Calypso Gateway - Helping or Hurting

Do you believe it is helping or hurting?

  • Yes, we need older players there to greet them.

    Votes: 84 39.8%
  • No it does its job.

    Votes: 51 24.2%
  • I don't know.

    Votes: 63 29.9%
  • Other, I will post...

    Votes: 13 6.2%

  • Total voters
    211
No handbook, no useful tutorial, bad job MA!

actually that was what me attracted to this game. No simple guide book (alice wasn their yet) which doesnt excactly say what you have to do. Just figure out stuff . This should/was also the point of the mentor program. TEACH pl your findings.
 
Other games got handbooks, where controls are explained, or leaded tutorials that explain all the basics, but such things have been totally overseen by MA.

No handbook, no useful tutorial, bad job MA!
actually that was what me attracted to this game. No simple guide book (alice wasn their yet) which doesnt excactly say what you have to do. Just figure out stuff . This should/was also the point of the mentor program. TEACH pl your findings.
Agree here, the only thing such a "book" should incl is the basic movement nothing else thats where the community should be involved.
And many just skip those tutorials anyway, just "click click click I wanna play NOW" (which we seen so many times with accidental trades/TT's)

That reminds me of my very first TP run as a noob.
An older player lead me from PA to Billy´s and killed a Sabakuma on the way with one shot, and I thought, damn this must be an UBER :)
Later I learned it was just an opallo with A101 on it :laugh:
weee I wasn't alone, feels great to know :beerchug:

Thats the thing I was looking for, and perhaps you had a taste of it's bite before too so you thought it was some kind of hard monster too lol
(as they tend to bite pretty hard even the babies, and what I feel haven't changed since I started late -07)
 
Last edited:
actually that was what me attracted to this game. No simple guide book (alice wasn their yet) which doesnt excactly say what you have to do. Just figure out stuff . This should/was also the point of the mentor program. TEACH pl your findings.
i guess i was around just didnt write anything yet :D

either way, was offtopic, nm :D
 
However it is a little unreasonable to prevent people going back up there. I can see it from FPCs point of view, where the gateway ends up being like the old Atlantis with trade spam, people farming disciples etc.

As far as I know, beside from "disciple farming", there wasn't much problem at the NAZ. The trade spam was at about the limit off the radar area, so sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn't. Sometimes new people at the opposite wondered where all the people were, when the radar was empty:ish.

As for disciple farming, it's no problem right now since the disciple system isn't working anyway - at the most you can get beginners to join a society, but on the other hand they're free to leave it at any time.

As for the place itself, it's good.
Especially considered there was nothing at all in the NAZ in VU 10, no keyboard mapping sign, movement key signs, or NPCs informing about basics in economy and death/resurrection. Well besides teh guides.
 
I'm guess I'm part of the minority that actually liked being thrown onto the planet left to fend for myself when I started. I played the game for a couple years before I found the first guide or forum, and honestly it was more fun to me that way. Actually, I did find a map, and spend the first week or so gathering TP's all by my lonesome. But, I'm the type that starts a game by pressing every button on the keyboard and tries to click and drag practically everything just to see what happens, and favors being left to explore on my own.

How many times have you gone to try out a new game, breezed through the tutorial area (boring as hell, mind you), played for an hour or two, and logged out ... then a week/month/year later you decide to give it another go with a sense of "Oh hell, how do I do that again? ... Ugh, screw it."

No matter how you do it, in the end the player has to want to learn and advance, and there is no 'one size fits all'. For me it's much more interesting to have a vast world to explore, to see people socializing, to see the community in action, to develop my own ideas/techniques/format ... than it is to have my hand held through a bunch of crap. I'm not saying a restricted tutorial area is a bad thing, as it's does help a lot of people ... but there should be an option to bypass and go back if needed, or at least something there to remind you there is a whole world waiting to be explored.
 
I have only two thoughts on Calypso Gateway;

A: I want to know where this free loot comes from.
B: I think it's a good thing, because players learn early that loot is a lot like gambling, so they have no false ideas that this game is in any way fair.




note: I found it funny when my friend who recently started, was like "hey, wtf! it says I need such-and-such but I dropped all my bombs and did the crafting but got no loot! You think I'm just lagging?"
:laugh:
 
I think that many of the players that quit before leaving the gateway would soon quit anyway. The gateway are meant to be step 1 for the newbies, step 2 will be the new PA/Swamp area that soon will come and that will have more newbie missions.

