<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm sure there's a way we could deter experienced players from newbie servers...no wall-jumping?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Disabling game features to piss off experienced player so they won't want to play on newbie servers? Silly idea indeed. How do you know who's experienced anyway? By game time?
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<!--quoteo(post=1975335:date=Sep 11 2012, 02:07 AM:name=Wilson)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wilson @ Sep 11 2012, 02:07 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1975335"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Elo ranking and auto-balance to keep the teams fair is needed imo.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> <!--quoteo(post=1975378:date=Sep 11 2012, 03:17 AM:name=Wheeee)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wheeee @ Sep 11 2012, 03:17 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1975378"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->ELO + matchmaking<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> <!--quoteo(post=1975582:date=Sep 11 2012, 12:14 PM:name=senor_hybrido)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (senor_hybrido @ Sep 11 2012, 12:14 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1975582"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Elo is a great idea, but then there's stacking.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The Elo ranking system was created for 1 on 1 games. It doesn't work so well with larger teams if you want to rate every individual player. In fact, in it's pure form, Elo can't be used for that at all. Do you know a game with 5 or more players per team that successfully uses Elo ratings? Dawn of War 2 uses it for 3 on 3 matches and even at this small scale some problems are noticable. Maybe there is a system that could be used for the ranking, but I doubt it's Elo.
ArgathorJoin Date: 2011-07-18Member: 110942Members, Squad Five Blue
The biggest challenge I see to using a ranking system is the major impact of a single marine player, the commander. Even if the ranking system, on average, filled teams evenly a better (or worse) than average commander would destory the balance again.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm sure there's a way we could deter experienced players from newbie servers...no wall-jumping?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Here's an easy way to deter experienced players from specific servers.
Add more tooltips, help icons, waypoints and other UI clutter. Then force them enabled all the time on your choice of server.
<!--quoteo(post=1975649:date=Sep 11 2012, 02:12 PM:name=IeptBarakat)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (IeptBarakat @ Sep 11 2012, 02:12 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1975649"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Have stat tracking built into the game and turn them off in casual severs.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Which would most likely result in poor quality casual servers running on sub optimal server rigs, and the stat tracked servers on OC'd server rigs... not many are going to have a spare OC'd CPU server rig to host a server for casuals.
... and can you imagine how many will stay to migrate to none casual servers after a session on a server with tickrate issues at endgame, causing massive stuttering and lag.
Make them small number of player servers ? New players tend to prefer larger server populations as they can hide in the masses and zerg with the rest, small scale battles just make it more obvious they are new and suck at the moment.
... and it begs the question again, who is going to put up these new player servers ?
<!--quoteo(post=1975602:date=Sep 11 2012, 11:54 AM:name=Zeikko)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Zeikko @ Sep 11 2012, 11:54 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1975602"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Also why would anybody play skulk if the wallhop was removed?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Does anyone actually use wallhop? I know in the current build it just seems useless. I didn't think it was that big of a deal.
As far as elo ranking goes, I wasn't referring to matchmaking entire games, just using the elo ranks to auto balance the players currently on the server to prevent stacked teams. I guess you could have a system where unranked (newbie) players are the only ones allowed on certain servers.
I think NS is the type of game where you need some experienced players in every match. A server full of newbies is just going to run into a lot of walls, you at least need someone who knows how the game works playing as commander.
Putting all the newbies in one server might lead to less frustration for them, but it'll also lead to poorer games and a slower learning rate. Having experienced players mingle with newbies is paramount to their development imo. The weaker ones will adapt to survive sooner rather than later when competition is fierce, and when there are better players around to guide them. ;)
As far as balancing the teams is concerned. How about incorperating a server scrambler which mixes up the teams in a random fashion whenever a round ends in under 10 minutes, and/or whenever one team manages to win more than 3 rounds in a row? Or something similar like that. It's easy and simple. No need to track individual performances or make changes to the game mechanics itself.
