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+--- Thread: Experiment successful. Discovery is not a good place for newbies. (/showthread.php?tid=92596)
Experiment successful. Discovery is not a good place for newbies. - sindroms - 01-16-2013
For the last month, I have been conducting a small experiment to see how newbie-friendly the server is. While we can argue that we take good care of our newcomers, especially after we have introduced 86 to ModDB again, there is a reason why we still see high level players doing something completely wrong.
My point is, we can have all the tutorial sections, welcome threads, Q/A threads on the forums we want and like, but if this is not done ingame, there is no real use for them.
And I think I might have found the reason for this.
The Angels.
...Sort of...
Let me expand on this a little. The Angels were created to help new and old players on the server, answer their questions, give them a nudge in the right direction if they were doing something completely wrong.
And after they were given the green, all of us smiled and that that everything would be OK now. Admins could deal with the rulebreakers, while the Angels could consult those in doubt.
So what, now we do not need to worry about them, right? Yes, that is just what happened. During the last month, I have been gathering video footage to turn into another 15min of Disco on this subject, but after the first few tries, I deleted all of the footage and consulted the admin team, because the information I got was simply going off the logic chart and into the deepend.
Here is a small snippet of a conversation with Cannon (Can post the full convo if he allows)
Quote:[2013.01.03. 9:34:11] Spazzy(Sindroms)At work from 9-17 GMT+2: Heh, now here is an interesting video I won't post.
[2013.01.03. 9:37:02 | Edited 9:41:27] Spazzy(Sindroms)At work from 9-17 GMT+2: I made a rhino and got a rouge double bribe. That happened to me once by accident when I started playing, I think it was back when I flew a merc spatial and accidentally took a double IMG bribe before going to Alpha. No wonder I died. So, the idea was to test just how many players actually help newbies. A rank 14 rhino with a rogue IFF and a FL ID. Well, here are the stats:
I encountered 22 people, including an LN and LSF] official and only 2 of them were unlawfuls. Only three people tried to mention that my IFF was wrong and one of them did i via RP that something was wrong with my transponder (Which I am sure that anyone new without prior ingame lingo knowledge will go all ??? about) and out of those 22, 11 opened fire.
Not one decided to make a PM concerning the problem.
[2013.01.03. 9:37:36] Spazzy(Sindroms)At work from 9-17 GMT+2: After that I deleted the fraps footage, that was simply pitiful and not worthy posting on the same acc where I post tutorials.
After that, I had two more attempts to try and gather up some good footage to address the problem with the rest of the community, but neither were good enough to make a 15min of disco out of.
So instead I post you the heavily cropped version.
Yeah, the pingtarget thing.
I forgot to remove it from the fraps folder, since it wasn't even related to the video and I messed up on my part. Cba changing it now.
Oopsie.
So what do we see in all of this? Of all the people I encountered, both on peak times and during the mornings, perhaps only 6 or so actually acknowledged that something was wrong with what the player was doing.
Only 5 of them actually bothered to PM the newbie in question.
The ships I used for the time being were as follows:
Timothey rank 11 rhino, rogue IFF
Kyuky rank 20 csv, rogue IFF and two IDs
Heshie rank 42 camara, no ID
Guess what. Only the camara actually had some people PMing him about the IFF or ID issues. This only leads to the realization that underlevels usually are ignored if they do something wrong...because...you know...underlevels.
That is a BAD thing. It only means that the person is not educated during his lowlevel time on Disco and continue playing on the server while being completely oblivious.
No wonder that sanctioned players are so confused. They were doing things wrongly up until getting a cap ship.
So why did I blame the Angels? Not because there are enough of them around or that they are doing something, no. It is just because they actually exist. Having a faction whose sole purpose is to help newbies gives the rest of us vets a feeling that it is not our job to help them anymore. That if someone is doing something wrong in a small ship, surely someone else can help them.
So in the end. Three ships. Encountered more than a few hundred players over the course of a month. 5 hours ingame time.
14 deaths.
5 PMs in total, two out of which actually warned me about the IFF, the other 3 were about ''leave liberty'' or ''your identification documents are invalid'' (Seriously, do you really think new players know what the hell that is?).
So, do tell. What do we do about this? Annual newbie helping week? Make helping new players profitable? Or do we just keep ignoring the starflyers, rhinos and other assorted ''retards'' and just wait till they get a bigger ship so they can be banned?
Your move, Disco.
RE: Experiment successful. Discovery is not a good place for newbies. - Johl45 - 01-16-2013
Great work spazzy, even i have seen people blowing up starfliers players because either they have mounted illegal weapons or have wrong id and iff ,etc.. this even happened to me when i was new here on discovery .I mounted the drails on my Defender and many people just blasted me out of the space by just saying i mounted wrong weapons on the navy ship not even a single one told me to remove them or change them.
