New Player Feedback Methodology

For large social games such as Survivor where the primary mechanic is social interaction.
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Post Post #47 (isolation #0) » Wed Sep 27, 2017 5:21 am

Post by grumpy »

Okay so here's my (hopefully long and thought out) post about everything and I'm pretty sure I've already talked about this prior, but happy to repeat i

Being a newbie in a game....is daunting. It's like being the new kid at a new school. You're entering a game where there's already an established community, where there's already an established meta, where people have inside jokes, and know all the little forum tricks to better navigate the site. Its a challenging task to combat all of this, and frankly, kinda scary. So much so that you may even blindside your closest ally because of it lol. And I know that if I didn't have CC sleeping next to me, I would've been at a total loss.

The problem for newbies lies in the fact that the material to help newbies is completely inaccessible. Sure, there's the "Newbie Guide," but who is really going to read through hundreds of posts of redundant "veteran" drama/theorization/crap. No one has time to sift through all of that. And sure, there's the link to all of the past games, but try being a newbie and clicking one of those links. You have no idea what to look for, nor know even how to look for it once you figure that out. It's at a point now where the best advice to newbies is to just "wing it and be sociable," but that's not enough in my opinion.

A separate page dedicated SOLELY for newbies would help tremendously. And in this thread, there would be a number of invaluable topics.
1) A general outline that describes the normal/typical survivor game and maybe some examples of past twists so that newbies know (somewhat) what to expect
2) A page that describes the FUNCTIONALITY of the zeta board threads. Just showing how to write a PM, how to navigate the page, how to post memes (still don't know how to do that), how to check if someone's online, would all really help newbies be part of the community
3) Maybe a page that keeps an up-to-date list of inside jokes/meta?
4) A page showing past Great Moves and Past Blunders by players, highlighting the good and and the bad

The most importantly thing though is the first the last numbers, because that insight for newbies is so important. If these guides were accompanied by hyperlinks that show exactly what is being described (like in the Ban/Suspended forum), that would be ideal.

I also agree with bippy to add a permanent Ask The Specs thread in all newbie games. The amount of questions newbies have is.....a lot and if they go by unanswered, it really deters them from being engaged. I know in my first game, I had sooooo many questions and thank god the specs in that game were as active as they were. Even my second time around I dedicated a thread specifically for spec/mod questions.....so maybe this should be universal across the board?

Anyway those are my thoughts :P
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Post Post #48 (isolation #1) » Wed Sep 27, 2017 5:27 am

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In post 25, Aurathebirb wrote: One thing that I've also noticed is that some players seem to "know" things about the game that haven't been officially announced; like the number of jurors, whether its going to be 2 or 3 FTC, when switches are going to happen and how often they might happen.

Hopefully with these guides, it would solve this issue so that everyone is on the same playing field.
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Post Post #50 (isolation #2) » Wed Sep 27, 2017 5:35 am

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And.......I guess one more unpopular opinion is this:

Veteran players cannot and should not populate newbie threads with....for lack of a better word....crap. As already mentioned, but we have to minimize the amount of barriers for newbies to join games and all the theorization/rambling/inside jokes/stuff newbies don't really care about is a HUGE barrier. Newbies just need a place, free from all that, to learn. That's it. Of course the site moderations will be there for any questions, but besides that....no one else is needed.

That's all newbies need: a dedicated thread solely for them where they can easily learn. That's it. The quality of Survivor games will increase. The number of people willing to mod a game will increase. Number of available games/players will increase. But we can't get there without a foundation for the new players
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Post Post #51 (isolation #3) » Wed Sep 27, 2017 5:38 am

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In post 49, D3f3nd3r wrote:
In post 48, grumpy wrote:
In post 25, Aurathebirb wrote: One thing that I've also noticed is that some players seem to "know" things about the game that haven't been officially announced; like the number of jurors, whether its going to be 2 or 3 FTC, when switches are going to happen and how often they might happen.

Hopefully with these guides, it would solve this issue so that everyone is on the same playing field.
I think Aura was going a bit more for the "outguess the mod" that gets played when it comes to merge and FTC timing, and swaps. It's a bit of an acquired skill, honestly, I just know when to expect things because I've been through the ringer that is onsite Survivor some absurd number of times. The one thing we can emphasize even more than we already are is to read past games.
And that's the thing, how do you expect a newbie to read through past games? Hell, I didn't even know past were available until I was writing my opening for Medevac! But even if you did, how do you even find what you're looking for when you click on the link while trying to shuffle through 10+ player confessionals? There needs to be a guide with links to show newbies in these games exactly what happened, why it happened, and what were the consequences
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Post Post #59 (isolation #4) » Wed Sep 27, 2017 11:19 am

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Yeah drama's going to be a given since players invest so much of themselves in these games, but that really doesn't pertain to newbies I don't think
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Post Post #71 (isolation #5) » Thu Sep 28, 2017 11:25 am

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In regards to feedback, maybe in future survivor games it should be required to complete a simple, unbiased feedback survey that highlights to technical aspects of the game and critiques the mods. Maybe like right before FTC since everyone is just waiting around for openings anyway. Might be a good idea
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Post Post #72 (isolation #6) » Thu Sep 28, 2017 11:26 am

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Forgot to say the remaining players, the jury and all specs are the ones to complete it. (Especially since most specs would be premerge players)
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Post Post #76 (isolation #7) » Thu Sep 28, 2017 4:54 pm

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^^^^ agreed

I thought pabs was looking for like general constructive feedback but that also works
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Post Post #79 (isolation #8) » Fri Sep 29, 2017 4:35 am

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^^^^^^ this
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Post Post #83 (isolation #9) » Fri Sep 29, 2017 11:34 am

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In post 81, OhGodMyLife wrote:Hooray people remember Bob's Nobag Not Blog
How can people forget?!
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Post Post #105 (isolation #10) » Sun Oct 08, 2017 1:20 pm

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Honestly, I think the practice of hiding idols within the actual forum pages (through secret links and the like) should be done away with. It gives veterans such an unfair advantage, since combing every character of every page is the very first thing they do, right? A vet is basically guaranteed an idol within the first couple days (at the latest) of the game.

I really liked how the idols were hidden in One World (aka through covered items/items that weren't what they actually were + some task to follow).
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