New alliance for newer players - R15 Your community needs YOU

[Forest]

Originally Posted by JC

Why should your training alliance have special privaledges above and beyond that of a normal alliance that puts it in a position where it cannot be attacked?

Its not different to any other alliance. I think anyone who knows me knows that if someone mass launches on small players just to bash, then I act on it. Ive done it since pa started, and I will continue to do it no matter what alliance I am in.

[Forest]

Originally Posted by wakey

Tbh it depends if hes talking about twating anyone who attacks or just people whom carry out cowardly attacks like the couple that your talking about on F-Crew this round. Its one thing to go after making a gain in someway but theres a line where it because more sinister. Take the HR attack for example where very few (if any) serious attacks were sent at the big members, what was sent was just tie up the ships kind of attacks. The big multi wave incoming was left for our small players to put up with, we would see our sub 250k people getting 3+ waves , each wave of multipel attackers whom were just below the level where they could attack, each with massivly overkilled fleets and each having SK's in their fleet. These planets if they meant to or not were sending fleets designed to drive these players out of the game and if its such attacks only that Forest wishes to get the attackers 'twated' for then thats a good thing, however if hes deciding that every single attack no matter how fair should be twated then hes in the wrong as you learn from the incoming and as long as it doesnt cripple them they will almost always get back up and go on fighting and be stronger for it

I should of read this post before posting about previous ones.

Yes, I am simply talking about overkill fleets with sk form whole alliances etc. I am quite prepared for incoming, but as you say, there has to be a limit.

Now I am wondering whether more of a benefit to pa would be to set up:
1) A group of people experiemnced in running an alliance and officers, to be available to help if its wanted.
2) An experienced alliance with the sole aim of helping smaller alliances by twatting people who bash unfairly (we could be like the a-team, but with style!).

Thoughts?

[Goodfellah]

who judges whats unfair ?? getting waved is just part of the game imo, its roid and be roided. imo an alliance that is there just to twat other ppl will create a lot of grudges towards u and ur alliance. if a new player joins the game and ends up in an active gal and doesnt get exiled straight away hehe, ppl will notice if he is material for an alliance (irc and game activity ) then i think he will end up in an alliance quite fast, so why make yet another new 'newb' ally; as it would be far better to help out the ones that are currently already existing.

[Zo0f]

I considered something very similar myself before r11. To cut a long story short: I decided there wasnt a 'market' for a training alliance. As it stands the small alliances do as good a job as most people could want, giving new players the 'chance' (if they want it) to move up in the PA world.

The next logical step is offering support/advice/training to alliances concerning their command structure. Now to cut a long story short again the main problem with this was that people do not always want to be trained, as they do not know anything else exists they do not think it exists aka ignorance. It is hard to have the time to earn everyones respect and then use that respect to train/school them in a personal way, while running a big outside organisation.

This lead me to the final step which was to simply join an alliance as a loyal member and offer them support/advice on matters I had experience with. This in the end, I decided was the most successful way to pass on skills to the future players in Planetarion. It has, and did have, its own problems, but I still stand by it being better than the other options.

Ill appologise for the lack of detail in the post, but it would take quite a horrific amount of time to go through everything, which I dont have the time or patience to do right now. If theres anything specific you would like clarified, feel free to ask here or on IRC.

[Willzzz]

Originally Posted by Goodfellah

who judges whats unfair ?? getting waved is just part of the game imo, its roid and be roided. imo an alliance that is there just to twat other ppl will create a lot of grudges towards u and ur alliance. if a new player joins the game and ends up in an active gal and doesnt get exiled straight away hehe, ppl will notice if he is material for an alliance (irc and game activity ) then i think he will end up in an alliance quite fast, so why make yet another new 'newb' ally; as it would be far better to help out the ones that are currently already existing.

I think that is one of the main problems. People that are new to the game are joining gals looking to learn and of course the arrogent players who just want to win the game (i will admit i was one of those once) Just exile them straight away and this is why they then quit as they have no allies, no friends and of course they just get roided for fun. It isnt fun for them. But as i stated in another thread bashing has bin going since round 1 and i am against it. I still think perhaps offering training to smaller alliances would be better and benefit people of this game. But then again i havent played PA in a while so i wouldnt know much about the pollitical situations ect going on now.

