Mercenaries Guild

After reading some discussion on the topic of noobs, I want to pose a question to the trem community. In a previous topic ("the right of noobs to be noobs") there was some discussion about noobs and whether or not they should be allowed to experiment with the game or not in stupid ways.

To summarize (my apologies if I misrepresent anyone's opinion/statements), the original poster argued that noobs should be allowed to experiment with stupid things like battlegrangering because it was an effective method of learning the ropes. The main (coherent) objection against this was that sometimes said experimentation interferes with other poeple's enjoyment of the game. Which is a valid point - Newbs should have the freedom to be newbs within bounds. One person's freedom can't overwrite someone else's. It was also pointed out that some newbs are either unable or unwilling to learn, and are thus slowing everyone else down, which is true - some people are just stubborn asses. But there are some good newbs - those who learn by listening and watching the pros. Another point was that at some point, it just comes down to RTFM. (Me: yet we all know the terrible state of Tremulous documentation. The MG is already working on a solution to that.) Other people remenisced(sp?) about times when they wither were newbs or saw a noob do something stupid.

Garoth brought up the idea of having different skill-level servers, separating the players into classes, but argued that such a system would break apart, hence why the MG servers are mixed. His comments made me think: Some people have a really hard time getting into the game and learning, but at the same time, we who currently play can't lower our standards and have less fun just to help newbs all the time. We need some sort of way to teach new players, but as Garoth pointed out, different skill-level servers would probably not work because it would be impossible to maintain.

SO. Here's what I propose: MG should start a server for Newbs Only. Just one server. It can be a place basically for people to experiment and blow stuff up with grenades and battlegranger to their hearts content without worrying about getting in the way of serious players. Make the server safe as possible: have an admin on as much as possible. Have a few experienced players hang out there to help people and explain stuff. Keep it restricted to the basic maps. Add a few bots for people to play against when no one else is there. And above all, NO SERIOUS GAMING. If we put enough effort into it, we could make it a really positive learning environment for new players and a good way to ease them into the game gently AND keep them off the other servers at the same time.

So two questions:
1. What are your thoughts on how to make such a server work?
2. Any other ideas on how to feed and care for new players?


Suggestions/comments/thoughts/flames/ranting all welcome.

*/me puts on flame-proof battlesuit

Steve

Why its not going to work:
A) Some good player comes in just to killwhore, scares everyone off
B) No admins all the time -> Don't know how to kill bases, evolve, that you need to sell the rifle to get a new weapon, etc
C) Aliens will have a very big advantage, you don't have to aim as much
D) Giant campfest because humans are afraid to leave their base
E) Giant feedfest
F) Admins will get bored because i) they don't play ii) they try to to pwn the crap out of the others

To the best of my knowledge, there are no bots for this game. If they exist, they can't be very good. So that idea is out.

Putting all the new players onto a server without any major modifications, will result in them not actually learning how to play tremulous. They will learn how to blow things up, how to battle granger, how to feed, how to bleed, and how to grief.

Putting a NEWB tag on a server is an open invitation to skilled douche bags to log on, and ruin it. There are a lot of players out there that honestly believe that racking up kills is what makes this game work. To have a server full of basically defenseless players open at all times, is like telling a cartoon character not to push the flashing red button.

Being an admin on that server would be a really boring job. You never get to play, you're constantly kicking assholes, and you're constantly reminding people not to do the same thing over and over.



I think the best idea for a newb server is a continuation of the MG demo project that barely got off the ground. Have someone experienced create "situations" on the server that can be controlled automatically or by an admin if there's one on. Create situations with base layouts, and restrictions of certain weapons/classes.

For instance:

Create a situation where three humans have to build/repair, while three aliens(various classes) attack. Humans are unable to buy weapons in this situation, instead relying on repairing damaged turrets and teslas for protection. This situation would only last say two minutes, with a 35-45 second intermission where people can comment on what people did wrong.

Another situation would involve having some nodes in a hallway, and requiring humans to work together to progress to the alien base. The aliens would be defending their base, but the catch is they take damage when on they're on the ground outside a specified area. This would teach humans to work together, and aliens how to wallwalk.

