US - A teaching server.

[DeletedUser]

US server - a dedicated teaching server.


While reading through forums I thought of couple aspects regarding .us server and "designed" concept of an idea. Just for the kicks and sake of discussion, and maybe this will come handy, I decided to post this here. Considering that some of the aspects I'll be talking about are aimed towards us6 and as this is the most "active" forum section, so I hope for some respondents, I'd ask not to move this if possible. Tho' if moderators decide it's going to serve its purpose better in general section, so be it.


I'll start with a painful, but honest statement.

• US server has never been a place where players turned to for competitive gaming, and most likely it will never be.

Why?

• Lack of motivation. The appeal just isn't there. Even if some top players join then most of the time it's an half-arsed attempt before a more interesting/competitive world opens up. They know that there isn't much to play for on .us world, they simply lack motivation.

• Classless import. Then there are people coming from Brazil, Dutch, etc.,etc. servers promising to bring down the server to its knees, but have failed every time without bringing a single bit of quality. Their only investment is classless spam on external forums and further degrading their own server reputation in peoples eyes, leaving after a short period of time. (This is not aimed at players from these countries, who play here on regular basis)

• Premium features. Knowing how everyone has been tired of this topic, and knowing that this is something that most likely won't change, I'll keep it short. Even with the old features people were reluctant to join, it didn't matter if it presented some advantages or not, they simply despised such option. Now, it's their worst nightmare and this is the last place where they would want to end up. Remember about individual psychology and the fact that no one wants to be in disadvantage just because someone has more digits in bank account.

• Lack of numbers. This is a small server. There aren't too many players, there aren't too many semi-decent players. Why Russia can be competitive in all sports, while a place like Luxembourg struggles. Numbers, it's a simple math, but from vast quantities of players you could dig up some gems.

• So called super tribes. In such a small server it has a destructive force on community. Like a vacuum cleaner they suck in all the quality there is left in particular world to make it morbid and unplayable for neutrals. This concept can go through on larger servers, due to number of people and quality ratio, here however it's a form of monopoly and same as premium features downgrade the server.

Suggestion.

US - A teaching server.

I know that this is nothing new, and might prove to be difficult to apply in practice, yet this is something that potentially could do good for the server in long term.

Question - If the players don't come here for competitive gaming, then why do they come here?
Answer - They come here to learn.


Premise - US server is a relatively small, yet tightly knit and friendly community. It lacks numbers and most importantly quality. Thus' dedicated players of proven track record will form, let's say 4, teaching tribes for every world (considering how often worlds open up it's not much of a strain). And teaching, starting from basic game mechanics and upwards to more advanced techniques, should go through for an amount of time. Let's say tribes will disband after the world reaches mid-game, as an example. Then graduates move on to use their newly gained knowledge, friends and contacts further in their tw carrier.

So instead of focusing all talent in one group, we'll have smaller groups of competitive players and people who are willing to learn and make this server more interesting. That makes world more fun and interesting + it has its function.

Questions.

• How would we define an appropriate teacher?

• Where will US find these teachers that will be ready to dedicate themselves to this good cause? We do have fair bit of moderators that could take on teaching. But will that be enough and will they be willing.

• How would premium features possibly be a problem during the teaching period?

• If my memory serves me right previous teaching tribes, on different servers, haven't done too well, but correct me if I'm wrong. The question is, how to make this work then and what where the downfalls of previous teaching tribes?

Ideas.

• Encourage new players to visit external forums and inform them of a possibility to join teaching tribes by sending automatic IGM with directions as they join the new world. Or if possible implement in IG tutorial.

• Redesign the "Guides, Pointers and Strategies" section to something along the lines of "Teaching". There should be the same designated section of guides, but with added Teaching tribe section (Where you can apply to particular tribe and find general info about these teaching tribes). Question section and FAQ database, similar to what Doctor Jeroen suggest:
  

On the Dutch servers there's this project called the TW Mentoraat, or as it was called earlier: Noobs in Need. Experienced players can apply there to become a 'teacher' and the 'chief' of the project decides who would or would not be suitable for the job. New players could apply there to ask questions to the experienced players, to co-play experienced players who volunteer for this task, and you can actually help people straight-out without turning around the entire community.