[Forest]

Originally Posted by Goodfellah

who judges whats unfair ?? getting waved is just part of the game imo, its roid and be roided. imo an alliance that is there just to twat other ppl will create a lot of grudges towards u and ur alliance. if a new player joins the game and ends up in an active gal and doesnt get exiled straight away hehe, ppl will notice if he is material for an alliance (irc and game activity ) then i think he will end up in an alliance quite fast, so why make yet another new 'newb' ally; as it would be far better to help out the ones that are currently already existing.

I would like to disagree. On the whole, there is a lot of players/alliances who realise what is fair and what isnt.

If a mutually acceptable (for the top 10 or so alliances) set of player designed rules could be drawn up, im willing to bet that it would be a good thing for the game.

And I am also willing to bet we can get enough decent players onboard to make a 'a-team' style alliance of 10-30 players who could do the job.

[JC]

PA does not need a vigilante group imo .

[Goodfellah]

Originally Posted by Forest

And I am also willing to bet we can get enough decent players onboard to make a 'a-team' style alliance of 10-30 players who could do the job.

Then why not offer the services of those players to the several small alliances that are already out there ? Helping them on the way to join the so called veteran alliances.

[Veedeejem!]

Originally Posted by Forest

I would like to disagree. On the whole, there is a lot of players/alliances who realise what is fair and what isnt.

If a mutually acceptable (for the top 10 or so alliances) set of player designed rules could be drawn up, im willing to bet that it would be a good thing for the game.

And I am also willing to bet we can get enough decent players onboard to make a 'a-team' style alliance of 10-30 players who could do the job.

So you're planning on making a new n00bally, finding the people to be hc & officer & stuff AND make another "alliance" of 10-30 people to go hunt noobbashers?

All this seems alot of work, wouldn't it be better to just make a group of 10-20 people to help guide new alliances & alliances that need help. Offering them the right tools (arby, attackbot, defbot, ...), showing them how to set up a decend command structure, helping them with irc & required channels, etc etc etc...

Imo the community could use this more than another noobally (which i find a bad idea generally caus 1 ally can only have 100 people in it, take away the command & officers and you're left with 85-90 & tbh there are more noobs in pa than 85-95) & a vigilante group hunting down noobslayers.

I could go for a mutually accepted agreement between allies caus the community has nothing to gain from noobbashing, we need to welcome new people, not bash them into the ground.

[Intruder]

Well, ill stay aside of the trainin alliance subject, specially cos i agree with many here who think that a "tranning alliance is not needed, since there is many smaller/Big allies who already do this job.

I would like instead discuss some points on this project about how giving the best support as possible to new players. All this thing you are planning to do in big scale i have been doin for some rounds now, as some HCs and players well know, tho mainly focused on players of same country i am and ppl i pick doin questions on #planetarion and other channels with no or non-satisfatory answer. I usually work with people who never played tick-based before, and they have the following characteristics mainly:

- Dont know what is IRC
- Dont understand when they read "join IRC or be exiled" on overview
- Do not fully comprehend what they are talking about on PA Team msgs overview
- Dont have java installed and so never find out for why that Com unit it is about
- Dont read the manual fully cos it is boring prefering to ask on gal forums
- Dont know exactly the workings of an ally ( besides defense ) and think anyone is good
- Some have excellent internet activity but lack of basic windows/inet knowledge to make explanations easier

