1 reply to this topic

[Norris J Packard]

I was talking about this with a few other guys, a Mentor Gametype would go a long, long way to help new players and foster a greater sense of community. A lot of new players quickly become overwhelmed with MWO and this often leads to frustration for them.

If a paired gametype was created where a new player (someone with less than 25 games) could be paired with someone with more than 25 games; then that player could teach them how to play the game. Since VoIP isn't going to happen, it'd be easier if they were added to a group via the matchmaker before Launching so they could communicate over VoIP. From there the Mentor plays the game normally (assuming special Commander like options aren't added for this particular gametype) while instructing the player and telling them what they should know and so on.

In return for this help, the Mentor player could potentially earn greater amount of CBills via a Mentor Bonus (a small percentage increase or something akin to that) and also create a relationship with that player. This should aid in recruiting players for a particular House/Merc Corp, and as a result it becomes more advantageous for people to help new players via the Mentor Gametype as it could otherwise potentially result in the Lion's Share of new players going to Faction(s) doing this as opposed to the ones not doing it. Therefore being socialable becomes advantageous.

Edited by Norris J Packard, 04 March 2013 - 04:21 AM.

[Super Mono]

Norris J Packard, on 16 February 2013 - 03:26 PM, said:

This should aid in recruiting players for a particular House/Merc Corp,

I personally think this is a bad idea to subject new players to recruitment drives like this. This would be ripe for exploitation as players just sign up and group with a new player and drop and play like normal for the cbill bonus. To prevent abuse it would require careful moderation and a way for the new player to give feedback about the quality of the training they received, which may be difficult for them to even judge. This would be best avoided with carefully judged company picked volunteers but then they'd have to go without the cbill bonus or people on the forums would complain loudly about not being picked for it.

A lot of extra staff and work would be needed to prevent this from being gamed that would be better spent just investing in better training tools for new players to train themselves on the game.

Edited by Super Mono, 04 March 2013 - 08:27 AM.