Is it time to dissolve the newbie queue?

[TywinL]

In the past 86 days, the open queue has fired 5 times, at a rate of once every 17 days.
In the past 56 days, 5 large theme games have entered sign ups, at a rate of once every 11 days
In the past 41 days, the micro queue has fired 5 times, at a rate of once every 8 days.
In the past 33 days, the mini theme queue has fired 5 times, at a rate of once every 7 days.
In the past 31 days, the normal queue has fired 5 times, at a rate of once every 6 days.
In the past 29 days, the newbie queue has fired 5 times, at a rate of once every 6 days.

The newbie queue is the most active queue.

Just wanted to add something to that.

There is only one on-going Open game right now. If anything needs to be dissolved, it would be the Open queue, but I am also against that too.

[zoraster]

Forgive me for putting words in his mouth, but I don't think the issue TSQ was having was that queues that don't fire often necessarily need to be removed but that it's important for the first game that a newbie plays to fire quickly so we turned them from mildly interested people who registered and typed /in into a user that accesses the site regularly in order to play a game. The longer the distance between point A and B the more likely we are to lose people.

[Gamma Emerald]

an issue I see is the fact that many newbies that /in end up replacing, reducing the amount that fire.

[Lycanfire]

Regarding opens, it might help if we had more setups. I have no idea how a setup I made can be both massively townsided and scumsided and a valid solution is to break the mountainous/two towns theme/the point of the game, and add PRs for some reason. I have no idea how to fix my setup, and I don't trust the solutions given to me, while it would probably not be accepted into open queue if I were to ignore the review. Sure it has potential to hard swing to town, but whether that would realistically happen over random chance makes me roll my eyes. I thought the point of open review was to stop broken setups from entering queue, like don't cut the red wire.

[callforjudgement]

The arguments you're seeing with that setup are because practical results will depend a lot on how and whether people try to break it, and nobody's quite sure how people will try to break it at the moment. (It seems that the strategy may be complex enough that it can't be easily explained to a computer, which is why the simulations are disagreeing.) Of course, this might mean that that particular setup isn't so great for newbies.

(When I mod a setup, I normally also give an explanation of how newbie-friendly I think it is. If the setup's inappropriate for newbies I normally require at least one game of experience, so that they don't end up in it. If it's appropriate, then I say so, because why prevent them joining in that case?)

[Thestatusquo]

Forgive me for putting words in his mouth, but I don't think the issue TSQ was having was that queues that don't fire often necessarily need to be removed but that it's important for the first game that a newbie plays to fire quickly so we turned them from mildly interested people who registered and typed /in into a user that accesses the site regularly in order to play a game. The longer the distance between point A and B the more likely we are to lose people.

No, thats pretty spot on.

[Plotinus]

What if a newbie game would start every 4 days. If there weren't enough newbies then extra SE slots would get used up? That way, nobody has to wait longer than 4 days? If there were a lot of newbies then it would be 6:2:1 new:se:ic like normal but if there were only a few newbies then it could be 3:5:1 even?

[Thestatusquo]

I think thats an interesting outline of an idea, though I think some of the details are rough. Is 4 days the best we can do? Does this stress out the queue too much if we start doing it right away? If so, how do we source mods and SEs.

Are newbie games even the best way to achieve this goal? I.e. would this be better in some other format, i.e. the normal queue.

not sure, really. But I like the idea in general.

[Plotinus]

right now, there are 7 mods waiting for a game (5 people, 2 in twice). 0 newbies because a game just launched. 11 SEs, 5 ICs. With a game launching every 7 days, the SEs and the IC at the end of the line will wait about 4-5 weeks for a game, so I think it wouldn't stress it out too much.

Maybe 2ish SEs should be kept in reserve, so a game wouldn't launch with 3 newbies and 5 SEs and then the next day 10 newbies show up but there aren't any SEs (i don'T think this is very likely scenario but I still think keeping a few in reserve is a good idea.)

So it could go:

If there are enough players for a new game, and if at least two? three? of them are newbies, and if it wouldn't empty the queue entirely of SEs, then start a new game, otherwise wait for some more newbies.

[fferyllt]

I like this. We currently vary between 2 and 3 SEs. And I think it wouldn't harm the newbie experience at all to start with 4 SEs if 5 seems a little high. It might mean fewer overall replacements, which I think would improve the newbie game experience. By day 3 games often have 1 or more SEs in the newbie slots anyway.

We do get a fair number of SE replacements, but maybe we could work on ways to discourage SEs from signing up and replacing out of newbie games.

[PenguinPower]

This actually came up very recently as a point of discussion - so I'm glad to see others have similar thoughts - and is something I would like to implement. My only concern is the SE portion of the queue. While there was a quick influx of SEs when it was announced they were needed, I'm concerned that we won't have that sort of depth continuously.

[Gamma Emerald]

The main issue I can see with SEs is the fact that they don't really have a role in newbies like ICs do. It's just a role you kinda sit in and play normally, which honestly makes it rather bland. Newbies are learning while ICs are teaching. what is the critical thing that SEs do?