• A moderated skype chat room, where people can ask for an advice and hope for quick reply.

• When new world is announced, available teaching tribes should be also written down with the settings.

Summary.

An idea is to make this server an efficient and fun platform for new players to learn the trade. In order to raise the average level of the server and add more fun and life to the .us worlds. Teaching tribes and other activities that encourage learning will be run on regular basis, hopefully. Consequently forming a tight knit, friendly and competitive community.



Open for suggestions.

If there is a general approval then we could go through with starting to gather people willing to learn, etc.,etc..

Let the discussions begin!

Ask more questions and add more suggestions. So we can shape this thing.

Cheers!

 

[DeletedUser]

Any server can be used for teaching in my opinion. My co player on this world has been playing for a very short period of time. She is not at all experienced and she is learning on the fly with me as a co-player right now. This was actually my reason for starting here: teaching her the basics of the game. Did I pick this world because it's easy and non-competitive to give her an easier testing area? No. This world was where she had been playing for 4 days, so i decided to join her here.

I think anybody who knows the game basics and can come along with the top 10 easily on multiple worlds can be an appropriate teacher, but more important skills might be 'patience' and language skills (considering not everyone here is from a native speaking country).

I, for myself, see .US as a server where I can test new strategies and try new tactics without dropping out of the top 20 immediately if they don't work, because the server's competition is indeed not that high.

So yes, I do think it is a good idea to create a teaching world, although I do wonder why we would need a separate world for that idea, while you can teach people on any random world.

 

[DeletedUser]

Suggestion.

US - A teaching server.

I didn't say world, I said server. As I said, people don't come here to play competitive game, so why not change the mentality/premise of the server to almost purely teaching one. Present it as a server where you'll learn the trade. At this moment .us server is one of those regional TW servers, but if the premise is changed then .us server will be the only teaching server. That would also attract new players.

 

[DeletedUser]

Ah excuse me, my bad.

In that case, sounds interesting, although I am not American, and I can understand Americans who would feel left-out if hopes of turning this server into a competitive one would be given up.

The point is in my opinion, that due to the language here being English, this has become a second .Net server, maintaining people from all over the world, which is the main reason why this server isn't as competitive as it should be. But hey, that's just my 2 cents.

 

[DeletedUser]

Giving up on making server competitive? No, not all, quite on contrary.

Changed premise "Us A Teaching server" -> income of new players -> more players, more talent -> they learn here -> they form a .us server community core, quite possibly which is finally formed by players from "our" own server, not players from other servers. That all adds to overall quality of the server.

 

[DeletedUser]

Hmm, I'm afraid I see a few flaws in this idea.

1: Income of new players - Yes, but not American new players.
2: They learn here - So they learn from the already non-existing competition here.
3: These new not-American halfly taught players form the .us server community core? Erm, I don't know if this is to be seen as a positive development :s

 

[DeletedUser]

Hmm, I'm afraid I see a few flaws in this idea.

1: Income of new players - Yes, but not American new players.
2: They learn here - So they learn from the already non-existing competition here.
3: These new not-American halfly taught players form the .us server community core? Erm, I don't know if this is to be seen as a positive development :s

Why is it so necessary to have American players? Why can't fusion of foreign players and Americans form the community, as long as they comprehend English. I'm fairly sure that server like russian one is formed by players that come from post-soviet union countries, in other words, they are not russian by nationality, but they speak russian.

They learn from far more experienced players who in other cases might just form one "super" tribe which wouldn't do any good for the server/world. They form the competition themselves, through learning and improving. No competition doesn't mean that there aren't any players who can teach, no competition means that there are no players who could oppose those better players.

p.s. Besides why are you so sure that there wouldn't be an income of American players.

