Taking a leaf from EVE STAR in PSN

[Vancha]

In EVE, every new character is placed into a newbie chat channel for 30 days before being booted from it, though they can leave it at any time. This channel is purely for newbies to get answers to any questions they may have about the game from volunteers known as STAR (Support, Training and Resources). These are people who've been appointed by CCP (the company the runs the game), and have various powers over the chat channel (mute, kick etc.)

I've been wondering recently how Planetside could be made more newbie-friendly. I know the tutorial missions got added a few years after release, but there's still plenty it doesn't cover. I came across a newbie yesterday who had gotten an ANT for a base, but couldn't tell the ANT drivers talking in broadcast that he'd gotten it because he didn't know how to broadcast, or send tells.

While Planetside may not have as steep a learning curve as EVE, it's still known to be an effort to climb, so I wonder if PSN couldn't benefit from a scheme such as STAR? For the purposes of this thread, lets pretend SOE would be capable of running such a thing.

What do you think?

[Logit]

It certainly couldn't make things worse.

My first day of planetside I spent a good hour running people over in sanc because every time I did I was getting +points (little did I know these were grief points). Would have been nice for someone to tell me this was a no no.

[Redshift]

There was an unofficial thing like this a while back, a thread on the forums listing the name of any volunteer who would explain how to play to newbies if they sent them a tell.

I had a sticky newb guids on the official forums a while back too, i'll make a new one whenever PS2 comes out.

Ofc thats still relys on people using the forums, but if they can't figure out to look on the forums when they start a game maybe they deserve to be fodder :P

[Pella]

Originally Posted by SRxRedshift

There was an unofficial thing like this a while back, a thread on the forums listing the name of any volunteer who would explain how to play to newbies if they sent them a tell.

I had a sticky newb guids on the official forums a while back too, i'll make a new one whenever PS2 comes out.

Ofc thats still relys on people using the forums, but if they can't figure out to look on the forums when they start a game maybe they deserve to be fodder :P

Yeah at some stage i took my time to help newbs, even got them on teamspeak and show them the basics.

But Ostekake done a great job getting every newb in his outfit and doing fun stuff with them.

Thats what was good about planetside, you get the killwhores that could do exactly that. Then you had team effort outfits like MoX and then hardcore and newbie outfits. You always need that balance.

[Furret]

Face of Mankind had a clan/guild/outfit that sent a message to every player that achieved the third rank or something (spent enough time on the game to be playing it a bit more than casually) who wasn't affiliated. The message basically said: Hey if you want to learn the ropes, join us and we'll help you learn the more advanced nuances of the game.

Obviously a team like that would have to be user run, although if they 'registered' with the devs they could possibly get a bot to send the messages and auto-accept anyone in the outfit.

[Vancha]

That sounds good too, albeit geared towards a different group of people for a different purpose.

[Rbstr]

I didn't believe people were dumb enough to not understand that you shouldn't run over your own faction.
I guess I was wrong.

Really, it can't hurt. But it's an FPS, shits not that hard to begin with. What ever happened to reading a bit about the game you just bought.

This is a persistent problem with noobs in my EVE corp no one makes an effort to get in on their own.
"How do I do this, that and the other thing?"
"Fucking google it first"

[Canaris]

Not to put a dampner on the idea but could you imagine a bunch of PS veterans giving advise to newbies, it would be like throwing a honey badger into a chicken coop.

You have to have a pretty decent vetting process because
"There's no FPS jerks like Planetside jerks"

[Vancha]

Originally Posted by Canaris

Not to put a dampner on the idea but could you imagine a bunch of PS veterans giving advise to newbies, it would be like throwing a honey badger into a chicken coop.

You have to have a pretty decent vetting process because
"There's no FPS jerks like Planetside jerks"

This is why it's run by the company. People have to apply for the position, and they quickly get "fired" if they abuse it.

Edit:

Originally Posted by Rbstr

This is a persistent problem with noobs in my EVE corp no one makes an effort to get in on their own.
"How do I do this, that and the other thing?"
"Fucking google it first"

For people with machines like mine, alt-tabbing can be a 5-minute task with 50% chance of crashing the game.

[CutterJohn]

SWG had the best system for this. Players could flag themselves as helpers. Somewhere in the chat you could easily search for people with the flag and ask them questions and whatnot, and the game encouraged you to do so.

[Dorest0rm]

Didnt Planetside used to have a Outfit people would join in the beginning so they could talk to eachother?

Or was that another game?

[Hamma]

Certainly possible, don't remember for sure.