Why did newbie games end?

[the worst]

Yes but you’re putting the onus entirely on new players with your perspective. It shouldn’t be our job to capitulate to more seasoned players and their unfair treatment because it’s a social game. I’m happy to meet in the middle of the other side were willing but in my limited experience here, that’s not likely to happen. The reliance on meta is crippling.

I can't overstate how toxic I find elitism. Just, like, in any social situation it's very hard to change other people's behaviours. Learning tactics for relating to each other is part of the process, and (perhaps annoyingly sometimes) learning is a big part of being a newbie.

Sorry if my response comes across as implying that this is a "you problem" or anything like that. I was more coming from a perspective of "this is why the newbie queue died, and here are some possible ways to work around that". I do think it's really vital that folks meet each other half way.

When I'm more settled I'd also run some newbie-friendlier games.

All the suggestions here seem to be what new players can do to help themselves be more accepted and comfortable instead of looking at how the current players treat new players in these games.

easier to change yourself than others

this is the one-sentence version of what I wanted to say but I think it's more nuanced than that

[Firebringer]

your the most elitist duck i know

[the worst]

The reliance on meta is crippling.

“Meta” (which is used incorrectly most of the time because people like having very low sample size of games played together and call that meta) is an unfortunate side effect of mafia games in general and people tend to rely on it because having something to reference when reading someone is easier than just trying to read someone blindly. It’s like taking an exam with or without notes. So you will never see people not relying on meta, not just in this site, but in any site.

+1, preach. meta is antithetical to having fun.

I don't really think reintroducing a newbie game to play in would resolve the problems you listed out. But hope you find a game you can enjoy

you know, perhaps ironically, i think running newbie games outside the newbie queue is a better way to address this than the newbie queue. i think it's a more conscious effort to /in to a newbie-friendly open game than it used to be to /in to the newbie queue. maybe this is a me thing.

[KayJayQueue]

All the suggestions here seem to be what new players can do to help themselves be more accepted and comfortable instead of looking at how the current players treat new players in these games.

easier to change yourself than others

This just feels very dismissive of my point of view.

[Firebringer]

All the suggestions here seem to be what new players can do to help themselves be more accepted and comfortable instead of looking at how the current players treat new players in these games.

easier to change yourself than others

This just feels very dismissive of my point of view.

its not

[PookyTheMagicalBear]

you're right about meta being anti fun and kind of dumb.

some players use meta to poe down a player list and its so annoying to play that its just not very fun. i would even say its the dominant form of play for many people on this site.

i dont really have a good answer for you about how to find enjoyment in the game if you are dismissed because of stupid reasons.

it happens all the time - you either figure out a way to have fun with the game even if people dont listen to you or you do something else with your free time.

[PookyTheMagicalBear]

like you can have a completely right solve but because people dismiss you because of <insert dumb reasons here> you just lose.

you gotta find a way to be happy with that outcome because it will definitely happen to you.

conversely you can be completely convinced you've got a right solve and you end up winning because you got ignored and someone else's solve was right and they managed to convinced the rest of the town to to along with it.

you still win along with them in that situation.

i dont think winning or losing is that important - its all about having fun playing the game and enjoying the journey.

[PookyTheMagicalBear]

i realize 30 might be overly critical of players who heavily use meta.

i should add some context - i myself very much use meta all the time. I am familiar with a large number of people on this site and i know some of them very well to the point that i am probably not going to misread them like at all except in very rare circumstances(shoutout to my boy Bell)

and it is tough to treat every game as a blank slate when you know your friends so well. like im not going to forget all my knowledge of how my buddies play just to start from scratch because it makes no sense to do that.

so me and you if we were in a game together and both town aligned might approach solving a slot a different way - and i probably would be dismissive of your read of a slot if i think i know better how this player behaves in a multitude of situations because I have experience with them that you simply lack. and yea thats not an even playing field nor is it fair but i dont know if theres like an easy solution to fix that.

you're right that its unfun and not a good situation - i hope your experiences get better. in my experience the vast majority of players on this site are playing in good faith and wont just outright dismiss someone because they are a "newbie" etc.

[KayJayQueue]

i realize 30 might be overly critical of players who heavily use meta.

i should add some context - i myself very much use meta all the time. I am familiar with a large number of people on this site and i know some of them very well to the point that i am probably not going to misread them like at all except in very rare circumstances(shoutout to my boy Bell)

and it is tough to treat every game as a blank slate when you know your friends so well. like im not going to forget all my knowledge of how my buddies play just to start from scratch because it makes no sense to do that.

so me and you if we were in a game together and both town aligned might approach solving a slot a different way - and i probably would be dismissive of your read of a slot if i think i know better how this player behaves in a multitude of situations because I have experience with them that you simply lack. and yea thats not an even playing field nor is it fair but i dont know if theres like an easy solution to fix that.

you're right that its unfun and not a good situation - i hope your experiences get better. in my experience the vast majority of players on this site are playing in good faith and wont just outright dismiss someone because they are a "newbie" etc.