I see many new players everyday in starfliers around planet Erie but they later go out because of behavior of the other high rank players.Instead of helping them they just shot them because they are unknown to rules and are easy to kill because of very weak ships.
RE: Experiment successful. Discovery is not a good place for newbies. - Omicron - 01-16-2013
My guess is simple... Liberty.
RE: Experiment successful. Discovery is not a good place for newbies. - Veygaar - 01-16-2013
Sad...
RE: Experiment successful. Discovery is not a good place for newbies. - Alphablood1 - 01-16-2013
I gotta agree woth this most of time its true we dont notice ive been playing for almost a year now so i should try and help more often
And when you got blown at newark by legion everyone had their eyes on the kusari destroyer i noticed you and was woundering whats with the rogue IFF but thought might be glitch as usual but noticed you many times
I will try and help newbies out now but dosnt mean i will ignore real lolwuts that shoot everyone they level and shoot me and are in RP they dead and its easy to tell whos new and whos not just by their RP and how they talk fly and stuff
I hope this all helps newbies in disco i remember when i first joined i was welcomed and had help and made freinds as soon as i launched but now days they just pirate you when you launch
And to be honest disco has gotten abit well less helping and RP and fun to more PVP Rules no RP just kill depending who the player is
Well i think i said enough...
Have a safe flight and have fun is all i have to say ^_^
RE: Experiment successful. Discovery is not a good place for newbies. - pitockm - 01-16-2013
well....i got an idea.(liked to share)
in Void Server...you may see a BIG Banner in space. named Welcome etc in front of Manhattan
so..Why we dont have that banner in front of Erie? any how....
We need that banner to be Dockable. when you dock...you see a Message appears on your screen..and Sais: Press F9
so when you press F9 you will see a List.
That list is filled with Peoples name. Name of the Others characters who Registered on that station for help.
for example: i log to my capship char that i fly mostly...then i dock with that station and type: /reg
then my name is listed there...so if anyone wants help...he may see my name there and tries to find me in list.
so..i could help.
whole idea is just in need of a model + a Base + fl hook coding.
and its just an idea. which i think it would help.
RE: Experiment successful. Discovery is not a good place for newbies. - andreo009 - 01-16-2013
Glad to see someone actually did this experiment.
I have been wondering too on how to teach people how this game works.
One of my ideas was to set up an academy in conn to teach the newer people the basics on how to defend themselves. Unfortunatly I lack the skill and leadership qualities to effectively execute such a thing... so there's an idea for you out there.
But how about a tool tip/tutorial that can simply be switched on by /Y or /N and then slowly gives you useful tips on how to set up shop.
The idea that Pitockm has is not bad either. I used to play this elaborate arcade game and it had :
1) a window that you could call upon pressing F1 with info about ships and chats commands. (which here will need to be another hotkey)
2) a tutorial or help message that automatically sends useful facts about the game controls etc
3) a ?help function calling upon online admins in case technical difficulties arose
Converted into Disco that could be:
1) Since we already have that... a reference to our Disco Wiki page
2) Some programming ... but in the end the same as the server bot regularly talking about the 4 hour rule. only with an ON and OFF switch and only usable for the first 3 months on a new char.
3) Something similar to TLAGSNET but then for stations/planets such as Erie... (taken from the idea of pitockm), messages only receivable by Angels and if need be [Admin]
now I know that option 3 can involve some abuse but I believe our devs & techs got the tools to counter that. (good thing you guys don't use message macros)
I hope this input is worth something
RE: Experiment successful. Discovery is not a good place for newbies. - Loken - 01-16-2013
If you want to do something about it you could join the angels and be active. At the moment it's a one man effort. The server needs something that directs new players to the forum more obviously at least, most new players don't even seem to know it exists.
It doesn't help that we have a couple of Rogue cruisers steaming around Pennsylvania waiting for people to hit level 30 so they can kill them.
RE: Experiment successful. Discovery is not a good place for newbies. - sindroms - 01-16-2013
(01-16-2013, 12:01 PM)Loken Wrote: If you want to do something about it you could join the angels and be active. At the moment it's a one man effort. The server needs something that directs new players to the forum more obviously at least, most new players don't even seem to know it exists.
It doesn't help that we have a couple of Rogue cruisers steaming around Pennsylvania waiting for people to hit level 30 so they can kill them.
I am not bashing the Angels. I simply noted that the fact that they exist makes the other older players dump all the work on them.
As far as the cruisers, one can always simply make another experiment to see if they really are doing this and file a report for trolling or disrupting the server gameplay.
RE: Experiment successful. Discovery is not a good place for newbies. - RedEclipse - 01-16-2013
That's Liberty.