Other situation ideas could be to teach specific weapon or class use. Humans can only buy pulse rifles, and aliens can only be marauders. Or something to that effect.


Setting up the situations so that only limited number of players can participate at one time will limit the amount of asshole griefers who are too impatient to wait their turn. Spectating players can watch how other new players deal with situations, and can take notes or make suggestions. Experienced players can give directions.



All of these suggestions would take an incredible amount of work, but would be a lot more beneficial to new players by actually teaching them the game instead of just letting them "screw around."

If the modifications were made to the game to support situations in general instead of specific ones, it would make the creation of new scenarios easy. We could open up the process to members of the community, so they could create their own.

Good ideas Munroe. I don't know much about modding, but is it even possible to do something like what you're talking about in a mod? Or does it require more code being added to the trem program itself? Some servers are already altered in rather... unique... ways to do things that are not normal, so perhaps there are some ways to make a server more newb-friendly?

Perhaps a newb server could have certain hours where an admin is online and overseeing so that the server is active and safe, and at other times is locked/not-running/open-but-with-no-one-there. I don't necessarily think that being an admin on such a server would be boring; you could even join in and play to demonstrate stuff, but not be a killwhore. Limiting the amount of players to say, 8, would go a long way towards keeping the killwhores out.

I really like the scenarios idea though. It could work.

steve
Posted on: February 12, 2008, 02:46:41 PM

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Also, perhaps it could become common practice in games that an player who puts a specific and unique tag on their name (like a guild tag) marking them as a new player is given much leniency and patience while playing in game. Let new players tag themselves as new players, and by doing so they let the rest of the community know that they need help and want to learn and listen.

so for instance imagine ingame:

* {NEWB}HaveMercyOnMe has joined the game.
* }MGR{.evets@ubuntu was killed by TEAMMATE {NEWB}HaveMercyOnMe (did 100 of 100 damage max)
* {NEWB}HaveMercyOnMe says: Sorry, what just happened? I was trying to switch to my grenade.
* }MGR{.evets@ubuntu says: That's alright, grenades are single-use items that you use by middle-clicking while the grenade is selected
* }MGR{.evets@ubuntu says: You buy them in addition to your gun and they are thrown instantly when you use them. Don't throw them inside the base! You have been warned!
* }MGR{.evets@ubuntu says: They're good for blowing up alien structures.
* {NEWB}HaveMercyOnMe says: Ah... 'k thx. Now I get it. sry won't happn again.

...whereas if the player did NOT have the {NEWB} tag, I would warn and then probably call a votekick. But beause I see that they're a newb, I have mercy on them and explain before yelling.

The tag would let us identify player who are obviously new and are willing to listen and learn so that we can be nic to them and also be MORE strict with the non-tagged base-destroyers.

Just a thought.

steve

When I first start playing any game...
I read the manual.

Or at least, skim it.
When I feel like I am interested in the game after playing it. I "test" a few things, ranges, damage, cost, etc. Mainly by browsing resources like forum, various wiki's and such. Learning ingame is good for some small/quick things, like a base layout. and how to strafe jump a bit.

The 1.1 manual packaged with the game is rather useless.



Training demos with voice overs would be nice for 1.2. Also, heashot and range training modes could be included for aliens.

I still think the grenade should work like any other weapon: You select it, and then you click to throw it.
The {NEWB} tag idea will need a lot of publicity to work, and people don't really like to be called a newb/noob.

The tag will probably cause noobs to be victims of even more attacks and kick votes on join.

Griefers could use the {NEWB} tag to their advantage so that they could ruin a game twice. The first time they can say it's a mistake.

Yeah, and like tyranis already said, I can already see the "{NEWB}Joe has connected" "[ASS]Jack called a vote: Kick player {NEWB}Joe" "[ASS]Jack: He's a newb."

Going back to my training idea, now that I've though more about it:
Allow a player to be any alien class and have a bot. The player then attacks the human and the will be told how much damage they are doing and if they are getting headshots. Also, the bot could move in a somewhat random pattern in a relatively open area a range indicator system could be implemented.

Heh, training someone by giving 'em a bot?  I smell a system that can easily abused.

