Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
General: Noob, Newb and Newbie
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
MMORPG.com Player Perspectives columnist Jaime Skelton writes this new article looking at new players in MMOs and what they can do to better fit in among veterans.
There's nothing like the smell of combat between veteran MMO players and noobs; nothing like the sound of noobs charging toward the trenches, then flailing helplessly as veterans mow them down with their L2P cannons. Then there's the glory of walking through the battlefield, laughing as a noob grabs your ankle and weakly cries, "It was my first time." Then you put your boot in their face and move on, surveying the carnage with a little satisfaction .
What? You don't like trampling noobs? You think it's unfair? Mean? Cruel?
Well, maybe it is, a little. But if you go post in the forums and say that you've never once laughed at a noob, we will all know you're lying.
Read Noob, Newb and Newbie.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
great insight, this article should be linked in any game opening screen in a big red
Unfortunatly EVEN with explanation some ppl dont get it right.
Few days ago in AIKA closed beta, we went into a dungeon with my warrior (low lvl by then), the first and eazy mode of the dungeon.
So the Cleric Agroes e goes running like a crazy bitch, after killing the mobs both me and the tank explain to the party that when agroed dont run like a crazy mofo, just go near the tank or off tank(me) that we will agro back, AND THATS FOR ANY GAME ON THE FACE OF EARTH, with CAPS ofc, well minutes later, the cleric agroes, runs like crazy, the gunner agroes, runs like crazy, agroes another pack of mobs and we get wiped.
now: GW2 (11 80s).
Dark Souls 2.
future: Mount&Blade 2 BannerLord.
"Bro, do your even fractal?"
Recommends: Guild Wars 2, Dark Souls, Mount&Blade: Warband, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.
I got to say interesting read. I don't mind noobs real ones. They got a lot of questions sometime I try to help them. What bothers me is when you get somebody who rolls an alt then starts acting like a noob trying to get help, now that can be bad. You can usually tell these as sometimes they give it away. I usually ask questsion to these noobs to see how noobish they are. The kind of stuff I ask is about prior games that way I can talk to them in a game sence about how to do things as I have played many of an mmo over the years.
Tthank god for eq2players.com I can usually find them easy that way and make sure they dont have access to the bank vault. As most folks who try to act like a noob just want your goodies, its been problem in eq2 for a while, somebody rolls a toon then hits someboies guild bank. Im sure it happens in other games.
Well anways I got to kive you kudos for the picture of the cat attacking the noob duck we all got a great laugh out of it over here at my house. The other pictures were cool to.
Ah, yes - noobs. Sometimes known as "the folks paying to play the same game you're playing, who might have stayed and built the subscriber base, making the game successful, but didn't because everyone kicked them in the face and laughed." Astonishing that anyone would consider entering an MMO for the first time without completing the normal 6 month study and research period. They just wanted to go in and play and *gasp* HAVE FUN?? What were they thinking? Stupid noobs.
Man, <fill in the blank> was a great MMO. Too bad it folded.
In the beginning, there was nothing, then God said, "Let there be light." And there as light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a lot better.
I have to say I agree with shankin. People play games to relax. Expecting people who haven't played the game before or holding them to some arbitrary standard you feel is good enough is arrogant and, like shankin said, the reason that games with steeper learning curves don't have bigger player base.
Admittedly, Pre-CU SWG was really guilty of this. I remember once picking the game up about a few months in, and, not knowing anybody, flagging rebel because I thought having a rank by my name was "cool" (bear in mind that this was within the first couple days of playing). well, no sooner had I got to the hunting ground for the mobs I was grinding brawler skill on, than some imperial wise-ass came along and incapped me, kept me incapped (and thus,unable to do much other than complain) and proceeded to simulate rape on my body.
Naturally I complained about this, and was told "hur hur, lrn2play n00b" with little explanation of what I did wrong.
My point is, the elitism of the hardcores can kill a game quicker than any change the devteam makes.
Again, referencing SWG< I remember resubbing when NGE hit to make a jedi as I didn't want to be arsed into mastering -every- profession or jumping through whatever insane hoops (I do have a life, after all). ANd, within 5 minutes of getting to tattooine, and minding my own business, people were sending me tells telling me that as a "jedi n00b" that I was responsbile for everything wrong with the game and that I needed to drink a gallon of bleach.
