[daslog]

A developer that worked on Shadowbane (which is an open PvP mmorpg that struggled) posted this tidbit on another message board. I thought it was interesting and could be applied to Jumpgate

Eve players work hard to get their friends in the game -- corp recruitment threads like the one on this board make the game look awesome. It looks like existing players are highly incentivized to recruit and support new players.

This was not the case in Shadowbane. New players weren't treated well by the game or the players. So as players left, they weren't replaced, and as the playerbase became increasingly more hardcore and insular, the game and community got even harder for newbies to get into. The game didn't scale to lower populations particularly well, and that didn't help. These factors contributed to fewer subscribers, and less money, and fewer resources for the live team, compounding the problem even more.

Some newer games appear to have missed this lesson.

This got me thinking: was Jumpgate Classic like this? Did we vets become insular and lock out the newbies? (I mean at release, not later one when the poplulations were so low it was too late).

At any rate, I think anything ND can do to make Vets want Newbs in their squad would do a lot to help bring new players into the game.

[GrimGriz]

Originally Posted by daslog

This got me thinking: was Jumpgate Classic like this?

How could it not be? It's a completely different skillset fighting in Jumpgate. Even if you have FPS or flight sim experience, it's just different. Particularly for the phoon, the learning curve meant harsh realities for newb pvpers.

[netburnr]

Perhaps the majority of the community got that way, but there was a group of us that went out of our way anytime we saw a noob. We would help them until they found out the game wasn't supported, bug XYZ annoyed them etc, and they left, which ultimately made it a waste of time to help nubs

[Wild_Bill]

Helping newbs is NEVER a waste of time! Who knows where or when the next Teserend or Chubain or even Netburnr will spawn as a newb? There needs to be someone there to help them when they are new to the game so they will stay and become great. If not us, then who?

[Pyrophred]

There were a few idiots like this, but you get that in any game. I got a mentor after about 20 minutes of messing around to help me out.(He saw me trying to do a scout mission that took me through ZR) When I tried to get my friend to play a couple years later, same thing.

Yes the game is harder to get into, but the community has always had at least a couple people there trying to help the newbs take their first couple steps.

[Tim]

Originally Posted by daslog

.. [stuff]....

Sounds like an exact description of jumpgate to me. I'm sure in his game there were a few folks who were helpful, but just like in jumpgate, most folks were more apt to discuss the problems than the solutions.

It's a great game, jumpgate, but with a few brief exceptions, after the first couple of years, it wasn't newb friendly by any stretch.

Heh, if I thought I was wrong, I'd just state an opinion or do something different than the 'vets' want, and watch the flames/attacks roll in.

[netburnr]

Originally Posted by netburnr

We would help them until they found out the game wasn't supported, bug XYZ annoyed them etc, and they left, which ultimately made it a waste of time to help nubs

Originally Posted by Tim

after the first couple of years, it wasn't newb friendly by any stretch..

After a few years the game was no longer supported and new people wouldn't stay regardless of how much we helped

[Tritian]

i really dont think this applies to Jumpgate Classic. The problems with the game were not minor. Dated graphics and extreme learning curve were probably much larger factors then the community.

Infact, I think the community went out of it's way to help new people. Much more then any other MMO game i've ever played. (Meridian59/Neocron/Planetside)

[Aphelion]

I think it's true of the later days... like right when I started playing, 6 mo. before Episode 1. Granted, a lot of people bent over backwards for n00bs, but for the most part, I think the game was too hard to pick up.

If my roomate hadn't figured everything out in Beta 5 & 6, I would have quit the first 15 min.

[Ambrosius]

LOL -- "too hard." That's the problem with you young-uns ... you don't know what hard is. You never had to walk 12 miles to school . . . in the snow . . . uphill . . . EACH WAY. Jumpgate has never been anything resembling "hard." You just needed something more than a 5-minute attention span to understand it.

For us oldsters, we KNOW what hard is (right, Jump?).

NO Viagra jokes!

[Dufa40]

I was a sporadic user so i felt like a newb most of the time!! However there were so many other things to do apart from pvp that it never worried me until i got hit by pirates three or four times in one session. I had hardly any money and it peed me off!! i joined a squad and got a mentor and got help and never looked back. In my opinion it never hurts to help someone achieve a better status, even if you then shoot them down and steal their cargo!!! At least you will feel better knowing you made them achieve!

[Chaser]

I was in and out of JC for a couple years. Its true that it took some learning, and it's also true some of the 'hardcore' players were less than helpfull. I was told a few times it was a "High Skill" game and if I didnt have the skill to quit complaining and get the frak out, I did. But not before talking several times to any 'high mucks' that came on for a rare meeting. I was talking to one such person once when a old vet jumped in and asked if I had any idea who I was talking to...I didnt or didnt care, they had a few special icons by their name and we saw one ocassionally and we were talking about mining 'square roids' and he seemed to understand the graphics was badly outdated, so here we are, Jumpgate the Second Generation,lol waiting for Jumpgate Evolution with the new graphics, so maybe they learned a lot from Jumpgate going downhill so bad, after all they abandoned it and just left it set, but having 10x more people online at a time has got to help everyone, even pirates..lol.