Growing the Community

[LPhillips]

So, as many of us are integral participants in this project and community, it seems proper to discuss helping it prosper. Please post anything that you think will contribute, but try to avoid clutter. Hopefully, we will get many practical ideas about how we the community can best contribute to the effort. This was not solicited by Snotling and Piranha, and is not officially sanctioned.


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Objective: More contributing community members.
Breakdown:
1) Drawing players to the site. This seems to happen with frequency. There is no difficulty bringing players in. It's happening on an international level, which is really great!
2) Keeping players here.
3) Encouraging players to become productive members.
Parts 2 and 3 are the difficulties.

The game has crossed a threshold. Several important things happened over the course of the last two versions, and particularly this latest version. They're worth noting.
A) The bugs have been ironed out pretty well, and the developers have become quite proficient at handling them. Their code appears to be quite stable, ensuring a project with a long life.
B) The game has reached a level of complexity that both ensures it excellent replay value and may make the learning curve very steep.
C) The project is no longer purely a money sink for the developers. They're hopefully paying a significant amount of their costs with community funds. Importantly, the community now has a way to pay back for the game we've enjoyed for free so long.

Feel free to discuss and modify the "Lists" as you see fit in your own posts. I may update the header from time to time to reflect the current discussion.

[LPhillips]

The main point that draws my attention is making newbies comfortable. It would be excellent to collect impressions of the new players on all topics, from learning the game to simply navigating the site.

I'd like to begin with some suggestions and see what people think.
1) A help forum. Right below Announcements. Dedicated to helping Newbies along.
2) A review of the Tutorials by fresh players, those who have been here just long enough to judge how well they were helped by the tutorials.
3) Volunteers to write articles for the Warpedia, if the developers desire. We need a reference to point Newbies toward.
4) Newbie-centered games. The "Simultaneous Turns" option should do wonders for this. Right now, I think the biggest turn off is starting a game and potentially waiting days before you can even play a turn. The action starts slowly for these players. Friendly players can even volunteer to run a few of these games a week to help Newbies along. I know of one player in particular who has stayed on and become a reliably active player after being treated and communicated with during his first few games.
5) Some restriction on what games Newbies can enter. I have no idea if this exists or not, but I imagine being drubbed by an experienced player working the ladder is a sure way to lose interest in the game. I'm not looking to inflict that on anyone anyway, nor to collect free points from droppers. It's also a nasty thing when your open FFA is interrupted by a dropper who never even completes his first turn.

What do you think?

[SnotlinG]

Just a quick reply
Looks like good ideas and we appreciate all effort from our community to grow and help new players. We also value feedback very much since we usually dont have time to find/know problems in tutorials etc.

Anyway, we have planned to create a review-group that will control what maps gets official status and what maps get ladder status. As usual its just a question of time and coding, but it is planned at least

[Moonknight]

LP, I agree in that it'd be a great thing for veterans of the game to provide "noobie" matches in which FOW is turned off and the veteran can help out with questions and guide a general strategy (I'd be willing to help with this). The simultaneous game format would indeed be useful for this...

Also, publishing a "10 Commandments" type of document (which has been published in the forums before) going over strategies that everyone should employ and making it easy for new players to find would be great. Things like scouting, ruin hunting, guarding castles, etc.

[kenc80]

LP I recently started a game called "beginners welcome" I made it 4v4 at Bull Run with Teams so I decided to keep FOW since the team view gave each person a good feel for other peoples expansion. Seems like its been a good lesson so far. I encouraged each team to feel free to ask questions and help each other.

Ken

[LPhillips]

Just a quick reply
Looks like good ideas and we appreciate all effort from our community to grow and help new players. We also value feedback very much since we usually dont have time to find/know problems in tutorials etc.

Anyway, we have planned to create a review-group that will control what maps gets official status and what maps get ladder status. As usual its just a question of time and coding, but it is planned at least

Alright! Glad to get a stamp of approval, and even more happy to hear we'll have some ladder map review going on! I'll try to produce a few more maps to keep the review team busy

LP I recently started a game called "beginners welcome" I made it 4v4 at Bull Run with Teams so I decided to keep FOW since the team view gave each person a good feel for other peoples expansion. Seems like its been a good lesson so far. I encouraged each team to feel free to ask questions and help each other.

Ken

That's great! Have you had good success with turns moving pretty well? I'm a bit torn between 1v1's and team games, because each has pros and cons.

Teams: Players are comfortable, can compare themselves to others, and get a pretty realistic gaming experience. However, the slow turn pace might turn some off, and then once one leaves, the turns become even slower until they are expelled by the game, possibly causing a chain reaction.

1v1: Turns move as quickly as the beginner wishes, and point on, one-on-one tutoring is possible. However, this is intimidating or simply unattractive to many people, who in today's culture are resistive to instruction unless they are in a group setting where they don't feel targeted. It also might not prepare them well for truly competitive games.

Thoughts?

[Moonknight]

I just began a 4 person FFA with me, an AI, and two new players. I'll let you know how that goes...

[kenc80]

LP wrote: Have you had good success with turns moving pretty well?

I did 3 day turns and we've been moving over one turn per day. and it seems pretty steady. I can't speak for the beginners but it seems like they are enjoying it.

I think a 1v1 against the AI is really the best way to dive in.

[ptGamer]

3) Volunteers to write articles for the Warpedia, if the developers desire. We need a reference to point Newbies toward...What do you think?

I am curious to hear from the Warbarons team about this. I thought about volunteering on this because as I started playing I found inconsistencies between the Warpedia narrative and actual stats. The discrepancy appears to arise due to patches and new versions, and as a noob back then I found it a bit discouraging (not that I am a pro now but I am more experienced).

[Moonknight]

I think ptGamer has an excellent point regarding the Warbaron Wiki, it can often get out of date quickly.

It is the best tool for noobs, and it needs to stay current with any minor change at all times.