I'm not sure where to put this because it isn't aimed at higher admins such as Khan, Veynom, etc, it's more the "veteran" players or "lesser helpers".

I have noticed there have been quite a few new players having problems with people such as WvI and others because of the responses they get to questions on forums. I understand that a lot of the time it's because they haven't read helpfiles, but to be honest, this game is going to be getting a lot of 13 year old players, and some not so bright ones at that so searching through this site, these forums for exactly what you're looking for isn't a skill they always possess.

Some of the posts they get in response are quite rude, and often cause them to just quit, which in turn means their friends don't play, and they wouldn't advice anyone else to try out the game at all.

Anyway, the purpose of this post is to ask why are these so called "helpers" responding to people like this? What made me write this, instead of just erm, not writing it, was reading Dantius's sim news post. This is meant to be a game where everyone can chip in and suggest ideas without being insulting, yet he has called the hundred or so people who voiced their opinion to have gammorrean added back in as NPC as "whiny race suggesters". They aren't whining, it's their opinion. Besides, it doesn't look very professional to have a post like that on the main news page for new people to see, it doesn't give the right image about the game and how "friendly" it is.

I'm guessing most people will disagree with this, it doesn't happen all the time, but it happens more than it should (which is basically not at all). I'm curious of what people think of this isssue.

1) Veynom has said just as bad things to players as myself/Hal/whoever. Gives Joe more work though to perform cleanup operations. That might be a good thing.

2) It's the new players that don't read the rules, don't read threads, don't read stickies, or just don't read period that end up getting chewed out. This includes the things that are in cap letters "READ FIRST!!!"

Alot of the time, these new people AREN'T chewed out. People like Syn and Khan offer help and suggestions or just contrary opinions and STILL get called "mean", "jerks", or just in someone's pocket.

Alot of people, who after being chewed out, have drastically improved. People like Zen Savo. Others seem to continue to take pride in having an IQ equal to average room temperature.

I agree with you on Dantius. And do you know why? It's his JOB to handle it. If he cannot correctly handle protests, he should simply step down from the position so that someone who CAN may take over.

(And it's back in as PC, not NPC Zeke. :P )

I agree with you, a lot of people are just idiots and even when you do help them they act stupid, just something we have to accept in life sadly. But some people are just genuinly confused (or perhaps foreign so cannot understand help files that well).

It's slightly different with Veynom because he usually only insults people he knows, so they don't usually take it to heart or just throw something back at him. It's just the hostile approach peopel get sometimes (like I said it's not all the time).

Bigger issues are the things that get posted on the sim news though, from what I saw it wasn't a "few" people either who wern't happen with a decision the races admin had made.

I meant PC btw :P

as mentioned there is a difference between new and old members.

with new members people should have some patience with them and so on.


I certainly agree on the recent simpost, that is more or less unacceptable, atleast if you are to have any similiar position like that.

Though, patience, Tyr, only lasts a certain ammount of time, or for a certain ammount of cases. After the 100th newbie kiddie not reading anything and behaving like a full scale idiot, I'm turning to "all newbie kiddies are retards until proven otherwise".

ofcourse,
I have seen both cases were people "jump" on new members without actually giving them a chance aswell as giving them plenty of advice before they are "bashed"

also, not all newbie posts on the boards, it is usually thoose that needs help or does not understand the rules that post, which is somethign to think about.

Hostility and rivalries won't ever disappear (goes for just about every community, online and off), but you definitely make a good point, Ezekiel, that such things have no place on the very public Sim News. I also try to make a point of deleting counterproductive posts in this forum, so hopefully new players can always come back here with questions, even if people are snapping at the on IRC or on the other boards. It is no secret that some places are less newb-friendly than others.

I also try to contact some newbies privately if I see them getting bashed or anything to give them advise or the like to prevent them from getting bashed. I would contact the basher occasionally as well but in some cases it won't help. I only recently started doing this though so not sure on the results yet.

On this board and the welcome forum on the message center and sim news all bashing or otherwise should be removed or ideally not included in the first place.

Well, I think they should find out for themselves about making their descisions. They didn't read the rules and that is their fault.

BTW Thanks for the compliment, Wilhelm.

It just makes people really pissy when we hear a question asked for the thousanth time, and someone had just asked the question in the topic (Welcome forum, general questions, ect.)

People who read the obvious answers do fine. People who don't, and continue to refuse to do so... well, they do less well.

