New players will always be exiled unless...

[Ferretus]

Everyone complains about the lack of players in PA but think about it for just 5 minutes. A new player starts the game, lets call him Bob.

Bob doesnt really know what he is doing and nobody is likely to help him until after shuffle (36hrs). So he tries his best, reads the manual etc and then is shuffled. Because the player has fallen behind the new galaxy exile him assuming they are inactive (although the reality is the GC reason is "noob" in the hope of getting someone decent). This continues until eventually Bob leaves the game and never comes back as the community which claims to be great, actually in game isn't.

Scenario 2
Bob starts up late and is still in protection, will talk on the forums etc yet still gets exiled for being a "noob".

Now there is no current way of encouraging players to look after new players, the community is too competitive and full of children obsessed with rank for there ever to be a decent influx of new players. So I propose this very unpopular decision :-)

Galaxies should be restocked based on total galaxy score.
Bad points: The top 100 gals would be meaningless as for the most part everyone will be similar scores.
Good points: Good galaxies will want to keep their noobs and train them up as if they exile them then they will simply be a player down until the universe catches up.

Rationale
This would mean then that the active galaxies would perhaps have 10 players in while the more inactive lower scoring gals would be 20 or so. This would mean that certain players will do noob gal attacks, however that gal would have so many more players that there is a chance that they may not get bashed as someone should be able to defend it.
Active gals would be less inclined to want to exile players who come to them as they may not get restocked for a while. Obviously if you are unlucky and get someone genuinely inactive then that is a shame, but the reality is that this is rarely the case for exiling a player.

It makes sense in my head but I am not sure if I have explained it right. So I will post this now and see what people say.

I can see a lot of people whining about there no longer being a top gal award, but I would rather have a game with players in rather than a table!

[Neferti]

I'm not sure all gals think like that. As a GC, I for one am happy to 'train up' newbies if they're willing to learn and be active.

[Ultimate Newbie]

Firstly, i have to agree with your scenarios - pa is a tough place to get started and is prolly the reason why the playerbase hasnt increased in the last couple of rounds as there is no willingness on behalf of these players to return.

Those people in my galaxy, i try to help. Before shuffle, i was actively PA mailing planets who 'sounded' like they were new and were asking for help. I personally dont mind helping anyone who is willing to learn. My galaxy atm is promoting IRC activity over 'score' and inited roids etc. Even if there is a tiny amount of desire to hop on irc and be a part of the galaxy, they stay. I would like to think that many gals (except that absolute top ones who prolly have a reason to care about rank etc), would have a similar perspective.

But to address your points;

Originally Posted by Ferretus

Galaxies should be restocked based on total galaxy score.
Bad points: The top 100 gals would be meaningless as for the most part everyone will be similar scores.
Good points: Good galaxies will want to keep their noobs and train them up as if they exile them then they will simply be a player down until the universe catches up.

I'm not sure you've throught this through yet - assuming that activity is directly related to score, and thus high activity = high score, then what you are doing is putting the most active players in a galaxy together, and the most inactive players together.

A Galaxy full of inactive planets isnt the type of environment that new players should be placed into to learn the game. Bob will post something on the gal forum, come back in a couple of days and nothing would have happened. He will be surrounded by inactives or other newbies who also know nothing about how the game is played.

The only time that there is no need for active players to be in a galaxy to act as tutors, would be where a detailed, comprehensive and extensive series of quests are used as learning tools, and continuous reference to the PA forums (like strategy etc) for help on various issues.

I fjear that your proposal would lead to newbie ghettoes in Planetarion.

[furball]

Mine doesn't either, and we're pretty high up. We still require activity, but we have no problem teaching someone the game or helping them re-learn it. There are alliances good at educating these people how to play, and so I always try to send them there.

We've only exiled planets who don't communicate with the rest of the galaxy. IRC is required, but we explain how to use it in our mail to any planets joining the galaxy.


