[Suggestion] Improve Help for New Players

Me and my friend Seffychan on smp8 have been going through a load of trouble trying to help new players. One made the comment to me last night that, "This is just another one of those servers with so many rules that nobody knows what to do," *Hint hint such as the 500 flags issue* afterwards, he left. We've suddenly been getting about 6 players a day, and all of them walk in stunned like Princess Leia on A New Hope. It takes a lot of our time and effort to link them to the wiki page, assuming that they will actually read it, and then the player leaves soon. Over the past 3 days, I've been asked, "How do I change servers" over 7 times, and "how do I make money" at least 4 times. I think that EMC should have a much more simplified and helpful /help command. People, when joining a new server, have a much shorter attention span. We cannot simply throw 12 pages of EMC wiki for them to study for homework.

I agree completely. I appreciate the new guide book that Aikar just implemented, but most new players don't want to do a bunch of reading. EMC can be fairly complicated, just because we have so many awesome features. This is exactly why I don't support adding a "skip tutorial" option at all.

I remember when I joined, I was all derpy and thought that I could get stuff from other residences. And I think I asked several times how to get home again. Until I kind of bothered to do /help. But that has so many links and stuff, you type /help, and then maybe /help rupees, and then you realise you do /rupees pay [insert name here] [insert amount here]. So yes, a simpler system to help would be good.

Very much this. It would be nice if there were a link to the old guide that could be used as a tool for the very new players, and then they could progress into using the wiki. The wiki is confusing and wikis in general scream "we have so much damn information that we need to create a whole system to hold it".

Recently the Wiki has been updated to include a link to the Empire Guide on the home page, which then has all the information they'll need to get started. The site side of things is covered, with this as well as the join address very obvious at the top. The only thing that could be improved on is maybe make the fact that you need to click the Empire Guide link to learn how to get started.

As for in game I agree that a lot of things need to be improved on - including /help. My idea goes a little something like this:

• Players joins the server/finishes tutorial. They then think now what?
• A message in chat tells them to type /help for a very brief summary of EMC (not as long as the one in the guide)
  • Welcome to Empire Minecraft! We're a survival Minecraft server with no-pvp. There's are multiple servers on EMC. Switch with /server# (1-9-Utopia) We have the Town world (building, safe), Wilderness (building, exploring) and Wastelands (mining). To find materials, buy from "player shops" or mine for them outside protected spawns in these 2 worlds. Please read the Wiki (wiki.emc.gs) for more information.
• Lists of 4 other updated help commands are below the brief to keep it simple, with info next to each one listed.
  • /help residence - Information on your residence in Town, and how it works.
    • Find a res with /v open. Claim it with /claim. You may build on this residence, create shops (wiki.emc.gs for info) and let others that you trust use it to with "flags" or permissions.
    • Another branch of residence help commands: /help residence flags or simply a paragraph of info on permissions to keep things simple.
  • /help rupees - Our server has an economy, and a currency called "rupees." With these, you may buy, sell and earn.
  • /help worlds - ect.
  • /help site - On the Empire Minecraft site (empire.us) you can vote for up to 1000r/day, upgrade to supporter to gain perks and discuss things with other players on the forums (empire.us/forums).

This above contains everything anyone would need to know, and this synced with the Empire Guide book (already in place), an announcement along the lines of: If you're stuck, don't forget to check the Wiki! wiki.emc.gs every hour for the first 24 hours should help new players get on their feet.

A lot of changes have been going on though, such as the improved joining process and new tutorial/skip option to help players join without hassle.

Overall, some things need improving but some things are good as they are. Here's a check-list I made up:

• Easy tutorial/option to skip it CHECK
• Empire Guide getting started book after joking/tutorial
• Better, easier, newer /help system so the Wiki is only essential for filler details and doesn't have to be used by people that don't frequent the site
• Syncing information between the getting started book and /help commands so that people can be told they can read a book instead of shifting through loads of commands for the general information

Most importantly EMC needs to represent itself as the community that it is and help new players. Sometimes they can be frustrating, but I know most people had no clue what they were doing when they joined (including me) so what really helps the new guys isn't showering them with items or rupees, but patience and information

I agree with alex's idea, I like.

A big fan of this. There are the main "rooms" I imagine being in it.

1. Residence flags/Claiming
2. Difference between Wastelands/Wild
3. New mobs/bosses/Dragon tombs
4. Special Drops
5. Maybe promotional Items.
   This is a promotional items. You can get this using /promo ##### and you can also buy it in the store. Do /promo EmpireGuide to get the Empire Guide.
   
   
   
   And is it possible for me to remove empire tips? They get annoying seeing that I know most of the tips.

IMO definitely not, it's not a key feature new members need to know about

Can turn off with /ch tips off I believe

May not be a key feature but it would give some new people something else to look forward to in the Empire.

I do like this idea.

Along with my main overarching idea, however, I didn't mention that I never got a help book when I went through the tutorial, so I sadly don't know its format or anything. But, from what it sounds like, a lot of information is being piled onto the newer members, and so much that their confusion just pulls them away. I personally think that there is a lot of information to take in, and I like the baby steps approach.

Well, I for one welcome dislike the literal newbies on the server.
I welcome, but dislike them because yes we want more people here, but we need a better way of just giving them the basics. My suggestion is that when they first sign in, a wall of our rules is shown which they can learn more about using the tutorial /or/ skipping and know some basics.

Really all a beginning player needs to know is /v open, /claim, /wild|town|waste, and /home. Anything beyond those basic commands can be learned from Wiki, the Forums, or Town Chat.

I was playing with someone over the weekend who's been here a little over two months. They were trying to set up a shop. They had already figured out Shop signs, and I showed them how to do Access signs, and teleporters. They picked it up fine and later told me they were 10 years old. I pretty much spent all my playtime with them though.

Everyone learns differently and at different speeds. If we and they are not patient, people will get frustrated no matter how things are set up.

Well, we actually do have that. It's all of those signs in the /newplspawn.

When I joined, I actually read maybe half of them? There is literally (And I counted) 26 signs. I usually go to newplspawn to get a surprise selfy with them, and not many actually read all of the signs.

This is a good idea, I totally agree

Suggestion: (if not already thought of) For new players, increase the frequency of tips for them, as already said. But once they do the particular activity that the the tip refers to, stop that tip from being shown again to them?

That's actually a great idea rainbow chin, but the tips don't actually show that often

I only suggested because Aikar said above that he will increase the frequency of tips for new players anyway.

Instead of pages and pages of text in the wiki.. why not video tutorials? Not everyone likes to read so maybe there is a way of implementing it in a video. We could have a contest where moderators, Sr Staff and admins choose a part of the wiki to have people do a video tutorial on it. Then they choose the winners or have even the community vote for the best video. Cause then at least it is fair and everyone gets a chance to vote. Idk something to consider i guess