The Tremulous Society of Mechanical Engineers (WIP)

[Huscarl]

Okay, so we've all been in the position of laying waste to the enemy base only to come back and find our own base is gone due to wanker building.  Frustrating as hell, especially if you're human and realize that your remaining time in game is now reduced to seconds and that sweet victory has been denied to you.

How would the community feel about an open group dedicated to reliable building and the education of players in the latest building techniques, and in general, attempt to raise the quality of bases, particularly on open servers.  The main idea is that the players would be tagged, and so recognizable as capable builders, and thus designated as the builder(s) for the team.  Obviously its going to be pretty small.  I doubt more than 5-10 players will even take interest, but in theory could be also used as a standardization benchmark if the Society can show serious results.  Clans could send their less capable builders to the Society to get better rated as part of their training.

[The Crazie Coward]

Okay, so we've all been in the position of laying waste to the enemy base only to come back and find our own base is gone due to wanker building.  Frustrating as hell, especially if you're human and realize that your remaining time in game is now reduced to seconds and that sweet victory has been denied to you.

How would the community feel about an open group dedicated to reliable building and the education of players in the latest building techniques, and in general, attempt to raise the quality of bases, particularly on open servers.  The main idea is that the players would be tagged, and so recognizable as capable builders, and thus designated as the builder(s) for the team.  Obviously its going to be pretty small.  I doubt more than 5-10 players will even take interest, but in theory could be also used as a standardization benchmark if the Society can show serious results.  Clans could send their less capable builders to the Society to get better rated as part of their training.
By Huscarl(Member of TSME)

If you are far away from my GMT you could post some pictures of your built bases for approval for a Offical Recruiter.
Nickname ingame: The Crazie Coward
Timezone:GMT +8:00
Tag of the Clan: (TSME)

[benmachine]

How would you judge who could build and who could not? Without some kind of statistical analysis (yeah, right) it's very hard to get an objective viewpoint on what is a good base and what is bad.

[Caveman]

It just might work.
But only if you hand out verifiable certificates

Your tag WILL get used by grievers and thus proving your (nice) idea ad absurdum.

[Caveman]

http://tremulous.net/forum/index.php?topic=6772.0

could a mod merge the 2 topics?

[Taiyo.uk]

!kick UnnamedPlayer n00building

[The MC Horton Crankfire]

!kick UnnamedPlayer n00building

People who kick new players for being new are the cancer that is killing Trem. If they're stubborn and won't listen to their teammates' advice, that's one thing, but when they just make some mistakes because they're still learning? Way to represent the community, buddy.

[Caveman]

What do you want?
Don't you realize that !denybuild and !designate are not available on most servers?
And YOU are the guy that takes his time (while playing) to teach a new player how to build?
If so, more power to you, if not ... #10

Anyways what is it with you? How can you judge a whole community by the action of a single person?
And if the kickee judges in that lane too then, we as a community have lost nothing.

[Shadowgandor]

It should be a clan with a list of players and all.
Why? Caveman just said it: If it's only a TSME tag that people can carry when they know(cough'think'cough) they're good at building can wear, bad builders won't be stopped wearing it as well.
Making it so people need to get recruited to the clan might let them build up a name of themselves so that people know which ones are real and who're not

[epsy]

!kick UnnamedPlayer n00building

People who kick new players for being new are the cancer that is killing Trem. If they're stubborn and won't listen to their teammates' advice, that's one thing, but when they just make some mistakes because they're still learning? Way to represent the community, buddy.

+1

That's exactly what happens in armagetron advanced

[Survivor]

Merged

[Shadowgandor]

now this topic has become mildly confusing

[The MC Horton Crankfire]

What do you want?
Don't you realize that !denybuild and !designate are not available on most servers?

Yeah, that's when you tell the guy to stop building. If he doesn't comply, THEN you kick him. It's really a simple way to handle the situation.

And YOU are the guy that takes his time (while playing) to teach a new player how to build?
If so, more power to you, if not ... #10

Usually, yes, I am that guy. In-game, I always try to help out in the few ways I'm able.

Anyways what is it with you? How can you judge a whole community by the action of a single person?
And if the kickee judges in that lane too then, we as a community have lost nothing.