A lot of people are beginning to realise how important it is to keep new people in the game. They are Planetarion's life-blood. And as they say, patience is a virtue

[barney]

there are plenty of galaxy's out there who are willing to help out newer player, any galaxy im involved in is usually willing to help so long as interest is demonstrated from the other side, and to say that big galaxys are not willing to help is unfair also as my gal last round (t10 for periods of the round) was taking in newer players and training them up, im sure many ppl are the same in writing long threads on how to do stuff for n00bs and pasting them into gal forums every round, althought i dont deny there are some top galaxies who just exile until they get a high scoring player.

[Rocko]

send them a message, and wait a respectible amount of time,.. if no reply,.. even though u've sene they've been online a couple of times,.. then kick them.
Bit harsh? or just trying to play the game,..?

[Jonas]

Ive been GCing every round since r2. I've given quite a few newbies the chance to play. All I require is that they are loyal hand helpful. Preferrably IRC aswell, usually people get there after they get addicted anyway

You have a point tho :/

-Jonas-

[wakey]

As UN said your plan isflawed in the fact that it moves newbies into small score galaxies where they dont have the experiance around them to help them improve. Ok they might be able to signup to an alliance whom could train them but if they were placed in galaxies like this I'm not even sure even the likes of ourselves at F-Crew would be that keen in taking them as they would simply be too much of a drain on our resources thus limiting the overall help we can be to new players. You see the galaxies by being larger are instantly being marked as "easy targets", something which they will be because no matter how many people you have in a galaxy if they are all new so dont know what they are doing and arent very active they arent going to be able to defend each other anywhere near an adequate level.

I would say what this would do would be to damage the introduction of new players to the game by removing their direct access to the better players and also by hampering the jobs being done by a few alliances in this community to help such players

[jerome]

or rank score by buddy packs, and allow galaxies as something to build "communities" on etc. because people wont exile just for the sake of score heh

[Ferretus]

Originally Posted by _ryzekiel_

or rank score by buddy packs, and allow galaxies as something to build "communities" on etc. because people wont exile just for the sake of score heh

Yeah that would be a good option, building around the pack.

[Ferretus]

I know there are exceptions to the rule, I'm a GC and have been for many years and I don't do it. However 2 friends of mine who played last round were BOTH bounced from one gal to another and didnt spend more than a week in one place. I am encouraged by the larger players in my galaxies (especially last round and this) to have the same attitude instead of training them.

I dont think i managed to explain the concept very well, it was a passing thought I had yesterday and I havent thought it through that is why I pasted it here to brainstorm it. An alternative which I would prefer is actually stop exiling all together. This would annoy everyone (myself included) but it would force us, the active community, to actually encourage new players.

Anyways, back to the original concept.
This idea will make small but active galaxies and eventually have self exiles and noobs landing in larger ones which could lead to farming of those galaxies. But remember these small powerful galaxies will only be able to raid them for so long and these gals will get bigger. It is unfortunate that they will land with other noobs and not know the game, but that is what is happening anyway except they also get abuse as they are thrown out of each galaxy every few days.

Perhaps a player cannon be exiled for at least a week? That would be an option, although it wouldnt change the current situation at all.

I dunno, we all agree that this situation occurs so suggest alternatives? That is all I am doing... encouraging thought.

[Ferretus]

Maybe you could have some sort of 'adopt a noob' system where you are forcibly given a player to look after. Although I cannot see that working either.

[ChubbyChecker]

All the galaxies I've ever been in have been willing to give new players a chance as long as they are willing to learn.
Take me for example. I started last round late and the first thing I did was make a post in the forum asking where I could build Asteroid Scans because I couldn't find them anywhere. They didn't exile me and by the end of the round I was top 100 and the biggest planet in the galaxy.

Although I do think that your idea about planets going into high scoring galaxies is a good one. It needs some work though. A system that I think would work quite nicely is that the top 10% galaxies in terms of score can only get planets in that are in the bottom 10% in the Universe for score. This would mean that large planets that self exile would not make it into one of the top 10% of galaxies so they would be more likely to stick it out with the galaxy they are already in. It would also mean that GCs in the top 10% of galaxies would not exile new planets simply because they are new in the hope that they get a big planet come along later on.

While I do think that the exile / self exile system for this round is an improvement on last round it could still do with some tweaking.