Or then there's the Launch Day WoW raiders who think things should go back to a year of runnng the same raid 3 times a day for a POSSIBLE chance of your chest piece dropping, or the CS players who call anybody who DARES use the wrong weapon a scrub, or worse, an "AWP Whore"
Seriously, if the hard cores spent more time explaining things to newbie players or, god forbid, giving them instructions of where to look, Maybe we wouldn't have to have this age old N00b vs. Newb debate.
Noobs must be punished and trampled underfoot, those that are still subscribed after a month will go on to be stronger players didn't Nietzsche say "That which does not kill us, makes us stronger"?
Hail Ming! PWNERER of noobz!
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
Ah, the joysof noob-dom in DAoC and WoW, leading charges to be one of the first cut down by the enemy and then trodden on by my teammates.....someone has to be the martyr and rally the troops... ( ' ;
I think if you have played more than a few MMOs we all were a noob at some point.
I do admit i much prefer to jump right into a game with varying degrees of pre-knowlege and yes sometimes I do run into that seemingly obvious question "how do i start the car" but most times once i get past this initial bump and get to playing I gain expirence three ways
1. by doing trial and error many times my expirence in other games translates over so i got a head start as a veteran
2. by listening and working with veteran players nothing gets you exp faster than a helpfull veteran
3. I also do my research i probably spend 20-50% of my early game life doing research it partly depends on the game style and its level of casual time or down time in most cases you can shed that noob title (for the most part) in less than a month
good article.
make a world, not a game, we dont want another game.
lvl 1 noobs aren't annoying even if they do not know the common sens of mmo world ( class rolls, how not to aggro to many mobs etc etc ) , the annoying ones are high lvl very well geared, but without any know how about the game . Those are the real noobs . I do not know about others but when i start a mmo i start with the idea " do not get frustrated becouse of PK/gank at low lvl " and even if i get killed i make a black list , at the end game i usually have all the ppl in black list killed several times , getting killed at low lvl can make u become more agresive and get into the game more deeper but can also make u quit.
And let's face it when u just start a new mmo u are a NOOB even if u have several years of mmo experience behind u. Common sense and the easy understanding of the mmo enviroment makes the difrence
sry for spelling/grammar mistakes
Okay....I understand your compassion, but the PROBLEM with it is this:
Some n00bs are just selfish lazy little jerks. I'M also paying to play this game. And if they're asking questions that were answered in the tutorial, and yet they didn't want to take 15 minutes of their OWN time to do the tutorial and learn the answers, I don't feel ONE bit sorry for them. They would rather waste MY time, and the time of everyone else in say, help chat, by asking questions that someone has to stop their own playing to answer. Sometimes, because they STILL don't understand, this is the beginning of a 10 minute conversation and precise explanation, as well. THIS....pisses me off.
Yes, I remember being new to MMOs. I am far from a newbie NOW, however, and STILL when I start a new game....I do the in game tutorial, if there is one, and explore the entire UI and attack icons. I don't make the stupid assumption that every game is the same as the last one I played. As Jaime said....common sense.
I'm not one of the vets that is "mean" to n00bs, however, I do become very irritated by about the fourth question from the SAME n00b that when asked "did you do the tutorial," says, "Nah, man...I didn't wanna waste the time doin' it." Generally my response is pretty much what I stated above..."Oh, so you'd rather waste MY time and other players' time answering your questions when you could have easily learned the answers on your own by just doing the tutorial. Gotcha." At which point, I cease answering questions and start providing links where they can take their OWN time to find their OWN answers.
And FFS...the worst questions, imo, have got to be the ones like "how do you use 'Bash'?" (or some other attack) when if you just MOUSE OVER the attack icon it tells you EXACTLY how if you will just READ. Don't people still know how to flipping READ?!!
Anyway....great article. It gave me a few chuckles and a few memories that made me cringe, and stirred up a bit of veteran angst, as well, obviously.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
agree fully with article
though i myself never use word openly to a player just irritating when people spam that in general channel when one player is doing something stupid, a friendly tip as whisper or a ignore in worst case scenario but that is a last resort.