When I said, "Way to represent the community," I was being sarcastic.

[The Crazie Coward]

There is a way to tell who are the real members of (TSME) if you had carefully read the forums, the method is that there is a website where they show your clan members in which sever of the game who are offically signed up(which must go pass my approval) and if you think someone is playing around having fun with the tags and all, just check the website and you know if its fake or not.

We know that some beginners also want to do some mistakes and all, but we generally do building for mostly large scale plans like 200+bps, we also do allow them to build but if those guys on the sever wants us to build after being fed up, we take over.

We do not follow to 1 guy's perspective, i generally know that some people have different ways of building the bases. Some prefer 2 armory, a fwd base and even the use of teslas(where you most people do not like it). Many players have different ways of building but in general, THEY LAST LONG or either win the game.

We also recruit members for training, take that noted.

[Caveman]

I stoped reading right after "check website".
Sorry, can't and wont do when I am playing.

[Lakitu7]

200+BP? That's not Tremulous. What you teach for whatever that is will teach people how to build badly in Tremulous.

[Knowitall66]

Its a nice idea but not really practical. For the moment either play with a clan or tell Newbs the CKit is useless so they dont try use it (Works for me). If New people want to learn to build have them play on Harlwes (Misspelt oops) Unlimited or play on their LAN for a bit.

[Huscarl]

How would you judge who could build and who could not? Without some kind of statistical analysis (yeah, right) it's very hard to get an objective viewpoint on what is a good base and what is bad.

Sometimes it is, yes.  Most often decent building is able to speak for itself with it's efficiency.  Crazie intends it to be less about who can build and who cannot build, but about building the best bases possible.  If the forums are the theory part of building, TSME is intended to be the technical part where the theory is applied and refined.  Every player has their own style of building and we're not looking to crush that spirit with cookie-cutter bases... or at least I'm not, I'm not sure what Crazie had in mind when he pitched the idea.

It just might work.
But only if you hand out verifiable certificates

Your tag WILL get used by grievers and thus proving your (nice) idea ad absurdum.

Indeed, that's my own concern as well, and I've actually thought of ways it might be able to identify members without the use of a tag, but that gets rather labour intentensive as someone would have to check the Society registrar.  As you stated further on it's not something most players are willing to do while playing, myself included.  Also, getting tags means being griefed if you're good.  It comes with the territory.

If it's only a TSME tag that people can carry when they know(cough'think'cough) they're good at building can wear, bad builders won't be stopped wearing it as well.

Does this mean we could call on you to help assess a player's building ability and to also contribute to the Society?  Assuming YOU know how to build well.   

[The Crazie Coward]

How would you judge who could build and who could not? Without some kind of statistical analysis (yeah, right) it's very hard to get an objective viewpoint on what is a good base and what is bad.

Sometimes it is, yes.  Most often decent building is able to speak for itself with it's efficiency.  Crazie intends it to be less about who can build and who cannot build, but about building the best bases possible.  If the forums are the theory part of building, TSME is intended to be the technical part where the theory is applied and refined.  Every player has their own style of building and we're not looking to crush that spirit with cookie-cutter bases... or at least I'm not, I'm not sure what Crazie had in mind when he pitched the idea.

It just might work.
But only if you hand out verifiable certificates

Your tag WILL get used by grievers and thus proving your (nice) idea ad absurdum.

Indeed, that's my own concern as well, and I've actually thought of ways it might be able to identify members without the use of a tag, but that gets rather labour intentensive as someone would have to check the Society registrar.  As you stated further on it's not something most players are willing to do while playing, myself included.  Also, getting tags means being griefed if you're good.  It comes with the territory.

About the base building plans.....we do actually accept any good base that can last or probably even win the game, even if your base is bad, there is at least some good points of view. We also would like to add those never seen ways of constructing bases that OWNS to our teaching, most likely in rare cases. Me myself do not go by MY own viewpoint, i do also ask questions from some good builders ive seen. I also do not go by building ONLY MY way, its already good enough if your own built base still HOLDS up and do not topple easily.

Ive already found a website that has the records of players in our clan online in which sever specifically and would only appear IF they sign up(which is only by my approval). It is mention already above. Sry Huscarl if i didnt notice you about this yet.... just too busy. Website is
http://clans.tremulous.net/

200+BP? That's not Tremulous. What you teach for whatever that is will teach people how to build badly in Tremulous.