This is basically what i find when i chat with brand new players of the community. As you may notice, they demand a lot of hard work to "train" them, cos many are motivated but you have to teach them loads of things untill you reach the point "do the interview with the recruiter for applying".
I have had many chats and spend many time instructing them about how to start to use IRC, wtf it is IRC and how to research info to learn better about game, usually using ingame messages cos until they are able to chat on IRC it is a big step.
This kind of users end being exiled from galaxies, cos usually the only thing new player know when they read overview is "If i say i have no idea about what is a gal channel and even how could be bad being exiled they wont want me playing with them". Believe me, there is many silent player who dont join IRC or talk on forums who are this way. So they should be ignored? I dont think so. But really work with them is too much hard work for many GCs/Gal members, far more that they think is enough effort in helping, so exile them is the best opition anyway. I cant blame them.
But i am one who likes and have patience to work with them. And i know this demands time. So you will need people who are motivated to spend one hour explaining how to download IRC and where to put that /server command "Status bar who?". And real time makes this not viable, cos people dont get paid for that. The solution i was currently working on it was a "Support mail". The support mail would be more helpful to help those who dont have idea about wtf IRC is, and he could receive a step-by-step guide for dummies about how to end up in the gal channel. The point is many players arent IRC users, but they can be on future, and baseing they support on IRC just makes many brand new players end up on a dead galaxy where they will never learn about the game enough to even know this is bad thing.
Maybe many will think lazy players who dnt bother to read manual shouldnt be worked anyway, but i dont think this way. We are in need of playerbase, we can discard no one. They also need to be helped, and this help include to insist to them "read the manual ffs". To those lazy players and those who lack knowledge to improve on IRC use, an stabilished Support mail could be great. I know PA Team already have one, but they need ppl who could bother to give them better explanations than just "download IRC" "join gal channel".

[Veil05]

New players dont need "training" as such, it takes the fun out of the game if u dont learn for yourself. its why people get hooked to it, always wanting to better themselfs and learn new techniques off there own backs.

however, older players such as myself, 10 rounds later and i still suck, so i cud use some training :\

[Bode]

I am more for a galaxy wide system instead of setting up training alliances. Any new alliance is started by either some newbie's that think they can run an alliance or a group of experienced players taking their shot at being part of PA history. As you can see, PA does not have a shortage of the newbie alliances.

I think the key to getting more players interested in the game is get them into the thick of things via their galaxy mates. Have some sort of template setup for each galaxy to post in their overview and their forum. Then have a minister email each new galaxy member (as per Cayl's suggestion) with details on how to get plugged in. If they don't respond then proceed to exile them.

Part of the game is getting on IRC and finding like minded people to attack and defend with. Trying to herd every new player into any alliance is not going to make the game fun for them.

[Seth Mace]

Originally Posted by Veedeejem!

I think training the HC of noob allies would be a better idea tbh.

This is certainly something that i've felt has been reduced over the rounds. I think this approach to improve the alliances already here, rather then start a new one from scratch.

Wakey, if i was still HR HC atm i wouldnt blink twice about targetting Fcrew and the point you make about HR hitting ur mid planets while avoiding the big ones. Well its possible they didnt have your big planet coords, it's also possible your mid planets were juicy targets, hence the bashing you claim they got.

If you ask any ally HC, they will confirm that HR always wave targets that are seen as nice, it's just apart of the attack system they use. It aint nothing personal, its just roids man!;P

HR train up just as many new players as any ally (excluding your own), just because your alliance is classed by choice as a training ally, doesn't mean you can't be attacked. Im sure most players still playing from the old days, remember being tw@ted constantly by the likes of Fury, Legion, Xan ect ect. The feeling of hatred & the need for revenge is a powerful thing to keep people playing a wargame and thus becoming more involved with PA.

So you could say bashing noob allies is productive for PA?

[Kjeldoran]

A very noble idea Forest, but I agree with Z00f that this is not needed. There are enough smaller alliances that take care of training new members and even larger ones like F-Crew ....

I don't see this project working, though the idea itself is very noble and would help the game.

[Treveler]

I think you can do more good if you just join one of the training alliances already there as a MO and create a healthy long living military command that will give the new recruits all the tools and military aid they need to succeed.

I’m guessing that it’s in creating regularly attacks and defence procedures training alliances need most help. The alliance itself is already there Forest!

[bwtmc]

I think for it to be viable in the long-term there has to be a sense of loyalty instilled in it - Like any alliance.

F-crew's being mentioned every such a lot in this thread, but given the break-up of a few other alliances and the fact that many other "small" ones are recently established - I guess that's justified. One of the strengths of Wakey's setup is that the majority of his members actually feel a need to stick with the alliance, and more precisely, the community they've been serviced by.

