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Upon some discussions with SummerInWonderland and the LSG mods, we thought that there ought to be more of an initiative to figure out what the hell is working right for all the new players that join the Large Social Games area - whether they have actually joined or played a game or not. I know that at Kingsmeet there was a serious effort to get some of them to join the next Large Social, and that was very successful And I hope many stick around.

However, we haven't had a game going currently since Civivor, and therefore it's time to think about "how is the new player experience?" - for those who have played or are thinking of playing. Not all Provisional players have the best track record at making finals unless your name is Jess. So some new players stick, and we love them for it, and some don't, and we respect them for that. But what makes people want to stick around? What makes some people enjoy playing or not enjoy playing?

My intention is for this discussion and thread to be the place for us as a community (and us as mostly veterans) to theorize and discuss why the rookies are or aren't sticking around. So please do not answer the questions in the previous paragraph unless you are a New Player. The intention of this discussion and thread is to focus on how we can increase the feedback and to empower the voice of new players. I think it would be improper of us to pose our own opinions on their experience and to steal their voice on their experience - and instead, the intent is just "how the hell do we get more feedback from new players in various ways?"

I think there are various options for us to take, so Summer and I (and the LSG mods by extension) are seeking advice on how the community can take on some of these things and whether some of these sound good or not. So please opine on these methods:

1. Mods and Veterans should talk more (in a formal sense?) with new players about their experience after the game. I know this happens regularly at some level - to better success with some than others.

2. A constructive feedback form could be implemented at each game to ask all players about what kept them engaged and what they would like to see in the future again. We don't have feedback forms - but for example university classes do this all the time.

3. New players can provide more feedback and help update the Newbie Guide to Survivor. Shouldn't the newbies who have actually played help write the guide?

4. Players waiting for a new game should self-identify to the LSG mods (or should there be a new player queue in this area or a different format?) and potentially be allowed to chat with future game moderators or other community members so that they can get a chance to learn more about their experience. I know that racefan12, Shrek, Aurathebirb, and Mina (and likely others) all had documented interest in joining a game much earlier than their first actual game - I wonder how that experience of waiting was.

Please share your opinions on the above methods and what would be the best way to empower the voice of new players to provide feedback. Some new players have not had the best experience and may be too polite to be honest in some cases. More often than not, people who do not have a good experience simply don't give feedback and would rather just go on with their lives - but if there's a chance to find out more - I think we should find out how we can seek it.

By the way for #2 - A sample constructive feedback form could look like:

Which parts of the game engaged you the most?
Which elements of the game would you like to see repeated in a future game?
What was something that a player/spectator/mod did that helped you enjoy this game?
How can some of the twists be improved in this game?
Did your experience reach your expectations?


The idea is not to give carte blanche for all players to criticize games. I think that many players will do this in their preferred method already - but it would be good to know what works out of all the new ideas and what could work with more tweaking.

These are just some ideas - but please also provide your own ideas for what could work on a regular non-anonymous constructive feedback form.

i think that the newbie expreience improved massively with the newbie guide. i legit had no idea how to play the game going into my first and my play improved a lot in the second.
newbie chat experience seems like a rly good idea. i was interested in it before i joined my first but it was quite daunting and games always start at awful times for me somehow so getting more involved in the community before hand would be rly useful.

Hydra game.

a newbie/vet one?
could work if enough players were willing to sign up. id def be willing to play

Basically.

I'm not sure whether it would be better to do it as a true hydra game, or as a mentor/mentee sort of thing where you have say 16 players and 16 "mentors" that each just have their own PT where they chill with their newbie partner to give advice (not to mention shared access to the confessional space)

true hydra would probs have difficulties with PMing so might need to be a PMless if you went down that route

I don’t think making a newbie’s first game PMless is a good idea at all considering we’ve only had a single game like that onsite.

That's not a reason not to do it. The hard part of a PMless game is on the mods not the players. The complaint/surprise I hear a lot after is just how much time Survivor takes up compared to mafia in an Always On sense. It would be good if we had a reduced PM's game at least once a year I think.

In post 8, Shadoweh wrote:That's not a reason not to do it. The hard part of a PMless game is on the mods not the players. The complaint/surprise I hear a lot after is just how much time Survivor takes up compared to mafia in an Always On sense. It would be good if we had a reduced PM's game at least once a year I think.

That wouldn't fix the issue, necessarily. I spent probably more time thinking about things in Civivor than I did actually pming people.

Like even when you aren't PMing you're still thinking shit through.

That’s not a discussion for here. With the current frequency of low-to-no PM games they honestly shouldn’t be a new player’s first game.

In post 5, BROseidon wrote:as a mentor/mentee sort of thing where you have say 16 players and 16 "mentors"

Seen this done; I think it could be..interesting? As long as people were genuinely interested in both teaching & playing the game. Tribe of newbies, tribe of mentors, allow crosstalk across pairs and you have an interesting iteration on BvW.

Any new players want to comment on what's being said yet?

The focus of this thread was intended to be on how to get feedback from new players. And the more veterans talk about these ideas, the more I'm concerned that all these discussions are distracting from newbies getting a space to talk.