200+bps is just what is mostly new that we are teaching, we also can teach 100+bps and even 2digit bps. Generally we do bases that is for more players....not for fast games as there are building plans good enough to supply us with good bases.

[Matt2k10]

Every player has their own style of building and we're not looking to crush that spirit with cookie-cutter bases...

Amen to that.
We need more builders like men

[smartalco]

this needs to be incorporated into the server software

admins on the server mark certain players as designated good builders, and the rest of the players can rate builders via voting, then have some form of way to check a persons build rating (ie: !brating smartalco, returning rating, brating standing for builder-rating)

[Rocinante]

There is a patch for designated builders.  Works similar to how you describe, people can vote a person as a designated builder (lasts for that game only) or someone can be given a flag which always makes them designated.  That builder then can protect buildings, and only (another designated, or the same person, I forget now) can decon the building.

Sounds great, doesn't it?  Here's a problem.

I'm a designated builder, and I make a nice base for the team, everything protected.  The baby starts crying and I have to leave.  Nobody else on the team is designated.  Now the aliens hit S2, and they want to decon a few tubes so they can put in trappers.  Only they can't, because I'm not there and the tubes are protected by me.

There may be ways around that particular issue, I'll be honest and admit I haven't played with designate very much.  But there's enough things about it that make me think "meh" that I don't have much desire to do so.

[Lakitu7]

If you leave, everything is deprotected. Admittedly, it doesn't help if you go idle though. Honestly, I don't think designate works that well unless you set it up so that L1s have it and you let basically anyone who isn't totally terrible have L1. Then it becomes "building is protected from everyone who isn't new / aliasing."

[Huscarl]

Well the public (the public that reads these forums anyways) at least is favourable to the idea, so I'm happy.  Only one real nay-sayer.

On open servers the system breaks down in many areas I agree; designate and newbie ckits being the biggest obstacles, followed by griefers.  But having a recognizable builder is still a step up as the more veteran players will know who to support.  All we can do is work within the system.

Now what I really hope to change is on the clan level, where the players have a plan and communicate, I can see many possibilities - especially if those matches were played on non-standard maps, where good building practices are more than the 'It's ATCS so we build a rant-trap'.

We need more builders like men

Where have you been playing these days, Matt?  Been missing my aggressive building at all?

[AKAnotu]

an in-game building tutorial could fix this, however it would have to be released in a new SVN. However, seeing as it's an official tremulous release it would actually have a  section....bleh.
btw  the tutorial would be possible because you wouldn't need an AI, just some text/possibly voice over (?) and outlines of structures.

[Matt2k10]

Where have you been playing these days, Matt?  Been missing my aggressive building at all?

Sorry, I don't play at SST

[thirdstreettito]

We should make some kind of system so that in a "Builders Clan" all the members have Very Unique GUIDs that are not copyable, and so that NO ONE can rename themselves to have that specific clan tag.

[Caveman]

Hmmmm 17 days old topic, yet nothing comes even near a viable solution.
I think we can safely speak of a phailure.

[Revan]

<leet> TSME iz teh 1337! </1337>   
Ok now that is over with

btw,  on the floor: HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO EXPLAIN THIS?

edit: please ignore this, I was half asleep when i posted it 

[ShadowNinjaDudeMan]

Why is aeveryone always obsessed with everyone in their team and game and world being absolutely perfect.
We spend countless hours always looking at the next person and saying "You suck, you should be better".

Why?

Isnt Tremulous supposed to be fun, and how can it be fun with everyone constantly judging you, inspecting you, critisizing you, and if you dont live up to their nitty-gritty little expectations, then they kick you.

Why?

Surely this constant standard setting defeats the idea of carefree playing.
I play Tremulous to escape the rules and regulation sof life that state that im not allowed to shoot shit up, but then you get onto Tremulous, mand you are told exactly how and when to shoot the shit up, and woe betide you if you shot that shit wrong.

I feel as though I am rambling and repeating myself, so I'll stop there, but just the about the mould on new players this is making, making every player the same bloody clone.

Theres always another game.