Creating a new players guide

[Berocka 2,186]

Everyone, what was the hardest part of using the site or something you wish you had more help with.

 

VHLM GMs and AGMs, what are the questions you get asked most.

 

What do you think should be focused on and what is self explanatory.

 

Any help I can get to make the VHL more accessible the better! 

[DMaximus 1,045]

I think the general concept of a task-driven forum-based sim league is foreign to most new users.  I think a good starting point includes explaining what a forum is and what a post is and what tasks are and all that. I don't think there's anything that's self-explanatory. I usually start my new player spiel with something like "This is a forum based league where you earn attribute points (called TPE) by creating posts that contribute to the league."

 

[Zekeydude 2]

5 hours ago, Berocka said:

Everyone, what was the hardest part of using the site or something you wish you had more help with.

 

VHLM GMs and AGMs, what are the questions you get asked most.

 

What do you think should be focused on and what is self explanatory.

 

Any help I can get to make the VHL more accessible the better! 

For me, the site has just been confusing. I don't know how to get from one place to the other and there are so many different tabs that pop up that I don't know what is which. If someone from the start had just told me where everything was and why it was there, that would've helped me out a lot.

[Beketov 8,639]

1 hour ago, Zekeydude said:

For me, the site has just been confusing. I don't know how to get from one place to the other and there are so many different tabs that pop up that I don't know what is which. If someone from the start had just told me where everything was and why it was there, that would've helped me out a lot.

Curious what exactly you mean, like do you have specific things? There's obviously a lot at play on the forum so it's difficult to go through where everything is but we try to keep the important stuff relatively easy to find.

 

Mind you a lot of us have grown up on forums like this over the past 10+ years so we might take for granted our ease of navigating them vs. someone who's used to say Discord or Reddit that are much less structured.

[Gustav 6,091]

-How to earn TPE (we have a guide for that)

-What is TPE (Can't really write up a guide on that but kind of goes in with dmax's idea)

-How to build a player (we have a guide for that)

Spoiler

-The classic "when are sims/can we watch the sims"

-No, the forum and the portal are not the same website (I don't think this has confused too many people who actually stuck around, but I was a bit confused by this at first)

-What the hell is the player store and how do I use my money

 

Any improved member guide should be broken down into multiple parts to make it more digestible. I remember trying to read through one on my first day here and just being put off by the big wall of text. 

[Motzaburger 1,590]

@Berocka I invited you to my MEX group on here - I have a bunch of FAQ threads for new players - might be what you need!

[eaglesfan036 4,583]

Don't forget to say @eaglesfan036 recruited you! 

[IamMOOSE 361]

Speaking as someone who just went through a lot of this recently, it’s not a problem of anything being self-explanatory or even the forum being overly crowded with information that new players need to know (though it definitely is. When you first join there is waaaaaayyyy too much information to go through right away). If I had any advice as a recent new player, it’s focusing on three things: Navigation, Player Creation, and Community.

 

 

NAVIGATION – Being completely honest, unless you join through a friend who is walking you through what to do, you got to the league through a recruitment post in a subreddit, some website, an ad, something. Sure, you can create an account easy enough but once you’re thrown into the forum with all the newbie content, you’re Bambi lost in the jungle. The problem isn’t so much navigation through the site, as so all the info is there, it’s just too much there. If you really want to make life easier, it’s one section called beginner/new account. It has video explanations of how to navigate the content. If that’s not a route you want to go, then the first thing you should be redirected to after creating an account is a introduction page where you read through a short summary of how the league works and at the bottom there’s a small list users the BoG designated with the job of guiding new players. Helpers with the green dot showing they’re online can be clicked on and the new player can immediately begin a dialogue with a Helper that can guide them and answer any questions they may have.

 

CREATION – New players shouldn’t be allowed to access their update player page until either A) They’ve signed with a team and can get help on assigning TPE, or B) Their Helper unlocks it to help them set up their player. Speaking from experience in it’s current state, you do not get to that How to Build a Player Guide fast enough to learn that half the skills don’t matter much.

 

COMMUNITY – If you’re doing videos, the last introductory video should have a link to the Discord for the league. If you’ve implemented a Helper system, then the Helper would get that set up. Getting on the Discord and interacting with the community, getting help from GMs, talking to players, that was what got me through that first few days. Ultimately, until you get to experience the league chats, and get guidance from veteran league users on what to do, none of those guides really matter. I’m sure there are some select people who can go through and just digest hours of how-to manuals but that’s likely a small minority. It’s not until someone with who’s been around for a bit breaks it down that you start to get a grip on how to play.

[Zekeydude 2]

5 hours ago, Beketov said:

Curious what exactly you mean, like do you have specific things? There's obviously a lot at play on the forum so it's difficult to go through where everything is but we try to keep the important stuff relatively easy to find.

 

Mind you a lot of us have grown up on forums like this over the past 10+ years so we might take for granted our ease of navigating them vs. someone who's used to say Discord or Reddit that are much less structured.

There were a few specific things, but it was mostly general things. One thing was that I wanted to see something, but didn't know what channel to go to. If there were a page that told us what every channel was for and where to find it, that would help.