Helping New Players.. a bit of madening

[Jessup]

So being on Welcomebot I have been happy to see an influx of new players showing up. I've managed to get a few to respond to me and been able to help them with a few basics like chat commands , how to attach to terrs and the basics of pub/getting the flag but must say I'm a bit frustrated as the majority log on, fly around below base, get a few kills, die tons and then leave. I just feel bad for them. The chat screen is flying by and with it their help messages. I really wish we could somehow slow the beginning down for them . The 2 players I've helped who started to really grasp things I took to a private arena. The esc command to read the full the page of chat is so important for them too. I just want to make as much effort as we can to hold onto these new people. Is there anyway they can be directed to a quieter place for even like 15 minutes while they do the tutorial and learn? Have it manned by a staffer or player who has some knowledge. Language barriers may be an issue too I know .... but still, I hate seeing them so clueless and then just leave. One was shooting at yellow ships the whole time(I know the !tutorial thing tells them blue ships are enemies) but being thrown into immediate gameplay I have a feeling is distracting them from focusing on reading the tutorial. They see their ship being blown up over and over and naturally want to fight back. I'm just a bit concerned we may be losing people before they "get it". I'm really happy to see the influx of new logins though. Good job getting it all to this point staffers

[roxxkatt]

ive actually sat a few ppl in front of a computer and watched them
i even loaded up !tutorial for one of them, but it was useless since it wanted !next and they didnt know how chat worked
there really is an information overload, and we really do need a tutorial arena that new players get bounced to without too many distractions

one person actually went 0-100+ in another zone before they quit

[Shaddowknight]

One of the pub things we had discussed this past weekend is newplayers.
We have a few ideas that are being worked on concerning it. The F1 menu will be updated to be more newbie friendly, also the !newplayer objons and !tutorial are being reworked already. Perhaps having !tutorial take the player to a private arena (and alert staff/Trusted Players in the process) would help out a bit with that.

[Dral]

We have a few ideas that are being worked on concerning it. The F1 menu will be updated to be more newbie friendly, also the !newplayer objons and !tutorial are being reworked already. Perhaps having !tutorial take the player to a private arena (and alert staff/Trusted Players in the process) would help out a bit with that.

Not sure new players are going to see the F1 menu in their first hours play if they make it that far. Probably better to focus on the objons in my opinion.

As far as a bot command taking a player to a private arena, is this even possible on a subgame server? It's fairly run of the mill on A3S via ?send command but I wasn't aware of it being implemented in subgame. Cheese would know better.

edit:unless you wanted a tutorial arena to be the default, than everyone would go there and have to type ?go pub to actually play (doesn't bother me).

[Shaddowknight]

theres already a command we have to use on banc'd players to move them if need be
F1 is a generally used HELP shortcut, but yeah, we know the interactions from other players are the most important to help newbies.

pub has always been pub... andi dont want that to change personally. Not everyone needs the tutorial, and having it available bit now shoved down their throat may be a better option. We would actuakly have to try it both ways to see which is actually better though.

[Dezmond]

As far as a bot command taking a player to a private arena, is this even possible on a subgame server? It's fairly run of the mill on A3S via ?send command but I wasn't aware of it being implemented in subgame. Cheese would know better.

*sendto

[Dral]

No kidding, never knew about that. It's not listed on Mine Go Boom's site, and I don't remember seeing it in the good ol staff intro arena either. Learn something new every day.

IMO should work on this ASAP, we're losing people within minutes as it is sometimes, a training arena would be a huge benefit. I imagine I'm not the only one who would hang around there when there's no events going on just to help out.

I'm not sure what you guys are envisioning in this arena, but at one point in time I wanted to basically recreate the DSB newb/training arena with the TW Pub map. They did their arena quite well, I just never really got around to it. I'm sure you guys have tons of talented map artists around, but if you message me what you want I'm willing to help with the lvz n junk

[mtine]

Think Dral is back. Oh happy days!

[project dragon]

Is there a way with TWbots for people to send commands in pub chat instead of priv chat, like in EG? It could help with one of the most basic hurdles that newcomers walk into when getting help from a bot. Then the bot can show whatever it has to show, then tell them how to respond in an pm.

[Xog]

Solution: reduce pub arena population back to what it used to be (25 or 30 i think?)

[bkgmjo]

Used to be 35 once but those were the times when sitting in spec cost u money/minute.

[kthx]

There was no money for sitting in spec in trenchwars, there was no money in trenchwars pub yet. There was a bot that moved players to an afk arena after X amount of time.

[bkgmjo]

talking about real money on dialup connections Mr. Arrogant came later to move people to afk arenas. ;-)

[Monk <ZH>]

So being on Welcomebot I have been happy to see an influx of new players showing up. I've managed to get a few to respond to me and been able to help them with a few basics like chat commands , how to attach to terrs and the basics of pub/getting the flag but must say I'm a bit frustrated as the majority log on, fly around below base, get a few kills, die tons and then leave.

Hi Jessup, I've noticed that these players do return and they progress a bit more each time. The newplayer alert from the message bot also provides a usage amount in hours, which is helpful to get an idea of how far along they are and what they may need help with at that point. For example, with a log in of under 10 times and a usage of under 30 mins most likely they haven't found their way out of spawns to the base entrance and may need some tips.
There is a great opportunity created by this newplayer program for trusted players to collaborate a team effort when we are alerted that a newplayer has entered, and by the use of a trusted player chat we can enter the arena and fly with the newplayers, offering protection and good old Trenchwars Team plays!

[roxxkatt]

No kidding, never knew about that. It's not listed on Mine Go Boom's site, and I don't remember seeing it in the good ol staff intro arena either. Learn something new every day.

it was discovered by looking through the disassembled server executable a few years ago, and the peering protocol still isnt fully understood
including the zone arena count inflations
the command itself is volatile, and mistyping it can crash the zone, so its use should be limited even less than sysops
it was something priit was secretly working on and never finished

its used in as3 without problems and is more versatile and powerful because it was designed to be used and the zone was built around it