[Mulch]

Imagine if all the newbies joined normals and learned how to actually play


I'm 99% sure that my newbie game did zero helpful things in the long run comparatively to how a real game would play.

However, if that would be the case, the normal guidelines need to be tightened up to help newbies.. Even now there is some ambiguity on what can be allowed.

But if it was explained, the sooner the newbies go into the real population the better. Not a replacement hell with dumbed down roles and teachers that teach theory that don't actually tell you how to scum hunt.

Although, the pace of review woild probably have to increase for this.

[Plotinus]

The SEs are there to interact with each other and give an example of site meta and how players who know each other interact and form reads. They're not formally teaching and explaining stuff but they're doing something useful.

[Gödel]

Well a newbie game a lot of time has between 12-14 players, it at times makes it almost impossible to get a read on a slot. Newbie slots get replaced a lot more then SE(which again are more likely than IC slots) so like mentioned above I think more SE players in a game could really help the flow of the game.

EDIT: here is the link to some of the stats

[Raskolnikov]

The main issue I can see with SEs is the fact that they don't really have a role in newbies like ICs do. It's just a role you kinda sit in and play normally, which honestly makes it rather bland. Newbies are learning while ICs are teaching. what is the critical thing that SEs do?

Sometimes the IC isn't performing their role and some SEs can help pick up the slack. Or if IC gets killed n1 the SEs could still clarify some mechanics later. It's been a while since I played but I think it's good to have some counterweight in the game to the one IC too so newbies don't feel too bad about suspecting/lynching their potential only source of info.

[zoraster]

I think people just playing in a style similar to mafiascum offers some value. I do wonder why we bother give them a title, frankly, as that creates a confusing situation where people think BOTH ICs and SEs should be helping newbies in the game.

[Thestatusquo]

isn't this a thing you can change?

[chamber]

I don't think them having titles is an issue. I do think the titles are awful and always have been.

[Thestatusquo]

They kitschy.

Which can be fine.

[chamber]

They are extremely unclear in meaning to someone thats new. I remember being confused by them when I was new. Edit: Or rather by IC, SE's didn't exist.

[mhsmith0]

Imo a game with <5 newbie slots to start with (much less after replacements) really isn't much of a newbie game.

[callforjudgement]

I think we'd greatly benefit from deciding whether a "newbie game" is a game full of newbies, a game suitable for newbies, or a game which has the purpose of training newbies.

The definition we use somewhat controls what constraints we have to work under when deciding what forms our newbie games should take. (For example, a game which has 1 newbie and 8 experienced players could fit the second definition excellently and the third partially, but would not fit the first at all.)

[popsofctown]

In the past 86 days, the open queue has fired 5 times, at a rate of once every 17 days.
In the past 56 days, 5 large theme games have entered sign ups, at a rate of once every 11 days
In the past 41 days, the micro queue has fired 5 times, at a rate of once every 8 days.
In the past 33 days, the mini theme queue has fired 5 times, at a rate of once every 7 days.
In the past 31 days, the normal queue has fired 5 times, at a rate of once every 6 days.
In the past 29 days, the newbie queue has fired 5 times, at a rate of once every 6 days.

The newbie queue is the most active queue.

Just wanted to add something to that.

There is only one on-going Open game right now. If anything needs to be dissolved, it would be the Open queue, but I am also against that too.

Forgive me for putting words in his mouth, but I don't think the issue TSQ was having was that queues that don't fire often necessarily need to be removed but that it's important for the first game that a newbie plays to fire quickly so we turned them from mildly interested people who registered and typed /in into a user that accesses the site regularly in order to play a game. The longer the distance between point A and B the more likely we are to lose people.

Under what conditions is "losing people" a bad thing, though? I would suspect the subset of people who stop visiting the site to check the queue thread and their PMs on the Sixth day after their /in is closely correlated with the subset of people who will replace out of their first, second, or third game.
Actually, I think that's studyable, since you could go through and see if replacement rates are lower for players who waited 5 days for their game to queue vs. players who waited 1 day, for their first game. Maybe there's egg on my face and there's no statistically significant relationship. I don't know if anyone would want to do that legwork, though.

Still, my main point is that you should focus on "what process adds value added members to the site", not "what process adds members to the site." What playstyles are enjoyable to have around can be controversial, but low replacement rate is one of the not-so-controversial characteristics.

In a lots of fits of boredom over the past 1.5 years or so I have *almost* joined a game, but the only large I was interested in was too far from filling, or an open setup I'd be willing to play wasn't even at the front of the queue, or etc, or etc. I feel like it's quite possible this function mimicked the tests that a rough patch or lull in a game I actually joined might have had, and whether I would become miserable or replace out/ play unfunly with that kind of interest level.

[Gamma Emerald]

I think we'd greatly benefit from deciding whether a "newbie game" is a game full of newbies, a game suitable for newbies, or a game which has the purpose of training newbies.

The definition we use somewhat controls what constraints we have to work under when deciding what forms our newbie games should take. (For example, a game which has 1 newbie and 8 experienced players could fit the second definition excellently and the third partially, but would not fit the first at all.)

I'd say 2 and 3