What games/setups are good for new players?
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Psyche he/theySurvivorhe/they
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Potentially portable features of Newbie Games:
- Small playerlists
- Simple, transparent setups (e.g., NewD3) that are easy to reason about without knowing site meta
- An "introduction and tips" post containing helpful links, key concepts and tips
- Readable rule lists that emphasize avoiding toxicity and are clear about what that means
- Volunteer ICs. We have a guide for those: https://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?ti ... _a_good_SE And prior standards for being one: https://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?ti ... Challenged https://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?ti ... xperienced
- An enforced balance between Newbie, IC, and SE player sign-upsYou can't step in the same river twice.-
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fferyllt Titan of Trajectory
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I think that in order to have good newbie experiences, MS will need a staff member (and probably a whole volunteer team) to work on the stuff that the newbie queue was meant to facilitate:
- good learning experiences about forum mafia and mafia in general
- A strong pipeline to the rest of the queues
- players and mods who consistently dedicate some of their time, energy, creative effort to games that are newbie friendly
- keeping an eye on statistics about how successful MS is at curating a good newbie player experience
- lots of other stuff
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PookyTheMagicalBear Pooky got your back
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I think the main goal of the newbie queue was to get newcomers to the site introduced to its quirks etc in a friendly way that would help build the population, some of the key problems with the previous approach were imo:
[1] Too long of a wait between signup -> getting to actually play in a game, attention spans are short and people trying to find a place to play mafia will just try a few places and stick with wherever they get to play sooner usually. if they're playing somewhere else they probably won't play here if they get a role pm two or three weeks after they "signup"
[2] Too Few/ Irregular Game Firing - this problem builds off issue[1] because it's hard to get a game started if you're waiting for newbies to pick up their role pms and sometimes they just don't because they're like gone somewhere else already.
[3] Difficulty with mentorship structure where players giving advice can be opposed to the interests of the players being mentored as alignments are unknown etc.
I think the best way to alleviate all of these issues is to make a dedicated newbie game that is radically different in approach and allows new players tojump in right away to playto eliminate the wait time issue and also provide mentorship that is definitely aligned with the player.
I think a good approach for this would be if the newD3 game would fire with 9 experienced players in each player slot and as many newbies as sign up; for example a game could fire with nine veteran players and four newbies and each newbie would be paired in a hydra of sorts with a vet. Newbies signing up while the game is in progress can jump into any unpaired slot and be brought up to speed by whatever vet player is already playing in the slot.
I understand this might take a bit of work from the moderation team and be difficult to implement; another way to implement this on a micro-scale would be to place "new" newbies in "simple" setups that are already running such as mini normals or small open setups where the newbie would be paired with a willing slot already playing in the game and it would become something like a hydra. The key idea here is to shorten the time between a new player finding this site and getting to "play" and get a feel of how playing mafia here will work.Show"I hope one day I can openly play as wolfy as Pooky and get zero pressure for it grumble grumble."
-MariaR
"I can't even look at the game anymore.
That evil teddy bear has got everyone twirling by his thumb.
It's like witnessing an slow but unavoidable train crash you can't stop."
-Norwee-
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Ydrasse She*twirls hair*She
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we are drafting up all of the queue stuff currently for newbie 2.0 but mentorship has a seat at the table atm as does an extended list of setups beyond newd3
of the most recent post i think i want to throw the immediacy part more into the mix though to figure out the best solution depending on the amount of new players we get-
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usesPython They/ThemMafia ScumThey/Them
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Make a centralized newbie queue that /in's you in every game on the site in signups that's judged to be newbie friendly (however this ends up being determined), this would speed up the firing rate from "whenever a newbie game fires" to "whenever any game on the site fires"In post 28, Ydrasse wrote: of the most recent post i think i want to throw the immediacy part more into the mix though to figure out the best solution depending on the amount of new players we getPlural | Nameless (They/He) and Alice (She/Her) and C (They/Them) and more-
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Psyche he/theySurvivorhe/they
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that was my idea too!
