REMEMBER WE MUST HELP THE NEWBIES OUT

[Golden Girl]

I've always helped new players

[Triplash]

Yeah, I remember tons of times when I was still new, folks would swoop in, drop recipes or SOs on me, and be gone again before I even knew what was happening. It was so cool that, once I had stuff I didn't need, I started doing it too

I remember buying up stacks of the halloween salvage one year during the event, when it was dirt cheap, just so I could hand it out to new players. I called it my "New Player Welcome Kit" - a set of halloween salvage, an escort to Croatoa to hand it in (and back again of course), and a million inf to help the early days go a little smoother. I know some people handed out more, but I didn't want to give new players an Easy Button - then they'd just get bored. My goal was to make their first few days a little less painless, while they learned the ropes. Well, that and letting them see how cool it was to have multiple outfits

Shoot, I even bought up stacks of costume piece and hand grenade recipes, and the salvage to craft them. If the newbie was really interested in learning stuff, I'd hand them a set of those too, and bring them to the RWZ base so they could craft it. Heck, the RWZ base was where I'd bring them to access a tailor too, until Freedom launched and all the trainers worked as tailors.

It always gave me a chuckle, bringing new players to an active war zone for fashion advice. "That's Paragon City for ya!" I'd tell them. "Oh and when you're done in the tailor... leave the way we came in, through the wall portal. DO NOT GO OUTSIDE." I felt like that gave them something mysterious to look forward to when they returned there at the right level.

[Taceus Jiwede]

Does it count as helping if I run around all the time saying "lewl noob" to everybody I meet always?

[fearalice]

(Sorry if this was mentioned in the thread already, i know only two pages but wanted to get it out there)

I've seen this in a few other MMO games, but how about we actually utilize it? A chat channel that is auto join for newly created characters. But instead of just making leaving the channel the first thing you do, let's have the more knowledgeable people either re-join it or stay in it. We should keep it free of spam, keep auctioning out of it, all that. And perhaps some form of in game notification explaining to new players what that channel is for, how to talk in it, and even an easy way to rejoin it if you've left it without having to memorize what it was called.

I know i would stay in the channel and try to help people any time i spotted people talking in it. People having a good time when they first pick a game up is the most important thing next to keeping people entertained once they reach end game. A game with a rocky start will lose players fast. As will a game where once you hit the max level the only thing left to do is level a new character.

[Baja]

When I started playing this game I was 14/15 and vividly remember having no desire to hit 40. I just loved messing around and trying everything I could to see what it was all about, mainly power sets and different AT's. I think this should be something everyone keeps in mind, with new players comes new curiousity, telling them you should take x and y if you want the best (insert any AT here) probably isn't the best idea. Letting people learn what they enjoy is a key element in having a long term player, at least in my mind. If someone said to me that /regen was god mode back when the game first came out that's probably what I would have chose, then I would feel horribly underpowered when trying other things.

I think, like others have mentioned, trials/inf/general guidance is the best way to go about this. I hate to do this but I'm going to quote futurama "If you do something right people won't know you've done anything at all." To me this applies in a very major way. You don't want new players feeling like they're being lead down a path, you want them to feel like they are creating their own.

Like I said previously I was pretty young when I started, and pretty immature. The level of maturity shown by the players I interacted with made me want to emulate that as best I could, whether it be through proper spelling or simply how I treated others.

As far as my plans go I just think being nice and offering help when asked for is the best route. I see no point in trying to force my ideals or knowledge down a newbies throat unless that is exactly what's being asked of me. Running trials that don't ask for any specific at's/power sets is a thing I plan on doing, I hated seeing trials about to start that refused having another brute or MM. Since I personally only have the desire to play a couple AT's I'll probably have quite a bit of extra inf, I definitely plan on finding some ridiculous contest ideas.

Anyways with all that is being said right now I think just being nice and not overly intense with the advice giving will work best!

[hejtmane]

That's one of the things I miss the most about CoH, the community and how helpful people were.  I'm mostly not playing SWTOR at the moment, and if someone asks a question, more likely than not, they get a flippant, a non-answer, or a vulgar response.  I just don't remember that from CoH... did I just not see that stuff? am I just not remembering it?  I don't remember chat on CoH being a cesspool.  I am so hoping CoH comes back I don't care if I have to re-roll and re-level.  I will spend all my vacation time at work to have a CoH-cation... lol

There was some but overall the community was very supportive in helping new players. Heck there where people that held contest and handed out a billion dollars in purple IO's on the forum. Custom contest giving out millions. People just handing out SO's or IO's to random new toons.

The amount of build advice on the forums where overwhelming (On the scrapper forums anyways) help calculating maxed dps attack chains was great stuff.

[chuckv3]

One of the things I did on Justice (I think) during I22 was wait at AP at the new player spawn point, or under the statue, and give away enough INF, and the recipe and ingredients for temporary jet pack, then have my other account signed on in the SG base, and show them how to craft it. Nothing like (well, non-Khelds) being able to fly at level 2 -- especially for those of us who played well before Mayhem and had to wait for level 14 every freaking time.