Just name the newbie-servers obviously. A skilled player who wants to help new players, will go their and have a good influence. A skilled player who is a ###### can't rage if it is his own fault on going on such a server.
Another option: Put servers up, that are only reachable by the join-game-button (=not listed in the server browser) Add a checkbox option to the join-game-menu "I'm new to the game and want to learn." and send player who clicked that to this servers.
Edit: Also I don't think, that the newbs will have trouble to learn the game if there are no skilled players on the server. I think more likely there will be completely new tactics created by experiencing the game without external help.
IeptBarakatThe most difficult name to speak ingame.Join Date: 2009-07-10Member: 68107Members, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow
<!--quoteo(post=1975665:date=Sep 11 2012, 09:49 AM:name=ASnogarD)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ASnogarD @ Sep 11 2012, 09:49 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1975665"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Which would most likely result in poor quality casual servers running on sub optimal server rigs, and the stat tracked servers on OC'd server rigs... not many are going to have a spare OC'd CPU server rig to host a server for casuals.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's a server performance complaint. If the servers didn't require a overclocked i5 rig my point would still stand as valid.
I fully support newbie server options. If there were a server variable to turn off all the hints, waypoints, auto-comm calls and the like for the experienced servers. The pop ups are enough to deter vets as it is. :P
I remember having a lot of problems to understand the game back in the days of NS1. Actually, it was full english at that time, which was for me a problem, since i didn't talk it by then.
But the best way to learn was still to have a friend who already knew the game and could give some cool advices.
NS is a game which is hard to understand at first view... There are some structures that have some use, but you don't really know what use for now. I died, but couldn't see the lerk who shot me... etc etc.
Having a newbie only server is okay, but not perfect at all. A new player as a commander can be a problem, and also, experiencing will be hard. I played TFC for something like 6 months on newbie servers before going to play with grown ups. I had a massive lack of experience for a guy who's been playing 6 months.
I prefer a kind of server with 66% new players, and 33% semi / full experienced players. It gives a chance, but not to much. And it will give an overview about team play. The question is more how to get the 33% old players to play on a newbie server.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm sure there's a way we could deter experienced players from newbie servers...no wall-jumping?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I doubt this will have much affect. Wall-jumping is so mild in NS2 its not worth doing in recent builds.
Maybe if you amplified skill based movement, then gave the option for disabling it on newbie servers, it would be a viable idea. But NS2's current state does not cater to the traditional skill based movement.
Only thing I can think to make a server newbie-centric is enforced NS2 vanilla, enforced tooltips, increased harvester health?
ScardyBobScardyBobJoin Date: 2009-11-25Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
<!--quoteo(post=1975634:date=Sep 11 2012, 05:29 AM:name=Argathor)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Argathor @ Sep 11 2012, 05:29 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1975634"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The biggest challenge I see to using a ranking system is the major impact of a single marine player, the commander. Even if the ranking system, on average, filled teams evenly a better (or worse) than average commander would destory the balance again.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> This is a problem whether or not a ranking system is implemented. I've seen stacked teams lose from a bad comm. However, the stats in a ranking system could be used (in conjunction with comm tutorials and a comm-vote system) to reduce the number of bad comms in games.
if i understood that right on the DEV Q&A twitch stream, they will implement my suggestion (or at least giving it a try to see how well it works) about marking newbies and displaying their game-hours (once you have enough hours, you are not marked as newbie anymore). the limit will only be something like 3 hours though, this actually sounds like a good choice as it prevents the community from being seperated too much. it will probably come with an icon overhead and you can turn it off (e.g. if you already played before this was implemented).
by default, you will see only servers marked as "newbie friendly" but you can choose to display all other servers as well if you want to.
if the limit is only something like 3 hours, maybe display one more digit (like 1.7h). otherwise people might be a bit confused as the value would only change ~3 times.
edit: if you implement this and it is not possible to backtrack who has already gathered some hours (meaning veterans will be marked as newbies at first), i hope it is integreated some time before 1.0 (so most players will have their ~3 hours until release) to prevent confusion/abuse among the veterans.
