Newbie Suggestion

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

So I was thinking about how to make newbies feel more welcome in-game, and I had an idea.

How about a group of players already in the game that volunteer to help out? OOCly, they could help with a lot of soft gestures, like:
* Making sure newbie open posts don't sit around untagged.
* Volunteering to tag around in the podpop posts.
* Helping to create an index of newbie posts during podpop, pretty much like what Pixle did with the most recent meet and greet.

Additionally, how about a buddy system? People could volunteer themselves to help newbies:
* OOCly by contacting their newbie via AIM/Plurk/etc to say hi, answering basic questions
* ICly by offering up their characters to help them get a head start on CR.

I think the buddy thing would lend itself to more of a signup system, where a new player who's interested in having a buddy to talk to can be paired up with an older player who volunteers.

It's sort of like an OOC welcoming committee. Thoughts?

ETA: Okay, since a couple of people have expressed interest, let me get together a proposal email to give to the mods. I'll also work on a post we can put up for newbies around podpop, and run that by everyone for suggestions. AFAIK, everyone is good for helping at least one newb, right?

Comments

[battorch]

I'm 100% up for volunteering to help out! o/

[ronnae.livejournal.com]

I'm always up for neat stuff like this. You can count me in. ^^

[radiantcourage.livejournal.com]

I'm good with volunteering! :D

[carrieswar.livejournal.com]

I would love to help out with this!

Maybe referring the chatroom as a sort of hi thing would work too? Mainly so people can poke around and get more than one initial person to play with.

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm thinking it would be useful to have a post somewhere on the OOC comms with some information about who you can contact for help and tips like tagging around in podpop and visiting chat.

Not sure what exactly would be the best time, though. Maybe the week of podpop...

[masterofnun.livejournal.com]

/throws hat in ring

/wants to collect newbies like pokeymanz

[fattynoparents]

Yes yes yesss sign me up

[bonnypiperlad]

I'd certainly be willing to help out where I can!

[morphitudinous]

I'm game---well, with the caveat that I'm more useful on Plurk than AIM atm. But I'm happy to friend anyone, or email too! Email's great.

Maybe we could get this going again? It's accessible on the sidebar and supposed to be a place for the newbie helpers to be made known, but the only person left on the list isn't in the game anymore.

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that could be a good place to start. I'm pretty sure I emailed someone on that list when I first started.

Maybe it would be a good idea to get preferred types of contact info from people too...

[syncopath]

All of these suggestions sound amazing, especially since the setting is kind of... well, for me it was definitely a lot of reading material ;) Having an informal system of OOC help for newbies would be fantastic.

Also, as a newb last time around I really loved the index of newbie posts. The meet and greets get so huge sometimes it's easy to miss some. :)

Sign me up for IC stuff, for sure. The Master loves tagging new people who have no idea what's going on yet. And organization. I love those tasks.

I'm not quite comfortable with answering OOC questions yet... still finding my feet. Maybe next podpop.

[livestoannoy]

I rather like the idea of a buddy system - having a group of newbie helpers does also sound like a good idea, but I know I wouldn't be able to have enough time to properly devote to it. But I could definitely volunteer to help out one new player, and I think if you have the buddy system combined with the Newbie Support Group, that could make a solid network to help newbies find their feet.

[changelingdude.livejournal.com]

Aren't we a helpful bunch?

I'm in.

[thisclinchesit]

This is a rad idea, and I shall toss my hand in to lend new folks a hand if they need it.

[so-pregnable.livejournal.com]

I already kinda do this informally with some folks so you can toss me in, although I could only do it for late-nighters/aussies/what have you.

One question though--who's going to assign people to newbs and stuff?

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

I can do it unless someone else wants to volunteer. I have no idea how many people will actually be interested in being assigned to an older player, so i guess this latest podpop can be a test of that.