I learned by spectating and asking questions.  That's really the easiest way to learn and understand.

Personally, I haven't seen a good suggestion here yet, except my own in the other thread...

1) We can't have a dedicated noob server, again -- segregation fails in many ways.
2) We can't have scenario maps -- a) ton of work b) logically flawed: if a noob is too nooby to play the game, they are too nooby to get tjw's mod, turn on downloads, find a training server, download the qvm and learn something to boot. It's a good idea, but -- no way.
3) {NEWB} tags would never catch on in a positive way. Even MG can't do that. The best we can do there is put that as some kind of message when you log on without tjw's mod. Even still, it'll be abused.
4) We're not programming aimbots. Also, again, that would require a clientside change (most likely) and confuse the heck out of noobs when they go to a real server. "Oh, but it doesn't aim for me... I'll go download Nullify"

So, I say we keep doing what we've more or less always been doing:

 - Put up a mixed server
 - Put up a MOTD/connect message saying "If you're confused about something, ask someone from MG, NULL, NT, or E. Do this before testing it out yourself if it could do something bad. Just admit your new-ness and you won't have any problems."
 - Help noobs out whenever they ask, which is something I've been doing for years now.
 - Occasionally, when you get some one or two people who you're helping a lot, ask them to come to another server which is empty (like PT3 most of the time). Train them there. This is also something that I've been doing for years with good results.

So in short, we train noobs as they come. The good ones will ask, the bad ones will be like "yo, u deservd it bich." They can be kicked. That's always been how MG has operated, and it is how it should continue. Meanwhile, I'll keep slowly working on the documentation. If only we had an MG member who was unlazy enough to run the Demo Project. For some reason, the leaders of that one keep flaking off.

It's tough to get a multi-member commitment for upwards of an hour a few times a week. The first demo we ever got finished took nearly 12 takes, and about an hour or so of work(of actual filming). And that was just spawning and killing a few aliens.

The few times afterwards I did try and get something together, I couldn't find enough actors to participate.

I think this might be a better venture with co-leaders or something. I'm willing to give it another go, but I would need some backup.

The one demo we did get filmed was pretty well done, and I think the others would be massively beneficial.

Ahh those were the days!

When I had free time to do cool MG projects. Even I get tired of just shouting at people all day long.
You should totally pick it up again Munroe. As of today I might have some free time on Sundays now!

Khalsa

I'll take a look at the scripts I wrote a while back this afternoon and see how they hold up. Even if we just do one a week on Sundays or something, it might be enough.

Did we ever get any word from the devs on these demos? Are they even interested?

I hope their interested in helping. You could make the whole game if you wanted to. Khalsa & munroe rule to say the least.

If we make something good, then it would be nice if we could tie it into RTFM.
And if I'm around I'll be happy to help if I can.

Well, the mistake that we've made so far in the demo project has been a lack of coordination. Whoever takes it over again (maybe the possibly unlazy munroe) should follow a guideline like the following for getting people involved.

1) Ask people to sign up and commit.
2) Define time/day where filming would occur. Probably 2ce/week at most.
3) Define who are the writers and who are just actors.
4) Get set up with enough server access & binds to do the explanatory CPs that we had before.

I think you get the idea. One guy coming onto IRC randomly and shouting just isn't good enough. It does not make for consistent results.

Also, might it be wise to have the camera with a hacked client that doesn't show chats, and edit the text in after.
So then you can change it without re-filming.
Also, could add voice overs etc.

What would be the possibility of doing some video editing, and putting in the text/voice overs that way?  I might be able to help out with the acting, but I could probably do well with video editing as well.  I understand there's the step of getting the demo to a video, I tried doing this before on my laptop and failed miserably (but it could have been because I recorded direct to video, I seem to recall having read since then that the best plan is to record a demo and play it back at a slightly lower timescale).

Demos are great, but videos that people can watch without a client at all could have a wider appeal, and still reach the players we're targeting.

I'm up for doing the voiceovers. Maybe I'll record one tonight and see what you guys think. I might have to buy a better mic for this though, hmm....but I did just get one with rockband...interesting.

Did you know tremulous has a /video option? Records AVIs as far as I can figure out.