[wakey]

Originally Posted by Ferretus

Maybe you could have some sort of 'adopt a noob' system where you are forcibly given a player to look after. Although I cannot see that working either.

The problem is for such things to work it requires the payers to be willing to help for the sake of helping. Forcing them to they will do as little as they could get away with. Forcing or bribing people with titles ect (such as the official mentoring system did) simply isnt the way to go because of this. Whats needed is for peoples attitudes to change and this can only be done over time. We need players whom want to help to do so off their own backs, we need them to stick to their guns and fight their corner and we need more community figureheads and alliance alliance leaders to come out in favour of helping the new players and even encouraging peopel to start doing it themselves.

The helping attitude is in this community as it used to be all about helping each other, its just been buried over the rounds and it just needs us to all to rediscover it even if its a slow process

[SpaceMonkey]

Well said Wakey. I'm getting a bit tired of people complaining about the lack of community and suggesting changes to the game, when they should be out there building the community.

If you want the game to be more fun, with more players, you need to encourage the newer players.

Why not get involved in a cluster NAP? People complain that it cuts down the number of targets but it also cuts down the number of incoming, encourages new players, gets people mingling, and gives you a bigger pool of people to attack with.

Why not post a quick guide to getting started, in the galaxy forum before the shuffle? You could put links to the Quick Start guide in the manual, the fleet compostition threads here, bcalcs, stats searchers, wiki, any number of other resources that might not be that easy for the uninitiated to find.

Why not help the new players find an alliance to suit them? To the people that already do this, I applaude you. <shamelessplug> If you have new/returning/ircless players in your galaxy, send them to us at Hidden Agenda </shamelessplug>

Why not just tell me to stfu?

[Forest]

I would say that the manul is next to useless for new players. I myslef have written a short guide to irc, but what we need is a very very simply page, maybe 3 or 3 paragraphs, that explains pa and the targetting system, that we can post straight onto gal forums, and send to new planets.

Anyone written one or should I make the effort?

[Forest]

In addition, how about giving the MoW some useful job such as finding new alliances for new players.
I know im my privilaged position I dont ahve a problem finding people alliances but maybe others do.

Im thinking something along the lines of...

I get a new player, and suggest ingame that he applies to 'F-Crew' for instance. I put my nick(and/or)history to an ingame 'vouch' based on my experience. My vouch says that I will help the player build fleets/join irc etc, in return for the alliance helping get him defence/attacks.
May need a block on how mnay alliance players can be in one gal to stop noob MoW's getting all into noob alliances.
In fact, you could even take it a step further, and have some kind of committee that assess alliances and lets them go onto a 'new player alliance list'.

Alliances applying for this status would have to fulfill certain criteria, but it would certainly help them with member base. Bring in training wings for the big alliances, that work independently from main alliances perhaps?

Thoughts please.

[Storebo]

Originally Posted by Forest

In addition, how about giving the MoW some useful job such as finding new alliances for new players.
I know im my privilaged position I dont ahve a problem finding people alliances but maybe others do.

Im thinking something along the lines of...

I get a new player, and suggest ingame that he applies to 'F-Crew' for instance. I put my nick(and/or)history to an ingame 'vouch' based on my experience. My vouch says that I will help the player build fleets/join irc etc, in return for the alliance helping get him defence/attacks.
May need a block on how mnay alliance players can be in one gal to stop noob MoW's getting all into noob alliances.
In fact, you could even take it a step further, and have some kind of committee that assess alliances and lets them go onto a 'new player alliance list'.

Alliances applying for this status would have to fulfill certain criteria, but it would certainly help them with member base. Bring in training wings for the big alliances, that work independently from main alliances perhaps?

Thoughts please.

How about just get them to join irc and be active?
Can't trust people that never show up.
New players get exiled cause they don't show up on irc, not cause they don't got alliances.

[suave]

What I liked, and I imagine it to be helpfull for new players, where the quests from „old“ PA...

IIRC, the quests guided through all pages of the menu etc...

[Neferti]

Quests were cool

[The Real Arfy]

We also need the game to direct new players to third party resources, for example PaWiki, Pilkara, Sandmans, and the numerous bcalcs.

[Rocko]

you can't help someone if their not willing to learn,...