i think this can be easily combined with an effort to consistently fire games with a specific newbie-friendly format though
and in fact i think the policies would better together than apartYou can't step in the same river twice.-
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Ydrasse She*twirls hair*She
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i’m personally unsure of how well that would work + also not a mod who would be dealing with it as a purble but i’ll throw it into the mix as a potential-
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Ydrasse She*twirls hair*She
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(in that it collides with our mentorship idea which i believe should be kept to very specific games and not spread out over queues but again personal)-
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Psyche he/theySurvivorhe/they
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suppose is hard to tell if mentorship or quickly firing games is more important for converting new users into regular players. but my intuition is honestly that the latter is more fundamental.You can't step in the same river twice.-
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Ydrasse She*twirls hair*She
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having thought a small amount about it i think i would prefer smaller, shorter games firing in the newbie queue than i would distributing newbies across multiple queues to expedite them playing-
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Ydrasse She*twirls hair*
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Psyche he/theySurvivorhe/they
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well i kind of expect these games to be reasonably popular so maybe it won't matter. wish you best of luck.
EDIT: at least hope you'll keep the funnel option in mind if the queue starts to flag.You can't step in the same river twice.-
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T-Bone He/HimA Cut AboveHe/Him
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That's actually an interesting idea.In post 29, usesPython wrote:
Make a centralized newbie queue that /in's you in every game on the site in signups that's judged to be newbie friendly (however this ends up being determined), this would speed up the firing rate from "whenever a newbie game fires" to "whenever any game on the site fires"In post 28, Ydrasse wrote: of the most recent post i think i want to throw the immediacy part more into the mix though to figure out the best solution depending on the amount of new players we get-
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T-Bone He/HimA Cut AboveHe/Him
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Actually let's just workshop it. Here's the relevant part of the OP.
The line I bolded is where I was going to add links to the open and mini normal queues. But if we imagine making a funnel to any newbie friendly game on the site, what does that mechanism look like?-
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PookyTheMagicalBear Pooky got your back
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I think something like a link where if you've never played a game you can talk to a mod and get placed into a game that is either firing soon or is currently in early d1 - where you are slotted with an experienced player who can answer any questions you have and explain any terminology etc.In post 38, T-Bone wrote: The line I bolded is where I was going to add links to the open and mini normal queues. But if we imagine making a funnel to any newbie friendly game on the site, what does that mechanism look like?Show"I hope one day I can openly play as wolfy as Pooky and get zero pressure for it grumble grumble."
-MariaR
"I can't even look at the game anymore.
That evil teddy bear has got everyone twirling by his thumb.
It's like witnessing an slow but unavoidable train crash you can't stop."
-Norwee-
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Ydrasse She*twirls hair*She
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i think that any sort of mentor/buddy program that allows a person to offer relevant advice and help should be strictly in the newbie queue; people can be funneled to other games but at the cost of forgoing that aspect of it.-
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Jingle For Whom the Bell Trolls
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Add an /in to mod flag to the queues alongside the “bastard” flag that says newbie friendly. Have a twofold signup in the newbie thread: in dedicated newbie, in any.
Have listmods pull from the in any list when checking to see if games in their queues fire.This is a Parachute.-
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Jingle For Whom the Bell Trolls
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It adds work to the listmods in that they have to check an extra list, but it shouldn’t be too bad.This is a Parachute.-
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Jingle For Whom the Bell Trolls
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Agreed. With that said, I wouldn’t mind a thread dedicated to making hydras with experienced players and newbies in md, just am opposed to any kind of extra hydra mechanics outside of the newbie queue.In post 40, Ydrasse wrote: i think that any sort of mentor/buddy program that allows a person to offer relevant advice and help should be strictly in the newbie queue; people can be funneled to other games but at the cost of forgoing that aspect of it.This is a Parachute.-
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Jingle For Whom the Bell Trolls
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I think pooky’s idea of dropping newbies in mid game is counterproductive, btw. Replacing in can be incredibly hard at the best of times and I wouldn’t want to deal with that as a newbie. And as scum there is very little more frustrating to me than a replacement dropping into a slot I’ve been manipulating and realizing the manipulation is happening. Not even an issue of I wouldn’t like someone dropping into my slot, but I wouldn’t like someone dropping into someone else’s slot, which would make me less likely to play in any game with the potential for newbies. Which seems bad.This is a Parachute.
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