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This game is great but has a horrible community.

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by samort7, Oct 14, 2012.

  1. samort7

    samort7 Catapult Fodder

    Messages:
    3
    I'm new to KAG and I've only just started playing yesterday. That being said, I am astounded by how mean and downright terrible this game's community is. This game is not newbie friendly.

    In the first game I played, while trying to figure out how the catapult worked, I accidentally shot one of our team's towers. I was then frozen, accused of being a griefer and the mods attempted to ban me (but couldn't figure out how to do it). Even after I tried to explain what happened over and over again.

    In my next game, I was trying to make a shortcut under a tower and accidentally caused the tower to collapse (I sometimes forget that all parts of a building need to be connected to the floor unlike Terraria). I was called a griefer and vote-kicked from the server - while I apologized and tried to explain that I was new.

    Just shameful overall and it makes me not want to play this obviously wonderful game which is truly sad.
     
    Lieber, Evan5567, Cirom and 17 others like this.
  2. jackitch

    jackitch :(){ :|: & };: Global Moderator Donator Tester
    1. SharSharShar - [SHARK]

    Messages:
    249
    Hey buddy, I'm sorry that you had this experience, but the truth is that the community isn't all horrible. There are good admins and bad admins: those who let you explain yourself and those who don't. You're right, though, KAG is not noob friendly.

    I got a lot of respect for your saying what you really feel, but don't be surprised if you get a little hate. It's really easy to appear to be a griefer in this game, especially when breaking a single block can have huge consequences to your team. Best advice that I can give you is to avoid editing people's work until you completely understand how to skilfully play the game. Most people don't appreciate 'improvements' to their structures, even if you really do know what you're doing.

    I've been playing for over 6 months and just recently got frozen twice in a row by the same admin because he didn't like what I was doing. I wasn't griefing, I wasn't cheating. He just didn't understand what I was doing until I was finished.

    You're welcome to play on my server, Get Served! There aren't always people there, but I'll be patient with you. Everyone has to start somewhere, right? Don't let the few grumpy people stop you from playing, you'll find them everywhere.
     
  3. Kouji

    Kouji Cold, Uncaring, Sadistic, Evil and Cruel Meanie Administrator Global Moderator Forum Moderator Tester
    1. MOLEing Over Large Estates - [MOLE]
    2. REKINS OF SEAS: Super Crew of Ultimate Havoking 2: Return of King of KAG: Chapter 420blazeit - REKIN

    Messages:
    2,910
    Just gonna say, if the mods who froze you couldn't figure out how to ban you, they are probably noobs too.
     
    BlueLuigi, Cirom, Wixmef and 9 others like this.
  4. Kyzak

    Kyzak Ballista Bolt Thrower Tester
    1. The Young Blood Collective - [YB]

    Messages:
    440
    I'm sorry you had such a rough first experience! Unfortunately, a lot of otherwise respectable and patient players have grown jaded because new players such as yourself-with genuine intent to learn and enjoy the game-- are relatively rare. Most will build horrible structures and get terribly angry when approached with constructive criticism.

    Anywho, the server you're playing on has a lot to do with the experience you'll have; the big popular servers have sensible staff and zero tolerance for team-hindering actions-even unintentional ones--, while smaller ones probably have incompetent staff or none at all. Just keep playing! With how the game is instanced, nobody's going to hold a grudge against you unless you're hindering them intentionally and repeatedly.
     
    Beef, Froghead48, justi01 and 3 others like this.
  5. FuzzyBlueBaron

    FuzzyBlueBaron Warm, Caring, Benign, Good and Kind Philanthrope Global Moderator Forum Moderator Donator Tester
    1. The Young Blood Collective - [YB]

    Messages:
    2,508
    I couldn't agree more and I'm really sorry that you had to got through that. :(

    The whole negative attitude towards new players messing up can be partly explained by how reliant the game is on teamwork (something new players tend to ignore) and the damage a single griefer can do to an hour long game; however, that still doesn't explain it all.

    samort7, if you reflect on what you went through, what could/should have been different? What would have made for a better initial experience? We're working on some video tutorials to introduce basic game concepts to new players (like how catapults work), but was there anything else we could do to reduce this kind of crap in the future?

    There are worthwhile players out there, it's just that there is also a culture of being horrible to newer players grappling with the learning curve. I hope you stick around, we need decent people like yourself. :)
     
  6. vampo

    vampo alchemist Donator Tester

    Messages:
    265
    In a month, if you're still playing, you'll start shifting towards the same attitude. If someone is "creating a tunnel" through your tower, you'll holler "griefer!" and try your damnedest to get him kicked before he collapses that thing.