Slows your computer down waaaaaaaay bad though.
I'd help but videos+dialup=no.

if you do the voiceovers as straight up sound recordings, send them over my way somehow and I'll clean them up and edit them. I do alot of that kind of audio editing. Just put them in mp3 format and upload them to the MG website or something so I can grab them.

email me at evets25ATgmailDOTcom

The_Steve formerly know as evets

The issue with voiceovers is that the standard client can't play that -- we'd have to make huge video files (no fun). However, voiceovers would actually be easier than syncing text in everywhere.

Also, seeing as we are also pretty much working on 1.2, we might convince someone to let us play voiceover sounds in parallel to the demo playback in game. It would require client-side changes, but it would be worthwhile. This may actually be a change people are willing to make. This way, we can save space, though.

Another problem I foresee: the only way these would be at all helpful would be if we distributed them with the game. The issue there is that we would balloon the client download size. Another option would be to put the demos on the downloads page as a separate, but recommended, download.

That's probably the best idea. That way those new players who are smart will download them, and the new players that aren't can be easily directed to download them.

When next I find a tuit, preferably a round one, I'll experiment with the video output a bit.  I'll be surprised if it can't be shrunk down to a reasonable size without losing a lot of quality.  They also don't have to be 1400x1200 or something ungodly huge, just large enough to be able to view the action and see what's going on - but no need to read the writing on a mara+'s skin :>

But you can't do much with out the demo. So I guess thats the #1 issue. You need an inside man. Lol? Rocinates right you wouldn't need a full screen to view the actions. But I'm sure you could also make it in different sizes for those who want it full, half, or just plain out small.

P.S. should someone split this topic?

Who do you think we are? :)

All we have are "inside men."

heh, i remember the good old days when i first learned to play.  Seemed like there were a lot fewer dicks around, i dunno maybe its just me.

Really the easiest way to learn the game is to go over the manual, explore the maps offline, and spectate a lot. 

Players without the patience to take these simple steps are going to have a tough time, fortunately there are more average players than great players, and plenty of both are perfectly willing to help somebody who asks.  I've seen time and again that the fastest and most effective way to turn a noob into a competent player is some tutoring.  I believe Khalsa knows exactly what i'm talking about, always going on about Bloody showing him the ropes  :P

Anyway, i've got a lot of free time on my hands right now, (working part time till i decide what i want do for grad school) and though pretty much everybody who knows me understands my very limited technical knowledge and total lack of anything resembling programming skillz feel free to use me as a resource in any other way you can think of. 

So we can sell your organs for cash?  Great!

MG blood plasma drive! The lolcat needz ur blud, plz.

sorry, i need my spare kidney to pay for grad school

Hello ZEL i don't think I know you, so its nice to meet you. At least if you get shot in the kindey area you won't die.

you've probably played with me before if you've been around a little while.  You just didnt know it  ;)

Glad to have you back ZEL, I wondered where you disappeared to  :)

King Mob has always been one of my favorite alias's but since i joined AA i've been wearing it most of the time.  So i'm usually .^King Mob 

and whenever i wear my MG tag i'm }MG{Azrael

if i'm not wearing one of those two or ZEL, i'm probably going by Icarium or Dream.

Like i said, you've probably played with me and didnt know it  :P
 
sigh, nobody ever gets the Icarium reference, makes me sad.  At least Eve should get Dream and King Mob.
Posted on: February 18, 2008, 03:42:19 PM

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on another note, who is Azrael07???

its not me, and i've been }MG{Azrael for over a year and a half. So get a new name, dont ghost on irc with mine.

Ah ok. King Mob and Dream look familiar. I should !listplayers more often :P

Azrael07 is a french tremulous dev, working in the DnC project (http://dnc.tremforges.net, #tremforges on freenode)

haha, fair enough.

evidently we have something in common, maybe we should date.

Sandman is what got me into comics, and what me really, REALLY love Neil Gaiman. So there's one of us out here that gets your Dream reference. I've never read the Invisibles, but I've been reading more and more comics lately, so maybe I'll get to it eventually.