-Semper ubi sub ubi!
always wear underwear
Wow, the article writer is an elitist prick. It is people like him that ruin the community for new players. Why should someone have to leave game, start up the browser, search Google, and then come back in game when a simple query in chat in the game would give him the answer 10 times faster? Or does he think that games have advice channels for no particular reason. I would much rather have someone ask questions than assume they know what they are doing and screw things up for everyone else.
There's an expression that goes something like "what's the true measure of a man? How he treats his equals or how he treats his subordinates." Anyway, it's something like that. How a gaming community treats its own new members says a lot about it though. This goes for specific-games and even demographics within a game (I'm looking at you PvP'ers and Role-Players.)
The friendliest game anyone will likely ever play is City of Heroes -- plenty of veteran players take the time to walk new players through the game and, if a new or returning person posts on the forums, some vets even re-roll new toons to play along for a bit. Part of that dynamic I think is the hero-mentality but also because the game encourages alts that you actually see veterans playing across the level spectrum rather than all clustered at the highest end.
Okay....I understand your compassion, but the PROBLEM with it is this:
Some n00bs are just selfish lazy little jerks. I'M also paying to play this game. And if they're asking questions that were answered in the tutorial, and yet they didn't want to take 15 minutes of their OWN time to do the tutorial and learn the answers, I don't feel ONE bit sorry for them. They would rather waste MY time, and the time of everyone else in say, help chat, by asking questions that someone has to stop their own playing to answer. Sometimes, because they STILL don't understand, this is the beginning of a 10 minute conversation and precise explanation, as well. THIS....pisses me off.
Yes, I remember being new to MMOs. I am far from a newbie NOW, however, and STILL when I start a new game....I do the in game tutorial, if there is one, and explore the entire UI and attack icons. I don't make the stupid assumption that every game is the same as the last one I played. As Jaime said....common sense.
I'm not one of the vets that is "mean" to n00bs, however, I do become very irritated by about the fourth question from the SAME n00b that when asked "did you do the tutorial," says, "Nah, man...I didn't wanna waste the time doin' it." Generally my response is pretty much what I stated above..."Oh, so you'd rather waste MY time and other players' time answering your questions when you could have easily learned the answers on your own by just doing the tutorial. Gotcha." At which point, I cease answering questions and start providing links where they can take their OWN time to find their OWN answers.
And FFS...the worst questions, imo, have got to be the ones like "how do you use 'Bash'?" (or some other attack) when if you just MOUSE OVER the attack icon it tells you EXACTLY how if you will just READ. Don't people still know how to flipping READ?!!
Anyway....great article. It gave me a few chuckles and a few memories that made me cringe, and stirred up a bit of veteran angst, as well, obviously.
So...perhaps you do your part and help out 1 new player. That can be a good investment for the game and your own future gaming experience. But you shouldn't feel obligated to "save" every new player. Encouraging players to go through the tutorial isn't a bad thing, if phrased positively..."You should go through the tutorial, it will help immensely. Afterwards send me a tell and I'll play with you for a bit...." *shrug* I don't see why you should let people asking questions, even obvious ones, annoy you though.
So...perhaps you do your part and help out 1 new player. That can be a good investment for the game and your own future gaming experience. But you shouldn't feel obligated to "save" every new player. Encouraging players to go through the tutorial isn't a bad thing, if phrased positively..."You should go through the tutorial, it will help immensely. Afterwards send me a tell and I'll play with you for a bit...." *shrug* I don't see why you should let people asking questions, even obvious ones, annoy you though.
Actually, I do help a great deal with new players. I even spend a lot of time answering questions in help channel, because I remember being new. I spent a full HOUR one time helping this one guy find a stable where he could buy horse feed, because it was too hard to explain in text. I had to ride from a town clear on the other end of the map to escort him to it. And I didn't mind. I wasn't particularly busy at the moment.
For the most part, I don't find myself irritated that often. And yes, I always try to be kind in suggesting things like tutorials, etc. When I get annoyed, is when someone obviously just wants every single question that runs through their mind answered for them without even the slightest effort on their own behalf to discover the answer for themselves. Like the part I said about mousing over items and READING what the tool tip SAYS. If it's something that simple....and you see repeated questions of the same level of simplicity from the SAME person....and every time people are suggesting, "Hun, read the tool tip when you mouse over items in the game. That will answer a lot of your questions." And then 5 minutes later they ask ANOTHER QUESTION that can also be answered in that same way....