So, there's lots of creative ways. Or invite them to your SG (no obligations, of course).

[artbunker]

That happened to me as well, but in Mercy island.

One Christmas, in Liberty, I just handed out 10000 in fluence to any player I saw was starting out . When I got a friend to play, I gave her  a million and told her good luck.. As I watched her kept tapping the W button lolol. but in all fairness, she surpassed me in the game within a month .

[Battlechimp]

(Sorry if this was mentioned in the thread already, i know only two pages but wanted to get it out there)

I've seen this in a few other MMO games, but how about we actually utilize it? A chat channel that is auto join for newly created characters. But instead of just making leaving the channel the first thing you do, let's have the more knowledgeable people either re-join it or stay in it. We should keep it free of spam, keep auctioning out of it, all that. And perhaps some form of in game notification explaining to new players what that channel is for, how to talk in it, and even an easy way to rejoin it if you've left it without having to memorize what it was called.

I know i would stay in the channel and try to help people any time i spotted people talking in it. People having a good time when they first pick a game up is the most important thing next to keeping people entertained once they reach end game. A game with a rocky start will lose players fast. As will a game where once you hit the max level the only thing left to do is level a new character.

We did have one. It was  Called the Help channel :-)

And a slightly less flippant response, the Help channel did all that you were asking for. It was something that everyone was auto logged in when creating a new character. It was server wide, so you could reach across zones or people in mission.  When the game went F2P and totally free players who couldn't use broadcast could all use it. (And yes I do support that totally free players not use broadcast. It helped cut down on gold spam, and was unlocked at tier 1)

A lot of vets would monitor it and answer questions as they came up.  I know I did.  But unfortunately, those things that made it useful to newbies was also its downside.  People who couldn't be bothered with using the LFG channel or global would recruit.  Same for the auction stuff because they couldn't be bothered to use the auction channel.  Problem is that things like that have to be self policed by the players. Its not worth the cost to hire someone to monitor it.  And unfortunately when players try to go "hey this is for Help" it doesn't take long before the "You can't tell me what to do!" Comes out :-)

[mrultimate]

I plan to be one of the people forming TF's. that gives you the power to form just about how you want.

One of the great memories of the game was in the first 30 minutes I was in the game, someone opened a trade window with me and gave me 50k inf and told me good luck. I used to wander atlas park handing out inf to newbies. following sewer teams through the old sewers healing and buffing them.  was a lot of fun

Did stuff like this on Guardian as well. Man I miss it so much.

[Oskmey]

Just be ourselves.

Seriously, I have not found another similar community anywhere yet. Here's hoping enough of our's returns to make it back into what kept us there.

"Welcome back, to that same old place that you laughed about,
Well the names have all changed since you hung around.
But those dreams have remained and they've turned around.
And who'd've thought they'd lead ya,
(Who'd've thought they'd lead ya)
Back here where we need ya."

[Petrofire]

I remember my first day in Atlas Park. A hero messaged me out of the blue as I ran around fighting hellions and gave me some tips on powerset choices. That first interaction stuck with me, and from there I took advice from many others and, once I got my legs, gave it out in droves to people who needed it. I escorted, healed, teleported and advised team tactics in newbie PUGs. If we get our city back I intend to do the same thing. It's been stated over and over but the community in this game was top tier and I haven't found another in any MMO since. I'd like to do my part to keep that legend running once (if) we all set foot back on Paragon's soil. There was an awful lot of teamwork going on in that game and I do believe that was one of the main reasons I stuck around for so long.

[hejtmane]

I got a wierd but important question... When the game returns, how  best can we help out new players?

I ask this , because unlike last time, we might need to get new folks interested to spread the word about the game. I know being respectful and curtious to all new players is a given, but hopefully , someone,  be willing to "MENTOR" new folks into the game.

I know I got a person to show the ropes to once the game comes back. I will definatly be willing to help other new folks as well. I think its important to not hold new folks hands , but to at least give them some support  getting to know Atlas Park or even Mercy Island.

I would love to hear ideas of helping out new folks when the game comes back

Easy what ever forum is set up write guides if you can; give build advice on the forums; make pug groups

I would write a guide but I suck at that stuff that is one way.

One of the fun things is to join a pug that are struggling and you go in with a maxed out IO build able to solo +4/8 and show them the power of what they can be sometimes you will get how can I do that and you educate them when they ask. I would also point them to the forums for what ever class they are be it blaster etc put the links in a PM to them if they asked.

Helped a lot of players like that sometimes they just do not know what the limits are which is why I loved the stupid scrapper tricks we tried just to see what we could do and sometimes it resulted in failure. Heck it probably took me 20 tries with the same build to defeat Inferno I spent hours upon hours of fighting that guy in frustration until things went right and I finally soloed that guy with no inspiration.