Bryce simple solution to that. Don't answer or don't respond to those questions. People complain about newbies asking the same questions and complaints over and over again and well they do. So either we, the combine and all of its members, provide the answers to their questions no matter how repitive it might be or we don't.

There is no excuse to flame someone if they are asking in the appropriate spots, even then if they are at least semi appropriate spots direct them to where they should post or don't respond.

If you get pissed because someone asks the same question a million other people have asked you don't have to respond! I often will write up replies that bash the hell out of newbies or vets but I don't post them not because I care if someone gets mad at me. It just isn't good for the game, it devalues the game more than anything else so I don't hit the post button.

This should only apply to the appropriate forums for the most part. All of the Problem Centre Board, the Welcome Forum, and a few others I can't think of off the top of my head are the newbie centers. In other places flame away, unless you are a moderator of that forum where you should be nice or at least polite when moderating.

This might be a bit off topic but I feel it should be said.

It all comes down to the number of players wanted VS. the quality of players wanted.

Right now its obviously (and unadvertedly?) aimed to quality over quantity. Because with the kind of people officially and unofficially 'running things' on the forums, thats the way its going to be.

If the SWC wants to chase after quantity at some point, they will need to add some more stuff to help mechanize a solution to the annoyances: like having new people unable to post on the forums until they have passed a test of every FAQ and GUIDE you guys think they should. How hard would it be to make a random variable questions test they had to pass to gain access to the message center and rpg forums? or whatever forums wanted.

EDIT: I totally agree with Kyle.

Another suggestion:

Allow people with the required access level to remove XPs/CPs/credits/assets from people who fail to read the forum rules (which are posted in every forum that has them in a sticky thread labled as such). I think that most 'n00bs' will only do that once afterwards.

*EG*

I realize you weren't entirely serious, but that was being discussed on IRC nonetheless, so I'll just point out that the new players who most often are the ones repeatedly failing to read the rules are also the ones who tend to have no assets, CPs, or XP to begin with.

It's just something that will never go away; players will always join, find all of the rules pages intimidating or difficult to navigate and comprehend, and will turn to other players for help. Many new players will overlook sticky posts, too, which is why, when players ask a question about something clearly addressed elsewhere, I just link them to that area or tell them how to find it instead of giving the answer directly.

There really isn't anything we can do about this issue aside from continuing to be patient with new players, since each time a new player joins, they start the process over again. It isn't possible for one newbie to learn from another newbie's mistake when they haven't already been exposed to that or encountered the other newbie. We basically have to properly train each new player individually. :P

In any case, regarding what Paparrin said, I believe that the best way to draw in and actually maintain a larger member count has very little to do with any of the things mentioned, and more to do with available in-game features. From what I have seen, most players leave because they get bored and don't like that there is nothing to do but wander around until a faction picks them up. Restricting players from sections of the game/community for a period would only make that problem worse. Your suggestion actually attempts to increase the quality of the players, and not the quantity (not necessarily a bad thing, but not what you were going for).

What I was going for was for a way to reduce the noob annoyances some people whine about so much, even if the mass of players increases significantly.

And you are not really restricting them from all the forums, just a few.

“It's just something that will never go away; players will always join, find all of the rules pages intimidating or difficult to navigate and comprehend, and will turn to other players for help. ”

It will never go away, but if that is too painful for some, they should find ways to reduce it. A clear message shown as they join (in any shape or form: a test, a warning, a recommendation, a video,) will surely reduce the amount of people doing that. Its masochistic not to look for solutions.

Finding the rules intimidating and asking questions is one thing (and something a faction is for, generally). On the other hand, completely failing to read any and all sticky threads in a forum that say "READ THIS FIRST" and "DO NOT SUGGEST" and then doing several of the things those threads explicitely say not to do is just plain ignorant.

You might get away with doing it once, but when you do it multiple times after people tell you to read stickies, you're just begging for flames.

And even so, a few people I have seen doing that have stuck around and have wised up, becoming contributing members of the community.

I already have an entry on my TODO to implement "Red" topics for the forums, meaning they are ?ber-sticky and shown in red/bold ... maybe then they will read them.

there is also the problem, on occasion, with too many stickies.
Take the race suggestion area.
It has 9 stickes/locked threads that are somehow relevant or important.

Yes, the Races forum could do with some trimming in terms of sticky posts. Most of those seemed to be added by Dantius when he took over, and most of them seem relevant. I'm not sure how long it would make the threads to combine them, though. I might look at it, if I can be bothered later.

But even then, there's one thread named "Banned races" that's simply screaming to be read by ANYONE who's thinking of hitting the new topic button.