My favorite NS1 servers had 1 star icon per 50 hours of playing NS1. There's really big difference between people that play 0, 50, 100 and 150+ hours. It was visible on scoreboard next to player name.
Newbie servers are really bad idea, I'm saying it from experience of Empires mod. Just think about everything that can go wrong with that idea and let me tell you that it will.
I notice lots of rine teams screwing up because they went for jp/exo rush instead of good old siege cannons. ARCs are quite annoying, they're slow, they move and can get stuck, can get killed and so on. IMO ARCs as siege cannons should be easier to grasp and use. Disctinct sound of siege cannons firing was probably my favorite NS1 sound.
ScardyBobScardyBobJoin Date: 2009-11-25Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
The biggest reason newb servers fail is because you can't prevent better players from joining them. However, if we had a way to rank players and then prevent them from joining the newb servers.....
<!--quoteo(post=1975941:date=Sep 11 2012, 06:27 PM:name=ScardyBob)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ScardyBob @ Sep 11 2012, 06:27 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1975941"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The biggest reason newb servers fail is because you can't prevent better players from joining them. However, if we had a way to rank players and then prevent them from joining the newb servers.....<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sorry but this is a terrible idea. You would be really hurting the smaller communities that don't have as large a player base to draw on. Also once people reached a certain point they could no longer join a server all their friends played on?
More accurately the problem was hardcore players joining Newb servers just to bash on Newbs and not help them.
If you had a way to properly vet and actively remove those jerks, we'd be much better off. Barring that, only let new players in and a whitelist of approved helpful vets could work. Unfortunately, both of these require heavy active admin support of the server, something you can't always guarantee.
<!--quoteo(post=1975941:date=Sep 12 2012, 12:27 AM:name=ScardyBob)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ScardyBob @ Sep 12 2012, 12:27 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1975941"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The biggest reason newb servers fail is because you can't prevent better players from joining them. However, if we had a way to rank players and then prevent them from joining the newb servers.....<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Why would you want newbies to learn from other people with a clear lack of experience in the game? Zero guidance?
Yeah, I guess people pretty much covered this already, but whatever...
If there are going to be newbie servers, it's probably better to be pretty careful about the mindset you're teaching in the server. Bad habits learned there die hard and make the step to the actual game a more difficult one.
It's a little like people too used to combat servers lack their ability to use less upgraded lifeforms or lack the self preservation abilitiy you need in classic mode. Or how people got stuck on Easy Mode in DotA because it teaches you bad mindsets.
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Having some more experienced players also gives you some stability. For example it's probably much nicer playing the game if your commander isn't reading tooltips half of the round each and every game.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Newbie servers are really bad idea, I'm saying it from experience of Empires mod. Just think about everything that can go wrong with that idea and let me tell you that it will.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> could you be more specific? there will no doubt be problems (45000 free copies!) so there is really need to adress these issues somehow, please share your thoughts.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The biggest reason newb servers fail is because you can't prevent better players from joining them. However, if we had a way to rank players and then prevent them from joining the newb servers.....<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> if there are newbie servers, i think veterans will not be able to join them. you can still play with your friend(s) on mixed servers though (~3 hours is not that long anyway).
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yeah...you aren't gonna learn much or get any better playing on a server with people who are bad and don't have any idea what to do.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->people can decide for themselves if they want a very tough challenge from the beginning (but at least with advice from experienced players) or if they want to take it easy on a newbie server and explore the game and it's mechanics at a slower pace, without constant shouting "do this and go there, right now!". i dare say that people will even learn more of the basics on a newbie server because they will not be constantly harrassed by a 50-0 veteran fade or something like that. and compared to other games, ns2 has a LOT of basics if you think about it. we might not realise this because we are so familiar with the game by now...
