We should not let...

[aptest]

in other words, i think the "adopt a newbie" idea for vets taking on the task of giving new players playing tips on the go and making sure the completely green actually get into games is a splendid idea. I would like to also thank everybody who's ever asked me to take my scout into a secto and eye them some miners.

[Elzam_]

QUOTE (aptest @ Jul 22 2010, 09:41 AM) in other words, i think the "adopt a newbie" idea for vets taking on the task of giving new players playing tips on the go and making sure the completely green actually get into games is a splendid idea. I would like to also thank everybody who's ever asked me to take my scout into a secto and eye them some miners.

I am actually for the Adopt A Newbie thing. So in game, as a community, when we see a (0) or even a (1) or (2) we should take it upon ourselves to say, "Yo! What up my brothah from anotha motha? What say you get yourself a scout, and follow me! FOR THROUGH THE FIRE AND FLAMES WE SHALL CARRY ON!!!"

[Flaps]

QUOTE (KGJV @ Jul 20 2010, 08:46 PM) I'll sound like a broken record again :


These are from 3 years ago and It took 2 years to have S4 done so will it need 6 more years to get S1,S2 and S3 done ?!

i'll add S5 too:

S5 : boot (simple boot not ban) anyone idle more than 5mins (in NOAT or team, game running or not).

so may be in 8 years if we're lucky...

HI,

I haven't been around for some time, mainly because of personal problems rather than anything with the game.

An idle boot system sounds like a good idea. Times in the past I have jumped on the day thinking that a game was in progress only to find 7 people sitting on NOAT and nobody is actually at the computer. Disappointing to say the least. I would say that such a boot system should not apply to newbie players as they do not tend to hang on NOAT because they always want to play NOW. Probably not worth making them exempt from the system because of that.

I personally would put more emphasis on looking after new players and protecting them in game (make them feel special and part of the team). Maybe an amendment to the ROC to stop idiots from talking trash to newbie’s.

Rewards for newbie efforts to keep them coming back. I think that's the key to increasing the population, is to give incentive to come back again and again. The only thing to do is figure out how to do this. Are we going to pull together as a community or let the idiots destroy everything?

I haven't read the rest of the thread yet so I apologise if I haven't bought anything new to the topic.

On a lighter note, I hope to be back soon and demonstrating how NOT to fly a scout in a straight line.

[Freyja]

An idle boot system I'd be against.

Many times I'd join a server and yes, there are afk players, I often will still play the game.

Also I've of course been idle in the past and come back to the computer and seen a game in progress and hopped on when otherwise I'd not have.



tl;dr Being booted for idle any amount of time would reduce games people play.

[notjarvis]

Nah. An idle boot system appears pointless to me.

Although the lobby screen should just list the number of players actually playing in game in addition to (or instead of) the current simple nukmber of people on the server.


Emphasis on new players is good. People should be willing to take players to a side game and have a little training/side game for learning purposes (or a newbie server game if you have access).

There are technical issues with integrating chat into allegiance, due to microsofts licence, but voice comms on all the time would be a good change IMO.

[SaiSoma]

QUOTE (aptest @ Jul 22 2010, 08:38 AM) 1. Newbie servers and side games

This could have been a good idea if the playing community was large enough to support it. If you have 2-4 games going at the same time it makes sense to make one of them into an orientation game. This has problems working when there is only one game running at any given time, because:

Just an FYI, we attract a large number of new players. They typically don't get very many hours in before disappearing. The marketing team has done some analysis of data and this is truth ( MrC and his data team). If they see the "training server" or a server called "new players come here" or some such and there are @HELP staffing the server when they are on (play w/o your @HELP tag if you want to play on main) then they will start there VERY likely. @HELP can then get them on mumble immediately and our mumble population will increase dramatically. We will still not keep a large majority of them, but it's all about increasing the percentage we DO keep, which will grow the community quickly.

We don't even need to "split" the game. It's not like we HAVE to have the newbies to keep main running anyway and we aren't going to keep them from going to the main, but when they start asking questions, it's time to go to the newbie server where our @HELP staff will be.

This will mean @HELP has to do their job rather than play the game. Isn't that the point of the @HELP tag? @Alleg are police. We stop bad things. @HELP are the helpers, meaning their only purpose for wearing the tag is to help players. Where better to do that than in a semi-controlled environment? You don't STOP the newbies from playing cap wars, you show them how to get caps faster, how to mine faster, what tech is complimentary and encourage them to take AFS and CDT and then get them into the main game.

[Makida]

I agree with Sai, except for the Mumble bit. Asking new players who only just now installed the game to install some other piece of software that a good share of them will have never heard of is not necessarily a good idea. It may not seem like a big deal, but to a new player who is not yet "hooked" on Allegiance, it might seem like they're being asked to go through too much hassle and inconvenience in order to play this game that they haven't even really tried yet, and they might resent that.

Focus on improving the newbie server (and raise the rank limit on it!) Other ideas like achievements and what-not are good too, but improving the newbie server is probably both the easiest (compared to coding new features or fundamentally changing "Allegiance culture") and likely to be the most effective way to keep new players around.

[jinox]

QUOTE (Elzam V. Branstein @ Jul 22 2010, 03:46 PM) I am actually for the Adopt A Newbie thing. So in game, as a community, when we see a (0) or even a (1) or (2) we should take it upon ourselves to say, "Yo! What up my brothah from anotha motha? What say you get yourself a scout, and follow me! FOR THROUGH THE FIRE AND FLAMES WE SHALL CARRY ON!!!"

I am doing this already and must say it is good. I usually get a positive response from my newbies. I am not that good , but I am explaining as much as possible while we are flying. I encourage them when they kill stuff and respond any pm question I get.

[OTDT_Hunter]

Yes, giving them the option to more directly talk to people in the game instead of joining and having no clue there is such a option is to much. Where as other games you have to spend hours finding the updates just to play the game. Way to much to ask for the new players.

[jinox]

Most important thing I realized is not to FILL them up with TONS of information, that will scare them off eventually.