*** I confess: I was a n00b ***

[+ OPTIMUS +]

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I've just seen at a topic that many community members are afraid of newbies in tremulous (because they[=teh n00bs] need attention and can be annoying), and at the same time they forget that they were noobs (at least once) in their tremhistory.

So to remind ourselves that everybody has to start somewhere, let's tell how we began our story, confessing our sins. It's also a good chance to review our relationship with sweet noobs.
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I was a n00b for extremely long time, as i didn't play any multiplayer online games before (only some CoD2), and my fps experiences were based on DukeNukem and Q2.

A.) I didn't know what is PING for (i guessed the higher the better) so i played for months at only american servers (from europe). No wonder I was happy to the tears if i could kill 2-3 aliens at a game.

B.) I couldn't play aliens at all, I got dizzy from wallwalking so i didn't use it for many weeks. It took me a half year to realize that i don't have to press the jump and the forward buttons together WHILE releasing right mouse to make the goon pounce.

C.) I was often battlegranger, but as I couldn't kill anyone anyhow, i was just as effective as with any other class. Keeping the right button pushing and attacking at S1 was also common. (it also took me more than a month to find the default help on the screen)

D.) I fed EXTREME quantities (were leading satgnu's top feeder list for some months i think, where i'm still in the top 20 confidently ^^) as i didn'T have any idea how stages works.

E.) I moved reac at worst moments, and i naded base also by accident.

F.) I was told that there is SPRINT button for humans after almsot a year of playing tremulous.

G.) I succeeded my first lucijump like... 2 months ago :-)

so now i'm a semi-noob, here we go, tell me guys how noob have you been at the beginning. expect the spanish inquisition.

[gareth]

i was never a noob.

[Tycho]

Meh...  I R teh l337 I guess... Anyways here is my story:

I begun with reading the manual, then installing the game and joining the lowest ping server that had free slots.

I joined aliens first @ Nexus6 which is still my favourite map.

I tried to kill as much humans as possible while strafejumping forward only resulting in pelvis bites and it took me 2 months to get it told to me that you can floorheadbite too... Anyways after seeing how much I die and how ineffective I am I decided I thought maybe I should try to get bites from the walls which still resulted in feeding and not hitting anything - I loved wallwalking since avp1 so I wasn't confused by it - but I couldn't kill using it 

I was really good with mara regards moveing around the map since the beginning - I love mara still since I cannot get enough of it's speed. Hitting anything at all was a totally different thing. That I couldn't do and still bad at - mostly since I study a lot these days and cannot practice - so I zapped all the time which is not a very effective killing method against armor...

I couldn't pounce with goons so after 2 weeks of getting pwnt by pounces I tried to spectate goons...  But still sucked in that. Finally Flynn[F]lame taught me to pounce. (ty!)

I started building after a month or so after seeing which bases are considered good / used a lot. Never battlegrangered.

When I frist was human I thought it'd be a peace of cake... It wasn't. I couldn't hit dretches and the basic cod and cs reflex - to crouch and shoot if you are not getting shot at yet - made me feed even more horribly than ever since I wasn't used to the gameplay that wouldn't give accuracy penalty while moveing around.

But at least it makes me proud of myself that I never deconned, basekilled, basenaded, battlegrangered, teamkilled a lot by accident and never TKd intentionally as a newbie. - But I guess it's only because I played avp1, cod/mohaa and cs a lot in netcafés and I've read the manual... (even before actually dowloading the game )

[ShadowNinjaDudeMan]

I was the same with ping OPTIMUS, absolutely hop[eless.

Same with sprinting.

At first I could never get the Tyrant charge.

Im still retarded with a goon.

Basilisks are too hard for me to kill anyione with stryle with, e.g. drop from mceiling onto head, hgeadslash, rinse, lather, and repeat, if necessary.

I used to think that "sarge" in the find friend default was a real player whom I had for some reason searched for at one point or another, sleep gaming maybe?

I didnt know how to pm someone in-game until about 6 months ago.

It took me quite a few months to learn how to colour my name.

Well, there you go, most of these I am over, some I am not.

[Shadowgandor]

I learned the less important things (+Sprinting :$) like colouring my name and all pretty late.
The basics however, I learned pretty quick, mostly because I was invited for a clan ( [NBK] ) which had some decent players that taught me stuff like headbiting from the ground and stuff like that. I quickly learned how to use the goon when I read some tutorial or something here on the forum.
Once I had learned how to use the dretch and goon properly, I've steadily improved, although I'm really rusty again

[_Equilibrium_]

I aimed at the heads of aliens for the longest time, thinking it did more damage.

I abandoned teammates mid-attack in fear I would lose all those hard earned credits.

I believed grenades were a waste of money.

I thought building and killing tubes gave you money.

I never used wallwalk and constantly blocked.

I thought adv granger was an attack class because of its slash capabilities.