You can't hope to establish such an alliance if the players percieve it to be a training alliance. The memberbase will simply change too often as players attempt to ascend the PA ranks in experience and knowledge - there'll be no sense of continuity or balance.

[RiXX]

Originally Posted by JC

PA does not need a vigilante group imo .

Indeed, it's probably one of the last things it needs to be honest. As for the training ally, as much as it's a nice selfless idea, it already exists in various forms. I think you'd do better taking these contacts and dispersing among the lower-end alliances, provided their success won't become dependent around you.

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Forest

I think I need to elaborate a bit on the pateam support i mentioned.

The support i would be looking for would be an update of alliance features etc, something that anybody could request, and something that would help all.

I dont like jolt, jolt dont like me, and we certainly wont be working in any official partnership. This is for the game and the community, and not those people who are riping us all off to make easy money without thought for our wants and needs.

there are some minor alliance features planned for next round, but we do have an awfully large amount that we need to get coded and we ideally only have 1-2 weeks to get it all done, considering that Kloopy is only part time, no new things can be added to the list. However, I do have an email lying around from wakey on how he thinks the alliance attack system etc should work, so i'll take a look at it and if it sounds sensible it would defintly be considered for round 16. So for now you will probably need a techie.

[noah02]

Originally Posted by Kal

there are some minor alliance features planned for next round, but we do have an awfully large amount that we need to get coded and we ideally only have 1-2 weeks to get it all done, considering that Kloopy is only part time, no new things can be added to the list. However, I do have an email lying around from wakey on how he thinks the alliance attack system etc should work, so i'll take a look at it and if it sounds sensible it would defintly be CONSIDERED for round 16. So for now you will probably need a techie.

Another "it will be done the round after next honest guv"
Using techies is what ppl do best but the whole point of a n00b training alliance is to try and be as much in game orientated as possible for things, so saying well you gonna have to wait till round 260 so go get a techie is a bit of a chicken out answer.

Oh and ppl note the word CONSIDERED.

p.s Thought when Kloopy was back he was full time not part time?

[Kal]

Originally Posted by noah02

Another "it will be done the round after next honest guv"
Using techies is what ppl do best but the whole point of a n00b training alliance is to try and be as much in game orientated as possible for things, so saying well you gonna have to wait till round 260 so go get a techie is a bit of a chicken out answer.

Oh and ppl note the word CONSIDERED.

p.s Thought when Kloopy was back he was full time not part time?

I was simply answering as to what we could and could not offer, its simply impossible at this late notice to decide to cancel everything so we can code for one particular target audience, there are numerous essential bug fixes that are needed etc.

And I say considered becuase I haven;t read the email yet and for all I know they are really silly ideas.

Kloopy is part time, this is his second job - it gets him his pub money,

[noah02]

Originally Posted by Kal

Kloopy is part time, this is his second job - it gets him his pub money,

Rounds on kloopy \o/

[notsure]

Originally Posted by Veedeejem!

I think have they been offered help is a better question.

:edit: the good kind of help, not like what happened to apa this round with kargool running of with half of their members.

I must of missed that - the way I remember it - a small number of people plus a recently returned HC rebelled against the then current command team - Kargool quit, a number of people who had joined because Kargool had joined APA quit, a number of people who thought Dude was an idiot quit...and that left us with a mess to sort out.

In the end the remaining HC's and officers decided that for various reasons we would be disolving APA (a decision that was not made lightly). Once that decision was made, we set out to come up with a list of options for our members - part of which involved the remaining APA HC's talking to various alliances to gauge how receptive they'd be to former APA members who wished to join them. Only at this point was TGV discussed as an option....as it turned out the majority of those still remaining in APA wished to join TGV and so the HC's set out to make that happen. For those that wished to leave, we offered every assistance we could, including continuing to provide defence and scans, while they were subject to the 72 tick rule.

All in all - it's very hard to steal members from an alliance that no longer exists....

And this is not just aimed at you Veedeejem! - but I'm sick to death of people who have no idea what went on in APA during those last few days making ill informed comments about it...

