Should you return to the Rookie Channel? It depends.
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Personally, I think the rookie help channel should be scrapped. Instead, a rookie help ingame hotline, where you post a question, filling out a little box and it gets submitted.
If it’s a legitimate question, reviewed by an ISD official, they answer it and post it back for everyone to see in that channel. (I.e. only ISD can use the chat function in the channel.)
That way, the hot toxic trolls are filtered out. Legitimate questions are answered and posted for all to see.
Yes, it would take longer, perhaps inspire more people to enter the ISD program and become truly helpful instead of spamming the channel with opinionated hot garbage.
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This very often is the correct answer to regular questions like ‘what is the best mining ship’, ‘what is the best exploration ship’ or ‘what weapon system is best’.
As long as people who give that answer also give a recommendation, the newbie will both learn that there is no ‘best’ for anything in EVE, as well as get an idea where to look for the things they wanted to know.
Best exploration ship?
It depends, but you could try the Heron, Imicus, Magnate or Probe
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I disagree.
Rookie chat is one of the best resources for new players: easily accessible, visible for all, instant response from other players.
Sure, sometimes you have the occasional troll and sometimes you get answers that are not entirely correct, or are just wrong.
But your idea to destroy the instant interaction with the playerbase just because there sometimes are trolls in the channel is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
I often am in the rookie help channel and in my experience the presence of trolls or spammers is more rare than the absence of ISD (the latter happens a lot!)
In other words, you would rather make the rookie chat channel unavailable for many hours a day (when there is no ISD to approve/post/respond) in order to avoid minor disruptions from trolls that can easily be ignored (or kicked when ISD is present).
I don’t think that is worth it.
If I were a rookie, I would rather have a channel with the occasional troll than not have access to the channel at all for many hours a day, as well as a delay and no way to interact when it was available.
Current rookie chat is pretty good, in my opinion.
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Perhaps a hybrid,
One where if you’re sick of dealing with the trolls, or you want a “certified” answer, i.e. one that isn’t mired by a bunch of BS, but may take longer for a response, go the help route.
If you’re looking for more a quick response, but user-beware, go rookie help chat?
Uh, I didn’t say that.
I said, make it a place where people can get help. Help being the operative word. Not Social Interaction.
That’s partly the problem with the channel, and it’s clear what the rookie help chat is for you. A place to “socially interact” and being a disruption, while hiding behind the smoke and mirrors of “helping.”
There are many other channels for social interaction. Might I suggest “the mining channel?”
When I said ‘instant interaction’ I was mainly talking about the ability of players to go back and forth with their questions, clarify things that may be unclear.
This instant interaction very useful, as new players often do not only have questions, they often also do not yet know the context of EVE well enough to formulate their question well.
It helps a lot if you can talk back and forth if a newbie starts with ‘where did my ship go?’
If you require rookies to fill in a question form before they get an official delayed response, you won’t have this instant interaction anymore.
The possibility to help newbies in the chat would go down significantly, and for what? A couple of trolls that people could easily ignore?
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I realized that I misread your post.
I get the “instant” interaction point. Hence the hybridization suggestion.
I’m not against a second option for rookies to ask questions, but I do think that such a ‘delayed response’ answer for people who do not wish to deal with the fast scrolling rookie chat already exists: in the newbie part of these forums.
Sure, it again will most likely be answered by players again, rather than ‘official ISD’ answers, but that doesn’t mean the quality of the answers is worse.
I mostly see good advice from players. And while the advice from ISD is ususlly great they too can make mistakes, they’re players after all.
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ISDs are players, themselves, anyway. What does it matter who answers the question? It’s still going to be a player.
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There is a reason why I put “certified” in quotes.
ISD are players and they do make mistakes. And occasionally offer bad advice. The purpose was to inhibit trolls, and slow down the all the extraneous nonsense.
Nothing more.
All I can speak on, is my experience. Rookie help is a dysfunctional, hot garbage mess. I offered a suggestion. Sure, it’s not great. But it’s a heap more engaging than saying,
“It depends….”
I agree!
I can see that. Unfortunately, the incident I described above was dominated by an individual attempting to suppress any and every attempt at a concrete recommendation by undermining it with “it depends” ad nauseum, which was reducing the morale of the chat – both the rookie remained confused, and vets were giving up trying to help at all. I conject that this particular individual’s behavior saw them wanting to maintain the appearance of being the smartest one in the room and not permitting anyone but them to be the sole source of answers in the Rookie Chat. This wasn’t healthy for the channel: newbies were not getting help and no one wanted to help because a single pilot wanted to turn the channel into a gratuitous flex of their (alleged) outward virtues.
If I could wave a wand and become a moderator, I personally would moderate that behavior out of the channel, I believe that strongly in separating genuine help with newbies from Eve’s psyops.
Many times people give the wrong answers. Sometimes because they are flat out wrong, sometimes because the one giving the answer uses a limited (his own) perspective or personal opinion, like or dislike.
I can very easily think of a situation where repeatedly reacting with “it depends” is actually viable, if someone keeps stating their limited/mistaken views.
Hmm. Not quite in the same drama league as Captain Oates stepping out of the tent in -50 degrees with a parting ’ I’m just going for a walk…I may be some time '.
Sometimes I’m actually really helpful to new players in Rookie Help, but I never ever ever ever try to help them in channel. If I’m feeling nice I will go to the channel, and watch as the carebear ‘helpers’ talk trash and whine endlessly about the griefer in chat. Eventually, if a new player asks a question, I will private convo them and actually help them, they seem to really appreciate that - but the channel itself is infested with a bunch of whiteknight carebear ‘helpers’ who are bad at the game, and these losers can’t possibly help the rookies because they need to help themselves.
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This is accurate. I noticed certain clicks in the rookie chat. A group of self serving individuals that, when confronted, will do anything in their power to drown you out.
Woe behold anyone that contradicts their bad advice, or even offer advice that is slightly dissimilar to theirs.
It’s as Io put it. For these people, It’s not about helping a new player out. It’s about them stroking their frail egos.
It really has no place in a help channel.
And at one point I seriously considered entering the volunteer program. But given how toxic that channel is… I don’t think I could stomach it.
And upon introspection, I don’t think I would make a good ISD helper. I’m too self serving myself. And would probably give biased advice*, which would not be helpful for new players.
*stuff along the line of ninja salvaging, mtu hunting, getting into low tier shenanigans, even ganking.
I’m also one for getting people off the mining track and into other areas of game play, which to be fair, some people do enjoy mining. And I don’t want to push my gameplay style upon them (as in, change how they play, not the occasional gank for content creation and the Yarr! Welcome to EvE matey!).
So, ya. I’d be terrible at it.
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This 100%.
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I support this idea. The forums serve in part what you propose.
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I appreciate your comments but at my current level I now can easily replace frigates that I’ve lost without hardship.
The forums so far are serving my needs to answer the questions I have.
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