Ns, Pubs, And Newbies

Fantasmo · October 2003

<div class="IPBDescription">Cultivating a Bigger, Better Player Base</div> Recently there has been an influx of threads by people unsatisfied with the NS Pub experience. They claim that, "NS is dying" or that "Pubs are no-fun". The most common factors I see being raised are newbies and uncooperative players.

NS, Pubs, and Newbies: Cultivating a Bigger, Better Player Base

From my experience the the Pub population has not declined, but it seems to me the quality of players has not risen. I feel this is due to new players taking a long time to learn NS and develop the proper Teamplay attitude.

This game requires you to know a few things before you are of any use to a team, the "I'll-Just-Figure-It-Out-Ingame" attitude will not hack it in NS. Faced with scores of "Pick-Up-and-Play" FPS titles it may be necessary to do all you can to make sure new players take the time to learn these things.

The result of inadaquete training or "I'll-Just-Figure-It-Out-Ingame" is problematic for the newbie, the growth of the game, and even regular players. If new players don't lose interest immediately, or get harassed to the point of quitting, the time they spend as newbies will serve only to frustrate their team and regular players who become tired of dealing with them.

NS has unique experiences to offer, namely Teamplay and the RTS-FPS style dynamic. I think more should be done to close the gap between newbie and novice so people can quickly begin to appreciate and enjoy the finer points of NS. I'm certain once they've had a taste they will be back for more. The developers needs to take steps to make the game friendly to newbies, and the community has to support them in cultivating a bigger, better teamplayer base.

I've been saying some of these things for ages and often with little response from the developers but I'll give it another go...

1. Training Map

Design a simple looking training map that takes a player through the structures, basic actions, goals, and locations. Functionality is more important then looks here, just pump out a training map ASAP for the next version. If it is possible force new players to do both the training maps for Marines and Aliens before the option to join a server is enabled.

2. NS Guides

Bring the NS Guides back and have them officially sanctioned by the NS Team. Organize them, advertise them, give them a website, a special icon, and get Guides on as many servers as possible. A training map is useful for a basic introduction of NS but some sort of liaison will help make the transition easier from standard DM/TDM FPS environment to our truly Teamplay FPS environment.

3. Newbie Servers or "Newbie Hours"

There should be servers dedicated to training newbies or have several servers host newbie hours at different times of the day. Once that is set up ADVERTISE THEM. Environment have to be created where newbies can ask questions without the annoyed, customary reaction of, "RTFM." If the Guides are properly organized with good coverage then there will be less need for many Newbie Servers but anytime there is a rush of new players (ie. release of new version) servers should be provided to facilitate proper cultivation of newbies to teamplayers.

4. The Community Factor

In another post [SuB] wrote, "If everyone puts in just a little bit into educating new players, focusing on what counts and having faith, NS probably has a fairly decent life ahead of it. If not, we will see it wither and die with age and lack of interest." If "helping people" is not your thing simply not harassing, getting overly annoyed or making fun of newbies will help make the community more open and friendly. It is especially important for prominent, "Icon'd" members of the community such as Vets and PTs to set a good example for people to follow.

I think #1-3 are steps the should have been taken upon the release of NS back in v1. The NS team should work to make NS more newbie-friendly ASAP. Pubs and Newbies are vitally important to the future of NS and #4 is what we could all do to ensure this great game gets more popular and the spirit of TEAMPLAY remains with us for a long time to come.

EDiT: Typos

SuB · October 2003

Yeh I really agree with your point about the bar not being raised for players now. It seems that there are few players getting their head around the game, probably in part because experienced players have become so frustrated with newbies.

juice · October 2003

Nicely said, Fantasmo.

Good points overall, I have to especially agree with the creation of an effective training map. MGS totally drew me in with only the training, "VR" missions. Granted that's a totally different game, I think it demonstrates how important a training map could be in attracting a bigger, and most importantly a more educated, player base. A reduction of frustration for everyone, resulting from less friction between advanced players and the newbs, would be great.

Sure, you can't teach people to be great at ns with a training map, but you can definitely mitigate the "how do i build stuff" and "how do i get better guns" questions, and help instill some teamwork into them. RTFM? Come on... you just downloaded a new, cool mod, so you're going to.... what, hold up playing to read a boring manual? No way. People are much more likely to click "training" once they're in the game.

I envision a training map where, if the marine player wanders off by himself, all the alien bots know this and attack him all at once. Well, here's to hoping. Mappers and botters, get to it!

Lots of audio would be very useful in a training map too, like you can have teammates(bots) radio in comments that teach the player, like... "You build, I'll cover you!" and... "Don't waste time getting ammo at the armory, get through the phase gate as soon as you spawn and help us fight before there's nothing left!"

Off to work on that trainingmode-commander-bot...

electricice · October 2003

The clan scene has tried despratly to get players to come learn the game and join a team...all that we want is more teams to play against, and the offer is there for training. It is up to the players to learn the game...

Nathanael_UK · October 2003

I would like to say here and now that the standard with which the NS community treat newbies is very good. My brother came on as Isacki and was treated very well and not with disdain even when he freely admitted it was his first time.
So, thankyou to you all!

P.s. He said it was fun and he liked it

Ns, Pubs, And Newbies

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