How to run a new player off.

[Mariana Xiechai]

How about flashing the word "Noob" in bright orange over their heads until they've been deflowered so to speak by the community?  Say, you loose your Noob status after 3 or 4 people have vouched for you?   

( Yes, same as tman's idea but a little more degrading xD )

xD That would make me cackle, but I'm pretty sure someone coming off of something as intense as CoD or whathaveyou that screams insults at the screen all the time would probably not appreciate it. They'd want to get that darn orange flashing thing off of it. They'd want to be the best on the server and spend hours leveling their...

Heeeeeeeey. Wait a minute.

THE ANSWER IS REVERSE PSYCHOLOGY! 

[Rigwyn]

Well, your average noob wouldn't see the NOOB tag anyway since it's flashing over their head... and by the time they figured it out, they'd probably be vouched in by other members who are either terribly embarrassed for them or who have some sense of self imposed moral obligation. You could barter with them too - offering your vouch in exchange for their service to you. Ie... "Noob, go to X, Y, Z, and earn me a glyph and I'll help relive you of your Noobginity".  You would be helping them get cemented into the game too.

[Illysia]

... (which is funny since my char couldn't bear her char back in the day).  Cheers.

What? Illysia was nice... bossy but nice.

If you get your nuts in a twist, don't feel bad, it happens to all of us regardless of physical gender, or gender identity.

Yes, that would be rather hard for those of us lacking certain parts of anatomy.

I think part of the problem is you don't really know who's a new player and who isn't.  Maybe this is a terrible idea, but if we somehow marked players as new (for example, have the name above their head be orange for the first 5-10 hours of gameplay or something) then it would be easier to know who might need help if you're playing a "good" character and who to send an OOC tell to if you're playing a character that isn't so friendly.

Not a terrible idea since PS won't have a vibrant enough community to attract those kinds of trolls and griefers for a while yet. I like how Puzzle Pirates handles it. New players have a different color name that fades into the normal color as time passes. So, you are bright green when you start and normal players have yellow or something like that and as the days pass your name becomes more and more yellow.

All you would have to do in PS is make it so that that mechanism only kicks in for new accounts. If you have multiple accounts you can suck it up for a bit. Maybe give a few months of newbie status to account for not playing regularly for your first few months.

[Rigwyn]

While I liked the fading color idea, it would definitely confuse noobs when they see this over other people's heads. Seeing the word "NOOB" is very easy to understand ( and funnily enough, it would take a long time for them to put 2 and 2 together and wonder if there was one over their head too ) but fading colors... I don't know. Your average noob might not be able to see tell that the color is transitioning and they certainly won't equate orange lets say with noob and yellow with elite.

Often noobs don't even talk, they just stand there and look at you, then run off. I suspect that either most of them are unable to type ( they might be very young ) or are foreign and don't speak the language. I know that in the past I've been an advocate for giving the noobs a hurdle to overcome and letting those who are unable to pass fail ( remember the old tutorial discussion ), but now I'm starting to think that maybe that's just way to complex for new players.

I'm starting to think that perhaps new players need things to be made a whole lot easier for them. Ie. use small words, say things very slowly, don't ask them questions, don't try to get them to make choices. Sort of treat them like you would a small child or an old person until they have had enough time to warm up and figure out that we are talking to one another via the chat box ( in main).

[Illysia]

They are probably more uninvested than childlike. :p They need to do recon in game before they decide whether or not they wish to go further and start interacting. In most other games newbs are quite active and vocal, but since planeshift is its own weird beast people are cautious at first.

Newbies are pretty good at taking the transition in Puzzle Pirates, I'm sure it could work here too.

[Rigwyn]

Well, we already have a tutorial that shows them how to do difficult things like crafting and trading items. These are the sorts of things that would leave them banging their heads against the keyboard and chewing their mouse. In all seriousness, maybe more minor steps would help. Some non-material token rewords ( ie. verbal affirmation ) for performing progressively more complex tasks - like typing in a one word response, tpying a two word response, using a noun and a very, using an adjective.

The idea here is that if you reinforce their progress incrementally, they will eventually be able to translate their thoughts into words and vice versa without realizing that they have been trained. The nice thing about the non-material reinforcements is that the are free and won't affect the game economy. This practice might help them in real life too regarding verbal communication. The ability to go from having a desire, to realizing that you need to do something in order to get it does not come easily to everyone. Actually formulating the steps needed to attain that goal and doing a mental walk through to test the proposed idea as a time saving measure could be saved for later on is its very complex stuff.

[Illysia]

Well, you can trying suggesting it in the tutorial remake thread but I'm pretty sure that the tutorial is being simplified so they should be able to take on other things once they get through it. It seems to be more settings info than teaching them how to craft and whatnot.

The difference here is that I don't think we have to train them like dogs, just make them feel welcome and comfortable to be open. I rarely had problems getting newbies to speak up in the Stonehead but that is because it was a safe haven. They didn't feel they would get jumped for "messing up."

[Rigwyn]

Dogs?

[Illysia]

Too me it comes off as patting them on the head everytime we get them to roll over. But without the treat. :/

[Rigwyn]

Well, I see it ultimately as treating them with respect - treating them like they are geniuses only leads to frustration.