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If there are going to be newbie servers, it's probably better to be pretty careful about the mindset you're teaching in the server. Bad habits learned there die hard and make the step to the actual game a more difficult one.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> sure, they will not develop any awesome professional tactics, but do they really have to, in the first 3 hours of playing? i don't think any habbits are irreversable after such a short time. imo it is more important that people have a fun experience at the beginning (to get them hooked -> learn the game faster by playing more often), while getting familiar with the basics. if you don't learn the basics, if you miss out the "bad" things because you were not allowed to experiement a bit, then your "awesome tactics" come down to mimicing what other people do, without really understanding why you do it. and imo THIS is the ultimate bad habbit a player can have in the long run! e.g. this is why some people still think carapace is the non-plus-ultra in every single situation, not realising that it has changed, that it slows you down and has the armor bonus halved for skulks. they apparently don't use their brain and read the changelog in order to re-evaluate their knowledge, they just mimic what other players (veterans) asked them to chose as khammander and stick with it not to get shouted at.
one thing i am more concerned about is the amount of servers, there will probably be a huge number of players at release.
I absolutely agree with every point of Laosh'Ra. Especially that newbs have more fun learning their first steps in the game with other newbs instead with a veteran shouting / harassing them. After you know the basics of the game, you go on a normal server anyway. And than you learn tactics, tricks and stuff. But not in the first hours. You just want some calm time to learn the basics at first.
The only thing I disagree with, are the fixed 3 hours. The player should decide by himself when to turn of newbie-status.
They can turn it off earlier if they want to. but yea, 3 hours seems a bit low (initially, i suggested 100 hours lol) but i can relate to this decision as it prevents the community from being seperated.
btw: it sounded like charlie was still playing around with the idea so it might still be changed or ditched. he also said "i hope it's enough" which sounds to me like he'd be greatful if we get any better or additional ideas, so please keep them coming :) this is an important issue imo, as it will concern literally half of the community at 1.0. if you want to listen to exactly what he said about it, it starts at 9:00 in the dev Q&A: <a href="http://www.twitch.tv/naturalselection2/b/331846110" target="_blank">http://www.twitch.tv/naturalselection2/b/331846110</a>
as i just noticed, it sounds like your hours will still be displayed after reaching that limit (with an option to turn it off), i'd really appreciate that.
Comments
Disabling game features to piss off experienced player so they won't want to play on newbie servers? Silly idea indeed.
How do you know who's experienced anyway? By game time?
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<!--quoteo(post=1975335:date=Sep 11 2012, 02:07 AM:name=Wilson)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wilson @ Sep 11 2012, 02:07 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1975335"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Elo ranking and auto-balance to keep the teams fair is needed imo.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1975378:date=Sep 11 2012, 03:17 AM:name=Wheeee)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wheeee @ Sep 11 2012, 03:17 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1975378"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->ELO + matchmaking<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1975582:date=Sep 11 2012, 12:14 PM:name=senor_hybrido)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (senor_hybrido @ Sep 11 2012, 12:14 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1975582"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Elo is a great idea, but then there's stacking.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The Elo ranking system was created for 1 on 1 games. It doesn't work so well with larger teams if you want to rate every individual player. In fact, in it's pure form, Elo can't be used for that at all. Do you know a game with 5 or more players per team that successfully uses Elo ratings? Dawn of War 2 uses it for 3 on 3 matches and even at this small scale some problems are noticable.
Maybe there is a system that could be used for the ranking, but I doubt it's Elo.
Here's an easy way to deter experienced players from specific servers.
Add more tooltips, help icons, waypoints and other UI clutter. Then force them enabled all the time on your choice of server.
Which would most likely result in poor quality casual servers running on sub optimal server rigs, and the stat tracked servers on OC'd server rigs... not many are going to have a spare OC'd CPU server rig to host a server for casuals.
... and can you imagine how many will stay to migrate to none casual servers after a session on a server with tickrate issues at endgame, causing massive stuttering and lag.
Make them small number of player servers ?
