Planetarion Forums

Intruder · 15 Aug 2005, 13:47

Well, i have had experiences with some beginner-players and a noticed, besides the effort of PA team to support on IRC and some good-souls who give support for them inside their galaxies, we still have many growing bored ans stopping playing due to lazyness to read Manual/related. Yeah, you can say "if you cba read you shouldnt be playing" but we have to keep them playing to keep an acceptable memberbase, and the lack of knowledge of the begginers about game mechanics combined with their inability to read side-information like IRC guides make them useless waste for many galaxies. I myself had some experiences with new players like one i currently have in my gal ( i ask to keep him for a while to see if i can train him in basics so he can at least improve in case he dont stays cos he isnt active enough ) who when i said "you have to join IRC for support or GC will exile you" he asked me if he have to pay to use mirc too. Prolly we have more people like that. He even didnt have java installed on PC and didnt know the use of com unit, what he didnt know was the same thin as IRC. Well, lack of adequate information leads to this kind of sittuation. and mainly lazyness. Even old PA-players return to the game and don read manual, and go after roids of smaller valued targets, we cant balme then, being all-text even the simplest manual is not that friendly.
Well, i think PA team should give some kind of support not present into manual too, and that would happen this way:

- galaxy 1:1 would have "support planets" who players could send msgs asking for advice on things not presented on manual ( how to download and use IRC, how to pick better targets, how to use tools, etc).
- Every planet who signs in first time would receive a mail "like the one they get ) talking about the support planets, where they can mail to get advice for stuff related to the game. But should be clear the questions presented on Manual and multi-hunting and etc prolly wont be answered.

How the support planets would work:

He wouldnt work as a common planet, PA Team wouldnt see ingame features with it. I think that since this is too much msgs for one PA team, PA Team and supporters of the coomunity could have a special page where they could login and get all messages received by that "Support planet". So as PA supporter, you login with your login and see only all messages the support planet got, you pick one ( only admins can erase msgs and PA can only mark them to be erased if the content is not worth a answer ) and answer. So the message would go to the planet who asked.

I thought all of this mainly so players who dont even know wtf IRC is can try to get someone to tell them. Surely there is many of them out there ( if you dont belive, youre too geek) and sometimes they dont even understand that msg on overview telling to join IRC. Maybe you can think gal members would explain him but thats not apply to every one. Many gals just exile if you dont join IRC channel. Mine has this politics before. Maybe helping that part of the coomunity who dont know who to ask would bring us some active next rounds.

-int

wakey · 15 Aug 2005, 14:53

I dont see the point of much of this idea. If you look at the menu you will notice an item called Support. This allows you to open a support request which will be responded to. The problem is support staff only know a limit amout so cant answer all questions and the PATeam members whom need to answer some of them arent around to answer quick and that can annoy people and can be too late in some cases.

Anyway basically the systems pretty much in place to handle this, its the staff that need improved

Kal · 15 Aug 2005, 15:28

I agree with wakey

Phil^ · 15 Aug 2005, 17:10

the ingame support goes directly to pateam btw.
its stored on an admin tool which pateam access ingame - as well as support members.

Smudge · 15 Aug 2005, 19:58

I got all excited when I saw this thread title. One thing which could be nice is hover-over help. IE you hover over the image of a roid and it tells you stuff about it.

Voodoo Child · 15 Aug 2005, 21:50

What if the ingame support was a tutorial galaxy. All new players would be placed into the tutorial galaxy, for the 72 tick protection period, to learn the basics of the game. You would have experianced players train the new players on how to get on the IRC, to find an alliance, help them pick a race, etc. This gives new players a "hands on approach" to learning the game, instead of the boring manuel. After the 72 tick period players would be placed into a reg. galaxy. I dont know if this idea has ever been brought up before, but your opinions could help improve this idea.

paolo · 15 Aug 2005, 23:39

That was done last round (this round too?) Voodoo Child. It's still a great idea though.

Intruder · 16 Aug 2005, 07:14

yeah, reading again what i wrote didnt sound the best idea and i had another one anyway

Kal · 16 Aug 2005, 08:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Voodoo Child

What if the ingame support was a tutorial galaxy. All new players would be placed into the tutorial galaxy, for the 72 tick protection period, to learn the basics of the game. You would have experianced players train the new players on how to get on the IRC, to find an alliance, help them pick a race, etc. This gives new players a "hands on approach" to learning the game, instead of the boring manuel. After the 72 tick period players would be placed into a reg. galaxy. I dont know if this idea has ever been brought up before, but your opinions could help improve this idea.

thats the purpose of the big galaxies before the shuffle at the start of the round.

Voodoo Child · 16 Aug 2005, 13:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kal

thats the purpose of the big galaxies before the shuffle at the start of the round.

Well I've never been in gal that had an irc channel before the shuffle, let alone seen people tutor others. There is very little communation between players before the shuffle , because they aren't going to be together long. Even if that were true then what about the people that sign up mid round? Most if not all are new to pa or are returning after missing several rounds, these are the people we need to keep. Maybe the tutorial gal could be used for the new players that come in mid round.

Kal · 16 Aug 2005, 13:58

the theory is though that they are better help[ed by being in a galaxy with lots of experianced players - which is why new signups join existing galaxies and no new galaxies are created during the round.

Voodoo Child · 16 Aug 2005, 15:04

That doesnt happen though, new players are exiled from large gals looking for "better" players. They are exiled hours after signing up. Then there are usually exiled into a inactive gal with no idea on what to do. They then quit cause they dont understand the game. My idea would be for them to be trained during the 72 tick protection and then placed into a existing gal. This wouldnt stop the exiling of noobs entirely, but it would reduce it.

Kal · 16 Aug 2005, 15:27

problem is if they get exiled straight away it suggests there is no one willing to do the training, which means there is no one willing to do the trainingin in the 72 tick period

Voodoo Child · 16 Aug 2005, 16:22

I'm sure we could find people willing to help train the new players, I would be happy to help. The reason they get exiled is because the people that are willing to help my not be GC's. We need to find a way to help the new players, if we dont this game will continue to see a decrease in the player base.

smeg9 · 16 Aug 2005, 19:17

Quote:

I'm sure we could find people willing to help train the new players, I would be happy to help. The reason they get exiled is because the people that are willing to help my not be GC's. We need to find a way to help the new players, if we dont this game will continue to see a decrease in the player base.

Maybe it is the player's whom attitudes need changeing then, whether your an experienced player, or a n00b what matters is the activity of people, n00bs who are active have the time, and paied their money!!! can sure go far in the game, I know of newcommers last round who were out scoring me by the end if it.

Perhaps there needs to be some kind of fairer way of dealing with exiling, to average it out, smaller, but active people goto half decent galaxies, big players looking for a better gal, chances are they'll goto a medium / good sized gal too, but make it depend on thier old gals score. And the inactives to goto a smaller gal, until the self-exile.

Bring back Quests, a great way of introducing noobs, and getting experienced members up and running with a quicker start to the game!!!

If any of that made sense, then I'd like your thoughts, else, I aplogise