(Sorry about the wall of text, I like to ramble. If you want to get to my point, just go to the text in bold.) Hey there. As you may know, Empires has recently been listed under the "Game Mods" section of Steam. http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=app&AppId=900620 Simply showing the mod on that page has had an incredible effect. For the first time in months, Empires currently has four nearly-full servers and several other active ones. Even if this is not because of the mod listing, there's been plenty of change lately. In the past few days, I've seen more new players in the game than I've ever seen in a half a month. There's plenty of eager and curious players that are trying out the mod. This is the best time to get Empires going. If new players join and really like the game, they could tell their friends on Steam to play, bringing even more players into the game. It's critical to take advantage of this because it's the best time to expand the player base. Empires has a slow development cycle and the community will slowly decrease without updates. A burst of players like this is the perfect opportunity to keep the mod alive. Believe it or not, the Empires community has a fairly bad reputation for being very anti-newbie. You probably see it every day in the servers; new players being yelled at because they don't know how to do something. It's not always their fault. We often say, "Go read the manual, noob!". But a good game should not require you to read the manual to play it. Most new players will just find the mod listed on Steam, download it and jump into the fullest server. If they don't understand the game or don't like the players, they will leave within a few rounds. Restricting the game to people who bother to read the manual will just end in the slow death of the mod. So this is what we have to do, as a community, together. 1. Don't yell at newbies. This goes for everyone; including you, me, and maybe even HSM. Instead of yelling, help them out. Think of what you can do to explain the part of the game that they don't understand. If that's too much to ask, then just don't say anything at all. 2. Answer newbie questions, or don't say anything at all. When people ask how to build a vehicle, tell them how to build a vehicle. Don't say "read the fucking manual", or "press F10" or something like that, because chances are they will get frustrated and stop playing the mod. This goes for other common newbie questions, like "how do I switch classes" and even "how to get ammos". 3. If you tell newbies to do something and they don't listen, don't yell at them. It's not their fault. Chances are, they are learning a new feature of the game or just don't understand what you're saying. This is for you commanders: "Guard this unit" to a newbie literally means "Guard this unit", not "Build this thing" like we're all used to. That's all I have to say. Thanks for reading.
As much as I agree most of the vets are already really kind to new people.. Things are a LOT better now for new people then say a year or two ago.. Plus if some noob is going to dislike the game because of some idiot then he shouldn't be playing games online.. It's like that in every online game you play..
If you aren't a god damn new player or don't intend to help new players, don't play on the damn training server. Especially don't drive around fricken killing all the refineries and spawn points on the damn map while people are trying to show others how to do things like build buildings and create vehicles. If you want to sit there with a heavy and use HE on crap and keep their res down so they can't afford to fight back, go to a damn clan server where people are supposed to play to win at all costs.
http://forums.empiresmod.com/showthread.php?t=6290 http://forums.empiresmod.com/showthread.php?t=6290 http://forums.empiresmod.com/showthread.php?t=6290 http://forums.empiresmod.com/showthread.php?t=6290 http://forums.empiresmod.com/showthread.php?t=6290 Sweden rules btw.
Jephir, I have never EVER asked someone to build something and have them ask how. If they did, I'd be happy to tell them. But people don't ask. Most go screw around and don't help the team or listen at all.
This. People have a problem with learning things, unless you force them to listen, they'll screw about.
Noobs have a problem with learning things, all others, including general new players have not. It just takes a while. It took me years. People do have a problem with players they don't know forcing them to do stuff without explanation while they're trying to learn something by themselves. If we follow your way i can join a server, yell at new players long enough untill they do what i say, namely to grab the cv and drive it over the bottom of the river towards the enemy as a surprise rush. Will he be surprised when the game ends 20 seconds later. Next game i yell at him: good attempt, too bad the other team got us first, try it again ! This time it'll work. People have to gain experience. It takes time. Sure you can suggest stuff, and you should. I've seen Brutos help new players very well. But don't think that some new 30 year old player will be happy when you act like you're holding his hand, or when you're offending him. It's not the easiest game. Please realise this. It will also never change, cause new players will keep coming, untill the mod dies. Best way to deal with this is to relax and by having experienced people evenly divided. It's the ONLY way to keep the game interesting for both experienced and new players.
I've had people ask me how to build things before. It depends on what servers you play on, some have more newbies than others. My point here is not to force you answer every question that newbies ask. My point is that the anti-newbie flaming in this community needs to stop for the sake of the mod.
