New players will always be exiled unless...

[Melesse]

Background - I'm a cath, so holding onto roids is difficult.

I self exiled from a small gal where I was getting constant incoming, to a larger gal, middle of the road, 3 M or so. (This was a week ago). I spent three days there before being exiled. I wasn't huge, but I certainly wasn't a noob, I had 200k in score from XP, indicating some activity. I posted on the forums, I sent Defense. I was the 6th largest in the gal. Was exiled anyways. No clue why. They were also exiling, I noticed before I left, any new players. As soon as we got new ones, they were gone.

My gal last round did the same thing, until I was elected GC, at which point we stopped that silly practice. It was more difficult, but funner for me I thought. There's a vocal minority here on the board I think that talks about how newb friendly they are, but the large percentage of gals I've been in have been the exile first variety.

Melesse

[Wandows]

another interesting thing i found is that only paid planets can become GC or minister. In my history i've been in plenty gals that had no GC or organisation what so ever due to this great 'feature'. As far as i'm concerned PaTeam/Jolt do whatever they can to make playing as a freebie so utterly useless that they either quit or simply have to upgrade.

I mean.. some gals i've been in wanted to start organize a bit, donated to the fund etc to get some resource flow going between the galmembers (trading and such), but due to them not being able to elect a GC nor choose any ministers, they are simply throwing away resources (way to go PaTeam for that great feature!).

Next to that there is no authority in the galaxy that new members can point to for atleast some form of guidence (they don't see any colored planet, and mailing all planets ingal hope someone would reply usually is not an option). Result of this is that they can't be arsed to play under a unorganized flag and receiving wave upon wave of incoming for the 3 roids they have left. If you really want to see this game growing, that is something that has to change. Not that it ever will, knowing the intentions of Jolt/PaTeam concerning getting new players.

[derry]

Originally Posted by Aerynrox

Well, I've decided to stick around for a little bit and try to learn at least a few of the game basics. Even if I get bounced from place to place and treated like dirt, I can still probably benefit from the experience in some ways.
Also - I find it amusing that I'm being exiled from a galaxy which does not have any paid accounts on it. Therefore, we have no true GC or ministers. My thinking on this is we're already probably not in a position to dominate or even do very well at all, so why not take some time together to teach and learn?
I posted my thoughts in my galaxy forum and am awaiting responses.
My thoughts on the larger subject of attracting new folks to this game are clearly naive since I'm not experienced, I know. But, what if two or three times a year, the game had mini-rounds devoted to teaching newbies about how to play. Resource mining and production times could be speeded up during these sessions so that they wouldn't have to last all that long. Sessions like this could be advertised on the main page and in other gamers forums.

Just my two cents. Happy playing, all.

just land in my gal, as long as you login a few times a day and try 2 logon to irc atleast once i'm happy (and no, my gal aint utterly shit )

[Orion Treet]

Hmm, I've never exiled anyone because they were new to the game. If someone doesn't come on irc I send them an ingame msg asking how active they are planning on being and if they know how to get on irc. If they don't know I'll explain it and am willing to teach anyone willing to learn, but they have to be at least semi active to do that and a lot of new players are very inactive is the problem

[rnd|One]

Some serious kung-fu has been applied to the PAWiki New Player's Guide. Please give feedback, edit and then edit some more. This could (eventually) be a worthy link to send via in-game mail to any new player that lands in your galaxies.

[Ferretus]

Thankyou Aerynrox for posting, I think we can all agree that this has been illustrated well and needs Jolt/PA team attention.

Now do we have any other ideas on how to fix it?

Personally, I like the idea of removing the exile option and having an autodelete planet thingy if you dont log in within 48hrs. In preferences you could set up an extension on this at certain times, I dunno.

Help me out here anyone?

[Thex]

I spent a long time playing PA round R1 - R9 and just popped back yesterday. [EDIT: just to prove a point seems my old sig even has the rounds I played :-)]

I signed up as an unpaid account and jumped into the game immediately. I knew I had to show I was active and willing to be helpful, it was always the same way back when

The first galaxy had info on the message from commanders about getting on IRC - no problem I said I would as soon as possible. I posted on the Galaxy forum and voted for the resident GC. At the end of the first tick I was put up for exile. 3 ticks later I was gone.

The GC's explaination - I was joining too late into the round - wtf?

The next galaxy I joined I did the same - put a note on foums, said I was active - a semi noob because I had played before etc etc. I had to go to bed because it was late - some time in the night I found I was exiled again. No explanation.

Found a new galaxy who seem to be more open and active and willing to give me a chance - looks like I'm staying this time. But if I were a complete first timer to PA, I'd be real annoyed by now, The big galaxies can grow the noobs if they are willing to try - seems some aren't.

Both the other galaxies had at least 3 open slots. Maybe the rules should change so you cannot have more than 1 open slot at any one time and you couldn't exile them with 72 hours of them joining, that way at least you'd have to give the new guy a chance.

[ChubbyChecker]

You got very unlucky Thex, no galaxy I have ever been in has turned away active noobs.

