Added (2010-10-23, 2:42:17 PM)
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good structured * sorry

Basically, we need SOMETHING to say hit F9 in game, because most people probably don't pay attention to the loading screen. I remember seeing the FoC sponsor guy in town back in 66b wondering what his point was, and at times, you don't see him for quite some time. He hides well, even in these versions. We just need some nerf on things that aren't fair for people who don't even know which direction out of town for the easy creeps, and something to explain the map for them.
Before you say to just have someone who isn't new to the map each game: you'd require someone who isn't new to every autohosted game by the bots? Good luck even finding every game, let alone making sure there is someone who knows anything about the map in each one.

PS: This is not intended to be a flame in any way, even though it might seem like it. And yeah, it's kinda a flame towards the idiots, but sometimes they deserve an insult.

Take the membership at this forum, for example. We have a fair bit here, but I see far more people in games who I've never seen on this forum (as opposed to those I've seen who have accounts here). While the lack of membership could be explained in the context of this issue by saying that they just come here to read and don't post, that also seems rather fallacious since we have no bonafide "Noob Guide" to help new players out or anything of the sort. Effectively, in the event they actually did come to the forums, they'd just have to wade through the various posts and come up with some sort of semi-effective plan. I suppose writing a Noob Guide is something to look into, but that's still reliant on the people actually coming here to find and read it, which is unlikely if they're already frustrated.

As for the "new players" thing, let me say this again: I'm talking about people without prior experience playing CoT. While Valkier may have been gone for two months, for instance, none of the things used to level in my "Diary of a Pro" (refer to my previous posts's Mediafire link) changed since then. The spellbook was still there, the Velreon Guard was still there, etc, which would have been very quickly remembered and used to level quickly. Granted, it's possible he (and, by extension, other players) might use a different system of leveling than I do, but the concept I'm trying to get across still remains the same. We're basically relying on people to come to the forums and try to skim through these topics as an alternative to in-game direction, which may save some people and bring them on. However, as mentioned above, most people simply won't care enough to bother looking, will label the map as a fail, and will simply discard it. While dark's objective might not necessarily be to expand the community to unseen heights, it seems a bit of a shame that someone who might have otherwise enjoyed the rest of the game will quit because of some confusion/seeming imbalance at the start of the game.

EDIT: Looks like Sandman beat me to it.
I will have my revenge!!!

It'd take me a while to figure out a way to say this better.

One last thing, sorry sandman, but even though you say it isn't meant to be a flame, you also state it's kind of a flame towards idiots, well guess what, your flaming and you admit it. 3-day posting ban.

....Again, I am wrong?

Where do you get an absolute statement out of that? I was just pointing out that such a desire is not necessary to want people not to get frustrated over one's map.

Well, as opposed to the community spending hours upon hours doing nothing but joining CoT autohosts and helping out new players, it seems like it'd be far more efficient for the map to be changed, since the changes being mentioned wouldn't really take that long to implement and would be permanent, as opposed to us having to join games and repeat the process of explanation for every new player. Having people help the new players would be far more of a waste of time than the map helping the new players, especially when it can do so in a far more direct and concrete way.

Could the community help? Yes. Could a modification be made to the map that would be permanent and concrete, alleviating a lot of time and effort on our part? Yes. I understand your argument; I just don't see the practicality in it.

It occurs to me that you and I are probably never going to agree on this issue as it seems to be a difference in ideology; I believe that the map should be changed because there are ultimately more people that will affect than just those who visit these forums, and you believe that the community should take on the burden. Given that, there's really only one way to bring closure to this topic -

What's the verdict, dark? You ARE the mapmaker, so it's ultimately going to come down to whether you take this on or not. Feel like giving the noobs a hand, or does the task fall to us? I suppose I could always write a semi-formal guide for new players if it comes to that, since helping some people is better than helping none at all.

for my statement on topic add more good weathers and lower range of god auras to just the mountain they are on PWEASE!

TOPIC CLOSED.