Mb53's server: changes and improvement

[INW]

Ya I understood.

Good points.

[Jip]

I agree with titan and MB here.
You cannot compare Pressing esc -> Team Menu -> join with going to some page for registration -> activation mail -> login/logout -> login ingame etc.
Also it's good when new players ask "how to join?" You know then that it's possible to communicate with them.

[Gonzap]

Yeah what Jip said. What's the point of letting somebody that doesn't even know how to talk join a fortress server? people will kick or suspend him right away. A player cannot start in fortress, fortress is the last stage of coordinated teamwork and you need at least the basics of how to talk and how to join a team if you are spectating. The rest just needs to be thaught.

[sinewav]

Remembering to join a team is such a small thing to ask. So maybe you miss a round? Boo hoo, big deal. I prefer to check on the teams first and join the one where I'm best needed.

[Kijutsu]

If people really want to play fortress, they'll find a way. We all managed, didn't we? Usually we get new players who came from different gamemodes (like all of us, probably) and they tend to know the basics already.

[þsy]

No no no!

Come on this crazy.. MB53, if people like to watch at the start, they can go to spectate themselves (at least they know how!). The number of people who like to spectate is far less compared to the number of people who struggle to join at the start.

These are not minor details but extremely important. Since I started playing fort, a number of aspects have changed such as authentication and having to join a team manually. These barriers have been erected and because all of us here know how to do these simple things we don't anything of it. For a newbie, it's a totally different story.

The reason I managed to get the basics is because I had friends in real life who showed me. Without that I probably wouldn't have gotten to grips with it and would never have played (and how terrible would that be! Imagine a world without me..). That's how tight the balance is, the slightest barrier will exclude a high number of players from ever getting past their first game. We NEED to remove all barriers and provide a friendly learning environment to encourage fresh blood.

What Spin said about not knowing how to talk is so true. This game is maze to begin with and people get bored easily (and miss out on great gameplay)

It's such a minor detail to confident players that could make such a big difference to new players, it really is madness to not change it!

[þsy]

P.S. Perfect example: My friend tried to play for the first time the other day. He joined Mb53's server and didn't know how to join.. He gave up and went to a High rubber server and got super bored. I'm planning to help him next time he is free to play, but without my input, he'd never have given it a go. He knows tron is fun (he's seen me and fofo play it) but doesn't know how to get involved because he doesn't know how to play

[Word]

We all managed, didn't we?

no, we already knew how it worked when it was introduced.

We don't just want the players who 'really want to play fortress' because they don't know if they like it or not. Maybe they leave after their first round although they were sure they'd like it or vice versa. The players that bear no relation to fort (and often the team menu too) because they are used to FFA servers are the ones we can get; the experienced ones don't have a problem with auth and the team menu.

when you have no experience how can you determine which team needs you? Your best bet is that there are certain players that invite* you and try to help you. And if you keep trying to switch to the team with most players (often the winning team, thus the more popular choice) it won't allow you to join until it has less players - or you go to the team whose players you don't like (fort is indeed a team game, but maybe you, the noob, didn't learn yet how unimportant your personal preferences should be), the loser team that gets owned the whole time and don't learn anything.

As for Gonzap's post, I regard it as the noobs' and our own job to help each other. Z-Man made this tutorial. The 'new' noobs will hopefully a be a bit more skilled at grinding than the ones we are used to - but that doesn't say anything about their 'menu knowledge'. Most games I've played allowed me to join instantly after selecting the server, and coming from there it just doesn't seem logical to me to add one more limitation after you already entered. Obviously, you don't enter just to watch (feature request/appeal to MB: there should be at least some sort of notification that there's a team menu when you enter a server/a round message with that).
I think some just forgot how they got better or think it applies for all. I'm not saying that all noobs will become good forters and stay for more than one or two rounds, and games won't be less chaotic - but we will get more players.

It's still desirable to have undisturbed pro-only games but they are not realistic when there's nothing left to set a standard (I'm not going to belittle the achievements of any recent Ladle winners - it just seems obvious to me that all teams don't get any 'new blood' and now there are always the same fort players redeploying under a different banner. We get some new teams from other server types so the actual number of competing teams remains stable, but it doesn't say anything about the real level of competition. Hey, maybe you MYMs would agree with that if you were in the same situation. Just look at TX, R, DS, us - and even unk. Some months ago it seemed like unk had 40% of all active forters...).
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Also, notice how few people still oppose the fairness of the ladle (you all know who used to do that...). There's nothing to oppose when you don't have a team. They already didn't do it openly, now they stopped doing it completely. Of course most of these accusations were bottomless, but ignoring them instead of trying to give them a hand just led to more frustration. We saw what happened. Their better players migrated to better clans (as every player whose first aim is a better reputation would do), but that didn't create more competition outside of these teams. Some of the things they've said were self-righteous, embarrassingly sentimental, even masochistic in my opinion. But they showed how they began to regard themselves as a training camp for better clans (by the way, that's another reason why I was against the 'noob league' idea) and seeing the remaining two or three 'fresh' players joining some better team after getting used to the loser role just didn't help.
It's arguable if they were a training camp or not but it's a fact that now there's nobody left for them to train, hence the inconsistent rosters, hence the unability to complain - because it's their job to keep their team together.

