Lot of new players/possibilities

[B A N E]

Capt. Blood,

I see your point but the problem you describe exists amongst all
levels of play. It's been a problem from the beginning and I've
not seen a good fix.

NAVGAP was an attempt to help but was too much work for hosts.

Havok,
91? Pre-v2 days? You da man!

93 for me.

[Cherek]

How do you propose to regulate games by player experience? Are you referring to the experience of a player at a site or the players overall experience? If you are referring to a player’s experience at a site, that can be controlled by a host and AutoTroll. If you are referring to a player’s overall, how can you expect a host control that?

[Shardin5]

Many nice points, especially about what to do if you are a newbie and want to get some experience.

My point was, that if the experience of the players differs to much it disturb the gameplay in many ways.

It usually start with the way the players build. Some are allowed to build to many and to huge ships and others build to few and to small. No one to blame, but the balance of the game are already disturbed.

Other much disturbing happenings are "strange" fighting. An example might be robot rushing rebel and killing him loosing close to nothing.

I don´t believe much can be learned from such experiences and it make the games less interesting for all who participate.

Capt Blood,
When I was still pretty new to the game, I lost my HW on Turn 9 or 10, got double teamed by a Tholian and Pirate alliance. I learned a valuable lesson, stay hidden early, don't skimp on early ship builds, don't over build early but don't skimp either. On turn 1 I moved out in the open, not thinking about it, Tholian and Pirate worked hard together to build a CT with max fighters, so it could be towed in to my HW. If I would have built up just a little bit on my SB defences, put all the beams on my D19, or not have moved out in the open, I would have lasted much longer in the game. I learned a few other things as well, but the point is early smashing defeats, can be useful, IF YOU LEARN from them. If you have a Race pushing in on you and all looks lost POST for help, people will give you tips, in a non Tourney game.

[BitMask]

I would go for something between what Cherek and Bane said, but leaning to Bane's point.

Playing a race will teach you it's strength and weakness and will help you if you play against that race. But I would say one should stick to only a select few races at the newbie stage. Don't just take on a new race to learn it. "Know then all, good at None" is probably not the correct way.

I think restricting players to join only certain games will only discourage new players in the game to join the site. I know of a site where ranking is used, and I tend to play at other sites where I can join any game - even though I'm not a newbie at the game, just at the site.....

On the issue about a newbie being killed from a game early in the game, I would say that he would learn from that attack and respond to it in his next game, even though it did not last long. So it's still usefull

[Shardin5]

I agree about limiting how many races you play early, but I think one of the best things to do is mix it up. If you play the Tholians, then play the Pirates, if you Play the Cylons then Play the CofM, if its the Feds then move on to the Birds(the hardest Race) or the Gorn. Look for the opposite of the race you are playing, or as close as you can. I would recommend playing some of the money or resource hampered races early, as it will teach you economy, which is really the backbone of the game, learning to play some of the more powerful races that don't need to worry about the economy will make you look good early on, but you wont last in the longer games, nor against skilled economy players(which is still my weak point, as I prefer to battle early)

[Cherek]

Here is an idea, why not have some games set up by experience level? No Frills games would be good for beginners and the more add-ons there are, the higher the minimum level that can join. Games like FHost, ABHost and PHost also require a high level to join.

One of the drawbacks about doing it that way is that players who play three to five games will player against players their own level, but a player who has been playing for ten years and only plays one or two games at a time will have "easy pickings" because of his low score/level.

[Havok]

Capt. Blood,

I see your point but the problem you describe exists amongst all
levels of play. It's been a problem from the beginning and I've
not seen a good fix.

NAVGAP was an attempt to help but was too much work for hosts.

Havok,
91? Pre-v2 days? You da man!

93 for me.

Discovered vgap when 2.0 was out... Have been playing 3.0 since shortly after it's release. Still have the old DOS disk around here somewhere.

[Cherek]

Discovered vgap when 2.0 was out... Have been playing 3.0 since shortly after it's release. Still have the old DOS disk around here somewhere.

Me three!

[B A N E]

I started with v2 and played a small handful of games.
Then I did a group reg of v2 and rec'd the freshly minted v3 regs & disks.

Heh, I too have my dos disks.
I found if you recall the v2 files saved on a zipdisk.

We're a bunch of old fogies.

Recall how helpful the paper echocluster map was?
I laminated one and started using grease pencils to strategize.

[BitMask]

And it all came on floppies. [What are floppies???]

[Cherek]

Recall how helpful the paper echocluster map was?
I laminated one and started using grease pencils to strategize.

I had boards with a map on each board covered with plexiglass and used grease markers to draw lines, make notes and kept enemy planet info.

Then we started having custom maps. Then, I started making copies of each new map and I kept a notebook with each of the maps. Then the strangest think came around, a program that continued the map passed the edge.

How did I ever survived before EchoView (I never did like VPA)?

[Havok]

I started with v2 and played a small handful of games.
Then I did a group reg of v2 and rec'd the freshly minted v3 regs & disks.

Heh, I too have my dos disks.
I found if you recall the v2 files saved on a zipdisk.

We're a bunch of old fogies.

Recall how helpful the paper echocluster map was?
I laminated one and started using grease pencils to strategize.

Yeah, DF and I cut them out (the 4 pages) and put them all together, took them down to Kinko's and had full scale maps made out of them. Then we lamenated those.

I think I have 2 or 3 of them left somewhere...

[Havok]

Recall how helpful the paper echocluster map was?
I laminated one and started using grease pencils to strategize.

I had boards with a map on each board covered with plexiglass and used grease markers to draw lines, make notes and kept enemy planet info.

Then we started having custom maps. Then, I started making copies of each new map and I kept a notebook with each of the maps. Then the strangest think came around, a program that continued the map passed the edge.

How did I ever survived before EchoView (I never did like VPA)?

Never liked VPA????

You know you can make that map scroll over the edge in vpa with the map.ini file

[B A N E]

Why did I love/hate the EE when v3 was introduced?

Darksense!
All that wonderful data.
All those pages of notes written every turn.
All the comparing between turns the changes.
All done by hand.

With the introduction of VPA (or EV for EV fans), the EE saw a vast
improvement. History DBs!

[hennef]

Many nice points, especially about what to do if you are a newbie and want to get some experience.

My point was, that if the experience of the players differs to much it disturb the gameplay in many ways.

It usually start with the way the players build. Some are allowed to build to many and to huge ships and others build to few and to small. No one to blame, but the balance of the game are already disturbed.

Other much disturbing happenings are "strange" fighting. An example might be robot rushing rebel and killing him loosing close to nothing.

I don´t believe much can be learned from such experiences and it make the games less interesting for all who participate.

i absolutely agree.