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Colin



Joined: Aug 02, 2003

Post 20 Posted: Feb 20, 2008 - 01:28 Reply with quote Back to top

The Faculty of Academy Instructors is now recruiting - if you are an experienced coach who wants to help newcomers, and perhaps have a particular speciality in tactics or race, please apply with an Academy team.

I'd love to hear from members of the original #fumbbl_academy channel.

I'll be recruiting staff in an ongoing basis - contact me if you particularly want to help administrate the group.

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Colin



Joined: Aug 02, 2003

Post   Posted: Feb 20, 2008 - 03:20 Reply with quote Back to top

We have our first few faculty members, and I've shamelessly given my brother tenure...mostly so he can do most of the donkey-work (once there is any).

Keep your applications coming!

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SillySod



Joined: Oct 10, 2006

Post   Posted: Feb 20, 2008 - 03:34 Reply with quote Back to top

The first important question is how we'll catch new players for mentoring. Obviously if they know nothing about FUMBBL how will they know to come here? Having enough coaches who can point a new player our way in IRC is one solution but are there better ones?

How long do we mentor them and how do we drop them at the end..... obviously different people will have different systems but its something that everybody should consider at the start. Its also a question of who is elligable for mentoring, maybe everyone, maybe not.

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Arktoris



Joined: Feb 16, 2004

Post   Posted: Feb 20, 2008 - 03:37 Reply with quote Back to top

SillySod wrote:
The first important question is how we'll catch new players for mentoring. .


In the past, most of us would recommend fumbbl academy to anyone who popped into chat or the forums with "Hi, I'm new...."

The community will funnel them to you.
Colin



Joined: Aug 02, 2003

Post   Posted: Feb 20, 2008 - 08:39 Reply with quote Back to top

For the moment, the plan is to get them to the Academy channel, and from there prep them based on:

1) Their experience with FUMBBL - creating teams etc.
2) Their experience of the JavaBbowl client - networking, proxies and GUI.
3) Their Blood Bowl experience - have they ever played tabletop, do they know the basics etc.

Getting them to run the client in Standalone mode to get to grips with the real basics is a good idea, before they then move on to playing a live opponent (remember they'll be keen to get on with real play, so don't dampen their enthusiasm by insisting). FUMBBL-specific things like having high FF isn't a priority in Academy, but should be mentioned before they migrate to other divisions.

Match-ups in Academy could be Instructor v Student, or Student v Student with Instructors spectating and commenting in the channel, or in a separate channel made just for that match. Spectating should be encouraged, especially if games are not readily available right then.

Lastly, I'm curious about tournaments - can user-made tournaments only use [L] teams? If we could use Academy or Unranked (former Academy) teams too, we could have fun tournaments in which students can 'graduate' by performing well in them.

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Tathar



Joined: Sep 29, 2006

Post   Posted: Feb 20, 2008 - 08:56 Reply with quote Back to top

Sorry, havn't read all the forum posts on this so appologies if none of this is any use. Here's a couple of suggestions:

1) You could have directions to #fumbblacademy more prominently advertised during the account sign up process.

2) Is it possible to make it mandatory for a new member to create an academy team first, that can't be retired until it's played say 20 games. I know it doesn't mean they'll use it or join #fumbblacademy, but the team will be a reminder for them to check it out and with 40 team slots it shouldn't be too much hinderance if they really don't want/need Academy.
Colin



Joined: Aug 02, 2003

Post   Posted: Feb 20, 2008 - 09:10 Reply with quote Back to top

Tathar wrote:
Sorry, havn't read all the forum posts on this so appologies if none of this is any use. Here's a couple of suggestions:

1) You could have directions to #fumbblacademy more prominently advertised during the account sign up process.

2) Is it possible to make it mandatory for a new member to create an academy team first, that can't be retired until it's played say 20 games. I know it doesn't mean they'll use it or join #fumbblacademy, but the team will be a reminder for them to check it out and with 40 team slots it shouldn't be too much hinderance if they really don't want/need Academy.


Excellent suggestions. As I see it, the things we can do are divided into two categories:

1) The things we can do with existing infrastructure - the User Guide wiki, Groups, IRC etc.