I believed the only class worth evolving to was tyrant.



We learn new things as we play. Give the new players a break as long as they seem to want to learn. I know I asked a bunch of questions when I was new, as the manual did not tell me everything obviously. Don't jump on their ass shouting "RTFM RTFM" because the manual is mediocre at best.

[+ OPTIMUS +]

it's a superb feeling that I'm not alone ^^

and btw I missed the Special Thanx part: I should say thank you for UVache and satgnu server people for their patience at the beginning, and my clanmates for the so much teaching and personal training. In order of appearience: Oli(installing and introducing), Qzole(game settings and basics), Harlequin(strategies and hiring to <3HUN), lesbroot(cfg), Sakrah(skills and many trainings 1vs1), Fuszal(lucijump+some mara tricks), and Tycho(for the chargin' spirit <3).
doN't forget your Thanx lists! :-)

[HamStar]

I wonder what happened to those turrets who I made fat and happy....(back then, people built forward turrets in ATCS :O)

[Knowitall66]

N00b (Annoying low skilled player) and Newbie (New player) have different meanings. Why does everyone think they are the same? In the end i never truely was a newbie mainly cause a freind got me into Tremulous and he showed me the ropes.

[Tycho]

Oyez... name colouring... I learned it the second day I asked a shiny colorful guy how he did it and he told me. 

Oh well... Thanks list in order of meeting these guys: Thank you Flynn for the first lessons in gooning. Thank you Oley, South, Xonya and Krai for being my first clan! We had super fun together   Thank you Harlequin for inviteing me in [HUN] and thank all of [HUN] for being such a great team - we could do that clan drinking again sometime soon




PS: Dunno why I gave into Opti's grouphug idea

[+ OPTIMUS +]

PS: Dunno why I gave into Opti's grouphug idea

because the next time YOU will pay at the meeting XD

[Dracone]

I think it was June 2006. I join a random server and start playing. I sucked at humans and thought they were boring so I just started playing Aliens. There was this really good dude in there named *cough* St. Anger. Later on, I kept finding him in games. I was getting frustrated about getting killed by dretches so fast but it was taking me so long to kill with a dretch. I put this into a question and Anger told me 'bout the ground headbites. For many many months from there, I favored aliens and did quite well on them, joining them 95% of the time. Humans were boring for me for a long time, until the beginning of 2007, when I started working on it, and I'd say my human play and alien play are dead even overall. I still like aliens just a little bit more, but I play both teams the same amount I'd say. Time as a clueless noob? 3 days maybe.

I'm just hoping it doesn't take long to regain my skill when I get back to Tremulous. Most of all, I'm hoping I don't lose my dancing ability. That stuff is easy to forget.

[Eyn Xaeyn]

i was nevah a noob as i learnd quikly from exprementing, however when i first began i SUCKED at battling/building

[+ OPTIMUS +]

i SUCKED at battling/building

am I the only one who feels that this term is really close to the meaning of being a noob? :-)
oh, come on, guys. NOOB=NEWBIE=NEW PLAYER

well, there are some players here like Tuple, Lovercraft, Survivor, Dasp, etc who can't be noob because they knew about the game sooner than it eventually existed... (and well, it would be nice for us, "noobs" to hear golden age noobstories also). and yeah, there is Eye, but he is obviously a kind of Obelix who fell into the magic potion at an early age :-P

[snb]

im good at battling and building on humans but building takes me a long time te get it in the perfect spot

[PIE]

I didn't realize there was a manual.
I couldn't figure out how to get another gun.
I had no idea how to color my name.
I didn't understand stages and how me running into the enemy base and getting killed constantly was screwing my team.
I didn't know about sprint, and couldn't figure why sometimes i couldn't jump.
I also had no idea there was a zoom.
I didn't know about headshots, i would attack knees.

I think after about 2 months of casual play though i resolved those issues and it sounds strange but it took me forever to learn how to play as tyrant or to be able to kill anything with the luci.. though i still suck badly at goon.
I did however never build or decon anything.. i knew better.
In retrospect its amazing how much faster you learn the basics when you visit the forums.. that is probably where i learned most of that stuff.

[mooseberry]

It took me forever to learn to color my name, even longer to make binds, (thought typing "hi" over and over again was the best way to spam) Took a long time to do groundheadbites, but now I use them consistently. Frankly, I can't remember that much from more than a month ago so...

[kozak6]

Although I didn't really battlegrange, I did try to use Granger Loogies against otherwise undefended turrets for a while.

I think I managed to destroy maybe two of them before I got sick of it.