I appreciate the candor and self-awareness of your post. I hope the experiences get better as well.

[PookyTheMagicalBear]

i think if you stick around for a bit you will find people you enjoy playing with and it will be a fun experience - you will start signing up for the same games together and eventually build a decent group to play with.

at least i hope that happens.

it always takes time in the beginning. :3

[Ythan]

Seems like the consensus is that new players have to conform to make the community accept them.

I'm not seeing what gave you this impression in the preceding posts.

[Gypyx]

i know there's already a gtkas thread that's close, but maybe a thread in queue for newbies to pop into for queueing help and especially coordinating opportunities for them to /in the same games together could be a stel toward preserving the newbie queue experience

i can further imagine more dramatic changes like privileging confirmed newbies in queues (so they're in a game faster), welcome PMs that look like those initial IC posts that used to be made, maybe a buddy system for pairing newbies in games with people willing to take on an IC role, and so on.


there really are a lot of policy approaches besides bringing back newbie queue that might help with this issue

That buddy system suggestion seems really interesting actually, it might be a bit hard including it without making it an unofficial Hydra but i think it's worth thinking about

[halfasleep]

as a newbie i'd like to say in favour of newbie games that trying to follow the current newbie advice to join either an approved open or simple normal format game took me over a month to get into a game anyway. was the newbie queue significantly slower than that when it closed?

[DragonEater70]

No it was faster. About 2-3 weeks for a game to fill up I think.

[Radical Rat]

as a newbie i'd like to say in favour of newbie games that trying to follow the current newbie advice to join either an approved open or simple normal format game took me over a month to get into a game anyway. was the newbie queue significantly slower than that when it closed?

No, however that pace was only maintained because frequently Newbie Games would launch without the normally required amount of actual Newbies. You can go look for yourself how things were in the Archived Queues section of the forum. The idea was that removing the Newbie Queue and funneling Newbies into the other queues instead would improve the wait times, and make for a quicker transition into games.

In practice, the other queues feel largely unchanged to me, they ebb and flow as they did before, and clearly we now have a significant gap in the Newbie experience. Hopefully this gap can be addressed soon, in one way or another.

[Dannflor]

on the meta discussion, I think most people use meta incorrectly and it often gets people in trouble more times than it is actually helpful.

i think it also unfortunately leads to forms of toxicity because people take personal offense when they get read incorrectly and think that because their friend know their meta so well they "should" be reading them correctly, and that can get weaponized as both alignments

maybe I'll make an MD post about meta sometime soon because i feel like there's a lot of misconceptions about it

[Dannflor]

anyway, i just /inned to run a newbie setup in the Open Queue if any newbies are reading this and want to head over there and play a game. I'll try to make it as newbie friendly as a mod as I can.

I understand this isn't a solution to a systemic problem but figured it can't hurt.

[Prism]

To more concretely answer why the Newbie Queue ended, it's more than just that its best days were behind it. It'd still be around in a reduced role if it did its job.

Most players liked the queue. It's how they started out, and they enjoyed mentoring people in turn. But it hit a point of reduced activity that created arguably

negative

utility. It's not just that it took awhile: games took so long to fire that Newbies simply forgot the site existed and moved on. Worst touched on it but it's worth the full explanation.

In its last days, the queue looked more like a newbie trap instead of a newbie funnel. New players excited to jump in were basically told to come back in a month. Many did not.

[Psyche]

i suggested a fix in that other thread!

[Prism]

Yeah I see now that discussion is scattered around, the point's been hammered home elsewhere, and discussion is further along. Happens!

[Aureal]

I was very skeptical of the removal of the newbie queue, and every time this comes up again I find myself still completely in agreement with those who are distressed by its removal. I just went through the last queue thread and took down when games were fired from the start of the thread in 2017 and the end in 2023.

Spoiler: 2017

Aug 2
Aug 7
Aug 11
Aug 14
Aug 19
Aug 25
Aug 29
Sep 5
Sep 13
Sep 18
Sep 21
Sep 25
Oct 7
Oct 8
Oct 10
Oct 17
Oct 26
Nov 2
Nov 3
Nov 7
Nov 15
Nov 20
Nov 27
Nov 30
Dec 4
Dec 12

Spoiler: 2023

Jan 11
Jan 24
Feb 4
Feb 7
Feb 18
Feb 25
Mar 1
Mar 5
Mar 20
Mar 24
Apr 5
Apr 15
Apr 26
May 5
May 11
May 26
Jun 16
Jun 19
Jul 5
Jul 19
Aug 8

So did it fire games more quickly in the past? Yes, in 2017 newbie games typically fired within a week. In 2023 most games fired within two weeks. Does this justify removing the queue? If the alternative was sending newbies into games more quickly and consistently, maybe. What's actually happened? They were directed to play a Normal or Open game; or technically Approved Open, which fires much less frequently than the Open queue at large, they are the underlined games in my lists below.