New players tend to prefer larger server populations as they can hide in the masses and zerg with the rest, small scale battles just make it more obvious they are new and suck at the moment.
... and it begs the question again, who is going to put up these new player servers ?
Does anyone actually use wallhop? I know in the current build it just seems useless. I didn't think it was that big of a deal.
As far as elo ranking goes, I wasn't referring to matchmaking entire games, just using the elo ranks to auto balance the players currently on the server to prevent stacked teams. I guess you could have a system where unranked (newbie) players are the only ones allowed on certain servers.
As far as balancing the teams is concerned. How about incorperating a server scrambler which mixes up the teams in a random fashion whenever a round ends in under 10 minutes, and/or whenever one team manages to win more than 3 rounds in a row? Or something similar like that. It's easy and simple. No need to track individual performances or make changes to the game mechanics itself.
Another option:
Put servers up, that are only reachable by the join-game-button (=not listed in the server browser) Add a checkbox option to the join-game-menu "I'm new to the game and want to learn." and send player who clicked that to this servers.
Edit: Also I don't think, that the newbs will have trouble to learn the game if there are no skilled players on the server. I think more likely there will be completely new tactics created by experiencing the game without external help.
That's a server performance complaint. If the servers didn't require a overclocked i5 rig my point would still stand as valid.
But the best way to learn was still to have a friend who already knew the game and could give some cool advices.
NS is a game which is hard to understand at first view... There are some structures that have some use, but you don't really know what use for now. I died, but couldn't see the lerk who shot me... etc etc.
Having a newbie only server is okay, but not perfect at all. A new player as a commander can be a problem, and also, experiencing will be hard.
I played TFC for something like 6 months on newbie servers before going to play with grown ups. I had a massive lack of experience for a guy who's been playing 6 months.
I prefer a kind of server with 66% new players, and 33% semi / full experienced players. It gives a chance, but not to much. And it will give an overview about team play.
The question is more how to get the 33% old players to play on a newbie server.
>:(
Entitlement is cool, man.
Why are people so pushy for the gifts? Your gift copy of NS2 will not have beta access, so it makes no difference. Chill out.
I doubt this will have much affect. Wall-jumping is so mild in NS2 its not worth doing in recent builds.
Maybe if you amplified skill based movement, then gave the option for disabling it on newbie servers, it would be a viable idea. But NS2's current state does not cater to the traditional skill based movement.
Only thing I can think to make a server newbie-centric is enforced NS2 vanilla, enforced tooltips, increased harvester health?
got to stay awake will be nearly 3am where i am
This is a problem whether or not a ranking system is implemented. I've seen stacked teams lose from a bad comm. However, the stats in a ranking system could be used (in conjunction with comm tutorials and a comm-vote system) to reduce the number of bad comms in games.
it will probably come with an icon overhead and you can turn it off (e.g. if you already played before this was implemented).
by default, you will see only servers marked as "newbie friendly" but you can choose to display all other servers as well if you want to.
if the limit is only something like 3 hours, maybe display one more digit (like 1.7h). otherwise people might be a bit confused as the value would only change ~3 times.
edit: if you implement this and it is not possible to backtrack who has already gathered some hours (meaning veterans will be marked as newbies at first), i hope it is integreated some time before 1.0 (so most players will have their ~3 hours until release) to prevent confusion/abuse among the veterans.
Newbie servers are really bad idea, I'm saying it from experience of Empires mod. Just think about everything that can go wrong with that idea and let me tell you that it will.
I notice lots of rine teams screwing up because they went for jp/exo rush instead of good old siege cannons. ARCs are quite annoying, they're slow, they move and can get stuck, can get killed and so on. IMO ARCs as siege cannons should be easier to grasp and use. Disctinct sound of siege cannons firing was probably my favorite NS1 sound.
Sorry but this is a terrible idea. You would be really hurting the smaller communities that don't have as large a player base to draw on. Also once people reached a certain point they could no longer join a server all their friends played on?
