Idea for Green Newbie Mentoring

[joshua johnson]

I have just seen a green newbie come into an area.

We all know what it looks like -

New Player says: Where is (far away cantr place)
You say: Never heard of it, why?
New Player says: I have a character there and I want to go there, oh and why is everyone called a man in his twenties in this game?

Anyway....what if the first three or so characters from brand new players spawned into areas with "mentor players" or something, and these characters were notified that a green newbie is on now....and when the green newbie starts, they get a notice or are pointed out to their mentors.

Or how about this, when people sign up they get the newbie guide emailed to them - it won't make them read it but a few of them might.

Please add other suggestions, since we all want more people to join, but it is sometimes rather tedious until they "get it" ( I am sure I raised some character's blood pressure with my first characters, too)

[The Industriallist]

I would think if they had an inclination to read things rather than act like brainless idiots the information accessable from the front page would be a help...isn't there also a page of information stuck in your face when you start an account, half of which relates to the capital rule?

Yes. I just checked. There is, and you have to check a box saying you've read it. Obviously, people get a lot of practice ignoring things like that from software licenses, but still...I think some means of clobbering them without driving them out of the game is best. I tend to bite their heads off (OOC) if they make it oblvious that they ignored the documentation.

And if they aren't willing to read the introductory material from on high, they could come to the forum...but all this requires them to have ehough clue to know that they need to know how the game works to play it.

On a semi-unrelated note, that same page references helecopters, which I'm quite certain don't exist. And if someone has too much time (or any) on their hands, rewriting some of the capital rule desctiption might be good...

Your characters are not automatically a family, a clan, a tribe, an army, a company, or so on - not necessarily even friends.

While this point is made more clear later on in the (paragraph-sized) bullet, from this first sentence it doesn't sound as if they are required not to be any of those things.

Your characters do not automatically know what your other characters have seen or done.

A bit narrow...your characters aren't supposed to know anything from each other, not just events. (except for the grey area arround machines...)

[The Sociologist]

Yes. I just checked. There is, and you have to check a box saying you've read it. Obviously, people get a lot of practice ignoring things like that from software licenses, but still...

I think the much-welcomed, often-mentioned, long-awaited, (and several other hyphenated combinations later...) but as yet non-appearing, FAQ might be a help. People who don't read software licenses do tend to read FAQ's. Also "quickstart" pages.

This was my problem when I first joined. I ran in circles looking for a FAQ, while finding the background a bit long-winded.

OK, you'll say, we don't particularly want such impatient people joining Cantr. But the point is, there are a gazillion "online games" out there, most of which combine to form one simply huge pile of poo. Impatience is an occupational hazard when scanning through the big portals for online games to try out.

So keep it short and sweet, and add the FAQ before you try mentoring.
.

[colonel]

That is very true. I found that when I joined I was lost at first and asked lots of questions in character though. Now many people just want to plug in and play and do not want to bother with reading anything. (Looks at all of his ps2 games and realizes that they come with instructions.) I mean that is just the way most of us are.
I think that everyone that has played for awhile can smell a new player right away when they write. And usually everyone that has played for awhile helps out right away. Or that is what I have seen.

I think it is all of our jobs to make sure new people learn things in the game so then we get more out of it too.

Those are just my thoughts on it though.

[The Industriallist]

This was my problem when I first joined. I ran in circles looking for a FAQ, while finding the background a bit long-winded.

OK, you'll say, we don't particularly want such impatient people joining Cantr. But the point is, there are a gazillion "online games" out there, most of which combine to form one simply huge pile of poo.

Most of them are at knockoffs of the standard lame web strategy game, with a few features added, sometimes mislabelled as RPGs...The real RPGs are generally cheap near-arcade games...

I knew Cantr was different as soon as I saw the nature of the material...have you noticed that most of the webgames cantr links to have no FAQ or other information on the game at all? Cantr has big, rich, if slightly confusing pages of text. No content free ranting about the usual points those games hype. HAPPY

Also...the two pages of introductory material are just over a screenful each, and more or less redundant. Most decent FAQs are at least 3 times that long...even if they aren't much good.

Of course...I usually read game manuals before installing the game...twice. For some games, the manual is more fun than the game is...maybe I'm just nuts.