Go out there team with them and teach them and lead TF's

[Thunder Glove]

I remember early on having someone explain to me what enhancements were, and why other players didn't like Knockback.  This was on my very first trial account, back when trials were two weeks long and you could only get to level 14.

I eventually subscribed that account and got those early characters to 50, most to 50+3.

I never give build advice.  I will tell people what powers I like and why, but I never say "Okay, you have to put six slots in power X, with the full Hair of the Rabid Ninja set, so you can get +2.13% more Melee Defense...", because 99% of the time I was just winging it with sets anyway.  And my characters were never underpowered.

... oh, man, talking about the game makes me miss it more.

[jtessier3]

I remember my first days playing CoH and all of the different players and how much I hated Perez Park.  Looking back on it now, I'm amazed at how much I miss CoH.  I truly had a great time being a hero, if only for an hour a day.  Also, playing in PuGs really made the experience more memorable, especially when forming your first SG.  I really thought it was something when I was part of one.  The Coalition of Justice, Triumph Server was the equivalent for me, mind you, of being in the Justice League.  I felt like Superman, learning how to leap tall buildings and was totally locked in when I could fly. 

The experience of being a veteran player on the game was not wasted.  I would gladly fork out INF to a lot of new players, and drop enhancements to everyone who needed it.  New or not, if you needed it, I would do my best to help.  That's the culture and environment that CoX engendered.  This was not just a game to me...  It allowed me to be something I was in the real world...  A mentor. 

Can't wait to do it again.  See you all in Paragon City once more.

Jim a.k.a. Champion from Triumph server

[Deathmint]

As a casual CoX player, this was what always stood out to me. It's the one MMO game I've ever seen that actually had the MMO aspect to it. I'd create a character, go around in Solo Mode as I was used to in other MMO games, and just had the most random stuff happen.

People randomly giving me Inf. People randomly coming up and saying nice things about my character or just making me laugh. People actively recruiting me into groups. I was leery of groups after the hostility of "L2PLAY NEWB LOLOL" attitudes in other games, especially when they expected a knowledge depth of your character that required studying Youtube vids of pros and minmaxing websites.

But I'd get in these groups and everyone was chill. No one dictated my playstyle. If I screwed up and apologized the response I *always* got was something along the lines of a "lol, all good" while someone cleaned up my mess. There was a sense of "cool older sibling" most of the time when I interacted with vets of the game, offering tips but not bossing me around.

It left enough of a good impression that I was paying for 2 MMORPGs for awhile: one my friends all played on, and CoX for me. Thing about my core group of friends at the time: they were pretty anti-social minmaxers. They were in MMORPGs for the number-crunching competitive CoD-esque PvP, not for the group/social aspects (which I was). So they decided CoX was "too grindy," but I think it was the strong co-op lean that turned them off. It was "grindy" because they would try to solo the game like every other MMORPG and ignore everyone else.

That's something else I noticed. The entire structure of CoX, even with the concept of PvP heroes/villains, was still one of co-op, heroic group efforts. So it naturally filtered out the crowds of instant gratification gear braggarts that wind up in other MMORPGs, screwing other folks to get the best in slot.

This is a trend that I hope will continue.

[BadWolf]

We will teach them the most important lesson of all:

Always use the back elevators.

[Rejolt]

Set up massive AE farms where we teach folks to sit still and die and gain mountains of xp and profit while doing nothing but talking to their friends and never learning how to play their toons!

(/slapsself)

I mean be yourself. Have fun. Be friendly. Play what you enjoy as we're all starting over so we don't have to have 300 concept toons out of boredom.

There's enough content for two or three characters all the way through incarnates for months unless you absolutely power game it.

Fingers crossed for I24 (which I'm game with them waiting a few months to give us as a pseudo update - I just hope it still exists).

[Techbot Alpha]

If we get the game back (which I pray we do), I'll probably get Alpha and Chief back to max level ASAP, then loiter in Mercy and Atlas In-Character and stuff. I loved the RP in CoH, not to mention how great the community was.

[Lupur]

There are three things that I believe will help folks out the most:

1. Getting people used to the idea that in CoX there is no need for a healbot / buffbot or sometimes even Tanker on a team.
2. Having a forum thread with the basics of the game and links to all necessary resources ready to post in the public help / general chanels*.
3. Just generally being friendly and moderately informative with questions and I think making a conscious effort to include PUGS in our daily activities.

* The forum post should just be basic info about how combat works ( eg. why does 45% def give enemies only 5% chance to hit ? ), links to the builds forums and to any other number-crunchy type thread for those that are interested.

Personally I plan on basically rushing 3 toons to 20, and leveling them up with tip missions in Atlas / Mercy, giving plenty of exposure to new players.

I will also be conducting seminars on Debt, and the evils thereof on my //Reg Brute.

**edit: spilling