The Gateway should had been just outside/over PA so the new players could look out from big windows and see down on PA and other players doing their business. I guess seeing old avatars in armour and vehicles would improve their intrest a bit :)
 
Some insights on the stats we gathered on Gateway; the number of player that continues to come back to Planet Calypso repeatedly after they "graduated" Gateway is double the amount of players that stick around before Gateway.

Also, Gateway is still not finished. FPC will soon release an updated PA area which will serve as "stage two" of the newcomer experience. When MA adds support in the platform for interactive tutorial messages (like "Press I for Inventory" *icon lights up/arrows pointing* etc) Gateway will get an update as well.

One of many suggestions filed by FPC to MA to the coming Mentor system is that use the Mentor skill/rep as a key - experienced mentors could then be granted access even to Gateway. We'll have to wait and see if this becomes a possibility from a technical standpoint, but it is on FPC's "want" list.
 
my vote is it is hurting new players mentor sysrem should be back make a poll for metoring and send it to MA
 
Some insights on the stats we gathered on Gateway; the number of player that continues to come back to Planet Calypso repeatedly after they "graduated" Gateway is double the amount of players that stick around before Gateway.

Also, Gateway is still not finished. FPC will soon release an updated PA area which will serve as "stage two" of the newcomer experience. When MA adds support in the platform for interactive tutorial messages (like "Press I for Inventory" *icon lights up/arrows pointing* etc) Gateway will get an update as well.

One of many suggestions filed by FPC to MA to the coming Mentor system is that use the Mentor skill/rep as a key - experienced mentors could then be granted access even to Gateway. We'll have to wait and see if this becomes a possibility from a technical standpoint, but it is on FPC's "want" list.

Great to see you reading this and let us in on some numbers, even if some people will cry about not being able to double check them :)
 
my vote is it is hurting new players mentor sysrem should be back make a poll for metoring and send it to MA


Scanning forums on sunday is working - i like a dedicated worker ))



Posted via Mobile Device
 
I voted yes, but conditionally.

I think it is important to have real people there, however, they need to be completely without an agenda and be there for the sole purpose of helping.

It's easy to get a newbie to believe almost anything, but I believe that it's very important that they're are not in a situations where certain unfortunate things make happen, that is, until they arrive at calypso.
 
One of many suggestions filed by FPC to MA to the coming Mentor system is that use the Mentor skill/rep as a key - experienced mentors could then be granted access even to Gateway. We'll have to wait and see if this becomes a possibility from a technical standpoint, but it is on FPC's "want" list.

And how can someone get Mentor skill, if all older Mentors got access to the gateway and pick all the disciples, bevor any new to mentoring has a chance to get a disciple ?????????????
 
good point GoNi :lolup:
 
OP has some good points.
Perhaps the bar area should have a TP, so that oldtimers can TP in, but not leave the bar.
 
OP has some good points.
Perhaps the bar area should have a TP, so that oldtimers can TP in, but not leave the bar.

Thats a very good idea!

Would be nice place to talk to experienced players, and to get into discipleship with mentors (when it is back).

PvP trades don´t know if thats possible, but maybe PvP trades there could be disabled, to keep out tradespammers :)
 
One of many suggestions filed by FPC to MA to the coming Mentor system is that use the Mentor skill/rep as a key - experienced mentors could then be granted access even to Gateway. We'll have to wait and see if this becomes a possibility from a technical standpoint, but it is on FPC's "want" list.

I like the idea of mentors getting rep so that you may have an idea of the mentors "quality", however, grating access to the gateway from this also pose a significant problem as those with higher rep will have easier access to disciples with the resulting problem that mentors who haven't yet earned their enough rep to be granted access, have a much harder time getting new disciples as new disciples are most likely picked up already at the gateway, so there won't be any disciples left and so on and so forth.

In my opinion, as a minimum, you shouldn't be able to become a disciple before arriving at Calypso/*planet, but even then, the relation will have been made between the newbies and experienced mentors at the gateway and it's reasonable to assume that the newbie will chose the person they have already come to know.

In conclusion I'll have to say that either there should be access for no one or for everyone, the later of which of course isn't a good idea.

