Results of the Headmin Debate - New Player Server

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Stickymayhem
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Results of the Headmin Debate - New Player Server

Post by Stickymayhem » #612992

Thanks to Armhulen, Goof, Rave and Lukas for participating, and especially thanks to Sacko who organised the whole thing, moderated and was generally fun and excellent.

I think a place to discuss some of the points we went over would be cool, and I wanted an excuse to post, for discussion with the other candidates who couldn't participate, a particular idea we came to a consensus on.

In debating how we could better accomodate new players as we attempt to make the community more accessible, we settled on an interesting idea: A new player server.

The idea is if you have more than a certain number of hours (The arbitrarily suggested cut off was 100 but this number isn't the important part) you cannot play on this server, it is purely for transitioning new people to the station. They are not locked out of our normal servers, but only new players can join this one. Players with more than the cut off number of hours can APPLY to join the newbie server, with the expectations being they do not abuse their knowledge over new players, play too ruthlessly, and make some effort to help them learn the game mechanics and how to participate in the community. Anyone freely murderboning or powergame validhunting new players with this role, for example, would have their whitelist removed.

This could be a really strong way to give new players a less intimidating starting point to join the community. I don't think we have the influx of new players to make this necessary just yet, but as we expand and touch more mainstream areas like twitch, or get our next youtuber wave, it could help us handle things better than with the last wave.

Also feel free to rate, discuss and debate the results of the conversation.

Here's the debate if you missed it (THANKS FOR RECORDING BOOKTOWER)
[youtube]EZ4qbTSz528[/youtube]
Last edited by Stickymayhem on Mon Aug 30, 2021 9:52 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Mothblocks
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Re: Results of the Headmin Debate - New Player Server

Post by Mothblocks » #612994

It's a neat idea, but here are some immediate takeaways from this post in specific:

1. Applications to join the new player server would create potentially significantly more work for admins and head admins.
2. Data collection is necessary to see how many players under 100 hours we have that play more than a handful of times.
3. The way a significant amount of new players learn, and what I want to encourage more, is by having veterans teach them the ropes. Those veterans, though they can apply, will likely just stay on their own servers.

It's something that I think could potentially be workable, but I'd much rather a few things:

1. The game needs to teach itself significantly better. Mechanics like the operating computer are nice, though a bit worse now that they don't connect to stasis beds.
2. The wiki needs to be significantly better. After new preferences menu I plan on starting an initiative to automate a lot of our wiki pages. I also have spoken in detail about how the new player guide is actually really terrible, and explains WAY too much that a new player won't need. It's written by old players, for old players to criticize, instead of being written by old players for NEW players.
3. Lean harder into the existing "intern" config. I have hardly seen any interns and I'm unsure if that's because the config number is too low, or if there just aren't that many without a tide.
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Re: Results of the Headmin Debate - New Player Server

Post by MrStonedOne » #613025

Mothblocks wrote: 3. Lean harder into the existing "intern" config. I have hardly seen any interns and I'm unsure if that's because the config number is too low, or if there just aren't that many without a tide.
Because intern status was coded to break the 4th wall in a way that gimps their ability to pass as another member of the crew (such as when antag) by stealing their id, we set it low to not lock new and up and coming players out of those experiences.

I haven't ran the stats in quite a while, but generally speaking we see high double digit new players every day. (although a majority are hit and run single rounders)
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Re: Results of the Headmin Debate - New Player Server

Post by Mothblocks » #613028

Yeah, that makes sense. It is a bit unfortunate it's designed like that, though I know why since I was there for its inception.

I still want more things like that though rather than an entire server.
Shaps-cloud wrote: Mon Dec 07, 2020 7:59 am May eventually become one of the illusive maintainer-headmins if they choose to pursue that path, having a coder in the senior admin leadership has usually been positive for both sides in the past.
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Re: Results of the Headmin Debate - New Player Server

Post by Timberpoes » #613051

Dedicated new player server not good. Effective containment server. Population low. Believe new players would learn very little. Alt accounts. Shitters. Whole 9 yards.

Even if work perfectly as intended, low-impact carebear server unlikely to prepare players for true tg experience. Require heavy moderation & admin presence. Teaching. Training. Manpower not available.

Suggest this best accomplished in-game. Admins identify new players & where appropriate recruit help.

Personal anecdote from own experiences: Observer notices new player. Player struggling in medbay. Difficulty figuring out surgeries & treatments. Observer asks if anyway they can help.

Dr. Wags-His-Tail MD enters the scene. Janitor lizard ventcrawl to medbay. Teach. Mentor. Do amazing job. Promoted to Dr. Wags-His-Tail CMO. Unsure if gave player positive note for this. If did not, very sorry. Player deserved it!

Engage community with teaching! Tease carrot! Rewards! Custom Discord rank! Custom forum rank! Antag tokens! Positive notes!

Personally advocate these all better ways than Tutorial Island server. Solution within community instead of outside community.
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