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally Posted by Rocko

you can't help someone if their not willing to learn,...

That doesnt mean, however, that you just shut all the newbies out or dont provide the support for all new players as some of them 'are not willing to learn'. tbh, even if only 1 in 5 new players are encouraged to stick around, PA would grow surprisingly quickly.

we just need more thought and effort in determining solutions, rather than argue whether there is a problem cos quite frankly there is one. And it's real.

[Neferti]

That's not what he said, though... it's true that you cant really help someone who doesnt want to be helped.

[Psi_K]

Put 'Bob' in my gal, I'll train him as long as he's willing to deal with my requirements.

We had a new player join us recently (not overly, just hasn't played in rounds).
I told him yesterday he has until friday for a P nick, 200 roids, and an alliance ... otherwise he'll be getting the boot.
He agreed happily.
We shall see the outcome.

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally Posted by Psi_K

I told him yesterday he has until friday for a P nick, 200 roids, and an alliance ... otherwise he'll be getting the boot.
He agreed happily.

Whilst i agree, that's fine and so on, i think that inst the best example of a new player. As a former PA player, it is likely that the individual knows of the importance of IRC, or if really old skool, the importance of obeying your GC and not rocking the boat (remember those big in-gal wars? ) - however a brand spanking new player who is also potentially new to the genre wouldnt have this already established knowledge base.

But otherwise, it is a good example as it sets some goals.

/me runs off to gleefully plagurise you idea

[Ferretus]

Originally Posted by Storebo

How about just get them to join irc and be active?
Can't trust people that never show up.
New players get exiled cause they don't show up on irc, not cause they don't got alliances.

IRC IS NOT the answer! I hate the way the community has turned to this method and the reason why so many players don't come back.

You have to remember that not everyone is at school or a dead job where they can idle on irc all day and night. The galaxy forum should be the main form of communication, with players who are able to, getting onto irc just for a social chinwag. IRC is DEFINATELY NOT the answer.

A lot of new players don't even know how to use it and a lot of players are not wiling to show them.

[I am Idler]

Didnt everyone start out as newbies tho?

If we could manage, why cant they

[Psi_K]

Originally Posted by I am Idler

Didnt everyone start out as newbies tho?

If we could manage, why cant they

Everyone was equally dumb back in the day?
I know I only started near the end of R2, got some pointers from Steve_G saying this game is pretty cool.
Had I not landed in Dace's gal, and got myself into LOST from Big Daddy Bob, I would have quit a LONG time ago.

It's all about getting someone that WILL be helpful, that will push you to see what the full appeal of this game is, and to get you hooked to all the people you meet in alliances (and also flame the poop out of them on the boards (LO FURY!))

[furball]

Originally Posted by Ferretus

IRC IS NOT the answer! I hate the way the community has turned to this method and the reason why so many players don't come back.

You have to remember that not everyone is at school or a dead job where they can idle on irc all day and night. The galaxy forum should be the main form of communication, with players who are able to, getting onto irc just for a social chinwag. IRC is DEFINATELY NOT the answer.

A lot of new players don't even know how to use it and a lot of players are not wiling to show them.

As I said in my post earlier, I have taught a lot of new players how to use IRC. Guided them through setting up mIRC, showed them how to connect to NetGamers server. I even helped an Aussie through it on Skype (easiest thing I ever did ).

The galaxy forum is there when you don't have access to IRC. We can all cope with players who can't use IRC at work, etc - but never being able to use IRC is a serious handicap to having a good planet. Decent alliances require it, and you need a decent alliance to survive unless you are very lucky with your galaxy.

Planetarion's community, and thus member base, thrived because of IRC. The game is now based around IRC interaction with other players, and you are significantly handicapped without it.

[Rocko]

u dont have to use IRC to play the game.
theres one member of my gal who dosn't come on at all. yet he grows, sends deffence and attacks still,..
the way things are with him, he can get to planetarion alot, but not IRC.

