But in my opinion, the best way to make a noob learn is for them to join a mine and haul faction. Not only is the player exposed to the fact that the majority of outside in-game communication is happening on Skype/Discord, he'll gradually learn from reading chats and asking questions about how Disco works.
So the server really only needs to accept newbies into their faction to polish them and make them a proper member of this community.
The fact we keep losing newbies also makes PvP really unbearable for the few new players that join, since literally everyone in the server can stomp them. Just a little bonus point.
I also totally agree with the removal of restarts. I never did like the concept as it was sort of lazy in my opinion. Having to build your rep up the old fashioned way would encourage more in-depth character development instead of just having your character suddenly appear out of nowhere.
(10-27-2017, 12:49 PM)Sharky!!! Wrote: I must contradict you, [HELPER] team is still alive, if you don't see them everyday thats your problem. Just saying.
I have to admit, Im not using [HELPER] tag. That does not mean Im not helping 2-3 noobs a week, when they contact me as high-rank player.
(10-27-2017, 12:49 PM)Sharky!!! Wrote: I must contradict you, [HELPER] team is still alive, if you don't see them everyday thats your problem. Just saying.
Helper playergroup [Helper] 02:27:41 00:54:51
It's not "my" or "your" or "his" problem, at most it's the problem of the newbies if you aren't really active at doing what the name and tag suggests.
Amidst all the problem that disco has, especially with regards in convincing new people to keep playing, how much people with [Helper] tags are on is really a minor issue.
The really really really big issue is that insane amounts of time and effort are wasted on idiotic things like Gallia storyline and SRPs, when literally NOTHING is done to get new players to have a good experience.
And it's STILL that way even now that population is between 12 and 50 people depending on daytime.
Quote: i think the term 'Newbs' or new players would be better than 'Noobs'
Or, one step further. instead of "newbs"... "Newbros"... eh?
It don't mater what we call them as long we help , it is not offensive term anyway , just classification of their expertise in game/server .
As for helper tag , i don't see it in game and i don't use it ( i only have it on couple of my transports), but i do help newbies a lot without helper tag .
And yes , fact we loosing newbies is big problem and it will get worse as time passes , because many , many , MANY veterans refuse to help at all and just take out "i am here to have fun , not to help some brats" .
I only see one solution , administrators are to force official factions to help newbies by spending certain number of time in-game helping them , you don't help , you loose officialdom . You don't want to help at all , you just want fun ? Fine , but no official perks for you chap . Same thing for factions that want to become official , they need to help newbies .
It can be implemented instead current minimum required time spent in game doing nothing but parking ship in space and chat nonsense until time is reached .
Want cool perks ? Get your ass in action and do something for others before you get it ! Admins and developers work they asses for game , time to involve Official Factions to , in something other than requesting things , bossing around and decide what can and what cant be improved or implemented or allowed .
NOTE:
I know some factions already help newbies , but those are rare exceptions .
Quote:The really really really big issue is that insane amounts of time and effort are wasted on idiotic things like Gallia storyline and SRPs, when literally NOTHING is done to get new players to have a good experience.
(10-27-2017, 01:52 PM)sasapinjic Wrote: And yes, the fact that we are losing newbies is big a problem and it will get worse as time passes, because many, many, MANY veterans refuse to help at all and just take out "i am here to have fun, not to help some brats".
I only see one solution: administrators are to force official factions to help newbies by spending certain amount of time in-game helping them. You don't help, you lose officialdom . You don't want to help at all, you just want fun ? Fine, but no official perks for you then old chap. Same thing for factions that want to become official, they need to help newbies.
Want cool perks ? Get your ass in action and do something for others before you get it ! Admins and developers work they asses for game , time to involve Official Factions to , in something other than requesting things , bossing around and decide what can and what cant be improved or implemented or allowed .
I've suggested that factions that want to have more rights as official factions should take such responsibilities since 2010. Back then the only official "responsibility" they took was to tell indies to stand down and make sure indies never won against vets or other officials.
But it's really too late for that now for two reasons:
1. The official factions still exist on paper but are pretty much dead, except for a group of 3-5 who log as a group every once in a while. That's not enough to spend a lot of time training noobs, and
2. There are few noobs even coming even more, not even enough to be sure to even find two or three who are willing to take part in organized training excercises.
Taking responsibility for noobs doesnt have to be in the form of ingame help, though. It can be the responsibility to make a concise, up-to-date, and clear-cut presentation of faction lore, laws, and help to learn those in 5-10 minutes. Most official factions didnt even do that (although some did). Thinking writing ingame item like "History of..." or "Laws of..." for noobs to be able to access easily. I made a thread for it over a month ago, and there were maybe 3 people making single point contributions, and 1 making a real contribution. I pretty much wrote 7 histories with 0 help and 1 with some help. No official faction (except 1) felt in any way motivated to help with something like that.
And while admins and devs do a lot of work, they do 99.9% of it to try and make vets happy (and most vets never are happy anyway), while paying practically no attention to make things more attractive for new players, even there are so many tiny things that could already make things a lot better.
Finally, there are also noobs who don't want to be helped. They want to explore the mod without feeling like they owe favors to the people who took a lot of time helping them, and they don't want to be shoe-horned into a direction they dont want as exchange for the "help". That's legit. With an automated ingame help system, they could learn to enjoy the mod without needing the help of, or being indebted to, others.
As far as my department goes, I have been trying to find ways to give progression without doing linear ship/asset progression, People should be encouraged to build a character and be attached to a ship, and I believe I have found an outlet to be announced at a later date.
As for the characters that have basically no depth, there is nothing foreseeable that we, as devs, can do for the 10 minute log assets. Though anonymity creates a healthier PvP environment that is live with action, it doesnt do much else but evade consequences. This is primarily a community issue, as all we can do is incentivize the idea of having a character with depth, and cannot force it. SRP’s have always been a part of that incentive, as well as the perks behind official factions.
As much as we would like to give everyone their own special toy, we simply do not have the dev power to carry that out in a timely manner; hell, how long have Unioners been waiting for their turrets? I digress, the motivation of players to invest time and effort into this mod is purely voluntary. It lies with the community to make it a healthy environment, meanwhile as devs we get you at least some of those special toys.
![[Image: eitgNHT.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/eitgNHT.gif)
![[+]](/forums/images/collapse_collapsed.png "[+]")
Signature:
![[Image: OFPpYpb.png]](https://i.imgur.com/OFPpYpb.png)
![[Image: N1Zf8K4.png]](https://i.imgur.com/N1Zf8K4.png)
![[Image: LnLbhul.png]](https://i.imgur.com/LnLbhul.png)