I would instead suggest a step in between the gateway and Calypso/*planet. This place, be it a space station or whatever, would be accessible to everyone at any time, though I think people should be "banable" under certain conditions, and the newbie would, at the gateway, be explained the purpose of this place and have the option to travel there directly, or to Calypso/*planet to maybe return at a later time.

This place would be the only place to find a mentor or to pick up a disciple, allowing for some order and control.


I think the above sound sensible and I do hope I've been of help.


Best regards.
 
Some insights on the stats we gathered on Gateway; the number of player that continues to come back to Planet Calypso repeatedly after they "graduated" Gateway is double the amount of players that stick around before Gateway.

Also, Gateway is still not finished. FPC will soon release an updated PA area which will serve as "stage two" of the newcomer experience. When MA adds support in the platform for interactive tutorial messages (like "Press I for Inventory" *icon lights up/arrows pointing* etc) Gateway will get an update as well.

One of many suggestions filed by FPC to MA to the coming Mentor system is that use the Mentor skill/rep as a key - experienced mentors could then be granted access even to Gateway. We'll have to wait and see if this becomes a possibility from a technical standpoint, but it is on FPC's "want" list.

Thats at least good to hear, but newbies should also be able to progress and not beeing stuck at the gateway when tthey run out of weapon condition.

I'm not saying they should get a new gun, but at least be able to get past the teleporter
 
I think the gateway is perfect just the way it is. It gives new players time to learn the basics of the game without any presure from the outside world. One improvement I think they can give is a bit more explination and insite to how the game works like fruit / dung / stones / socs / auctions. And another small thing not just have a PA teleporter but a Rocktopia teleporter aswell.

On the other hand the thing I think would be more benificial to new comers is to revive PA as one of the main traiding hubs as in the old days. Currently new players need to run or grab a lift all the way to Twin peaks just to find most of the traders that buy more then Sweat and animal oils like in swamp camp. On a thread about moving traiding from Twins because of the Robot problem a few ppl wore against the idea of using PA as the traiding hub because that will confuse new players witch is total BS, that is one of the reasons why the gateway was setup so that old players can not go to the gateway. So isnt it a bit redundent giving them a presure free area for learning the basics and then going and not traiding at PA to not interfere with thier lurning?

One of the things I loved when I started off like 6 years back was the fact that I felt like I became a part of a massive online culture when I arrived at the new arrivals in PA and the radar was green all over with hundreds of traders. If I had joinded sins the colapse of the PA trading comunity the game would have felt abandoned because there isnt a lot of ppl in the gateway and then even less ppl in PA. Most likely I would have gone out spent all my peds hunting not find a trader sell to TT rinse and repeat till Im out of peds and then quit the game due to lack of traders not even knowing about Twin Peaks. Currently its one hell of a run for a newbie to get to Twin Peaks. If PA is revived as a main traiding hub Im willing to bet my Vigi set that the ammount of New players staying in the game for over a week will drimaticaly increase.
 
Some insights on the stats we gathered on Gateway; the number of player that continues to come back to Planet Calypso repeatedly after they "graduated" Gateway is double the amount of players that stick around before Gateway.

Also, Gateway is still not finished. FPC will soon release an updated PA area which will serve as "stage two" of the newcomer experience. When MA adds support in the platform for interactive tutorial messages (like "Press I for Inventory" *icon lights up/arrows pointing* etc) Gateway will get an update as well.

One of many suggestions filed by FPC to MA to the coming Mentor system is that use the Mentor skill/rep as a key - experienced mentors could then be granted access even to Gateway. We'll have to wait and see if this becomes a possibility from a technical standpoint, but it is on FPC's "want" list.


I would like to thank you Marco for replying to this thread and giving us a little more insight to what is going on with the Gateway and its possible collaboration. I haven't had a chance to monitor this thread while I have been on vacation this week. Good to see contributions are still being made to the topic, and I will be updating it soon as I return!

Cheers, and keep it coming!

Dot
 
OP has some good points.
Perhaps the bar area should have a TP, so that oldtimers can TP in, but not leave the bar.

It's a very good idea , i love it :cheer:
 
thread summary in op has been updated, I may have missed a couple things, so just let me know.

( Wasn't going to come back to all this till monday, but it is hard to stay away so cut the vacation short. )
 
Back
Top