    Getting kicked isn't so bad. Just don't do it intentionally and you won't be permabanned.

    Also, protip: you don't want to have a tunnel through your tower, anyway. I can't believe no one in here has said that yet. you want at least 6 blocks of height (in my opinion exactly 6) before your first way through. gl;hf hope you figure it all out!
     
    DrZaloski and Beef like this.
  7. Gofio

    Gofio Gunwobbler x3

    Messages:
    1,090
    HUGE hint: this community may be one of the MOST frienldy ones!
    you can ASK anyone, for almost anything, and they'll answer you.
    theres lots of sandbox worlds, where you can learn about the game with other people,
    and for fighting practice, go to a RDM (Rapid Death-Match) server.
    the reason they are a little anti-griefing, is because griefing is so terribly easy in KAG.
    just get up, and try again. eventually you'll understand what you should and shouldnt do.
    when I was still a newbie, I got kicked over and over!
     
    paradoxicalenigma likes this.
  8. Beelzebub

    Beelzebub Ballista Bolt Thrower

    Messages:
    240
    Don't play as a builder as a newbie.

    Let me say that again: Don't play as a builder as a newbie.

    Knights are mostly expendable and if one dies (basically the worst that could happen) it's not a big deal. An incompetent/new builder, on the other hand, is a rage-inducing team destroyer.
     
    Foxodi, cameron, Rayne and 7 others like this.
  9. goodyman8

    goodyman8 Bison Rider

    Messages:
    1,025
    Going to be the devils advocate here but a few things I don't really get...
    A few things:
    1)I'm not sure that NO SINGLE PERSON in the entire team didn't warn you about not doing what you were doing.
    2)Playing a builder without proper knowledge in KAG is the same as playing a spy without knowing how to backstab in TF2.
    In both cases you become useless, but here you can become a hindrance too. (you was told this before in this thread)
    3)You shouldn't judge the whole community by reasons like those, in most cases the actions they took were justified( in my opinion at least) and then again even if you got banned on a few servers you could make a ban appeal or play on another.

    I mean, its getting a bit of old.
    The whole community sucking because one single person has had a bad first experience.
     
    Overlord, Adinxs, Gofio and 1 other person like this.
  10. FuzzyBlueBaron

    FuzzyBlueBaron Warm, Caring, Benign, Good and Kind Philanthrope Global Moderator Forum Moderator Donator Tester
    1. The Young Blood Collective - [YB]

    Messages:
    2,508
    Thing is, goodyman8, is that it's not just one perosn--we've had several people post over the last while all saying in effect: "Great game, terrible community". And you can bet that for every person who posts there are a whole bunch who don't.

    To be fair, much of the negative experience comes from things outside of the forum community's control (like scrubby pub players and the inherent complexity of playing builder in KAG), but that doesn't invalidate the experiences of people like samort7 here. There's often a trend on the forums to tell newcomers who post about a horrible introduction to KAG that it's 'normal' and that they should get over it.

    Well, that's just not good enough.

    If we want KAG to grow as a game (if we want Geti, MM and the rest to succeed here and keep making awesome games for years to come) then we, the informed portion of the community, need to improve our attitudes towards newcomers. Instead of hurling abuse at someone who clearly doesn't understand why people are screaming at them, we need to be the guy/gal who stops in-game and asks the newbie if they need any help. Sure, half the time you'll probably get flipped off for you efforts, but even if it's only a 1 in 10 success rate (I usually have about a 1 in 5) the reward of having a new fellow KAG addict is more than worth the time (and maybe the lost game) it took to help them learn their way around. Plus, if the newbie's response is to flip you off, then you can feel justified in screaming at them. :p
     
    _Cuffs_, Riletyface, AnRK and 4 others like this.
  11. goodyman8

    goodyman8 Bison Rider

    Messages:
    1,025
    There are sub forums for builders, knights and archers.
    Instead of writing about how bad their experience was shouldn't they be looking for good guides there and learn from their mistakes?
    Sure I do try to help when I see an inexperienced player but as you said before those often end up with "screw you" and silence.
    I mean, its pretty normal to be overwhelmed when starting the game and make such mistakes but judging the whole community by what some random pubs do isn't really going to change things.
     
    BeasterDenBeast likes this.
  12. Froghead48

    Froghead48 Haxor

    Messages:
    703
    Mostly the Pubby Players. 80%ish of the gold community is okay.
     
  13. FuzzyBlueBaron

    FuzzyBlueBaron Warm, Caring, Benign, Good and Kind Philanthrope Global Moderator Forum Moderator Donator Tester
    1. The Young Blood Collective - [YB]

    Messages:
    2,508
    goody, somehow I feel you're missing the point.