2) The things we require Admin intervention to introduce.

Both of your suggestions are in 2) - my recent campaign was instigated without prompting from Christer and his staff, and I'd have to clear such changes with him/them. Once we've ironed out the main good ideas from this thread and the Improving the newb experience thread (before the point it degenerated into a peeing contest), I can present a nice, packaged, set of proposals to have implemented, rather than a half-assed collection of suggestions as we currently have.

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sk8bcn



Joined: Apr 13, 2004

Post   Posted: Feb 20, 2008 - 09:31 Reply with quote Back to top

defo not interested. I still hold a grudge against the academy division after the story between the old fumbbl_academy channel and the fumbblacademy division.

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pac



Joined: Oct 03, 2005

Post   Posted: Feb 20, 2008 - 09:56 Reply with quote Back to top

Colin wrote:
Lastly, I'm curious about tournaments - can user-made tournaments only use [L] teams? If we could use Academy or Unranked (former Academy) teams too, we could have fun tournaments in which students can 'graduate' by performing well in them.

Only [L], I'm afraid.

Still, you could still set up tournaments of a kind, just not site-supported/handled ones.
Colin



Joined: Aug 02, 2003

Post   Posted: Feb 20, 2008 - 10:20 Reply with quote Back to top

pac wrote:
Colin wrote:
Lastly, I'm curious about tournaments - can user-made tournaments only use [L] teams? If we could use Academy or Unranked (former Academy) teams too, we could have fun tournaments in which students can 'graduate' by performing well in them.

Only [L], I'm afraid.

Still, you could still set up tournaments of a kind, just not site-supported/handled ones.


Ok, this is a list of choices we could ask the admins to implement once we're ready to make proposals:

    Tournaments in Academy or
    Tournaments in Unranked or
    Allow Academy teams to move to League division.

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SillySod



Joined: Oct 10, 2006

Post   Posted: Feb 20, 2008 - 13:55 Reply with quote Back to top

Tournaments in [U] would be wierd and make the difference between [U] and [L] non-existant. Allowing [A] teams to move to [L] potentially opens up reasons to abuse newbies in [A], likewise re-merging [L] and [U] would have the same potential effect (and suggesting re-merging stirs a whole pot of shite). Being able to create tournaments in [A]cademy seems like the best step forward.

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Xenon



Joined: Mar 15, 2006

Post   Posted: Feb 20, 2008 - 14:01 Reply with quote Back to top

SillySod wrote:
Tournaments in [U] would be wierd and make the difference between [U] and [L] non-existant. Allowing [A] teams to move to [L] potentially opens up reasons to abuse newbies in [A], likewise re-merging [L] and [U] would have the same potential effect (and suggesting re-merging stirs a whole pot of shite). Being able to create tournaments in [A]cademy seems like the best step forward.


Why not just point them to Koadah's great 145 club tournments and leagues when you feel they are ready to graduate from academy. The only downside is that the [A] team is made redundant and the n00b would need a new team but with [U] and [A] the way they are this would happen anyway.

If anything in my interpretation of this thread we seem to be going toward the need to make Koadah's leagues in the 145 club a bit more official and may be even add something into ranked based on coach rating in the same vain as the minors or something to get some interest from the new guys in a tournment they will have a fair shot at...
SeraphimRed



Joined: Feb 01, 2004

Post   Posted: Feb 20, 2008 - 14:13 Reply with quote Back to top

Please don't advocate the use of [U] for anything... it's pointless! The 'majority' of us want it eradicating - I think. :S

Nice idea though, hope folk have the time to invest in instructing newcomers.

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heinz



Joined: Mar 24, 2004

Post   Posted: Feb 20, 2008 - 14:14 Reply with quote Back to top

Count me in.

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harvestmouse



Joined: May 13, 2007

Post   Posted: Feb 20, 2008 - 14:15 Reply with quote Back to top

All 3 of those ideas have already been asked and are a definite no. I remember I was in a group that wanted to move from academy to a league in unranked, and it was a certain no.

Get them to set up a league in league.
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