THAT is where I start getting annoyed.
And trust me....this happens on a daily basis in Fallen Earth, which to be fair, has a bit sharper learning curve than some other games, which is why I'm generally more patient, except when the player is obviously just wanting everyone else to find out answers FOR them without taking any effort of their own. Make sense? I'm really NOT a "mean" vet.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
To me:
Newbie = new player. They can't fairly be expected to know much about how to play. Not usually derogatory.
Noob or Newb = someone who has been in game for long enough to know better, but still acts or plays like a newbie. Mildly derogatory, unless directed at a high level character, in which case, see next category.
Noobsauce, Noobstain, [expletive] + noob, etc = Someone who has played the game for plenty long enough to know better, and still plays without a clue. Highly derogatory.
Past this point I cannot print what would be the usual epithets.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Why should we have to have our chat boxes spamed so hard we can't play because some people refuse to listen and are apparently not bright enough to notice that games are monkey simple and the vast majority of them use the same or at least similer set ups. Now if they say they come from an Amish communtiy and its their first day with electricity they might have an excuse. If they have been playing MMOs for 3 years and they still spam my chat box they should expect either ridicule or if the Devs are mercifull an /addignore. And as an aside, browsers can be accessed from within 99% of games now.
I've always called the more experienced players who act like idiots "Noobs" or "greifers". I really don't understand this mindset...Well yes, i actually do, but I don't care for it. I think most of the time it's simply easier to explain to them something than it is to go on a rant, or try to degrade them.
Granted there are many annoying new players that don't read the handbook as they should, just like you would do with any other new game, and sometimes it would just be easier to refer them to the handbook on certain things, but do you really have to be prick about it?
Godspeed my fellow gamer
End game griefers with top level gear mowing down noobs in the starting area are more annoying than the noobs themselves.
pretty good but i want to add a little tweak to RTFM
"check out options"
Ever MMO has them, and in everyone you will find keybinds, maybe you can't change them but they will tell you how to do everything
"jump?" bound to space bar
toggle enemies? ` key (at least thats what i use, my tab key is busted)
heck most of them have a emote quick menu right on the chat box too
I think you missed the point. Also, how many people really have to leave game to start up a browser these days? Most MMOs support tabbing and windowed mode. Heck, many have a database you can use in game.
As I pointed out, there are questions vets understand and support, and your last sentence echoed what I said in my article. But a new player shouldn't come in game and ask a million questions about the class they selected that would have been answered if they spent five minutes reading the game website, or ask someone to make them a character build in general chat - these things should be researched.
Being self-resourceful is a skill that's valued outside the game world too. An English teacher isn't there to be your personal dictionary; a boss isn't there to tell you how to do every little detail in your job. Vets aren't asking for new players to not ask questions; vets are asking new players to not rely on them for every single little thing.
So if you think your English teacher is a prick when they tell you how to use a dictionary after you ask them to define more than a few words in your reading assignment, then yes, I'm that kind of prick.
well i'm old school XD, I still use the newbie to newcomers, and noob for that damned leach who don't matter the lvl he do wrong things (and yes I saw some noobs on lvl 60+ in some games), and don't matter hat you say explain or do he don't listen or learn and rage quit when you tell him, don't agro mobs here, and you let him die, or when you say to the dude dn't run from me with mobs come to my way and leave then on me, but no he run far from the group, or even you tell then don't attack mobs and run back for a bad pull or a huge agro, I normally get all mobs on me and run the other side to let the party free from then and live but the damn noob come with me almost sayin i'm powerfull I will save you and die good thing if he dies with me alone not pull all party together, this is somethings I came across the mmo world.
and I tell you I was never a noob even on my first MMO the 4th Comming (t4c), I read a lot about that game I reroll a lot of chars till I make something I could survive over the lvl 40 I was polite and explored the game running from mobs or from pkers if I needed and learn alone pretty much from the start but why? because it was more easy for me read several things about builds, rolls and weapons and started to play better and it started to be more fun for me.
now when I will try a new game first thing I do is read about the classes, I like to say i'm a swordman or a gunner by heart (hell I even learn swordplay on RL and I was in the army too) so I always try to see what class will fit the way I play, after that I read anything else I could about the craft system the enchant system and anymore system in the gameplay I could, it normally take the download time or the pre release time.
when I start i'm almost set for a good char and keep always trying to learn more I take a look on options, I read all quests (yes i'm not lazy) it always says where sometimes it don't and you ask if someone saw what you wa slooking for, on that time at least be polite and you will get your answers, if not DON'T SPAM your question look some more then ask again, apammers are more likely to be blocked.
well I better finish here before I post more things :P
just try not to be a NOOB, a newbie is ok, not a noob
OK, fair enough - you're talking about a certain subset of players. I was talking about the article, which was far more general.