[maxell]

i have to say i was a noob for a very long time i started playing trem now 3 years ago for the first 6 month i didn't even know HOW to talk so i got kicked for that until i found the otpion menu and then i dramaticly got better cause i used my imagination of what like pouce moves you so i pointed it upward and you have a poucejump and it was the same with lucijumps but i sucked at aiming... and i thought that camping well you acculy camp ( tent fire and stuff) until someone told me lol and the first time i had a kill on tremulous was about 3 weeks after i started playing trem so i was hopeless as shit..... i kept feeding and tk.. so i got banned and after that i got tought how to play by juice then i got kick out of the clan and then i join C:/ to be the leader well unofficail leader

[The MC Horton Crankfire]

I think the worst thing I did as a noob was attack the OM with the granger in an attempt to heal it. XD

[Dracone]

My worst thing was that it took me over 5 months to realize how the goon pounce worked.

[snb]

well i was a noob when i didn't even know wht tremulous was or how to play.

oh and until recently (5 - 2 months maby?) i didn't even know how to goon jump up wards or zoom with a mass driver

[+ OPTIMUS +]

considering the froementioned stories, we should say that an average Tremulous starter (with average online gaming experiences) needs approx a half year to be a decent player. and i beleive this means that they play at least an average 1 hour every single day.
playing with the numbers this can mean that with an intensive 24/7 course, anyone can be a normal player within one week :-)
and we are not talking about being a 'good' player yet, we just get a average dude who can use all the weapons and classes more or less, able to build, using a cfg at least for weapons/evolving, and can communicate with other players correctly.

[Dracone]

Some people get pretty damn good in 6 months too. A lot of potential out there, really. 3of12 and Kriegsgott both didn't take long to boost up to being pretty good.

[Rocinante]

Well, I might as well throw my "story" in here too for the halibut.

I started not that long ago compared to some, I think it was around June or July of 2007.  A friend of mine who recently moved away (*sniff*), [UVACHE]BunnyFooFoo, had been trying to get me to play the game for a while.  I finally heard him talking about it one day and decided to download and give it a go.  He'd suggested a server he was a high level admin on, DarkLurker's Lair.  So I found it in the list and headed over there.

For the first few games, I just watched.  Saw how people moved around, what they did.  Started up a local server so I could play with the controls a little, and when FooFoo said he was going to be online I joined up again.  Played a game or two with him, then some others showed up and now that they were really playing I got killed quickly and often.  But I didn't mind much, I was still learning (and only one person of the group was still obnoxious to me even when told I was a brand new player and still learning the basics - he left when I chewed him out, because he incorrectly assumed "new player" == "young kid who can't take verbal abuse" instead of "jaded old man who can dish it right back at you" :> )

I returned to DarkLurker's often, making friends with a lot of the AoD crew (Ozzy, Steely Ann, Angle O'Saxon, AppleCore, Mexel, Hyphen, Green) and random other clan players (DoomPotato, Doc).  Everyone was helpful and friendly, and some like AppleCore would "turn off" the competition when I was the only one left on the other side.  Instead sneaking up behind me as a lisk and saying, "I wouldn't build a turret there."  He then spent the next two hours teaching me various tricks and such.

Around this time, I setup my own server, and used it as the place to play around with settings and such.  Never intending it to be popular, it happened by accident when AoD disbanded and Mexel and I formed The Deft.  Hyphen was a regular player on the server, and between the two of them I got a lot of games in; some practice, some real matches.  A lot of my skills were learned by Hyphen messaging me during a game with hints and such (Dude, drop the gamerspeak and come back to being the adult-minded player you were back then!  Please!).

How long was I a noob?  Never.  But I was a newb for maybe 2-3 weeks before I could hold my own on a team, and 3-4 months before I could hold my own by myself.

[techhead]

I built trappers on the floor.
I played unlimited servers.
I did both of the above and built fences made of trappers (Not tall enough for walls).
Never saw anyone try to cross the fences, though, so I guess it worked in one respect.

[Lava Croft]

Someone said Timbo was trying to make Gloom for Quake3, so I went to look and saw it was not Gloom, but something different, something weird, something whoefully bugged. It was also a lot of fun, and it still is. I can't really remember any of the newbie things I did, since we mostly just screwed around on the half-done maps.

[Basilisco]

I really don't remember a lot from my first days, but one of the things i do remember is how lava's base were always tidy (corridor base at karith's was popular back then.. lol)

The day i learned how to bind the jetpack, magic stuff 

And *dun* *dun* *dun*, finding out that the massdriver had zoom! i cried that day, wuahaha

My 2 fav servers were satgnu (how could you resist with such a cool name? ) and AKKA, wonder what happened to it...

Old memories, sniff sniff 

[elmo*USA]

I used to pick granger over dretch because of more hp

transit was my favorite map

I thought if I waited in one spot without dieing i would be able to evolve to tyrant.

I thought there was a class above tyrant.

I was scared of dark places on maps.

I could average about 4 kills per map on STK west or SST.

I didnt know that i couldnt evolve without om.

so yaa i was a noob theres much more but i dont have time to remember them all

[The MC Horton Crankfire]

transit was my favorite map

Haha, mine too. I had forgotten about that.