For Newbies

Archive of rejected features. All features should have a reason for rejection.
buttsack
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For Newbies

Post by buttsack »

As we were having a discussion tonight, the famous topic of "what do we do to help newbies" came up. There are a lot of ideas, and I want to offer one of my own tonight.

What we do to help newbies is a big deal. But, I also started thinking how can we help newbies but also help our coder, so that he has to do the least amount of work possible to integrate a feature we desire.

Gameplay is really not an issue right now. Currently it all seems very balanced, but a lot of the focus is on improving gameplay anyway. That's super and I love it, but I ask we shift our focus to the newbies for a moment and see if we can't work together with Page to get something done on this front.

Now, I'm no coder, and I don't know if exactly what I'm going to offer is going to be easy or not easy to integrate. I humbly ask of Page to offer his thoughts on my idea as well, in that respect.

My idea begins with a brand new player with a fresh "Newbie" status that for the very first time clicks the "Play Game" button. At the very beginning, to get the newbie going, there would be some sort of "tool tips" or "pointers" if you will, offering a paragraph or so of text explaining a certain thing or a button, as well as pointing to the certain thing or button. Clicking "next", or clicking on the button that it is pointing to, would then activate the next pointer. If a newbie wants to re-read an old one, a simple button on the left near the bottom would suffice, perhaps called "Beginner's Pointers". This area could hold from start to finish, every tool tip, similar to how our combat logs are laid out. It would be intriguing if you could click on a few of them and activate them, so that they display to you one by one again like the beginning, except these would be the pointers of your choosing.

That's pretty much it. Personally, I feel it would help a newbie get acclimated to many things without drudging through the seemingly endless forum posts (with no sort of order or feeling of accomplishment having read) in the Newbie Help Alliance. It would also help us get a few big points across to new players, such as the eventual need of a new player to join an active alliance, as well as the need to use the chat room ability while online. Thanks for reading.
Green Skulls, Crimson and Clover, Army of Cuda, Suckas, Armory, Armory v2, Green Skulls, Lords of the Pings, Green Skulls, Ingenious!
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SpaceSock
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Re: For Newbies

Post by SpaceSock »

This suggestion has already been discussed. Check out HOW TO GET NEWBIES AND KEEP THEM. There is also the manual you could read which will explain the basics in-depth. It cant be helped if they dont read the manual but the tooltips i think are in the works.
Baalzamon
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Re: For Newbies

Post by Baalzamon »

Although this suggestion was discussed, let's discuss it a bit more indepth, rather then just one of the many ideas presented in that thread.

I am a huge supporter of tooltips. They work, they'd be helpful, and although I'm not a coder myself, I think they would be simple enough to add to the game, provided that Page didn't have to write them all.

So here are some of the details that should be worked on and delved into as a community.

1)Which tooltips are most needed?
2)Would it be necessary to re-arrange some of the links in the UI so as to make things easier to access? (ie Politics being moved from the Trader menu)
3)Who would be willing to volunteer their time and effort into writing the text for these tool tips? They would need to be short, to the point, and easy to understand. I could talk to Spock about the possibility of rewarding authors with credits ingame for exceptionally well-done tooltips, the new "Rewarded Credits" in your preferences would be utilized for this.
4)More for Page....how soon could something like this be integrated into the game...both beta and live?
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buttsack
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Re: For Newbies

Post by buttsack »

I wanted to be short and to the point in my post, but I forgot to mention that I feel I can help you write many of the tool tips.

1. Most needed- I say explaining each buttons importance is a good start. Instead of needing to move Politics and such, the tool tip can stress the importance of the "Trader" button, and how it opens you up to a good bit more in SMR. The tool tips can instruct him to click on the Trader button and then explain more of the things in there, one by one. So in essence I believe 2. is not necessary.

It would be a lot to go through and explain, but near the end I feel that giving the newbie a 'bonus' for completing the 'tool tip tutorial', somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 million credits would be cool too. That's something to ponder I guess.

4. Agreed, let's get him here. If possible I'd love for this to be ready for the next game, which is starting to come rather quickly.
Green Skulls, Crimson and Clover, Army of Cuda, Suckas, Armory, Armory v2, Green Skulls, Lords of the Pings, Green Skulls, Ingenious!
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Baalzamon
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Re: For Newbies

Post by Baalzamon »

Moving the past few posts to a new topic to keep this one on topic for the tooltips...
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buttsack
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Re: Alliance Changes in regards to Newbies

Post by buttsack »

Page, I was thinking the tool tips display as a fresh newbie joins the game. As he "completes" the tool tips, they then leave. But as a fresh new account, the tool tips would be forced onto the screen and they would require to acknowledge the tool tips in some way to continue through them. When they finish, the tool tips are gone, and perhaps stored somewhere for future reference if necessary.
Green Skulls, Crimson and Clover, Army of Cuda, Suckas, Armory, Armory v2, Green Skulls, Lords of the Pings, Green Skulls, Ingenious!
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Page
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Re: Alliance Changes in regards to Newbies

Post by Page »

I'm not quite sure what you mean by the tooltips then (mock picture?), but having them respond to what the user has done requires the code being aware of what they have/haven't done in the past, which will take a bit more time than tooltips on their own.
buttsack
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Re: Alliance Changes in regards to Newbies

Post by buttsack »

My idea was that the tool tips would linearly display to you, one by one. I'll try to post an image, lunch time soon, but imagine this if you can:

Newbie hits play game for the first time.

