Ideas to help newcomers to D12

1 - How about presenting players when they first arrive an option for a tour of the site. If they choose to take the tour, it can show them the information tab. lobby. explain the icons. show them the info div. explain what the different choices mean. Perhaps the tour can be paused and continued later on if they don't want to finish it. This is a rough idea. But maybe a good one. 2 - How about a feedback prompt after a player plays his/her first game, third, fifth, tenth, twentieth games. (In case its neglected at first, give the newcomer a chance again. My numbers are just first thoughts.) Which would ask the newcomer about his experience, what he needs help with, etc. The feedback should post directly to the forums. (It should also take the feedbacker to that place in the forums.) And then all the users can answer the questions, explain, etc. Perhaps, it can be in a new category in the General Forums called 'Newcomer Help.' Also a rough idea. Maybe even better than the first one.

I just thought of something much simpler. How about creating a new category in the general forums called "Newcomer Help," and to simply take every new joiner to D12 to that section in the forum, and inform them that if they want to know anything, they can check for the answer there in the forums or ask their questions there. We can then already plant there more of the detailed (with explained screenshots) basic info that the information page does not get to. (Or maybe just adding that to the information page and linking the information page.)

Maybe we can have the idea of "Mentor Games" where a tutor (or two) starts a game with newbies and teaches them the ins and outs of basic strategy...? Don't think this would require much coding

Well, there is a todo item somewhere at the far bottom of our todo list (meaning we are not going to do it) the idea of creating "no point games" or better: "training games". Now, if there are ppl that actually want to help other ppl and offer training games (you can make that known in the chat, you can hop in at other games and when someone asks for tips tell them that you want to help them, etc) they can do that. Just make sure to create the game yourself, state [b]VERY CLEAR[/b] in the game chat [b]BEFORE THE GAME STARTED[/b] that it's a training game and points will be returned. Then after the game is finished, you call upon elisium/me for example and kindly ask him/me to return points. If everything is done legit he/me will return points. If you do that often enough, I'm going to be so annoyed with it, that I'll create the training games option, and give you rights to do so and there you are. :P:P:P

Hmm, I'm messaging BETA stat to start a team game training academy... to annoy Matty... :P

Beta - you're no slouch with the site layout (cough - hacker... cough). Why don't you make a post called "D12 guide for the new members" in the help forum. You can link to the information section there, any and all tutorials / strategy posts. I have a post that already does this part in there, so you could just link to my post to save yourself some time. Buy with BB code / lists / formatting, you could make it website esque - just look at Spam's epic posts. You can use quotes for Divisions, image tags can be used for line breaks, etc. You could make a youtube video, and put that in! Screen shots can be used inside spoiler tags, tags [spoi|er=DESCRIPTION][/spoi|er] show with the word DESCRIPTION instead of the word spoiler, so you could have: [spoiler=How To Start a Game]Screen shots with sub titles go in here numbered. [b]STEPS:[/b] [imghttp://www.evopixel.com/img/hr.gif[/img] [list type=decimal] [li]Screen shot 1[subtitle][/li] [li]Screen shot 2[subtitle][/li] [li]Screen shot 3[subtitle][/li] [/list][/spoiler] You can make an incredibly informative post that could even link to all the different parts of the site [url=http://www.dominating12.com/?cmd=member&sec=account&act=overview]YOUR SETTINGS[/url] Found under Account link at the top right of the screen. [url=http://www.dominating12.com/?cmd=member&sec=profile&act=view&id=24271]Your Profile[/url] Found under your screen name in the top left of the scree. /example links As far as training goes, that is another thing on the list, but it seems it is being worked on to just do it with current setup and returning points. A very select few, like Fendi, have trainer accounts. This is just so you guys know it's been thought of extensively, do NOT go make trainer accounts, or you'll fall victim to duplicate IP address violations and that's not a good thing. Anyway, Beta, I'm sure Vexer would appreciate the help post, you do kind of owe him one. It would be stickied at the top of the help forum, I'm sure.

Can you give me a link to one or more of spamfree's epic, website esque posts, please. [spoiler]The Your Profile link takes me to your profile.. I'm also thinking that clear screenshots of where everything is is better. [/spoiler]

Yeah, mentor games are a great idea and works. The players I have brought here and had time to coach them through their first games with , have stayed and played more games, while others..will just come and browse.. Played a 2v2 game with my old friends which is a setting that they are use to, and they liked it. picked it up fast.. **thanks for the permission to host them Vexer** I'm looking to bring more of my old league of players over, 2v2 speacialist. to give the team games (consecutive) a try. Should intrigue them. We use to just make up our own 2v2 games ..wasn't automatically ranked, and it's very similar to how d12 is already set up, with the random drops of 3's on every spot. Except we would manually place our territories as 2's or 3's then play till their was a winning team, or member of a winning team left, on the original hasbro RISK online PC game. This is over 10 years ago, and like to think I was one of the pioneers of this kind of risk play, because it's on other sites like conquer club..and here many years later. Anyways ,. It's good to see players like BETA, wanting to help new players out. PAT on the back! :)

I had a thought of a quick create host option for very new players. Settings, 1v1 deathmatch, consecutive turns, increasing, 5 minute turns, adjacent cards, classic world map. Press a link and game is ready to play! (Play your first game button) Any regular user can join, and play, and help the new player if they wish. Referrals I bring here, and new people that already know risk, will familiarize with these settings. All they would then need to do is figure out how it works on D12. I think it is a good idea, because a new player looking for a live game, will often look, and if there isn't a game to quickly join and start, they might do the quick browse and leave without giving it a thought to try again. I try to catch my referrals when I log on, and go through a game with them. The ones I have, have stuck around. I love sametime games here now, but I bet some new players playing their first game, will accidently join a sametime Davideckho or Elmar game, and wondered "wth is going?", crushingly defeated, within seconds.

So you are saying it's better to have a link for them to create their own basic game and then they have to wait for the game to start? I am worried that their wait will be too long. If two new players join within minutes of each other then they can be put in the same game. What I really want is to write a basic AI for just two player games with standard settings and have the new player play the computer to figure out the interface. When the game is over they can play again or go to the lobby.

yeah. thats a vg idea with the basic AI game to get them use to the interface, perfect. I don't want them to wait too long either, I play mainly 2 player games and I rarely have to wait long, and I've clocked up a lot of games surpassing players that have played for years playing 2p live games. I'd jump in those games to help them out. It's only 1v1 so the 'not playin with a noob' isn't a factor, likely an easy win, easy points attraction.. They main thing is getting them to try the game before they go. For instance, I looked at several places for live games before I found d12. I found a few, played a few, but there wasn't much activity. and odd game here and there. Went to CC plenty of times. I hear they have realtime games, but I never saw any going, luckily I musta got a quick game here when I first joined, and here I am now enjoying this awesome site...