If you had a way to properly vet and actively remove those jerks, we'd be much better off. Barring that, only let new players in and a whitelist of approved helpful vets could work. Unfortunately, both of these require heavy active admin support of the server, something you can't always guarantee.
Why would you want newbies to learn from other people with a clear lack of experience in the game? Zero guidance?
If there are going to be newbie servers, it's probably better to be pretty careful about the mindset you're teaching in the server. Bad habits learned there die hard and make the step to the actual game a more difficult one.
It's a little like people too used to combat servers lack their ability to use less upgraded lifeforms or lack the self preservation abilitiy you need in classic mode. Or how people got stuck on Easy Mode in DotA because it teaches you bad mindsets.
---
Having some more experienced players also gives you some stability. For example it's probably much nicer playing the game if your commander isn't reading tooltips half of the round each and every game.
could you be more specific? there will no doubt be problems (45000 free copies!) so there is really need to adress these issues somehow, please share your thoughts.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The biggest reason newb servers fail is because you can't prevent better players from joining them. However, if we had a way to rank players and then prevent them from joining the newb servers.....<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
if there are newbie servers, i think veterans will not be able to join them. you can still play with your friend(s) on mixed servers though (~3 hours is not that long anyway).
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yeah...you aren't gonna learn much or get any better playing on a server with people who are bad and don't have any idea what to do.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->people can decide for themselves if they want a very tough challenge from the beginning (but at least with advice from experienced players) or if they want to take it easy on a newbie server and explore the game and it's mechanics at a slower pace, without constant shouting "do this and go there, right now!". i dare say that people will even learn more of the basics on a newbie server because they will not be constantly harrassed by a 50-0 veteran fade or something like that. and compared to other games, ns2 has a LOT of basics if you think about it. we might not realise this because we are so familiar with the game by now...
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If there are going to be newbie servers, it's probably better to be pretty careful about the mindset you're teaching in the server. Bad habits learned there die hard and make the step to the actual game a more difficult one.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
sure, they will not develop any awesome professional tactics, but do they really have to, in the first 3 hours of playing? i don't think any habbits are irreversable after such a short time. imo it is more important that people have a fun experience at the beginning (to get them hooked -> learn the game faster by playing more often), while getting familiar with the basics.
if you don't learn the basics, if you miss out the "bad" things because you were not allowed to experiement a bit, then your "awesome tactics" come down to mimicing what other people do, without really understanding why you do it. and imo THIS is the ultimate bad habbit a player can have in the long run! e.g. this is why some people still think carapace is the non-plus-ultra in every single situation, not realising that it has changed, that it slows you down and has the armor bonus halved for skulks. they apparently don't use their brain and read the changelog in order to re-evaluate their knowledge, they just mimic what other players (veterans) asked them to chose as khammander and stick with it not to get shouted at.
one thing i am more concerned about is the amount of servers, there will probably be a huge number of players at release.
Especially that newbs have more fun learning their first steps in the game with other newbs instead with a veteran shouting / harassing them. After you know the basics of the game, you go on a normal server anyway. And than you learn tactics, tricks and stuff. But not in the first hours. You just want some calm time to learn the basics at first.
The only thing I disagree with, are the fixed 3 hours. The player should decide by himself when to turn of newbie-status.
btw: it sounded like charlie was still playing around with the idea so it might still be changed or ditched. he also said "i hope it's enough" which sounds to me like he'd be greatful if we get any better or additional ideas, so please keep them coming :) this is an important issue imo, as it will concern literally half of the community at 1.0.
if you want to listen to exactly what he said about it, it starts at 9:00 in the dev Q&A:
<a href="http://www.twitch.tv/naturalselection2/b/331846110" target="_blank">http://www.twitch.tv/naturalselection2/b/331846110</a>
as i just noticed, it sounds like your hours will still be displayed after reaching that limit (with an option to turn it off), i'd really appreciate that.