / or countermeasures, but you won't learn the essentials of the game if you set those to a simplified mode.
As soon as our Newbies are able to get the plane in the air in one piece, we offer one on one training with an instructor pilot.
When I started flying falcon, I had no internet access and no online training material (which was hardly available in 2000), and I started with simplified modes. It took me maybe 2 weeks until I could land the plane, and it took me years to learn the basics about situation awareness. Today, a decent skilled Newbie needs maybe a training session of 2 or 3 hours for basic aircraft handling including navigation and landing, and a few months until his situation awareness starts building up.
As code maintainance for Allegicance seems to be a critical resource, I would focus on maintenance for the cores and not 'waste' energy on yet another limited use functionality like a newbie core.
It is greatly underestimated how useful talking to someone who knows how to play is.... The single player tutorial is less than adequate for the needs of learning allegance... an update or maybe a "High density" version of the f1 and a vc or ingame message t read it would help
Lutra Also known as Lupara 
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Spunkmeyer
- Posts: 2013
- Joined: Fri Jun 27, 2003 7:00 am
- Location: Contact me regarding: CC, Slayer and AllegWiki.
A lot of our training tools don't explain things from the perspective of the newbie. What I mean is we should match the theory to the game perhaps and describe everything with scenarios the come up frequently...beyond "how to grab a nan scout when a commander asks".
A wonderful resource would be a BIG quiz of multiple questions consisting of mini-scenarios like this. It'll get them thinking the right way about the subtleties of the game. It's late, but let me try one as an example:
1-You are faction X with only an exp and the enemy is faction Y. Your team is about to launch a bomber. It's important that the bomber is launched unseen, as the attack is expected to succeed only if stealthy. There is an experienced enemy scout in the sector and you are already in an int. You chase the scout which turns tail and hits the aleph just as you were getting in the firing range, and you also run out of fuel at the same time. You have no pps. Should you:
a) Chase the scout into the next sector and kill him
b) Slowdown at the aleph anticipating prox, then attempt to re-acquire and kill the scout
c) Turn around and join the bomb run, anticipating the scout is gone for good.
Then the followup questions could build on this, for example:
2-Would your answer change if the scout was:
a)Yes, BIOS
b)Yes, Dreg
c)Yes, TF
d)No.
Sky is the limit with this kind of stuff.
A wonderful resource would be a BIG quiz of multiple questions consisting of mini-scenarios like this. It'll get them thinking the right way about the subtleties of the game. It's late, but let me try one as an example:
1-You are faction X with only an exp and the enemy is faction Y. Your team is about to launch a bomber. It's important that the bomber is launched unseen, as the attack is expected to succeed only if stealthy. There is an experienced enemy scout in the sector and you are already in an int. You chase the scout which turns tail and hits the aleph just as you were getting in the firing range, and you also run out of fuel at the same time. You have no pps. Should you:
a) Chase the scout into the next sector and kill him
b) Slowdown at the aleph anticipating prox, then attempt to re-acquire and kill the scout
c) Turn around and join the bomb run, anticipating the scout is gone for good.
Then the followup questions could build on this, for example:
2-Would your answer change if the scout was:
a)Yes, BIOS
b)Yes, Dreg
c)Yes, TF
d)No.
Sky is the limit with this kind of stuff.
Want bigger games? Log on to play at the official game time: 9pmET/8pmCT/7pmMT/6pmPT every day of the week. Also Saturdays 8pm UTC.
Here's an idea for improving playerbase, $#@!ing play late night. Instead of being all like, oh the teams are 5v5 I'll go play my steam crap game or whatever, $#@!ing play. The past month I've logged in at like 11pm PST and it's a 0v0, past couple days I've been comming games into the night and pushing the death time back by 2 or 3hours.
We only need a handful of late night regulars to to sustain at the very least a newbie training game, otherwise we are risking around 10hours of potential newbies who log in and see the game is dead and uninstall.
It wasn't too long ago when we had semi decent games played till even 3 or 4am PST. It would not be that difficult to have that happening again. I guarantee that if late night improves, prime time and over all attendance will improve as well. Tell you what, when necessary I'll even command a few to see this work.
We only need a handful of late night regulars to to sustain at the very least a newbie training game, otherwise we are risking around 10hours of potential newbies who log in and see the game is dead and uninstall.
It wasn't too long ago when we had semi decent games played till even 3 or 4am PST. It would not be that difficult to have that happening again. I guarantee that if late night improves, prime time and over all attendance will improve as well. Tell you what, when necessary I'll even command a few to see this work.
Last edited by Shizoku on Tue Mar 01, 2011 8:13 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Aquamarine
- Posts: 27
- Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2010 3:54 pm
- Location: Germany