One thing that I've heard a lot of complaints about from people new to Tremulous (especially from NS people) is that Tremulous isn't very "newb friendly." I can see where they are coming from... The current manual isn't detailed enough, and Trem players aren't the most forgiving online community (although we're much better than some). Moreover, newbs can hurt their own team much more than in some other games (crazy feeding, bad building, etc.), which causes newbs to be kicked more often, which leads to them leaving the game and/or possibly whining on the forums. Which we don't want.
Which leads me to my idea. I believe most of us don't mind helping newbs, but we're not always sure if someone is a newb, and moreover a newb willing to take the time to listen to what an experienced player has to say. I propose that we designate a tag to go in front of the newb's name that will designate him or her as a newb that's willing to learn. Something like (NWL). With this tag, it will be clear to everyone that they are newbs, which would be good on several levels. We can help the newbs that aren't noobs- newbs that are willing to admit they're new and want to learn. We don't have to worry about being cruel to people who act like idiots but might be newbs. If one side has a bunch of newbs for the purpose of this example, humans), the few experienced players don't have to, when the aliens dominate, shout things like "OUR TEAM HAD LIKE SOOO MANY NOOBS!!!" that lead to newbs feeling bad and possibly leaving the game.
Foreseeable problems:
1. Implementation. How do we get newbs to use this tag? Two things that come up in my mind right away are: people telling them and servers putting it on their loading screen. However, people telling newbs is slow and inefficient, and server hosters probably don't want to put a message on their loading screen.
2. Griefers pretending to be NWLs. Not sure how to prevent this.
3. I'm wrong and people hate newbs (not noobs, newbs). Then don't implement this idea.
Thoughts?