However, he isn't a newbie. He has played before, and is fine dealing with PA in that way.
I had a newbie yesterday, needed help with the game, i was willing to give it. He wasn;t willing to take the first step to get on mIRC, he wasn't willing to commit any action himself. Without that chat programme, it's 10 times difficult to explain to someone how things work,.. because even if u laid it all out in one big post, questions still arise you never covered.

someone new comes in, i'll send them a mail. I'll see them log in a couple of times and not reply (i watch the gal screen for this). If they don't reply at all, then there's nothing i can do for them, and so i wan't to move on with the game and the galaxy needs to grow, so i make room for someone else. Someone wants to be helped, i'll give it. If not, then my game goes on, and so does the rest of the people in the galaxy, until someone comes along who does want it.

[Nadar]

Who's Bob?

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally Posted by Nadar

Who's Bob?

A fictional, generic run-of-the-mill 'average' new player.

[Veedeejem!]

I think alot of n00bs who bother to come on irc and play pa active usually find a helping hand in their galaxy.
It's the ones that don't come on irc, only log in once every week or something that are gonna be exiled from one place to another.

[_Kila_]

Originally Posted by Ferretus

Scenario 2
Bob starts up late and is still in protection, will talk on the forums etc yet still gets exiled for being a "noob".

I've never really seen anything like this happen, I always do my best to contact the new player and teach them to use IRC and when they get on, help to teach them to play. Last round I actually helped to teach a few of my galmates that were returning from pre PaX.

[[ND]Kar]

Most of the people from my galaxy that get exiled are n00bs, yes, but I know for a fact they get messaged by at least 4 people in our galaxy before they get exiled. We have tried contacting them, but they are simply inactive. I think most galaxies would not be so quick to exile a n00b that messaged back, got on IRC, and actually tried playing the game. It's the people that sign up an account, initiate 50 roids, and then leave for a week that get exiled.

[wakey]

Forest mentioned writing clip note guides that could be sent ti new players via the ingame system or posted on the forums. I like this idea and if as a community we could produce a good set of these on all the major areas it could help everyone train new players. After all anyone whos tried to really help train newbies will know full well how time consuming this can be and anything that quickly lets those wanting to help get the basics passed on allows them more time to really help develop the players.

Not only could it be used to help our own galaxies but also players whom want to help further could use them to 'adopt' a small galaxy, give them the basics, help them get into alliances and such like and such like. As I said above anything which makes it a bit less time consuming will encourage more to be helpful.

Perhaps also the guides could be expanded to cover basics of running an alliance also to help new alliances miss all the usual pitfalls

Links to all the guides could be placed in a sticky thread on here which i would be happy to create and maintain

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally Posted by wakey

Links to all the guides could be placed in a sticky thread on here which i would be happy to create and maintain

Well, i have already started this - last round, i wrote a How NOT to attack guide, that effectively used an example of a really bad attack on a galaxymate of mine in R13 as an example of what went wrong. I think listed a step by step process to the ideal attack - this needs to be updated a tad for this round, but it is largely the same. Also, my Generic Tickstart Guide explained some of the first researches and constructions to do. My Terran/Cathaar/Xandathrii/Zikonian fleet guides are designed to mainly advise new players on what to build and why - and how to use them. All of these can be found on the Strategy forum.

Unfortunately, they tend to be long as i have great difficulty explaining my innermost thoughts and desires in a succient fashion that captures the essense of the subtlies that lie entangled within planetarion, yet are extremely important to grasp and run with. still :\

[Wandows]

The thing is though... that for those new ppl (and maybe in general) there should be a easy accessible list of links to guides like that. As most new ppl have no idea what they are starting and where they can find the required info for them to play a proper round. You can write all the thread you like, but as long as there is no clear and easy to locate list of links that cover all the major aspects of the game, i doubt many new players even find the guides ( for example a 'Guides' menu item ingame with links for all topics concerning game aspects).

[Remy]

disable exile. problem partly solved. experienced players will whine but get a life a try to be a goo dplayer without massexiling to get other big planets to save your ass.

[wakey]

I'm not sure thats the case Remy and I believe it may very well damage as many players as it helps.

Not only do you risk sticking people in galaxies that are completely inactive but your get things that happened in my r3 galaxy when exile wasnt possible with some of the good players deleting their account and making a new one so as to get a better galaxy thus again removing the experiance

[Judge]

How about a financial incentive to help n00bs.

