Project Reality Forums

Been a long time PR player but i dont post often but a recent few games prompted me to write this. 0.8 has brought in a lot of new players into PR. Many have come from vanilla and a lot have failed to read the manual assuming that is is just another shiny graphics and more war toys mod.

But how do many of us more experianced players greet them? well, often with insults (stupid noob!, wtf are you doing noob?, RTFM you XXXXX noob!) etc. This is not aimed at all the more experianced PR players but there is a core that thinks new players to this game are just plain stupid.

I admit - a few are but if you dont at least try and help new players in your squad or across the team, then the PR community will not grow and will slowly die as newer and more shiny games appear. Couple of suggestions:

- Server admins should place the manual download / web address in thier server message tabs.

- The tips page should also list the location of the PR manual

- ask people if they are a new player when they join your squad and show them a bit more tolerance

- dont assume they know what you are talking about. Shouting "Build the fukcing firebase" over and over again is less helpfull than saying "Look in your inventory and use the shovel if you have one to help build this firebase"

- Nor everybody speaks english. A person might be a genius in his/her language and PR is not just an game for english speakers.

PR, esepcially 0.8 is hard to grasp if you have staggered your way from the run and gun of vanilla. If we want to have a choice of PR servers (like the 100's of full vanilla servers) then we ALL need to collectively make an effort. If you simply cant stand the "noobs" then make locked squads with invite only and your fine. This approach is much better than open squads which just kick people because they are new players who dont quite get PR yet.

Anyway, just my 2 pennies

- Nor everybody speaks english. A person might be a genius in his/her language and PR is not just an game for english speakers.

this is one of the biggies, if you don't want a non-english speaker in the squad (or the other way around, since I can't speak French so I wouldn't join a French squad since this will piss them off) name ur squad "eng voip" or somthing

If som1 is doing something odd/not doing what they were asked, ask them if they are new, if they are new, either politely inform them that the squad is for experienced players (or preferably) tell them to ask any questions regarding what they might not understand and give them tasks befitting their newbie status - i.e. keep them off the special kits and give them simple instructions to ease them in to being a squad member until they have got used to the game.

were dose it say its english only ? there is servers from around the world and most servers will have squads with eng voip ,fr voip, ger voip etc just join a sqaud the you understand and say im new to pr most players will help out its not as bad as every one says ,yea there will be the odd player thats full of it and thinks they are god just leave that squad and find a new one

as far as new players go we are all new to version 8, there is so many new changes that even if you read the manual you will probably get things wrong

I agree fully with Willgar on this. There is far too much of an elitist attitude not only on PR but in online games in general. Lets face it, the manual is a hefty read and how many of us can honestly say we sat and read it before joining a server for the first time? When I first started I found it hard even after reading the manual but luckily all on the servers I joined at the time were mature and helpful. I often hear someone asking questions and will answer without needless insults or name calling. There is always someone willing to throw in a RTFM noob jibe or worse and we should encourage people to play and stay with the game as without players it will die.

As for the comment about language I also agree. I am at times ashamed to be English when my country men say to others whose first language is not English that they should speak it or leave ect. Very few of my friends/family speak any other language apart from a bit holiday Spanish or whatever yet when I go abroad whether to France or Spain or further the majority speak English well as their second language. Unbelievably we go abroad and EXPECT those same people to speak English although all we can do in their language is ask for "two beers please". I often play with German, French and Russian players on PR and all are more than willing to speak in English when I say hello, even if the whole squad speak Russian or whatever other language just for me. Yet I often hear a lone none English speaker join my squad and immediatly be harrassed for the fact that English is not their first language and daring to utter a few words of German or French. I have infact been in games where they have been kicked from the server simply because they dont speak English.

Ta

Sal

"Hi this is my first game"

"Welcome, have you read the manual?"

^^ My standard reply. To which they usully respond 'no'. Some will then alt-tab to read it, once they've done that and understand the basics then I'll gladly help them in game with anything further. I'm not gonna recite the manual to people, but if they make the effort to at least read it I'm happy to help them.

Salraine_Chi wrote:I agree fully with Willgar on this. There is far too much of an elitist attitude not only on PR but in online games in general. Lets face it, the manual is a hefty read and how many of us can honestly say we sat and read it before joining a server for the first time? When I first started I found it hard even after reading the manual but luckily all on the servers I joined at the time were mature and helpful. I often hear someone asking questions and will answer without needless insults or name calling. There is always someone willing to throw in a RTFM noob jibe or worse and we should encourage people to play and stay with the game as without players it will die.

Sal

I did!!! I do this is almost every game I buy.

Really, the only time I have a problem with noobs is when they do something stupid without asking.