[Illysia]

I wouldn't call using the main chat complicated. It might take some time with other tabs but main is no harder than texting or IM. I think players just need to just be a little tolerant of their first forrays into main, no brackets won't kill you, and then quickly teach them the art of asking for help OOCly.

[Rigwyn]

Many can't read.... come on, its not that hard. I'm just treating them like the smart people that they are.

[Tessra]

You could barter with them too - offering your vouch in exchange for their service to you. Ie... "Noob, go to X, Y, Z, and earn me a glyph and I'll help relive you of your Noobginity".  You would be helping them get cemented into the game too.

Oh please, oh please, let this be instituted?  I would dearly love to help relieve Rigwyn of his false noobginity. 

And on a slightly more serious note.  It's nothing but illegitimate hypocrisy to launch into an unrelated attack on someone's preference of RP.  You don't see "people like us" running about insisting that everyone participate in our RPs.  Wanna know why?  Because we actually DO have some consideration for the other players in the game.  We send them /tells to check up on them (kudos Zalya).  We use out-of-the-way locations for a lot of the more intense RPs (kudos Zalya, Mariana, Travosh, Rigwyn, Thidin, Marsuveus, Taya, Karnath, Eonwind, the list goes on and on and on...)  And when issues are presented respectfully, and discussed, we compromise (i.e. previous arcs involving dead bodies/zombies/crime in the city have all been modified). 

You know what you don't see?  You don't see people just maturely choosing not to participate in the RPs that they find offensive, without someone feeling the need to try and censor the entire community because they want to throw a tea party for Barney, Tinky-Winky, Winnie-the-Pooh and everyone else that wants to sit at the kiddie table.  To all the people who DO handle this type of thing maturely, you have my deepest and profoundest respect.  To the whiners? Time to take a good look in the mirror.  Saying "You shouldn't RP Situation X because it offends/bothers/disturbs/interrupts/etc/etc/etc my favorite type of RP" is complete and utter rivnak dung. 

One: What makes you think you have the right to tell another person what they can or cannot do, if it doesn't fall outside the rules of PS?

Guess what?  You don't. You don't have that power, you don't have that right.  And there's one hell of a big difference between ASKING someone to move to a different location, or to not involve you in something you don't like and TELLING them they shouldn't be able to express themselves or that they should change their entire RP style.

Two: Why is it acceptable for you to try and make other people conform to your idea of fun RP? 

Guess what? It's not.  It's hypocritical.  You wouldn't like it if someone said you had to RP in their angsty/fussy/dark RP.   I happen to despise mundane tavern-talk RPs.  I only find them remotely tolerable if there is a character there that has an interesting personality.  But that doesn't give me the right to come here and say that everyone who does that type of RP is not creative enough to come up with something more fun that suits MY taste, or that they should try to bring more spice to their RPs.  Which would be why you've never seen me insul t the players who prefer that type of RP.  I let them do their own thing. 

Three:  Why can't you whiny people have enough common courtesy to extend to others the same rights that are extended to you?

There are so many wonderful people in this community who are amazing Rpers, and who don't come on here just to whine, but the few who do? Yeah, you ruin the game for others.  I've watched countless RPs get shut down, or OOCly cancelled because someone whined about how it infringed upon their personal rights.  Ugh. Get over yourselves.  How many decent RPers are you going to have to run off before you learn how to play nice in the sandbox? 

[Rigwyn]

Oh please, oh please, let this be instituted?  I would dearly love to help relieve Rigwyn of his false noobginity. 

Hellow Milady! Me name's Legolas of Dragonspire. How fare ye this fine day? I've come from a village with grassy hills and lots of charred cottages in search of new meaning, some dignity, and to try me hand and being a hero! So what's the name of this fine village? Tudorville? PlaneshiftTown?

*waits 10 seconds*

Can I tempt ye with me services Milady? I can cobble primitive shoes and play Greensleeves on the lute. I can use magicks from kingdoms far away but only spells that bestow-ith unlimited magickal protections from those who hateth.

* Begins casting a defensive spell... "Divine-Overarching-Aetherdome-Shield-of -Avalon" with a twist of "Uber-Megaregerating-Snow-Storm-of-Oz" and a smidgen of "I'll-Whine-To-A-GM-If-You-Disagree-With-Me"

[Eonwind]

The idea here is that if you reinforce their progress incrementally, they will eventually be able to translate their thoughts into words and vice versa without realizing that they have been trained. The nice thing about the non-material reinforcements is that the are free and won't affect the game economy. This practice might help them in real life too regarding verbal communication. The ability to go from having a desire, to realizing that you need to do something in order to get it does not come easily to everyone. Actually formulating the steps needed to attain that goal and doing a mental walk through to test the proposed idea as a time saving measure could be saved for later on is its very complex stuff.

wait... wait... are you saying noobs are stupid? Do you think they come from a different planet than your? If it's a joke I didn't get it, if it's not I totally disagree.
People most of the time don't speak because are shy and because they're afraid of being mistreated or belittled just because they're less experienced.