An experienced player on sign up can elect to help a maximum of 3 people as their guide/helper/instructor.

for each one he gets a partial credit, say 1/3rd for each one, this would in effect give him a free round if he took on 3 players, or could use the credit to help out a friend or alliance buddy?

tho i would say that the caveat would be that the n00bs would have to have paid accounts and not free to allow qualification of the credits.

[Remy]

wakey, you are right of course.

this cant be solved it seems.....

[wakey]

The incentive should be that you are helping the game not because your getting a finacial incentive. After all incentives like this are very dangourous. After all how do you judge when people are really helping and when they are just coasting it for a free credit. Its all well and good having people choose 3 people to help BUT its little use if they arent actually guiding them whast the use. Just like people have to want to be helped, people also have to want to help others to be useful. There are things which can be aided by incentives, helping people learn to play this game isnt really one of them

[Wandows]

a good way to help imho would be to add several topics to the galaxy forum. These would show below the 'real' forum and each topic should cover a certain (vital) aspect of the game, for example a 'Getting started' one that explains a nice start for your planet, a 'Research / Construction' one explaining the use of both options and what would be good to pay attention to at which point in the game, a 'Combat' one explaining how combat actually works, what to pay attention to and some basic tactical help for each race (yes this would require updating every round, but Sovereign's Guides could be used for that, or whoever writes them in the future).

The idea behind it is not to explain how everything works according to the code (click on button x and you see that option x is happening) like most of the manual is doing, but give them a feel for the game and get them in the mind of the experienced players regarding choises that have to be made how and when. This would be more appropriate in the game itself in a few easy to locate threads, then having them search through every game resource thats available untill they hopefully find the right information, which very very few new ppl bother to do i bet.

[Aerynrox]

Thought I'd jump in here to give you a newbie's first impression of the game. I've appreciated everyone's comments, but didn't see that anyone new to the game had posted on a topic which is most obviously of concern to them.
I joined today after hearing about this game in another forum, and was thoroughly enjoying myself, even if feeling confused, until I logged into my account after a couple ticks had gone by and found a note informing me that I am being exiled. To date that is the only communication I have received from anyone in my galaxy.

No welcome. Certainly no offer of help. Quite the unfriendly community.

And while reading this forum has made me feel better about the community at large, it hasn't made me feel any better about my chances to play this game in any kind of an enjoyable way. I work all day, and can scam my boss enough to log on a few times, but there's no way I can dowload a client and participate in IRC chat often enough, it would seem, to satisfy even the most tolerant of GCs.

So, I'll probably just leave. And it's too bad because I could have had fun, and with a little time, probably could have contributed to the larger efforts of my galaxy.

[Cayl]

Aerynox, you've simply nailed down the problem with the game. At every turn the development of the game has been focused towards maintaining an aspect of stamina. That is to say, the game makes sure that rewards go to the people who have internet access 24/7 and are free to wake up and interupt their normal lives literally at a moments notice whenever their phone might ring.

Anything other than very minor tweaks otherwise are quickly and loudly shot down.

The number of people in the world who are willing to pay for a game like this has probably leveled out at about 2-3000 for good.

[Aerynrox]

Maybe when I retire or win the lottery, I'll try again.
Or, maybe after awhile someone will figure out how to make this game work for newbies.

Until then, I wish you all well. Even if I can't play and enjoy Planetarion, I'm glad you all can.
There's another game out there for me, I'm sure. It's the 21st century, after all.

[wakey]

Originally Posted by Aerynrox

Maybe when I retire or win the lottery, I'll try again.
Or, maybe after awhile someone will figure out how to make this game work for newbies.

Until then, I wish you all well. Even if I can't play and enjoy Planetarion, I'm glad you all can.
There's another game out there for me, I'm sure. It's the 21st century, after all.

Its a shame really because small/new players like you are rare. By that I mean those willing to post on these forums, the forums themselves can often be like the game in that they arent that inviting and all too often fighting for the lower end of the game is left to a small number of figureheads whom will always get outshouted by the masses

[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.