On Thu, Dec 06, 2001 at 05:49:49PM -0600, Darryl Palmer Jr wrote:
> It seems that there are more posts in 2 days for this list then there was
> last month. I want to put the bots and other crap aside for a moment and
> discuss the topic of Scenarios.
> What would be the idea scenarios/tutorials that we should have in order to
> train a newbie? Has anyone given this an idea before or have something in
> place for training INL or WNL team member newbies?
> I think Tom discussed this topic before, last year or so, and had
> scenarios like protecting a planet in a CA that was at 1 from a cloaked
> scout and such.
As I recall, there existing a few training documents that described what
words meant, and basic strategies. Other games would often detail these
strategies in the client, and set up a scenario. For example:
Start the player as a FED CA near Earth. If desirable, hide the
other three empires from the galaxy map to reduce confusion.
Display:
"In this training session you will learn from the following topics:
1) Basic movement.
2) Basic combat.
3) Information gathering.
4) Resource utilization.
5) Empire expansion.
6) Ship classes.
...
[OK]
"
Display:
"Basic movement
==============
You will notice that your ship is not currently moving. The
Netrek universe does not contain momentum or gravity.
To start moving, you must specify a speed that you wish your
ship to attempt to reach. The speed is represented as a unit
of warp. To move at "warp 5", push "5" on your keyboard.
-- Push '5' on your keyboard --
"
Wait for '5' to be pushed.
Display:
"Your ship will take time to get to warp 5. Different ship
classes will take a different amount of time to accelerate.
Now that you are at warp 5, ...
"
Ok... anyways... you get the idea... somewhere in there it should
describe how to adjust direction, and show the user how it is harder
to turn at higher speeds. Perhaps it could teach about the tractor
beam and the pressor beam by placing an enemy within range. It could
teach about locking by having the player lock on a planet and travel
to it. Once aborting the planet, it could tell the player to lock on
to a hostile planet with around 12 armies on it, and have the player
bomb it to less than 4. The player could be told that in order to take
a planet with armies <4, the player needs to beam up armies. To beam
up armies, the player needs a kill. Offer a dummy ship to kill to
grant a kill, teach them about torpedoes, phaser, etc. After having
enough dummy ships killed, the player can beam up armies, be told to
lock on to the enemy planet, bomb it again, and beam down. After
taking the planet, it could send in another player at the edge of the
tactical shooting torpedoes. It could tell the player to use the cloak
to hide their position and flee. The dummy player would stop torping
the instant the player cloaked. Later lessons could include effective
use of the plasma, pilotting a starbase, guarding a planet, detecting
a cloaker, ogging an enemy, etc. Technique would be emphasized, more
than reflexes. This is, after all, perhaps the first time they have
ever seen Netrek before. (i.e. the robots would not be horribly
hard... make them miss a few shots, and have fewer hit points)
The final conclusion could throw a whole bunch of the techniques
together with very few 'pause' messages. Upon completion, they could
have their name registered in some Netrek academy registry available
online or something.
Think this would be useful?
mark
--
mark at mielke.cc/markm at ncf.ca/markm at nortelnetworks.com __________________________
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