Candidates' opinions on new players?

[EuSouAFazenda]

As a new player who has been playing this game for around less than 3 months, I want to ask all all the candidates a question: How much will you have new players in mind when having decisions?

SS13 is a large, complex, obtuse game. A lot of the learning curve involves asking your coworkers how to do something. Add on top the widly out of date and unreliable wiki, the constantly updating nature of the game and the billion and one ways antagonists can mess with your round, actually learning the game can be a hard task in on itself.

Plenty of recently discussed changes - like changing Traitors to have a progression system or the general feeling that Blood Cult needs a rework - can severely impact a new player's experience on the game, for worse (former) or better (later).
When changing stuff, would you prioritize old players who are already savy with the mechanics or new players who aren't? If the old players, how do you plan on getting new players, either to expand the userbase or to replace people that leave for one reason or another? Will you be willing to sacrifice some of the old player's experience to greatly improve a new player's one, like the implementation of Combat Mode?


Long text, so if you don't have the time (or don't care), here's an abridged version:
How much will you have new players in mind when having decisions?
Will you not care at all? Will you be willing to compromise between the new and old player experiences? Focus on making the wiki more up-to-date? Very few of the candidates' threads mentioned anything about new players, an absurdly important part of the game, maybe even more so than the bulk of most of the threads.

[Mothblocks]

As a maintainer, one of my biggest points of interest is the experience of new players. I have spent more research into this topic than anyone else I know--I have spent many times watching new players screen share gameplay to me, taking down notes on what was confusing and how I can fix it.

I was seconds away from merging combat mode before oranges beat me to it (after seeing intents being a common point of contention), and championed it the whole time. I made item equip hover outlines, so on and so forth.

That being said, I think the best thing that only head admins can do is direct policy to what is intuitive. Anyone can update the wiki, head admins have no real power over that, but head admins do have the power to update the rules to be more understandable to fresh players. One thing NamelessFairy wants to do that I whole-heartedly agree with is moving important, commonly misunderstood headmin rulings to the main rules page.

[dragomagol]

This sounds largely like a code question; headmins don't have power over the codebase and what gets added/removed from the game.

Headmins have power over the rules pages though, which is a big part of my campaign. Players old and new can benefit from making the wiki rules easier to read and understand. I don't think for policy decisions I would make a distinction between what was better for new or old players, just what was better for players and admins overall.

I adore new players, seeing them discover everything I've grown used to reminds me of when I started playing and everything was a mystery.

[Timberpoes]

Personally made inroads to eliminate play-by-wiki. Move information in-game.

New player experience goes without saying. Always work towards this goal. Obvious for health of game. Not mention because assume it obvious. Possibly assume wrong?

Not just me feel this way. Voices in admin team advocating for updated rules. Updated wiki. Updated policies. All issue that plague new and returning players.

Said same last election. Same this election. If win, will look at all other candidate platforms. Listen to people. Absorb information.

See what possible to implement. When term ends, game in better place than when left. Solid foundation for next term.

New player experience part of this. Want to leave a healthy set of servers & happy set of players. Overarching goal for own headminship.

[kieth4]

Hello, I love new players. Being a player myself there's nothing more satisfying than watching someone who once was a duffel nerd getting good at the game and mechanically robust I often try to teach all my newsec tips and tricks to help them improve on the game. As a headmin I'd crack down on the abuse that new players often get for the crime of being new using and encouraging the use of the underused rule 1. I'd also encourage admins to use their powers to make the game better for newer players like spawning experienced players as a tutorial crab as i've had the pleasure of being(attached is the note I was given after). I'd also love to implement some kind of mentor role that other servers have in order to assist newer players in learning the game and improve their overall experience but this would require words with the other headjannies so it's not a promise.

[Mailbox]

Most of the things you mention got with code to do so I don't think I will have any say in that matter. But when it comes to rules and administration I always try to extend a hand to the new player in trying to help them learn the game.
I always tried to help new people.

[Stickymayhem]

I think a sustained growth to match burnout and attrition is absolutely critical to the health of the server, and new players are really important to keeping the game fun for everyone. We could so easily become a jaded community without some new personalities coming in and changing things a little, as well as bringing a continuous love and curioisity for a game many of us have just absolutely scraped clean of content.

Making the server more accessible in terms of welcoming newbies into the discord and forums more effectively, reducing hostility and insularity and reducing behaviours that drive nice new people away is really important to me. I was one of the admins who "handled" the ssethtide on event hall, basically adminning there more than anyone else for the duration of the rush and handling the overwhelming flood of tickets, misunderstandings and grief that those waves of players brought. I loved every minute of it. When I ran events, there was a delight and curiousity that only new players can have

I'd even go so far as to say we should consider being needlessly hostile to obviously new players (in OOC areas of course) should come under rule 1 enforcement where excessive. It's not something we think about very often but particularly recently there have been some instances of really toxic behaviour towards newer players

[RiskySikh]

i care for new players as they say generations go by, with 2011 being replaced by 2012 players, 2012 by 2013 players, 2013 replaced by 2014 players. New players are what grows the community and game. Without them, we wouldn't survive, at one point we were all new at one point.

[iamgoofball]

new players are literally the most important thing for the game