 

[DeletedUser]

Why is it so necessary to have American players? Why can't fusion of foreign players and Americans form the community, as long as they comprehend English. I'm fairly sure that server like russian one is formed by players that come from post-soviet union countries, in other words, they are not russian by nationality, but they speak russian.

They learn from far more experienced players who in other cases might just form one "super" tribe which wouldn't do any good for the server/world. They form the competition themselves, through learning and improving. No competition doesn't mean that there aren't any players who can teach, no competition means that there are no players who could oppose those better players.

Why is it so necessary to have American players?

Because this is the .us community, and not a remake sort of second .Net. Seems like enough reason to me. I'm not American myself, and to be really honest, I think most of the better players on this server are not. I'm not saying you should ban all the players from other countries, quite the contrary, but since you were saying this is having a bad influence on the competition here, in which I think you are correct, that basically means you have already answered your own question...

"No competition doesn't mean that there aren't any players who can teach, no competition means that there are no players who could oppose those better players."

True that, but as long as all the 'better players' are the friends who keep popping up in the same tribe over and over again on the worlds, like we're seeing now, you're not going to get any competition to oppose them. Who would teach the new players? Them? I think not. And since you've said yourself, there is no other real competition on the server here, so you would have to do with import, which is exactly what you didn't want (or at least that's what you stated in your first post).

@ the Ps:
I'm not, sure there wouldn't be an income of US players. But I doubt if your 'idea' would have any kind of influence whatsoever on the income of American players. For people from other servers, it would sound logical to come here if you can't handle the competition on your own server, to be taught how to deal with this game. Basically, this place would logically become a host for the noobs of all other communities, making sure that the competition on this server drops ever further due to the severe increase in noobs.

 

[DeletedUser]

Where did I state I don't want foreign players?
I said there has been a history of some poor specimens of foreigners coming onto this server, boasting, failing and then leaving, adding nothing to community. Change of the premise would attract people with the right motivation - become better players, thus' they would stick around for more and most likely add more to the community.
Why are you so sure there won't be an income of American players.

Please, be more careful when reading my posts, as now it just look like you are putting words in my mouth.

p.s.

True that, but as long as all the 'better players' are the friends who keep popping up in the same tribe over and over again on the worlds, like we're seeing now, you're not going to get any competition to oppose them. Who would teach the new players? Them? I think not.

Why wouldn't they, it's in their own interest, besides most of them form the US server staff. Any good player gets a satisfaction from victory only if he/she has had to work for it hard.

 

[DeletedUser]

This has my full backing.

The problem is however, that those who are skilled enough players to teach who play this server over other ones, never choose to teach when they can instead fight the players who lack the ability to effectively fight them back. Your biggest challenge would be to convince the groups that join .us worlds with the aim to dominate and win as quickly as possible, by bringing in most of the talent to a single tribe, that it just means the majority of people who have the potential to become good players don't learn.

To me, that is the challenge you are going to face if you want to make this in to a reality. And not one which you will likely be able to succeed at owing to the fact that they most likely play this server because they don't like the more challenging worlds you get on the other predominantly english-speaking servers.

 

[DeletedUser]

Where did I state I don't want foreign players?
I said there has been a history of some poor specimens of foreigners coming onto this server, boasting, failing and then leaving, adding nothing to community. Change of the premise would attract people with the right motivation - become better players, thus' they would stick around for more and most likely add more to the community.
Why are you so sure there won't be an income of American players.

Please, be more careful when reading my posts, as now it just look like you are putting words in my mouth.

I answered your edit in my edit of my last post...

Also, I did read your posts very carefully, but you're now saying 'change of the premise would attract people with the right motivation'. As I just explained, it would basically attract tons of new and unexperienced players who want to learn, making the competition on US servers even lower than it already is. That way, you're not improving the quality on the .us servers. You're only decreasing the quality here, by gathering noobs, who go back to their own server as soon as they've learned enough to be capable of keeping up there. So basically, you increase the quality of all servers except for the Americans.

