Newbie Training Seminar

[ViruS]

If any of you(s) played on GPP's Asia Unofficial [was SiR clan server] by wogomo, there's a training mode that can be activated by callvoting it [callvote <map> <layout>] while layout would be 'practice' if the layout for that map exists.*
The difference between normal gameplay is that g_freefundperiod is set to 1 second, buildable damage is set to '0'... and you cant build eggs/repeaters/rc/om. It's basically a config file he created with a slightly modded qvm.

His server also supports a team kill mod but thats something else...
*From what i know the following maps have practice: Tremor, Atcs, Nano, Strafserie_b [to practice strafe jumping, human teams locked]
There may be other maps with the practice layout which i do not know of yet. They can be seen with the /listlayouts command.

[Forty-Two]

Imo free funds is far from the best way to train newbies. It's cool for honing the skills of more experienced players (I remember well playing against Vic on wwF*Fun, for example), but for fresh newbies, it won't teach the basics of the game better, and arguably worse. Newbies need to be introduced to concepts like teamwork, feeding, attacking and such too. Giving free funds won't teach them that, the majority of newbies will just rant, die, rant, die, rant, die, without risk of losing their evos, or providing the enemy team with credits.
As I've stated before, for an actual useful and fun training environment, you need dedicated 'teachers' and admins maintaining that atmosphere, instead of giving some funds and hoping they realize the basic concepts of a 'real' match on their own.

[ViruS]

the majority of newbies will just rant, die, rant, die, rant, die,=

How bout this: New idea [not really]:
The free fund period depends on the k/t ratio where t is time and k is kills, or possibly credits/frags earnt.
Basically, a newbie can spam tyrant while a md whore like pan [who can kill easily] won't get as much credits over time. Therefore more balance.

[Forty-Two]

If you want a server dedicated to training newbies, killwhores have no business to be there at all. Skilled and experienced players can be very useful in the training of newbies, if and only if they offer knowledge and the benefit of their experience. Without such players, a server with only newbies will quickly degenerate to a campy mess where nobody really learns anything or has fun.

It's why I keep emphasising the need for players dedicated to this. You don't want people who just slaughter newbies no matter what they do, nor do you want people who will intentionally stand still or something, so that newbies will kill that person without it having any benefit to them, aside from showing them a faulty image of what usually happens in a match.

Maybe you want a game mode instead of a server? If so, I'd be a bit more inclined to measures such as these, but it wouldn't have as good an effect as a dedicated server. Also remember you don't want to reward mistakes, you want to correct them. Managing funds based on performance could have negative effects, such as newbies 'spamming rants' without caring about feeding or keeping one's evos, or experienced players playing there, ironically, because of the challenge it would provide. Not to mention it wouldn't teach them how to use pounce, or how bases should be built, or the likes.

[naboo]

We want something like Wraths, really…

and

We plan to have both. An offline tutorial mode as well as a friendly newbie server where new players can learn the ropes without being harassed by the veteran players.

Reading through all 3 pages, i propose that you simply just copy everything Wrath did and implement that in its own server in Unva for the newbies to come.

When i started playing tremulous i quickly found my way to wrath after having left several fun servers (and no i hadn't read anything), and i quickly became familiar with the game, mostly thanks to friendly and helpful player(s) being on my team. Admins pretty much weren't necessary most of the time, because the server had a cycle where you would play co-op against the at-that-time challenging bots (DRETCHES), then against humans (CAMON BLASTERS), and then against each other. Because of this whole cycle i think the server managed to keep the games both challenging and fun at the same time (it was actually very fun to hunt down all the eggs as a human team, and suddenly those scary dretches would come out of the dark, and indiscriminately chase you till you died!).

With the possibilities that the new bots have, i can imagine there would be a whole lot more that could be done to both entertain, challenge and teach the newbies in this game.

Yeah in conclusion the constant cycle of gametypes in Wrath Newbie Server is probably on of the things i liked the most about it.

[Forty-Two]

i quickly became familiar with the game, mostly thanks to friendly and helpful player(s) being on my team

We've worked hard to create and maintain an atmosphere like that; it's good to hear you liked it :)

Yeah in conclusion the constant cycle of gametypes in Wrath Newbie Server is probably on of the things i liked the most about it.

Indeed, the variety of lessons, gameplay and whatnot make it quite enjoyable, and also benefits new players more than 'only bot baserushes' or 'only matches against each other'. Speaking as both an ex-newbie who learned there, and later an admin to try to help new newbies the same way.