Another flood is around the corner. I'm hard at work trying to increase traffic to our servers. But there's a problem: unchecked growth threatens to greatly lower gameplay standards and also squeeze out regular community members.Eternal September or the September that never ended is Usenet slang for a period beginning around 1993 when Internet service providers began offering Usenet access to many new users. The flood of new users overwhelmed the existing culture for online forums and the ability to enforce existing norms.
I remember the ssethtide. We had to open up Event Hall as an overflow server. Without many established players there they were left to their own devices and taught each other rules and expectations. This resulted in lower gameplay standards and a lot of issues that admins like Phuzzylodgik had to put a lot of work into keeping in check, such as: rampant ock-ick, ick-ock, and names that clearly violated naming standards, among other general misunderstood rules. Closing and integrating Event Hall players into the community at large proved to be a bit difficult as well as players wanted to stick with the standards they learned on.
How then do we allow a flood of new players to engage our servers (and learn how to play) without having them outnumber our established community members (who would assist them in learning)?
I propose a Newbie Cap, something that makes sure that the ratio of experienced community members is never smaller than the number of new players. This would allow some new players to join and learn, while other new players would have an opportunity to observe and get hours in to bypass the cap. The cap I am suggesting would be very generous, consider something like a 2:1 ratio of experienced crew to interns. That would be 30 new players and 60 experienced players on a 90 pop server.
I've suggested this idea in the past, and Oranges hasn't been for it. Having that said, I would like to have some discussion with the community about this.
How can we future proof for the next flood, how can we welcome in new players without suffering a drop in standards? If the newbie cap isn't an acceptable solution, what is?