This has my full backing.

The problem is however, that those who are skilled enough players to teach who play this server over other ones, never choose to teach when they can instead fight the players who lack the ability to effectively fight them back. Your biggest challenge would be to convince the groups that join .us worlds with the aim to dominate and win as quickly as possible, by bringing in most of the talent to a single tribe, that it just means the majority of people who have the potential to become good players don't learn.

To me, that is the challenge you are going to face if you want to make this in to a reality. And not one which you will likely be able to succeed at owing to the fact that they most likely play this server because they don't like the more challenging worlds you get on the other predominantly english-speaking servers.

Yes, basically what I've been trying to say although I'm not as capable as you when it comes to turning my thoughts into words (sorry, not a native speaker myself). As I said before, I come from the Netherlands myself, and started here to teach some other Dutch players who I know from the Dutch servers. And yes, I'd be more than happy to see this work here, but I'm afraid there's some things you won't be able to overcome.

 

[DeletedUser]

I answered your edit in my edit of my last post...

Also, I did read your posts very carefully, but you're now saying 'change of the premise would attract people with the right motivation'. As I just explained, it would basically attract tons of new and unexperienced players who want to learn, making the competition on US servers even lower than it already is. That way, you're not improving the quality on the .us servers. You're only decreasing the quality here, by gathering noobs, who go back to their own server as soon as they've learned enough to be capable of keeping up there. So basically, you increase the quality of all servers except for the Americans.

Not at all. It would only temporary lower relative good : bad player ratio. Considering how it is now, it won't make much of a difference. Also I believe that players who join this server, if they have shown enough initiative, and improve themselves, gain friends and integrate themselves into community would be more than willing to stay than to go back to their (???) servers.

Also numbers is one of the aspects that .us server lacks, remember what I said about Russia / Luxembourg sports?

Also take into account money aspect -> more new players who join this server also leads to potential money income for innogames, which they definitely wouldn't say no to.

The problem is however, that those who are skilled enough players to teach who play this server over other ones, never choose to teach when they can instead fight the players who lack the ability to effectively fight them back. Your biggest challenge would be to convince the groups that join .us worlds with the aim to dominate and win as quickly as possible, by bringing in most of the talent to a single tribe, that it just means the majority of people who have the potential to become good players don't learn.

To me, that is the challenge you are going to face if you want to make this in to a reality. And not one which you will likely be able to succeed at owing to the fact that they most likely play this server because they don't like the more challenging worlds you get on the other predominantly english-speaking servers.

Yes. Indeed that would be a challenge of highest caliber. Yet, I decided to put this out here and see what people say, obviously this needs a lot of polishing, but if this has some backing something might move in the right direction, at least the thinking of people. We shall see.

 

[DeletedUser3168]

This is my first .us world, but from my experience of 6 yrs on .net worlds, the quality players are the ones who decide how competitive the server is. Not only whether or not they play the worlds seriously but whether they take grooming future players on themselves.

Ive played a leadership role in 4 teaching tribes on .net and its amazing how many players you can not only encourage to stay and play tw for an extended time but how fast you can give them the info needed to make them a competitive player.

So if there is a quality issue i would lay a lot of the issue at the feet of the experienced players.

 

[DeletedUser]

I would be willing to help out on .us worlds, dependent on premades joining.

The only reason I don't join .us worlds (as it doesn't take much time to be fairly successful on this server from what I can see), is because I dislike the idea of premades joining .us servers, as it ruins the possibility to teach up those who have the potential to do well for themselves with the right guidance.

I just see it as a complete waste of time trying to train people up on worlds which seem unlikely to even have 2mil point accounts prior to endgame.