Icarium is actually the name of a character from a series of books called "The Malazan Book of the Fallen"

pretty dark stuff, its like "The Black Company" but on a much grander scale and with better writing.

and yes, King Mob is from "The Invisibles" and Dream is from "The Sandman".



Heh, anybody with good taste loves Neil Gaiman  :P

He's just such an incredible writer. His prose is fluid, his characters are well fleshed out, and just his imagination alone. Have you read his short story "How to Talk to Girls at Parties?" What a subtle mind fuck.

Oh yeah...and he's umm...good with helping newbs become pros too...

Zel, this is getting annoying: If you're going to use half a dozen names, at least don't shout at people when they happen to have the same one. That's completely unfair -- and your fault.

I only use one name but if I was to use another one I think I would go by Imfrezzingmyassuphere nvm I think I'll just stick with Killjoy

uh, garoth i apologized and we moved on.
Posted on: February 20, 2008, 02:34:20 PM

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to be perfectly fair though Azrael is the only name i've ever worn with my MG tag

I still vouch for the tutorial idea that would utilize a special local server idea that effectively teaches the basics of alien combat. Interactive human training would be much harder since it would most likely require real AI to be created. Would anyone be interested helping with this project?

Tyranis: it can't happen.

1) That kind of coding would take months, assuming anyone is even interested.
2) Noobs won't be able to connect pre 1.2 because they won't have tjws (for the most part.)

ZEL: I've seen you do it in game to people as well. This was not an isolated incident.

ok garoth, now i'm getting annoyed.

"This is not an isolated incident" are you kidding me?  I've brought it up once or twice in game because several times in the last couple weeks people have mistaken Azrael07 for me.  Its not like i've been going around screaming about it.  If you stumbled across me talking about it with somebody you must have caught it out of context.

you phrased it like i've been going around harassing people or something  ???

Not aimbots, bots.  Like the AIs you play against when you aren't online against live players.

Now that Ender has taken his ration of sh*t for mistakenly calling his code 1.2, people seem to be starting to accept the incredible work he and Champion are doing.  Check out his training server sometime, create a few bots and have at 'em.  Yes, you could spend your time killwhoring (like lots of people do, sadly), but you could also practice blastering, or flaming aliens without flaming yourself, or jumping while reloading.  The human bots are still too accurate to train against, but they're working on lowering the skill level.

Most of the people dumping on Ender say things like "Tremulous doesn't need your ill-conceived features", or "You're creating a server that's perfect for admin abuse", yet he's implementing things that are being suggested right in this thread in order to allow trainers to set up scenario-based training.  It would be silly to have zero-wait building or a /give command on a real game server, but they are useful in a training environment.  At least give some of his stuff a try before ripping him to shreds.

[No, I'm not referring to Garoth here, he's the friendliest person you could ever run across in a forum.  Others haven't been as nice.]

You've done it to other people with other names that you use also, saying things like, "No, you can't use that here -- too many people know me by that name" and then renaming them. I would understand if they were using your main name, but that's kind of pushing etiquette.

console ftw.

Come on I'm sure ZEL didn't do it to be mean, let's lighten up :)
How 'bout them binaries...