I believe one reply they or I will get for saying this is that they/I shouldn't be concerned about this because they/I don't have a full team to show anyway. I'm far from being 'anti-elitist' (and the opposite in its most negative sense). The sentiment that it's everyone's own job to 'find new talents' is extremely double-columned. Once you find that talent and 'invest' in it, you now have at least 15 rivals instead of one. Then it's less time consuming to wait until someone was rejected by all other teams and you're the only choice that is left. Not to mention what it looks like when you're part of a successful team.
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With more people getting internet access we should see a real growth of the community (it's up to you if you find that good or bad), but where are the new ladle teams? After Ladle 18/19 there were 4 or 5 halfway established teams who take part regularly since then. Where are such new teams now? we get one new team every second ladle while 2 or 3 other teams die.

And finally, this has already been said, note how empty MB's is most of the time. Now, while I'm editing this for the 29th time there are only 3 players in the server. There was no-one when I began typing. 1 year ago the server would have been full now...

*not speaking of the console command here

[7575757575]

Its a good point, psy.
But in my opinion players shouldnt start with playing fortress.

I like the way how it is now.

[þsy]

I started on CTWF! But you're right, it's not best to start on fort (although some do, I actually really began my career in dogfight), but...

The point is not to just get people into fortress, but armagetron itself. As a popular game mode, fortress is often busy. If Mr.noob loads up tron for the first time and joins Mb53s, doesn't know how to talk or join the game, he is going to do one of two things:

1) Go to another server, enjoy it/hate it whatever - at least he/she is getting to play
2) Give up and close tron and will very likely never try it again

MB53s server is the only popular server that you don't join automatically (that I can think of.. I admit my tron experience does revolve heavily around sumo and fortress and little else)

It's such a minor point that makes such a big difference, c'mon this is silly!

[Z-Man]

Actually, many team based games where you can join a game mid-match nowadays show you a team selection screen after you join a server, with the option to spectate if possible. I'll check whether it's possible to just bring up the team menu in case AUTO_TEAM is off.

[ppotter]

If a player can't be bothered to bring up the menu and join a team, are they really likely to stick around after they get shouted at, killed when they're meant to split, etc. it really makes very little difference.

[Titanoboa]

Actually, many team based games where you can join a game mid-match nowadays show you a team selection screen after you join a server, with the option to spectate if possible. I'll check whether it's possible to just bring up the team menu in case AUTO_TEAM is off.

That'd certainly be a very good option, cool!

[þsy]

Yeah I agree, that would be perfect

And potter, that is a very negative view of the fort community! I've seen plenty of newbies get shown how to talk, grind and split without being shouted at or suspended

[matchbox53]

There are things that you guys have to keep in mind i never changed any settings that G5 had for good reasons because everyone was used to them and the more changes that happens the more annoying some might see it.

I did agree to change important settings for the sake of making it easy for newbies to join and i thank you guys for caring, But this doesn't mean every time someone comes up with an idea that means we have to change it no it wont, Because when i think about changing anything about the server i think about 2 types of players that will play in the server that is the newbies and the knowledgeable players i try to balance things between both on the other hand some of you are only thinking about how to ease the use of fortress for newbies but not thinking about the other side.

For the time being i think can cause any newbie to quit tron because they don't know how to hit create new team menu and such. I am keeping it because there are players also want some facility which is spectating instantly before joining the server. To choose which team to join to acquire some balance between the teams.

@word your post seemed that you are sad or somehow disappointed in the growth of fort if not the tron community in general, I understand that and probably many of us want to see more newbie players to create more teams for better competitive or what ever other reasons there is. There are newbies would join your server and no matter how ease it would be they will still not stay for awhile due to other matters such as their personal reasons or how other people treat them.

And in all cases Fortress server has some difficulties for newbies to blend easily unlike single player modes, in others words 8 players vs each other mode or team vs team mode.

I and others have been thinking about what adjustments that we can add that could actually help the newbies to blend more in the game.