In post 12, Xalxe wrote:

In post 5, BROseidon wrote:as a mentor/mentee sort of thing where you have say 16 players and 16 "mentors"

Seen this done; I think it could be..interesting? As long as people were genuinely interested in both teaching & playing the game. Tribe of newbies, tribe of mentors, allow crosstalk across pairs and you have an interesting iteration on BvW.

I was thinking that the mentors wouldn't even play, although making it a BvW variant would also be pretty cool.

This is a very good thread, I'm very interested in what the newer players in the community have to say on these things.

In post 12, Xalxe wrote:

In post 5, BROseidon wrote:as a mentor/mentee sort of thing where you have say 16 players and 16 "mentors"

Seen this done; I think it could be..interesting? As long as people were genuinely interested in both teaching & playing the game. Tribe of newbies, tribe of mentors, allow crosstalk across pairs and you have an interesting iteration on BvW.

This is actually a really cool idea! I think it would work better than a hydra type game and help newbies in a good way!

I didn't realize there was a newbie guide (literally just bookmarked it now, thanks for the link ), but that probably would have helped a lot in preparing for my first game! I honestly thought I was doing a good job, but I was not even close to having enough conversation and thought playing to my character would increase anonymity (mostly due to my rather distinct playstyle) and it was a big reason I got knocked out so quickly.

I think a feedback form is always a good idea, and sure it's optional, but with the commitment LSGs demands, you will probably get a much higher answer rate than in Mafia games!

I went into the game somewhat knowing what I had stepped into, but having no real clue what to do once there. I talked about maybe joining at Kingsmeet and did when I got asked if I was interested, but I still really didn't know what to do. Since the games are on a different platform, I assume there isn't really a way for newbies to read a game (and it would be pretty confusing if not live-following anyway, plus no PM logs), so I don't know how much this really can be improved, other than a thread for those interested in the game to talk about the game among themselves and with veterans, and the Newbie Guide (which I'm going to read before the next game I play).

I think I rambled but oh well...

What makes some people enjoy playing or not enjoy playing?

I think the reason that I finally quited Survivor was simply I don't know how much to talk?

On my first game, I did the routine "talk to other people, introduce yourself", but during TC, one of the person PMed saying "Hey, you are not talking enough" before I got blindsided unanimously.

So I simply don't know how much to talk? I think I talked more in my first Survivor than IRL so when I can't gauge the bar of "How much talking is enough," I lost hope.

In post 17, Realeo wrote:

What makes some people enjoy playing or not enjoy playing?

I think the reason that I finally quited Survivor was simply I don't know how much to talk?

On my first game, I did the routine "talk to other people, introduce yourself", but during TC, one of the person PMed saying "Hey, you are not talking enough" before I got blindsided unanimously.

So I simply don't know how much to talk? I think I talked more in my first Survivor than IRL so when I can't gauge the bar of "How much talking is enough," I lost hope.

Minus the losing hope part, I had pretty much the same experience! I though I was talking plenty, but I was blindsided in TC1 for not talking enough.

I think it's a learning thing and not a reason to quit though!

Generally speaking a good heuristic is "if I have a pm sitting in my inbox and real life isn't in the way, I should respond to it now."

I ended Civivor with 767 PMs exchanged with Theo and that was a "low" number for fellow finalist that I was close allies with basically the whole game.

I'm basically just going to egopost this thread for now because I don't have the time to make a proper response to everything now.

One thing I will say now though, is that I still think the best way for newbies to get accustomed to the Survivor experience is to spectate a game before they play in one. Yeah, I was disappointed initially when I wasn't chosen to be a player in LoL, but I immersed myself in the game as a spectator and gained invaluable insight in the way the game worked. Even though my first game was non-anon (and with my only experience being that and Medevac/One World, I still haven't played in a "traditional" game of Survivor), there was still a lot that transferred over and I was definitely a leg up on what to expect compared to where I would have been without that experience.

I too am very interested in the newbie responses to this thread. Civ intentionally cast a large number of new players, and I'd love to hear what they thought not just of Civilization specifically but also the Survivor experience as a whole.

2. A constructive feedback form could be implemented at each game to ask all players about what kept them engaged and what they would like to see in the future again. We don't have feedback forms - but for example university classes do this all the time.

This is an excellent idea and Xof and I have been discussing it.

I've played other social game sites before and I've done quite well in them and I thought entering one here myself would be fun but it was strange I just got super...overwhelmed I think my biggest issue was everything was forum based and having to wait for replies was a big let down for me because when I played before on other things it was done with live convo's and those were super engaging to me It could be just me but having to PM someone and wait almost a day etc to get an answer back was...just not that fun for me

In post 19, BROseidon wrote:Generally speaking a good heuristic is "if I have a pm sitting in my inbox and real life isn't in the way, I should respond to it now."

Hmm. I think I'm quite responsive. I have my laptop on pretty much all the time?

Maybe time zone issue? I usually log off from midnight to 9 am (for sleeping reason. I HAVE LIFE) which translates to noon to 9 pm on "American time" which is usually the peak time?