 

[DeletedUser]

Not at all. It would only temporary lower relative good : bad player ratio. Considering how it is now, it won't make much of a difference. Also I believe that players who join this server, if they have shown enough initiative, and improve themselves, gain friends and integrate themselves into community would be more than willing to stay than to go back to their (???) servers.

The point is that when you attract noobs from other servers, they will already have made those friends and integrated into that community. So they'll be more than willing to go back to their servers, and therefore their friends, and the community they so much love. And if people return to their own server after being taught, you're not temporarily lower the good:bad player ratio, but you're lowering it permanently, which is in my opinion the last thing this server needs.

Also numbers is one of the aspects that .us server lacks, remember what I said about Russia / Luxembourg sports?

I understand and agree with you.

Also take into account money aspect -> more new players who join this server also leads to potential money income for innogames, which they definitely wouldn't say no to.

Hmm, when you're attracting players from other servers and get them to play here, I don't see how this increases the income for Innogames? (I happen to be a mod myself on the Dutch forums, so I do have a slight sense in how things work).



Conclusion, perhaps this would work if you include new special 'learning worlds' on this server, where the settings are relatively 'basic' and easy to adapt for newer players. This way you're actually teaching the players from the American community and players from other communities, while not decreasing the average quality of players on the remaining worlds.

On the Dutch servers there's this project called the TW Mentoraat, or as it was called earlier: Noobs in Need. Experienced players can apply there to become a 'teacher' and the 'chief' of the project decides who would or would not be suitable for the job. New players could apply there to ask questions to the experienced players, to co-play experienced players who volunteer for this task, and you can actually help people straight-out without turning around the entire community. How would that sound to you?

 

[DeletedUser]

This is my first .us world, but from my experience of 6 yrs on .net worlds, the quality players are the ones who decide how competitive the server is. Not only whether or not they play the worlds seriously but whether they take grooming future players on themselves.

Ive played a leadership role in 4 teaching tribes on .net and its amazing how many players you can not only encourage to stay and play tw for an extended time but how fast you can give them the info needed to make them a competitive player.

Thank you, a great post.

So if there is a quality issue i would lay a lot of the issue at the feet of the experienced players.

Indeed. Yet, it also depends on willingness of players to learn and how easy it is for them to find help. If there was a designated server with a well designed system, it would be a lot easier.

 

[DeletedUser3168]

Conclusion, perhaps this would work if you include new special 'learning worlds' on this server, where the settings are relatively 'basic' and easy to adapt for newer players. This way you're actually teaching the players from the American community and players from other communities, while not decreasing the average quality of players on the remaining worlds.

On the Dutch servers there's this project called the TW Mentoraat, or as it was called earlier: Noobs in Need. Experienced players can apply there to become a 'teacher' and the 'chief' of the project decides who would or would not be suitable for the job. New players could apply there to ask questions to the experienced players, to co-play experienced players who volunteer for this task, and you can actually help people straight-out without turning around the entire community. How would that sound to you?

Well i dont see how you get any easier than coins, w/simple tech, and pally. But if there is a way id be open to that for teaching purpose. And the idea of making a place for newbies to meet and learn from experienced players is a great idea. The hard part about the coplaying though is it just doesnt seem an efficient use of the experienced players.

The teaching tribes i helped lead took 4-5 vets to train up 20-25 players of various lower ability on world, with great success 2/4 tribes made and held top 10 ranking. There you are getting a lot of training with few vets needed, which from what im gathering is more of what .us needs. Cause it doesnt seem as though a lot of the experienced players here are willing to give their time to helping the newer players.

 

[DeletedUser]

Hmm, when you're attracting players from other servers and get them to play here, I don't see how this increases the income for Innogames? (I happen to be a mod myself on the Dutch forums, so I do have a slight sense in how things work).

They buy premium points, isn't that right? PP lead to some income for the company.

