HELPING NEW PLAYERS
THE PERSONAL TOUCH
Help should be offered to each new player personally. There's no "one true way" to help a newbod and no set script you can follow; you need to tailor the help you give to what the new player actually needs. Figuring out which of those categories she falls into is therefore important.
You can welcome a new player over the comms, but it's more effective if you go and find her on Earth so you can talk to her face to face. That way you can use your own role-playing style when talking to her, and use 'ACT' commands to show your individuality. You are a real player with real characteristics, so use them in the way you act and react to the new player. Smile, laugh, jump up and down, have fun. That's the most effective way to show a newbod how much fun Fed2 can be. If players see right from the word go that in Fed they can pretend to be any kind of character they like, it starts them out used to the idea of role-play.
Having said that, don't get so carried away with your role-playing that you forget that you're trying to help a new player get started. Keep in mind that to someone who is completely unused to role-play, it might seem very confusing. So don't go over the top; make sure that the help you are giving the GroundHog isn't lost in the role-play. Use your common sense in this.
Do keep your answers short and to the point. New players are probably not fast at reading what is scrolling across their screens, so don't confuse them with very long, complex answers. Keep it simple.
Above all, don't use macros or canned help messages. They encourage you to be lazy and to not consider exactly what help the newbod needs. There's not enough newbod traffic that your fingers will wear out having to type everything in fresh!
