treatment of new players

[Lastmerlin]

Hello to all,

I have started to play online 5 days ago. Before that i played some games on the given maps/random maps against ai and started the first campaign. The problem is, that playing against the ai gets boring - you always fight at least 2:1 outnumbered against enemys which behave not really intelligent (that is nothing against the programmer, i know that it is very hard to make a really good ai). I think most strategy games are most fun to play against humans.

So I started to play online. In other strategy games I played the experienced players were happy to see new people and gave hints etc. Of course, everywhere you have different kind of people but the general athmosphere was friendly. Not so in Wesnoth.
The first thing you see is, that lots of games are noted *no noobs*. Next thing is, that new players are often not welcome even if not stated outside. Especially clear it shows up on the isars cross map (which is the favorite map online) cause there each player has a partner. You could think getting an experienced player as partner gives the biggest chance to learn something - completely failed! It only gives the best chance of getting offended massively by your own partner, getting dozens of accusations for each single mistake and being blamed for everything that failed. I know that it can be annyoing to loose cause your partner does a mistake. I know it from other games where i was the good player and I already know it from some wesnoth games where I got a partner that played even worse than me. Thats the game. I personnally think its not the noobs that shouldn't play these games - its the progamers who shouldn't play if they cant stand that there are not soo good players.

The best examples are:
- player 1 sent me about 20 lines of nice comments because i took a village he had not captured but it was *on his terrain* (in fact one of these middle villages on isars). My second mistake was not to send him a dwarvish fighter he requested for - I lost it in night to some dark adepts. He finally banned me after calling me *[censored] noob* and several other things
- player2 sent again about 20 lines that suggested me to be a big idiot with no brain and then he left the game with the advice not to bother the other gamers with my gameplay anymore. It was all about one fighter i lost for nothing.

What the examples show is that you dont need to play very bad consistently - one mistake is enough.
The problem is - new players make mistakes. You generally learn by doing mistakes. Even if you know all these good advices (use terrain, time of day, zoc, watch at resistances) it simply takes some time until you do that automatically.
Something I want to point out: new players are not stupid/lack intelligence/have no brain (the most common sentences). They are in average as intelligent as all other players. All they lack is experience.

As I said, there are always different kind of players, there are kind players too, but what i saw they seem to be in the minority here. Of course your enemys dont hate you if you lose, but there are very few people that are fair allies to a beginner.
Overall I dont think that i am so bad that it is a real pain to play with me - I have won about 50% of my games which should be the average over all players

So i give some things to discuss:
- is this normal here or had i just bad luck. Perhaps i am only at -10EV with kind players
- why do you have this athmosphere here - as i said at other games i saw something else
- should i try to hide that i am a new player ? I seldom got really good tips and you have read what I got instead.
- can it be people simply search someone to blame for bad luck or even their own mistakes ? I never got bad words when I won the game, even when I lost some units or villages i should not have lost. On the other side the other player often seemed to do mistakes too - but of course it was only my fault if we lost...

ps: I am only using the english i learnt at school - please dont laugh at any incorrect sentences.

[Lim_Arcadia]

Absolutely amazing first post, and welcome to the forums.

This adresses an issue that I have seen getting worse the more people play the game. There is really nothing you can do about these kinds of people, they want to believe that they are in no way at fault, so they blame everything on others. The term that describes an inexperenced player is a novice. A noob is someone who acts as if they know everything about the game, but have the skill level of a novice. I know that the Dev's and other forum veterans will flame me for this, but I am toying with the notion of a group of experenced players that helps get novices their feet in the game. I consider myself to be an experenced player, but I am in NO WAY perfect, or even match up to other experenced players. That said, you must learn to just deal with people as they are. As much as Wesnoth would love to have the perfect group of experenced players who are kind, and respect all their opponents, this is quite impossible. The way I deal with people that are like that is to simply ignore them. Do your best and learn from your mistakes, and sooner or later, those people who refuse to admit that they are wrong will be worse players then you are. Or mabye they won't. You just have to deal with it.

P.S. If you want to, I'd be glad to play you online, simply PM me with a time you'll be on and on what server and version, and your player name.

[Soliton]

I know that the Dev's and other forum veterans will flame me for this, but I am toying with the notion of a group of experenced players that helps get novices their feet in the game.

I can see you getting flamed for the weird idea that someone would be opposed to such a group.

[zookeeper]

Actually, the players you seem to have stumbled across are in fact the noobs themselves, not the so-called experienced players. You'll probably inevitably run into them quite a lot when starting to play MP, so my advice would be to try to make notice of the proper players you've seen and try to play with them more often.

[im the one you think of]

I'd like to stress that not everyone on wesnoth is like that, and that theres not a great deal we can do to stop them acting or playing like that, we on the forums are generally much more polite. We'd be happy to play with and teach you if you want. However with more and more players these people become more of a problem, some tips to avoid them:
Don't enter games with titles like: S0l1ton's GAME no N00bs, or Play quick, laggers kicked, etc
Avoid Isar's cross, although it's a fine map it's very popular with the kind of players you're encountering.
Games that begin with someone saying gogogogo often end with them leaving... at turn 4
Play on the development server

[Weeksy]

Your english is good for a non-native speaker, your wesnoth intuition is not good for a non-experienced player, but no one can blame you. Advertising you're new to MP is different than advertising you don't know how to play. Besides, everyone makes mistakes. I personally think that people new to mp need a helping hand as fast as possible, so we get more players who can actually think. Look for games with the default map settings of 70% xp, fog, default era, and so on. It'll help you out, as will not joining those cesspools of incompetent players the 'no noobs' games are. If people are that upset over a game, they're the ones who really need an internet crash-course.

