Adopt a Rookie
ZEROibis
Join Date: 2009-10-30 Member: 69176Members, Constellation
While addressing some issues of trying to help new players learn NS2 I came up with a possible solution that not only builds players knowledge of the game but also takes advantage of the great community of players we already have today.
The adopt a rookie system would enable new players to first person spectate and communicate directly with a random experienced NS2 player in order to learn the game. This simulates an experience that many of may have had when they picked up NS for the first time of having a friend coach us the game by watching them play and explain what they are doing.
For the rookie they get an option that lets them select between 4 options: alien, marine, marine commander, alien commander
Based on their selection they then are connected to the first person spectate view of a player in a live game where they see everything that person does and can talk to that player directly to ask them questions. This completely changes the way that new players can learn about the game and feel connected to the community.
Now how would this actually work?
First you need to make it so only players below a given skill level can use this feature. But I think the commander option should stay on longer or until we have a better way to know a user has learned how to command.
Second there needs to be a new type of connection slot created on the server side to facilitate this on the back end where these spectators are not taking up playable slots. Servers opt into allowing spec users on this system by being rookie friendly and can also choose how many rookies can connect to their server at one time in this way.
Third playing on a rookie friendly server should not automatically force a player to be part of this. A player should opt into being part of the Adopt a Rookie program and allowing rookies to spec and talk to them.
Forth there should be a way for a rookie to rate the guide afterword. These scores and the hive rank of the player can be used to determine the best user to send a rookie too. If the user is abusive there should be a way to report them and have them removed from the Adopt a Rookie program. However, this may require server side demo recording or something similar to submit with a report as evidence. Players on both sides (the rookie and the reg) can block a player they did not like so they will not interact again within the Adopt a Rookie system.
Fifth there should be an accept box that says press F1 to Adopt a Rookie which times out after 5-10 seconds. This way a rookie is only sent to a player who is active. Also if a player allows 3 in a row to time out they are taken out of rotation for an hour so no more requests will be sent to them.
Although it seems a bit complicated and requires some tweaking to the way users can connect to servers and spectate I think a system like this can be a big help to new players learning the game and also help these new users feel connected to the community.
The adopt a rookie system would enable new players to first person spectate and communicate directly with a random experienced NS2 player in order to learn the game. This simulates an experience that many of may have had when they picked up NS for the first time of having a friend coach us the game by watching them play and explain what they are doing.
For the rookie they get an option that lets them select between 4 options: alien, marine, marine commander, alien commander
Based on their selection they then are connected to the first person spectate view of a player in a live game where they see everything that person does and can talk to that player directly to ask them questions. This completely changes the way that new players can learn about the game and feel connected to the community.
Now how would this actually work?
First you need to make it so only players below a given skill level can use this feature. But I think the commander option should stay on longer or until we have a better way to know a user has learned how to command.
Second there needs to be a new type of connection slot created on the server side to facilitate this on the back end where these spectators are not taking up playable slots. Servers opt into allowing spec users on this system by being rookie friendly and can also choose how many rookies can connect to their server at one time in this way.
Third playing on a rookie friendly server should not automatically force a player to be part of this. A player should opt into being part of the Adopt a Rookie program and allowing rookies to spec and talk to them.
Forth there should be a way for a rookie to rate the guide afterword. These scores and the hive rank of the player can be used to determine the best user to send a rookie too. If the user is abusive there should be a way to report them and have them removed from the Adopt a Rookie program. However, this may require server side demo recording or something similar to submit with a report as evidence. Players on both sides (the rookie and the reg) can block a player they did not like so they will not interact again within the Adopt a Rookie system.
Fifth there should be an accept box that says press F1 to Adopt a Rookie which times out after 5-10 seconds. This way a rookie is only sent to a player who is active. Also if a player allows 3 in a row to time out they are taken out of rotation for an hour so no more requests will be sent to them.
Although it seems a bit complicated and requires some tweaking to the way users can connect to servers and spectate I think a system like this can be a big help to new players learning the game and also help these new users feel connected to the community.
Comments
I fear tho, most rookies want instant action and will try avoid this. It may be a matter of 'selling' it to them correctly.
Sorry I just had to lmfao.
Really nice!
There is a lot of different ways to go about it.