Month: February 2018

Introducing: New Player Ambassadors!

Despite my most valiant efforts, it seems that I cannot be everywhere, all the time. Strangely, neither can the admin staffers.  You know who IS on the server all the time?  You! Well, not YOU personally, but he community is always, one way or another, plugged into the server. As we inch ever closer to having our first alternate server up and running, it’s going to give us even more capacity to focus the main server on its primary mission:  Helping new players get into Rust. In order to facilitate that, we’re rolling out a new program that we’re calling New Player Ambassadors.

What this amounts to are a small handful of experienced Rust players who have learned enough to be competent builders, gatherers, and fighters. People who know about closing up windows, airlocking their doors, and distributing loot to avoid raiders. Their job on the server will be simply to play and have fun–but to always keep their eyes open for new players. Basically, it’s their job to find and adopt newbies (who want it) and bring them in for a couple of wipes to help them learn some best practices in Rust in something of a safer environment, as opposed to leaving them to build a 600-foundation twig house, and then wonder why their masterpiece is gone the next day.

Everyone who joins the NPA program will be invited to join a special Steam group just for this program, and each of them will receive a stipend of tape, both to help offset the time that they spend teaching, and to give them access to some supplies to help teach a new player how to get the most out of the game.  The NPA Steam Group will have some best practices, including some different things that we’ve seen as helpful for not going insane when you have a new player with a lot of questions, managing time while managing two or more people, and major bullet points of stuff that new players should probably know before we turn them loose on their own. The idea is that a new player should be in and out of the NPA program in 1-2 wipes, and then they can move on to start playing solo or join another group.

If you’re new to the server, and you’re looking for a helpful hand, just look for people wearing the handy [NPA] tag or anyone who has a green name in chat, and they’ll be there to help. If none are around, just ask your questions, and everyone in the community tends to be pretty helpful!

To sign up for the NPA program, please message Mr. D on Discord, or drop a line on the Welcome Forum.

Noob Friendly

It’s been posted on the name of our server for over a year, now. Many a new player has found their way into the wide world of Rust through our humble shores.  To date, we have enjoyed visits from 4,198 players. Most, obviously, have moved on to other games or other player experiences. Some few have chosen to make this their home server, and we’re especially glad for their company.

Lately a disturbing trend has been on the rise, and it has become damaging to our population. I have spoken in the past on this as it’s cropped up, and things will get a little better for a few weeks, and then it’s back to where it was before and often worse. We have had, and of late have been having a worse and worse problem with experienced players hitting new players like a fucking hammer for the tiniest slight. It’s gotten to the point that there’s even a predictable cycle that is beginning to repeat itself:

  1. New player joins server, either after having bad experiences on other servers, or after hearing how toxic of a game Rust can be.
  2. New player receives a warm reception and can reliably ask questions and get help.
  3. New player is impressed with the level of kindness and helpfulness present on Serenity Valley.
  4. New player settles in to stay or even pledges/donates in order to get a leg up and build a larger base.
  5. New player defends themselves or speaks up, saying something that experienced player(s) dislike in the world chat.
  6. Experienced player(s) threaten (or don’t) the new player, threatens to foundation wipe them.
  7. New player either leaves, or speaks up to defend themselves.
  8. Experienced player(s) wipe the floor with New Player’s base, usually offline.
  9. New player becomes disenfranchised and leaves, feeling that the game and/or community is hopeless.
  10. New player joins server, either after having bad experiences on other server,s or hearing how toxic of a game Rust can be.

How is that fun for a new player? Shouldn’t there be some kind of a warning period in there? Are their words really so traumatic that the only option is “leave our server?” As I write this, there are nine players on Serenity Valley, during prime time, on a weekend.  Nine.  Now, I’m sure that everyone here would rather play on a server with an active, vibrant population…  But how exactly is that going to happen when the first response to new people is to grind them into paste?

You’ve all heard me say that I’ll run an empty server before I run a server populated with racists.  The EXACT same thing applies to bullies. Since Christmas, just a few of the things I’ve seen have been excessively inappropriate and toxic.  I will urge you all to NOT be that guy. In that same time period, we have lost no fewer than five patrons because they don’t care for the bullying. The lost player count of people who actually took the time to send a message and let me know why they were leaving is in the 20’s. I’m going to shoot straight with you–I don’t get time to play any more. This isn’t hurting me, this is hurting all of you. The more people you chase off, the fewer people you have to play with. This is doubly true for our patrons:  You’re paying for a server that is emptying out. It’s okay to hold each other accountable.  It’s okay to hold yourselves accountable. In the last six weeks, we’ve lost almost $100 of our funding.

We can do better.  We can be better.  For those who just MUST have your PVP fix, have you considered just using a PVP server, or even just waiting until Serenity Valley has its own not-newbie-server?  It’s literally up and running right now, and will shortly have a permanent rule set. I will be sorely disappointed if online bloodlust and impatience cause everything to crash before the new option that is right in front of us can go live….

For the time being I am not naming names. I’m not calling anyone out, and I’m not coming down on anyone. I’m placing this post publicly as an open letter in order to give players the chance to self-correct and regulate/moderate themselves. If they fail to do so in short order, I will moderate things myself.

Over the next few days, I will be putting up another couple of articles about some initiatives to try and improve new player experience and build our community, rather than seeing it built up and torn down every other wipe. Keep an eye on this space for more information.

New Test Server – Hardmode Survival – Open Testing

 

Our new Hardmode Survival server is available for testing! This is the first of three (or more) servers that we’ll be running player testing and gathering feedback before making it our new, permanent second server.  Right now, we’re testing what we’re calling “Hardmode Survival,” which strives to make the Rust experience a little bit more like actual survival.  Below is a list of the current changes from Vanilla:

  • Buildings no longer fall apart in just a couple of days.
  • Bleeding is no joke.  Don’t get gored.
  • Bullets no longer tickle.
  • Melee is horrifying.  If you stab someone, they will die.
  • Arrows are brutal.  Life is NOT GOOD with a stick jutting out of you.
  • Cold, hunger, and dehydration are a problem.  Do not neglect these.
  • All forms of armor offer more protection than normal–but not as much as weapon damage has increase.  The world is very lethal.  Other players, even moreso.
  • Text chat can only be read over the same distance that voice chat could be heard.  It’s a lonely world, and your ability to hear it is crucial to surviving in it.

The current test cycle runs until 1 March, and as a thank you for players who are taking time to test this for us, anyone who has spent more than 15 hours active on the new server and completes a feedback survey will get to start on the 1 March wipe on either server, with 3 elite crates and 20 pills spawned for them to help give them a leg up on whichever server they prefer to play.

To connect to the new server, you can point your server browser at:

[NA/EU]-SVRust – Test – Survival Mode

Or you can connect  directly via the console by typing:

client.connect 104.156.230.170:28066