Personally I was dedicated to APA and would have loved to remain APA - but it wasn't to be - now I'm happily a member of TGV.

notsure - former APA HC

[madman2k30III]

How about we dont have another training alliance and send them all to f-crew. there is no point in sending them to coven because they couldnt train a monkey to eat a banana

[madman2k30III]

Originally Posted by notsure

I must of missed that - the way I remember it - a small number of people plus a recently returned HC rebelled against the then current command team - Kargool quit, a number of people who had joined because Kargool had joined APA quit, a number of people who thought Dude was an idiot quit...and that left us with a mess to sort out.

In the end the remaining HC's and officers decided that for various reasons we would be disolving APA (a decision that was not made lightly). Once that decision was made, we set out to come up with a list of options for our members - part of which involved the remaining APA HC's talking to various alliances to gauge how receptive they'd be to former APA members who wished to join them. Only at this point was TGV discussed as an option....as it turned out the majority of those still remaining in APA wished to join TGV and so the HC's set out to make that happen. For those that wished to leave, we offered every assistance we could, including continuing to provide defence and scans, while they were subject to the 72 tick rule.

All in all - it's very hard to steal members from an alliance that no longer exists....

And this is not just aimed at you Veedeejem! - but I'm sick to death of people who have no idea what went on in APA during those last few days making ill informed comments about it...

Personally I was dedicated to APA and would have loved to remain APA - but it wasn't to be - now I'm happily a member of TGV.

notsure - former APA HC

I Miss APA

[zen]

Originally Posted by notsure

I must of missed that - the way I remember it - a small number of people plus a recently returned HC rebelled against the then current command team *clip clip*

Rebelled as in suggested and debated over some changes in policies?

[notsure]

Right - now back to the topic at hand...

While it's nice to see that people like Forest want to give back to the community, I think there are already enough training alliances out there.

Some of the problems I see, are as has already been pointed out, some people don't know about IRC, they don't know about the forums, and they don't know about alliances, let alone which are suited to their unique needs as new players.

I think we as a community, need to be ensuring that the new players are informed about all of these things, and are pointed in the right directions when looking for alliances. Maybe at the start of next round, we should be making a point to post some information in our gal forums, including basic irc info/instructions, general information on the benifits of joining an alliance, a link to the alliance overview thread and alliance recruitment forums, and make a point of mentioning those alliances that specialise in helping new players...

It's the quick lets exhile them attitude that turns players away - whereas a little bit of effort and information provided to a new player might be all they need to become an active and worthwhile member of the pa community...sure there are going to be players who are inactive and won't use the information given to them but others are just struggling through lack of the basic knowledge we all seem to take for granted.

[wakey]

Originally Posted by bwtmc

I think for it to be viable in the long-term there has to be a sense of loyalty instilled in it - Like any alliance.

F-crew's being mentioned every such a lot in this thread, but given the break-up of a few other alliances and the fact that many other "small" ones are recently established - I guess that's justified. One of the strengths of Wakey's setup is that the majority of his members actually feel a need to stick with the alliance, and more precisely, the community they've been serviced by.

You can't hope to establish such an alliance if the players percieve it to be a training alliance. The memberbase will simply change too often as players attempt to ascend the PA ranks in experience and knowledge - there'll be no sense of continuity or balance.

Your both right and wrong here. While your right we that one of F-Crews strengths is we are able to instill into alot of members a loyalty and a desire to help which sees a good core stay every round and will also so those whom went elsewehere return sometime in the future. Ideally I would like to see all members stay for two rounds, the first round being the round where they pick up the basics, make mistakes to learn from, have successes to learn from ect ect and the second round being the one where they put their training into practice and most importantly are given more responsability and rather than receiving guidence are the one giving it all of which helps cement their skills and more importantly builds up their confidence and their self reliance making them much more suited to the tougher more cut throat enviorment higher up. Then after a few rounds they will come back and bring new skills and experiances to help bring people through. However it obviously never works like that, of our freshmen players most will be snapped up larger alliances whom seduce them with talks of ranking with a core of 30-40 remaining made up of players entering their second round of PA to those whom are r1 vetrans. On top of that we may pick up a handful of returnees but its still pretty much a case of having to rebuild the alliance with key areas having to be filled by others and new members recruited. Not that I'm complaining, the core members have the skills to build an alliance around each round and ensure the heart and soul of the alliance remain intact and due to this you can plug 40 newbies into the alliance and notice very little difference to previous rounds.