But honestly...for a slow paced webgame, why would you start playing before you know what it actually is?

EDIT: Of course, since obviously people are following your pattern, not mine, I guess all I'm doing is venting my annoyance.

[Agar]

I'd like a faq, and I'd like it very much, but how much can be put in it without breaking the capital rule? Everything the characters are supposed to know is supposed to be found out in game, so using information in the faq would be OOC knowledge, and break the capital rule...

Kind of a circular argument.

What department would be able to act as editors to a faq? Who do we ask to get a faq that explains the workings and concepts of cantr but doesn't give the players who use it an unfair advantage? A faq would help get more players in the game and make those players more aware of the way the game works, so problems newbies players make over and over again will stop happening.

I know there's a faq topic, but it's about what goes in it, not how to get it done.

[Anthony Roberts]

I am the one you seek. I am the FAQ writer and maintainer. The FAQ should have been posted on the site, months ago, I don't know why it hasn't been. Jos was like "Cool, you made a FAQ. Send it to the GAC for approval, and then it'll be uploaded." - Weeks later "It's been approved."

Yeah. Okay, so... why isn't it uploaded?

I have it sitting on my hard drive, and I've yet to add a single thing since thing because I thought it was never going to become public.

Why didn't I want it on the forums? Not all Cantr players use the forums, especially when you just start out (Unless you end up having a question, and you need to resort to the forum denizens.) - No matter, I shall bring the FAQ to the forum.

Right now.

[jeslange]

A link on the main Cantr page to the forums might be nifty. It can't be too hard to realize there's a forum, since so many people find it, but I also can't think of where it's mentioned. (I know it is).

[The Industriallist]

DISCUSS CANTR
Cantr II is a very anonymous game. Nobody can see who is playing what character. You can however join an out-of-character group to chat about the game - or of course about anything - with your fellow players. Please make sure that you know and understand the capital rule: you cannot use knowledge that you gather from the out-of-character group when you are playing your character. Anyway, please join

The forum for out-of-character discussion can be found here. Joining this group is strongly encouraged, as the game administrators will use this group as the main forum to discuss new ideas, or to find assistance, or to explain rules that are not clear.

Right under the character list and main control buttons. Which isn't somewhere it's too likely to be noticed...

[SekoETC]

I think I read the help files before joining but still watching them again may bring up some surprises. ("Oh, so projects do not automatically end up in your inventory even if you're the only one working on it?") And I bet it doesn't say anywhere that people are named "a man/woman in his/her (enter number)ties" before you give them a name. I seriously thought the first woman I met was an NPC and felt really stupid talking to her, I was like, I must be really desperate chatting to a bot...

[The Industriallist]

Doesn't it say pretty clearly that there are no NPCs?

Not sure...it ought to say it right out somewhere, but if you read all the stuff you can kind of infer it at least.

[Appleide]

Put the link "CANTR forum' on the first page. I didn't even know a forum existed until I somehow for no particular reason put the word "forum" at the end of the web address bar. the forum kind of was a miracle.

I saw this game two years ago, I should 've joined then, so I would have been rich, but I didn't because they didn't "approve" of my email address. that email never came and I forgot about cantr. you guys need an automatic approval team

[Lumera]

Well, I guess I'm one of the lucky ones in that I didn't have that much trouble figuring out how things worked. The interface itself gave me a little trouble; I remember being confused about having to start a project and then add materials before I could actually work on it, but at least I didn't go around blurting OOC questions in the middle of town.

Figuring out how to name people didn't take all that long either, but that's probably because I started off by checking everybody's descriptons trying to figure out who the people mentioned in the notes were.

And it does help that you can hover your mouse over any of the buttons and get an explanation for what it does...

The FAQ would be nice, though, even if it was just on the forum. (a link to the forum would be nice, too, and would fit nicely right under the one to the discussion channel). I'm always the type that wants to read all the documentation on a game before I play it, and while the 'description and background' page helped give me an idea of what the game was about, there was very little real information. Plus, I can see now that a lot of what's there doesn't even apply anymore.

[The Industriallist]

http://www.cantr.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3488

[Lumera]

I guess I'm in the habit of skimming past the stickies...