Spoiler: Normal

Sep 8
Sep 17
Sep 24
Oct 6
Oct 11
Oct 25
Nov 5
Nov 18
Nov 20
Nov 29
Dec 6
Dec 18
Dec 28
Jan 3
Jan 23
Jan 31
Feb 3
Feb 15
Feb 21
Mar 1
Mar 14
Mar 14
Mar 16

Spoiler: Open

Sep 11

Sep 17
Sep 17

Sep 20

Sep 24
Oct 3

Oct 9

Oct 10

Oct 26

Nov 4

Nov 16
Nov 23

Dec 2
Dec 7

Dec 10

Dec 14
Dec 30

Jan 5
Jan 11

Jan 25

Feb 7
Feb 9

Feb 24
Mar 14
Mar 18
Mar 24

Is this really better?

Normals have a comparable rate of fire, typically being about two weeks until another one fills, just the like Newbie Queue was. Opens in general do somewhat better, but Approved Opens specifically are far more irregular- often that slot is just empty and it takes a month for the next one.

This has not done anything to address the issue of 'newbies waiting too long' for games (which has always been an issue, some people will still flake even if their game starts the next day).

The Newbie Queue was a valued and important part of this site, and I feel its removal has diminished its vitality. I understand that the hope was to funnel players into other queues and cause those to churn games out more quickly but I feel there are simply

fewer

games being played now. You cannot just force people who want to play a newbie game to sign up for something different- all games are not the same. Choice is a vital part of enjoying being here playing. There's been many times I've felt like I wanted to sign up for something, but looking at my options in signups left me uninspired. You know what happens then? People likely just don't sign up to play

anything

. The Newbie Queue wasn't even just a benefit for newbies. Many more experienced players also enjoy playing in a (hopefully) slightly more casual environment with a solid setup like NewD3. It was a needed source of consistency, where you know what you're getting, as opposed to the other queues where everything else is dependent on what the moderator feels like doing with it. The lack of the newbie queue is doing an injustice both to newbies, by throwing them into the fire with games full of experienced players right off the bat which can easily lead to needlessly discouraging them; and to more experienced players who enjoy that experience.

[DragonEater70]

Yep Aureal has yet again managed to say what I had been trying to articulate but much more coherently and articulately. Mega Nth.

[KayJayQueue]

I appreciate that reply so much.

[OopsieDaisy]

i know there's already a gtkas thread that's close, but maybe a thread in queue for newbies to pop into for queueing help and especially coordinating opportunities for them to /in the same games together could be a stel toward preserving the newbie queue experience

i can further imagine more dramatic changes like privileging confirmed newbies in queues (so they're in a game faster), welcome PMs that look like those initial IC posts that used to be made, maybe a buddy system for pairing newbies in games with people willing to take on an IC role, and so on.


there really are a lot of policy approaches besides bringing back newbie queue that might help with this issue

That buddy system suggestion seems really interesting actually, it might be a bit hard including it without making it an unofficial Hydra but i think it's worth thinking about

Yea I think having a friendly person to go to for advice and help is super important for new players on the site. In newbie games this was your experienced slots, for me personally I just played a lot of games with someone I knew IRL who was more experienced on forum so I'd always have at least someone to bounce off of. You need something to take that edge off imo because getting airdropped into a first game on your own like KJQ had (which I just read over the past few days) is gonna be hell.

Credit to you for getting through that game KJQ I would've tilted off the planet in that one too lol.

[Ranmaru]

That's a shame that Newbie games have ended. I realize that, with Newbie games, it helped me get introduced to the site. So I think without that, I'd feel more like a random joining games in such a large site. I guess we had it good back then. I definitely really appreciate the experience, I think it's helped me (to the extent that I could grow) quite a lot. Yet I understand the problem of not enough newbies coming in. You know, back then, the way I was introduced to Mafiascum, was through another forum, playing mafia. (Fun fact, I got tricked into a Mafia game, when I was just interested in Mario Bros, the theme got me) Yet nowadays? Forums are dead. So how else will people find the site? Also agreed with Aureal, I think it would be a great way to go back and sharpen skills because sometimes, in normal games, we get burned due to the mistakes we still make. I would think it would be good practice.