[Kestenvarn]

I agree with zookeeper - don't confuse those sort of characters for the actual experienced folk.

[Ken_Oh]

It's been said before there's a weird phenomenon that if you see a game that says "No Noobs," that's usually all you'll ever find in there.

Beyond that, just watch out for games that don't use the map's standard settings.

[Rhuvaen]

I think your best bet is to actually state in advance that you're new to the game, to multiplayer wesnoth, to a certain kind of map or scenario. You might get a lot of turned backs, but those players who will play with you will have the courtesy to take all this into account. I think that the joining up simply happens a bit too fast on the stable server (at least for my tastes) and people are quite prepared to just drop out of games (or force another player out of them by using command mode or abuse). Talking before helps to decide if you want to play with these people...

I think it's a good idea to have games with more experienced players, but I suppose the player who feels less experienced should express such an interest. I certainly wouldn't approach people with the intent of teaching them - simply because I cannot estimate the skill of the other player and people might be sensitive about being presumed an unskilled player. Also many people who are fairly experienced have probably experienced a "new" player simply quitting when they find that they're facing an opponent they likely won't beat. I don't mind playing someone who's interested to stay as long as they feel the game is interesting, and concede when the game is lost. But those people can only be identified when they communicate before the game.

A team game can be very interesting (and a learning experience) if both teams are mixed and people have the extra time needed for intense communication. It probably makes sense to point that out at game start so teams can be set-up appropriately.

Finally, the development version server has fewer players and a more patient, polite atmosphere. If you don't mind installing a new version now and again to be able to log on, then the version switch alone might be a solution for you.

Most reliable players seek other reliable and thoughtful players.

[cool evil]

If one break a rule, others follows in his encouragement. That's why there are alot of noobs(i don't mean new players) out these days, if you accuse someone of a noob, that'll only upset him/her, therefore if he/she excountered this often, will be less encouraged to be serious about the game, rather than being friendly and polite, he/she will start being a noob him/herself and pass this down to other players as a release of anger. This applies in larger societies, most notable example the real world. The online world gives people the advantage of not getting caught or arrested for charges such as hazing.

If you think this is tough, you should go on runescape. I bet you can never last as long as i can, i've encountered alot of swears and offensive language towards me since i've play it for 3 years now, still, im fine and alive today. Anyone who is not emotionally strong should not participate seriously in a game, the online community can do just as much damage to your mind as the real world.

So what if you getting picked and sweared at?

You have a choice, either fight back, creates a bigger mess, and may even become a noob yourself. Or endure the pain, and bear the emotional stress and damage done by others to you.

My choice? Ignore them, on the internet, people can't pursue you that well, it's not like he's gonna track you down and eliminate you from this world.

The first bruise always hurts the most. If you've experienced enough, i'm sure you wouldn't care what other people's doings.

[eyerouge]

Some random thoughts I got after reading your post:

• No, all aren't like the morons you encountered. Unfortunately they are present in most online games.
• Most of them wouldn't ever read a forum, nor can do they reason, so you'll probably meet the other half in here.
• I personally avoid team multiplayer games where I haven't gotten to know my partner somewhat at first. The more I play with a person, the better of we are in the field Just joiningn a random game with random people in it could be very interesting, but most often it isn't because of balancing/luck with the mate/opponents.
• Don't give the idiots so much thought - just ignore then all and smile.
• Try getting more 1vs1 experience against other humans before venturing into team games, will help you and your team mate a lot.
• If you want to play a 1on1 game with a novice & on the ladder, just add me to your msn or pm me and I'd be happy to play.

[Thrawn]

whenever I'm on nobody is free to play...

but yeah. The people who act rude aren't the people you want advice from. For fun I go on sometimes not as thrawn, and whenever I do something they disagree with, I kinda counter their arguments...but as you are new, you can't do that.

The best way to learn is by starting your own game, and putting "I'm new, please help me" in the title. Then just make sure you listen to what is said (the advice being valid of course)

I haven't played recently enough to tell who of the respected players are still around, but in general, the games that many people are observing are between 2 good people. Just see who is playing, and who is watching, as many times, the observers are friends of the people playing, and probably
decent.

Also, just rememebr the names of people who are rude, and don;t play them

[Drake General]

I haven't played on the online sever, I don't count myself good enough to do it, but I expect all of the above counts.
I agree that there should be a group of somewhat experienced players to help the newer people. It would help those of us who know what we're doing, yet not enough to tackle some of the harder campaigns.

[FireMaster]

You got it buddy.

Here is an example of noob-speak

I WILL PWN YOU ALL HAHAHAHAHA

[Tomsik]

I WILL PWN YOU ALL HAHAHAHAHA

NO U

People that act aggressive are not the experienced ones, avoid them.
There's smaller % of stupid people on dev server, you should try going there, also the dev version has many new shiny things.