I do find your choice of words interesting. Apparently you consider people who repeatedly ask the same question to be "having fun by destroying others", which is a bit of a stretch. In fact, the original article mentioned veteran behavior which was much closer to your phrasing, only it was intentional - griefing new players.
If I was working with someone and told them how to do something even 5 times, and it wasn't getting through, I'd rethink how I was telling them, as clearly they didn't understand. Possibly they don't care, but it's hard to imagine the motivation of someone asking for help on something over and over if they didn't want to know how to do it.
Also, keep in mind that you aren't obligated to help anyone, or answer their questions, especially if it's "destroying" you.
In the beginning, there was nothing, then God said, "Let there be light." And there as light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a lot better.
There is nothing newb about this, I have had vet DPSer's run screaming down a dungeon hall into 4 more mobs as my Tank watches them commit suicide. I told my melee dpsers, dear God rogue players are the absolute worst in any game does not matter if they are newbs or vets they first thing a rogue does is take off running. Finally I told them if you have the need to run do it in circles around my tank please so I can get agro back. You know how hard it is to get clerics to grasp the simple concept of if you get agro run to the tank. If I run I cant cast heals...you moron a dead cleric doesn't heal at all, a cleric that runs to the tank and survives can start healing again...and those are veteran raider healers. On the flip side I have had mages seemingly try to become one with me when they agro they run like crazy to me and scream take it off me! I dont know what the mentality switch is between rogues and clerics about running to the tank, and the mages who seem to do it without any prompting new or vet. lol
How many of the vets reading this remember their first MMO? I remember it like it was yesterday (and trust me, it wasn't). I went to the web sites, read the forums, read the manual - did everything I could to prepare myself for the game.
And I wasn't prepared. I read complaints in the forums about how awful noobs were, and how many mistakes they made. I was determined not to make those mistakes. But in the heat of battle, I made them anyway. I read about the classes, studied their strengths and weaknesses, and still didn't pick the right character for my play style. Why? I was new - I didn't know what my play style was yet. The class descriptions say what the class can do, but often not the implications. Seldom do they include what the party will expect of them.
The forums were incredibly hard to understand. At the time, there was no glossary for terms "everybody knew", so I continually asked for translations. Mob? Pull? Agro? DD? DPS? Tank? Train? Rez? You get the idea - terms probably everyone reading this doesn't even think about. But to the new player, it's another language.
My second MMO was much easier. I knew what MMOs were, how they worked, what was expected. Seasoned players sometimes forget that they can read through the game manuals and class descriptions of a new MMO quickly, because they have a very large knowledge base to relate to. When I read game docs now, I'm just trying to discover what the changes from other MMOs are. It's a quick read, but I know what I'm doing. It's far more confusing to the new player.
Pity the noob. They may have just entered a world unlike anything they've ever encountered. Maybe it's their first MMO. Maybe they heard friends talking about it. They probably have no idea what they're getting into. They certainly know considerably less than you do. When you explain things to them, keep in mind that they might not know MMO-speak yet. And keep in mind that they may have been told a hundred new things today, and they might still be processing it. Most of them will get it in time.
But please remember that you were once a noob. Maybe you were lucky enough to start playing with out-of-game friends. Maybe someone you'd never met decided to take you under their wing and mentor you. Or maybe you just slugged it out on your own. But however you started, you kept playing because of the people. That's what really makes the MMOs different, right? Try to be one of those people the noob will look back on and be glad they met.
This is a game. People expect to have fun playing it. It isn't a job. It isn't school. It's something people choose to do to relax and enjoy themselves. I've stopped playing at least one MMO because it became a job, and stopped being entertainment. Once that happens, all the joy is gone.
In the beginning, there was nothing, then God said, "Let there be light." And there as light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a lot better.