First thing he sees is lots of buttons.

Oh, wait there's a blurb pointing at the "Current Sector" button, and it has text in it. "The current sector is the sector you are presently in. There are thousands of sectors in this game, and a lot have different purposes or functionalitys. Click the current sector button."

Newbie clicks CS. Since he was already viewing his CS, it merely reloads the page. But, this time a new tool tip emerges, pointing out local map button... with a short description and then saying "Click the local map button".

Newbie clicks the Local map button and sees what the tool tip had described.

And then Plot a Course, and so on and so forth. Some, like Plot a Course and Trader would have more tool tips to progress to upon being clicked.

If newbie instead clicks buttons that the tool tips don't point to, the current tool tip will stay displayed until clicked, thus progressing it.

There would also be an option to "ignore" or "turn off" tool tips.

Tell me if that could or couldn't work out. That's the general idea behind it and the proposed functionality.
Green Skulls, Crimson and Clover, Army of Cuda, Suckas, Armory, Armory v2, Green Skulls, Lords of the Pings, Green Skulls, Ingenious!
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silverx2
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Re: Alliance Changes in regards to Newbies

Post by silverx2 »

buttsack wrote:My idea was that the tool tips would linearly display to you, one by one. I'll try to post an image, lunch time soon, but imagine this if you can:

Newbie hits play game for the first time.

First thing he sees is lots of buttons.

Oh, wait there's a blurb pointing at the "Current Sector" button, and it has text in it. "The current sector is the sector you are presently in. There are thousands of sectors in this game, and a lot have different purposes or functionalitys. Click the current sector button."

Newbie clicks CS. Since he was already viewing his CS, it merely reloads the page. But, this time a new tool tip emerges, pointing out local map button... with a short description and then saying "Click the local map button".

Newbie clicks the Local map button and sees what the tool tip had described.

And then Plot a Course, and so on and so forth. Some, like Plot a Course and Trader would have more tool tips to progress to upon being clicked.

If newbie instead clicks buttons that the tool tips don't point to, the current tool tip will stay displayed until clicked, thus progressing it.

There would also be an option to "ignore" or "turn off" tool tips.

Tell me if that could or couldn't work out. That's the general idea behind it and the proposed functionality.
that would be something like a tutorial. have a specific set of tasks they go though with the tool tips to lead them along.
i killed orca.
Dread Pirate Roberts
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Re: For Newbies

Post by Dread Pirate Roberts »

The number one thing we can do to retain newbies is extend a helping hand instead of shoving your guns up their rear. Right now so many vets think its ok to blow up newbies and its NOT. I am sure i am quite close to getting booted out of my alliance, because I don't stand for it, and as most of you know when I feel strongly about something I am pretty vocal. I let people know they are human garbage (In more words or less), regardless if they are in my alliance or not. And I honestly believe anyone who takes a kill at the expense of the longevity of SMR is just that, human garbage. Every noob kill contributes to our small player base, so killing newbies is the single most self centered thing one can do in this game. I would say 75% of the time a new person gets podded they never log in again. It is discouraging to get destroyed by a veteran your 3rd day playing, so to be honest I don't blame them for cutting bait and running from SMR never to look back. If we really want to keep newbies we need to come together as a community, its plain and simple. You can code whatever you want into the game, but when we are an anti-newbie community we will never retain new players. I think repeat offenders of newbie killing should not only not be able to join a major alliance, because alliance leaders don't want human scum like that in their alliance, they should be hunted down and killed any time they leave fed until they quit SMR for good. I believe even with as small of a community as we are, we are better off with out the noob killers. But since as a community as a whole view noob killing as an okay practice, and perpetual noob killers have no problem joining and staying in major alliances, our player base will never grow, regardless of what you program into the game. Until we as a community change our view on things, and come together and shun newbie killers, SMR is doomed.

Currently there are maybe 100 people that play. Lets say every game we lose 5 players, for whatever reason. And we only get one new player every game. I am sure you can do the math, its only a matter of time before the player base reaches zero. The complete and total death of SMR is our future, no ifs ands or buts. Unless the community changes, SMR is doomed. I truly hope the community changes their views, but I am not holding my breath. I got the black suit all ready for SMR's funeral.
If you can't beat em, ban em!
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