I know this topic is old but I do have a suggestion. Maybe it wouldn't be inpossible. As a reminder we do have three puretremulous servers. One small, one medium, and one large. I rearly see anyone on medium or small, most people are always in large. Maybe just maybe we can use one of the puretremulous server as a noob server to help out new players. I'm guessing small would be the best. Another thing Amanieu  mentioned, the whole kill whoring part and camping part. Well of course noobs are going to be afraid the first time, who wasen't? I mean your walking and then suddenly a drench or a rant gets you in the hall. If your new thats a big wtf moment if you know what I mean. The point it to teach noobs how to get over this (fear) and not camp in base. If it doesn't help then teach them how to build. Might be better for them untill they get used to the game. Another thing the whole aliens don't need to aim part, not as easy as it looks. Sure humans get it harder when aimming but they do take a lot more dammage then aliens during their stage one and stage 2. Drenchs need to hit human at least twice ( one head shot and one more to finish) to kill them. Baslisk has the grab method and takes about 3 hits to kill a human ( 2 If you hit head). Goon is a bit more difficult but since new players don't know how to use them well it would be great practice for both alien and human players. We could also put up demos on a website dedicated to helping out new players that are new to tremulous. We can post building demos, attack demos, destroying base demos, alien techenics demos, human techenics demos, the basics, goal of game, you know just mostly all the information you can think of that might help the player. This is were this comes in handy. We can tell them were we made this demo. Don't know if you caught on to it yet but if you see new players going on to the site and then seeing something like, " Come to puretremulos servers to learn more and have fun" or something like that well that also helps are little problem with pt being empty. This might help get more people to play on the pt servers. Sure they might be new but we all started somewhere. Sooner or later they will get better and then before you know it they might be even better then us :D never know. Then pt servers will be full with new and old players and pt will be back to normal like good old times. Another thing about the admin thing. Theirs a lot of responsible admins on the pt servers. I could post something on the pt forums to see if anyone is intrested even though you guys are pretty much part of the pt forums as well but for those who arn't I could make a role of some sort and make a schedule were whos turn it is to watch out, what day, and time. Also who said they can't play. We can show them like a little game of experinced players and show them how the game is played. They can also help them with their training and stuff. Like admin goes human and the new player goes alien. Admin just dodges untill new player gets the hang of it and kills you (that or you can just let him kill you after a while to make him happy). If we all work together maybe we can pull this off. Gonna be hard but short thing simple.

Pros:
1: We already got three pt servers. We could probobly use one.
2: We got responsible admins that are willen to help.
3: Pt has the default maps.

Cons:
1: The whole kill whoring part.


Have:
1: three servers.
2: Admins
3: Loads of players who are willen to help on the pt forums like me.


Need:
1: Maybe Garoth can make a website with all the general tremulous information, pictures, and demos on how to play tremulous, the goal of the game, and what some rules are.
2: Demos. I'll be glad to help make some with other players since I'm good at both killing and building.
3: Screenshots of gameplay.



This is just an idea that I though of. Seems like a good idea to me but I'll let you guys decide. :-\

Similar ideas have been discussed before.
When I started playing I played quite a bit on [HUN]Noob Server (I think thats what it was called).  Of course back then there was a lot less whining etc everywhere.
Should also point out that we can run new servers without killing a current one.
I see two main problems:  No one looks beyond the top of the list, and would take a lot of effort.
If there is someone willing to do that, then It'll get my vote.

Well am willen to post one on the pt forums and see whos intrested and I could keep track of it. Would be a lot of work but if we get more then one person to do this then we could be in great shape. Fustrationg but not hard. We would need the dates, time, days, admins who are willen to volenteer ect. Ouch :laugh:. Well I'm good for the idea. David well sounds like hes in if theirs someone willen to make a list. Anyone else think that we might pull this off?

I have been discussing the idea of making a website for Tremulous tutorials with some people I know (by this I mean I just sent IMs 5 minutes ago ;) ) and I think it would be cool.

There's also the MG demo project around somewhere, which is waiting for someone to revive it.

Its a sign that we should do this then. We got three people so far that think its a good idea. Still need more though if were going to make this happen. I could probobly make a website. I made one for Nomad today and it looks pretty good. If you want to take a look heres the link.
http://www.freewebs.com/nomadclanforums

Ok, you're on. I can do voiceovers, and i've been considering getting Fraps for a while now. I'll be glad to contribute.

Superpie, Mooseberry and I have been working on a similar project, but we haven't had much (any) time since school started. It would work out very well if you joined up with us or something.

Also, we have a paid website ;)

Sounds good.

You don't need fraps to record video of Tremulous, you can use /video and /stopvideo.
It doesn't work on old clients though, so go get the MG client (http://releases.mercenariesguild.net/client/)

I've heard this works better if you first do a demo, then while playing the demo back, change the 'timescale' and then record your avi.  Then you can speed up the avi to get a nice framerate.

This may all be unnecessary if you have a roarin' fast PC though.  ;)

That's cool. I didn't know that. So I got a copy of Fraps. Not that I mind. It is a good program and I can use it for other games. And still this one.

So, when are we gonna shoot some test footage?