My galaxy is top 10 and a new planet joined the day before yesterday. He hasn't come onto IRC yet but he says he's having problems connecting to it so we're giving him a day or two to give him a chance to sort his problems out.
Another planet signed up today, about 5 hours ago. He has not made any posts on the forum and he has not logged in since he signed up but we're giving him a chance too. If he doesn't make contact before tomorrow night we'll probably give him the boot.

From what I've heard the galaxies that quickly throw out the noobs tend to be the ones that end up slipping down the rankings. Perhaps there's something to be learned in this.

[Neferti]

Chubbychecker's gal sounds pretty cool

[furball]

My gal is top 20. We give all our new people a chance, explain how to use IRC, and so on. They do have to be IRC active, but we have no problem with them starting from fresh even at this stage. We've never just exiled someone as per Thex's experiences.

[Nadar]

Originally Posted by Ferretus

Bob

I've actually never been in a galaxy were we exiled 'newbies' who just signed up a planet. They were always given an amount of time to get their planet running. If they signed up a planet and the roidcount stayed at i.e. 18 a day or two they were assumed inactive, especially if they didn't show up on irc after being asked to or have posted in forums. I've also never seen anyone refusing to help people who are new to the game.

[wakey]

Originally Posted by ChubbyChecker

You got very unlucky Thex, no galaxy I have ever been in has turned away active noobs.

My galaxy is top 10 and a new planet joined the day before yesterday. He hasn't come onto IRC yet but he says he's having problems connecting to it so we're giving him a day or two to give him a chance to sort his problems out.
Another planet signed up today, about 5 hours ago. He has not made any posts on the forum and he has not logged in since he signed up but we're giving him a chance too. If he doesn't make contact before tomorrow night we'll probably give him the boot.

From what I've heard the galaxies that quickly throw out the noobs tend to be the ones that end up slipping down the rankings. Perhaps there's something to be learned in this.

Sadly I dont think he was unlucky, its the people landing in your galaxy whom are lucky. Over the last couple of days I've had a few bust ups with people in top 30 galaxies whom have been very hostile to some very good F-Crew players whom due to RL issues were a little late signing up. They were immediatly on IRC yet their galaxies were all eager to get rid of them, they did seem to change their mind after a rant from me though

It would seem the best way of a small player to get their place in these galaxies is to be IRC active and then get someone who knows you and can vouch for you to rant at the GC. Ofc for actual newbies this is a problem as who do they know to vouch for then

[ChubbyChecker]

Another thought, we should eliminate cluster 200. Putting the inactives there makes the semi actives look bad because they then look like inactives. Having no cluster 200 means that complete inactives and semi actives (by this I am including people that never use IRC, no matter how often they login) will end up in the same (semi good) galaxy. The galaxy will prioritise getting rid of the inactive first thereby giving the semi active more of a chance.

[wakey]

problem is the inactives end up getting clumped together and then people end up getting stuck in galaxies with them forcing them to have to pay to get out of a totally inactive galaxy or get stuck being bashed

[ChubbyChecker]

So what? That's what self exile is for. Besides, changing the exile system for future rounds should prevent this from happening. Making low score planets land in high score galaxies and vice versa will mean that the inactives are not all clumped together in one galaxy.

[Orion Treet]

Sorry to hear that Thex. My gal recently got a free new signup in who showed he was irc active and had actually spent a very good ammount of time studiing the manual/stats. We've payed for his account since he couldn't, cause we know it will be for the good of the gal, and are teaching him and helping him getting an alliance sorted atm. If new players are willing to learn I'm glad to teach and help them, some people just don't want to be tought

[Cannon_Fodder]

Originally Posted by furball

My gal is top 20. We give all our new people a chance, explain how to use IRC, and so on. They do have to be IRC active, but we have no problem with them starting from fresh even at this stage. We've never just exiled someone as per Thex's experiences.

I want to be in your gal

[Ferretus]

Nice to see both sides of the argument reflected here backed up by round experience.

Can we conclude it comes down to the community attitude again whcih has been mentioned in numerous post of late?

[aim2000]

ok i have not had time to read tihs entire thread. but there are a few valid points thati have seen here.

However one seems to elude me. is it the job of the community or the creators to get new players and make them stay ? there will always be galaxies exciling small players no matter how active, also there will be newbie galaxies that it is impossible to get out of (i'm personally in #4 so far this round, due to starting late).

Perhaps the community should request for the developers to create a better new player introduction, rather then do alot of changes in between rounds. I do beleive both the communtiy and the developers would gain from this.

almost forogt : Also the excile cost for active planets is getting high :-/ How are new players supposedly going to afford a ever increasing cost of exciling ? why not set it at 3 ticks worth of resources or so? only ones exciling anyhow (so it seems to me anyhow) are people that are active and need better galaxies.

Sorry if someone posted this already and i just skipped past it.

Edit : almost forgot..... till .... Sorry if someone

[furball]

Originally Posted by sniborp

I want to be in your gal

You're welcome any time. Every alliance has my co-ords, come find me.