As long as the any departures from the core are covered and you keep the community spirt and sense of having fun then you can keep the stability needed. And actually I think the fun side is often something the smaller alliances often fall foul of. Too many of them come into the game and look at the top alliance, in this case 1up. They decide that they will be the next top alliance and start to try and copy them. This is never going to work because while the likes of 1up have many good aspects about their structure and operations it doesnt make these things right. The only people its truely right for are the 1up everyone else has to find their own way of fitting any ideas they want to borrow into their alliance. They cant just bolt them on but have to know their community inside out and adapt them to work. Trying to play like an elite alliance and making bold claims like "we will send defence always" just are showing a lack of understanding of the players they are recruiting. These casual players WONT be around for immense amount of hours, they WONT be largly active at obscure times so you wont defend everything so dont get their hopes up. Before they are ready to commit to being hardcore players they need to get hooked by the game and pushing them into playing as hardcore doesnt do this as its not fun trying to do something your not ready to do and which those around you arent all equiped to allow you to do. Showing them a fun side to PA no matter what the situation is what will get them hooked

However I do think that one of the biggest reasons for the failures for some alliances to train and hook enough players isnt the lack of stability, hc experiance, skillbase, emulation of others, lack of understanding of their members ect ect thats mentioned here already. Instead its simply lack of commitment and no amount of training is going to sort that. Less experiance players are simply less self sufficient and need alot more guidence so its an immense workload, a workload that many cant commit to due to RL and which those whom can often leads end up burning out. If the command, especialy teh HC cant be putting in an awful lot of hours in you have problems and it something even F-Crew is battling with. Its this reason that when people here say "we have enough traning alliances" I shake my head. We might have alot of them available BUT we dont have enough equipped to really help people as they cant commit as a HC to the cause. If someone like Forest can throw together another training alliance with a HC of people used to hardcore play and thus have a decent level of HC coverage and are used to the stresses of playing hardcore it can only be good

[Cayl]

I think I had to write a book report on wakey's post once in college.... thank god for cliff notes

Anyway, I agree that training alliances and newbie and casual player friendly alliances are good and necessary.

The part where you say "If Forest has time" is where I think you hit the nail on the head. Anyone wanting to start something up better have lots of time on their hands, and I know that this is not Forest. Even with Arfy helping out, you'll need a lot of folks helping out.

[Forest]

Having read everything, and deliberated, I think I couldnt do a job decent enough to warrant the time and attention.
In addition, I am abouts to lose my net/phone connection, so it simply isn't an option anymore.

Thank You to all who took the time to reply, it was useful to find this out before i put a lot of energy into it.

I would suggest that EVERYONE who mailed me offering help, should go find some smaller alliances to bring up to standards. It will be a big help on the game. A lot of top names offered, and it woudl be a waste to watch that happen.

Good luck all, I hope i can be back in the future.

[bwtmc]

I think this should be seen, to a degree, the duty of every experienced long-term player in the game - to encourage the longevity and development of Planetarion as a community. Any alliance HC has at their disposal influence and discipline capable of changing things and for the better at that. I don't think a training alliance could ever really function over a number of months. I fear the new players would happily leave too soon, especially because any galaxy that does consider them of worth would likely fix them up in a "proper" alliance. I'd be far more pleased to see players get the chance to join a new alliance, with the intention of staying there for a round or more.

I see no reason why that can't happen if the people running it are knowledgable, sensible and pro-active. Key to the success of any new group of players is that the people running it are appreciated. Honestly, I wouldn't expect anyone to actively run a training alliance for two months, selfless acts are fine, but I can't see the community in it being genuine enough to warrant that commitment.

[BLACK_OPPS]

paul you at it again ?