IE. Taking the Heavy AT kit in Insurgency, trying to use the CPR to revive a guy OVER AND OVER AGAIN never using the epipen, crashing helis/jets because they didn't wait for the warm up time, etc.

Ask a question and I'll certainly try and answer it.

i feel sorry for the new PR players kinda, but there is a training mode and manual so they have no excuse for being idiots, crashing jets & helicopers and asking stupid questions that are in the manual.

ive been making noob squads recently , teaching the noobs the way

The installer puts a shortcut to the manual on your desktop when you install PR (I don't even think you can disable that behavior). There are separate links to download just the manual off a bunch of websites. Every step of the way, players are strongly encouraged to read the manual.

Yet a lot of them do not. They jump straight into a server and then start doing stupid stuff, thinking they know better. Personally, I don't do that for any online game, as that's a good way to just embarrass yourself without contributing anything useful to the team effort. I have a habit of at least running the game in a local server to see what it feels like; and whatddya know, the new PR even has a training button in the main menu.

Yeah, being nice to newbies is nice... There's always little things that people will get wrong, and it's usually better to just help them, rather than yell at them. On the other hand, a lot of people are gonna lose their patience when, in one round, 20 people ask what the shovel is for (flashback to the time when shovels were first introduced).

Ok usually they do not get greeted like that for being bad at shooting or asking why they cant spawn of flags. I know I wasnt greeted like that, but thats because I had enough common sense that it is annoying and disrupts the game to drive around in circles and running people over, or crashing a helicopter I cant fly. This game is for people who enjoy the gameplay it offers.

I try and help noobs along, if you see Datastream01 leading a Squad, it's a Noob Friendly squad, just tell me so or else I'll bite your head off for grabbing HAT on Basrah Seriously though, sorry to that one guy I yelled at a few days ago. Most of the problem with veteren players being jerks to noobs is they either don't ask for help or cop and attitude when their doing something wrong. There's been enough Noob threads for me to fairly confidently say that PR has a reasonably tolerant community, tell us you're new and we'll help you along.

The problem is, like lots of people already pointed out, people don't read the manual.

We've had a few guys in our TS who started off knowing nothing, so we told them to go off and read the manual, then we got in a squad and taught them the ropes. Now they know as much as most people. There is nothing wrong with saying "RTFM", if they don't read it you have to go through everything and it takes a lot of time, when it only takes about 5 - 10 minutes to read the basic things in the manual. Some people are a bit ignorant about it sometimes, remember, we were all noobs at one point. At the end of the day, if people read the manual and asked less questions, there'd be less ignorance.

Salraine_Chi wrote: the manual is a hefty read and how many of us can honestly say we sat and read it before joining a server for the first time? <...> There is always someone willing to throw in a RTFM noob jibe or worse

39 pages is not a hefty read, I read the entire 0.8 manual while downloading 0.8 The addition of training is a big bonus too.

I'm happy to help those that ask intelligent questions but will always suggest they read the manual too. The problem I have is when you are involved in an intense match on a full server and someone keeps spamming question after question. why can't I fly, how do I get in a tank etc.

I admit I did snap an RTFM at a guy last week who was going on and on but usually I try to answer those that show a willingness to learn and become part of the team.

If new players want to learn, they'll learn. If not, they'll quit in a few weeks or months.

How they learn is irrelevant, even though it's easier for everybody for them to read the manual and go from there. I never even read the manual when I started in 0.4, and I was pretty decent by 0.5, but I probably gave all the veterans Hell in the interim.

My point is this: Telling the newbies to RTFM is easy and painless for the veterans, but it is not always easy for the newbies to comprehend and apply the manual in-game.

Personally I love "noobs"... They are easier to shoot most of the time And they taste of chicken.

I say the more, the merrier.


R

lol at chicken taste however i feel its more like turkey....

to be honest, i help noobs, however i hate the ones who do not respond to our yelling to leave something alone, leave a certain compound or vehicle, or whatever else they are doing to make our lives miserable. Try to tell them to read the manual and they refuse.

Accordingly, alot of the new noobs are not familiar with this strange word of "teamwork" so they are not accustomed to reading the text... therefore getting themselves banned from servers for stupid chit.


My 52 cents.

I always try to help the new players, but some dont want to be helped ! This is the part that pisses me off !


Lucky, the brazilian server always have a stand by adimin to kick smacktards. And most of the players speak english and other languages, if there is no communication it is because the player doesnt want to communicate.

I help noobs, aslong as they dont ask how to snipe, how to get it, how to fly etc etc.

There are training servers for that, and i dont want the noobs to get kits that WILL fall into the enemies hands.

- Server admins should place the manual download / web address in thier server message tabs

the manual is placed on the desktop on install.