    As you yourself note, it's normal to be initially overwhelmed by the game and make mistakes. That's fine. What isn't fine, however, is being verbally dumped on while you're going through that normal process of learning and acclimation.

    As for judging the whole community (forum and pub) by what the pub half does, well, I have to say I haven't really seen very many examples of forum players leading newer players by the hand. I really don't think forum peeps (myself included) can claim the moral high ground here--all too often I see people I know from the forums ear-bashing or belittling players who are not performing (at least, in their eyes) to a high-enough standard.

    And on the one hand, fair enough; I too sometimes find myself growing jaded or raging at the silliness around me. But on the other hand, I call jaded apathy and vitriol-filled raging at newbies, by people who claim to love & want good things for the game, for what it is--BS and hypocrisy.

    As I said before, there's little we can do directly to stop pub players from being scrubby balls of verbal toxicity; but (and this is important) we (the forum community) can help change the anti-newbie culture by being welcoming and understanding of newbie mistakes ourselves.

    I challenge all of you, if you love this game, to to call out others when they come down on new people for being new. And I especially ask any of you who catch me in the middle of raging to tell me to 'give it a rest'. Change happens best when it begins at home.
     
  14. ar3k

    ar3k Catapult Fodder

    Messages:
    22
    You have it the wrong way around. When I first started playing the non-gold players were pretty nice, and minded their own business. As soon as a few premium players came on to the server, they were swearing at the pubs and calling them noobs, and all that funky stuff. Half of the premium players I have had the 'privilege' to meet are complete and utter dick heads.
     
    Rayne, FuzzyBlueBaron and Froghead48 like this.
  15. Froghead48

    Froghead48 Haxor

    Messages:
    703
    Does that not leave some gold member room to be dicks? :>
     
  16. ar3k

    ar3k Catapult Fodder

    Messages:
    22
    Like I said, wrong way round. 80% are dicks, the rest are okay. I like being non-premium, no one expects much out of me. The only downfall is that you get called a hacker if you are above average.

    Edit: Heres a little story of my first post on the forums. I post a smart comment. Some guy called 'gofio' calls me out for being a 'smartus noobus' or some shit. So that started a whole flame war. You premium fellows just think you're better then us because you paid some cash for a few virtual hats, and a zombie mode which I hear is quite boring, but I how would I know, I am just some noob.
     
    Lexar514, Rayne and Froghead48 like this.
  17. goodyman8

    goodyman8 Bison Rider

    Messages:
    1,025
    There are dicks, premium and non premium.
    Deal with it, as for you FBB you have a point.
    If I see you raging Ill tell you to give it a rest and hope everyone else does it for me too.
     
  18. allknowingfrog

    allknowingfrog Bison Rider

    Messages:
    549
    This. The game should inform new players that being a builder is complicated. Maybe servers should be able to whitelist the builder class with seclevs (new players would default to archer and knight only). Or is that already possible?
     
    cameron and Froghead48 like this.
  19. LostPix

    LostPix Base Burner

    Messages:
    574
    If you want to play as builder play as builder but do something helpful, you see a team mate building tower go ask him about helping him, bring him resources if you don't know what to do, unless he tells you "hey buddy build some workshops", only modify towers to their original state, if they get damaged fix them but do not make sudden changes, every player even myself gets angry when you run back from battlefield back to op to buy bombs or arrows and suddenly wall is damaged and can't climb it back, same with building approach if you build a tower or wall make sure there is always passage in both ways so people don't get anxious.

    Another great builder trait is about being fast thinker and quick builder especially if you are offensive builder like me, you have to learn to switch between blocks really efficiently, if you see a teammate in trouble who can't get out of the pit; is stuck make sure you help him in first place, it's all about helping each other in this game it's not about being rock stars, you will get some glory if you help a lot.

    Last thing I wanna share is don't build massive pits/pits with spikes it's not safe for team mates and it's also really easy to block pits then walk across, it's simply rendered as useless time and material waste considering spikes cost 10 stone and you remove them with one click and digging takes precious time, best traps are the ones placed smartly or designed in specific way for low material cost.

    Short summary, you have to be smart, fast thinking and efficient builder if you want to run to battlefield make sure you never pack yourself full of resources, take 100 stone and 100 wood if you are lucky someone might drop more resources.
     
    cameron, Beef and Froghead48 like this.
  20. allknowingfrog

    allknowingfrog Bison Rider

    Messages:
    549
    The forums are full of suggestions. Very few people read a forum before they try a game. The problem is how to get this information to them when they start.
     
    DrZaloski and Beef like this.