Conclusion, perhaps this would work if you include new special 'learning worlds' on this server, where the settings are relatively 'basic' and easy to adapt for newer players. This way you're actually teaching the players from the American community and players from other communities, while not decreasing the average quality of players on the remaining worlds.

On the Dutch servers there's this project called the TW Mentoraat, or as it was called earlier: Noobs in Need. Experienced players can apply there to become a 'teacher' and the 'chief' of the project decides who would or would not be suitable for the job. New players could apply there to ask questions to the experienced players, to co-play experienced players who volunteer for this task, and you can actually help people straight-out without turning around the entire community. How would that sound to you?

There is a grim hope regarding a special world on .us server, at least not at this stage, .us can't fill one world, leave alone two, as they most likely would be released at the same time. Besides I think it would be much more useful for players to participate in a normal world, to pit their lessons against variously skilled players and in changing environment. Also with this, world would be more populated, active, interesting, fun and competitive, to split it over more than one world would be ineffective , in my opinion.

TW Mentoraat system is an extremely interesting concept. Thanks for that. I think that's something that could be definitely implemented.

Obviously server / community can't be changed overnight, but gradually maybe? Implementing some of the teaching aspects world by world until there is good foundation.

 

[DeletedUser]

Well i dont see how you get any easier than coins, w/simple tech, and pally. But if there is a way id be open to that for teaching purpose. And the idea of making a place for newbies to meet and learn from experienced players is a great idea.

Well, for example not making a speed 1.6 world, but a speed 1 or 2 world. That is a lot easier and more clear to new players, who learn to use maths to calculate distances etc.

The hard part about the coplaying though is it just doesnt seem an efficient use of the experienced players.

True, yet it is the best way to teach newer players. I've seen players come from 'I don't even know what a scout does.' to a fully evolved top player in about 3 weeks time, and of course experience comes with time, but the most can be taught within such short period of time, when co-playing. And I prefer to teach fewer people, but teach them well, than to teach a whole bunch of people, but afterwards they still don't know what they're doing half of the time.

The teaching tribes i helped lead took 4-5 vets to train up 20-25 players of various lower ability on world, with great success 2/4 tribes made and held top 10 ranking. There you are getting a lot of training with few vets needed, which from what im gathering is more of what .us needs. Cause it doesnt seem as though a lot of the experienced players here are willing to give their time to helping the newer players.

Tribes can teach people for so far, but well. Just look at ~ED~ right now. We are originally 4 players, Ibilsi, Malaika, .Boomerang (the original player) and me. I've been trying to help them all, but I started co-playing on .Boomerang. There I taught my co how to handle an account effectively. Of course I try to teach the tribe as well, but it's just a lot quicker and easier to teach an account you're co-playing. I think you can see the difference between the account I started co-playing and the other accounts in the tribe. While my role was mostly advising (of course I wasn't too lazy to farm, but you get my point) we still outgrew our tribesmates in any possible way.

They buy premium points, isn't that right? PP lead to some income for the company.

But how does it matter whether they buy their premium points on their original server, or they buy them on this server? It remains the same amount of premium and therefore the same amoutn of income for Innogames, right?

TW Mentoraat system is an extremely interesting concept. Thanks for that. I think that's something that could be definitely implemented.

Considering I have the experience in how to run this kind of 'facility' I might start it if I can find the time to do so (I'm playing this world, alongside playing a Dutch server world, alongside modding the Dutch servers actively, alongside fulltime study and a parttime job, so it might get a bit much).

 

[DeletedUser]

But how does it matter whether they buy their premium points on their original server, or they buy them on this server? It remains the same amount of premium and therefore the same amoutn of income for Innogames, right?

That's considering that they have server where they had situated themselves before. I wouldn't exclude income of new players, like totally new.

Also, when I started playing, when I didn't know the game at all, I had little to no interest buying premium, until I got really into the game. If you can interest players into actually staying and playing, they will soon want to invest, there is no guarantee that players who come from other servers, those "newb's" that they have ever bought PP's, this might be the first place.