Rebuilding the USTC
Day 3,364, 10:49
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Published in USA 
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by
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by Jasper Signa
Rebuilding the United States Training Corps
So I was recently commenting in Derphoof Presidential Article about how I missed having a MU focused on new players. As a nation, integrating our new citizens has always been a struggle, and for me, the USTC provided a good foundation for learning the mechanics of the game and getting my first opportunity to get active.
So while I was whining, Senry fortunately called me out on, basically saying if your willing to lead people will try any dumb idea once.
Since, I am a glutton for punishment,enjoy feeding trolls and need 25 comments anyways, I thought I'd outline some ideas and get some feedback from the community about what would be neccessary to make this work.
First: As a community we need to decide what role new players should be groomed for. Before the maverick pack there was a role for n00bs to maximize strength and contribute to the lower divisions. Today, however, I personally see very little role for new players in the war fight except to contribute to the air battle.
As a nation, we have a very limited time left to get new players on the air track before that becomes irrelevant as well.
The reason being that like strength training, once perception is implemented new players will immediately begin to fall behind the daily climb in perception stats and eventually like strength training it will take years to be damage relevant.
While Plato could change the mechanics at any time, does anyone else see a possible focus for our new players?
Secon
My suggestion is rather than build a separate MU we create a parallel command structure across MU's (maybe a deadicated regiment?) that is devoted to new players, have new player leaders and work to maximize new players to take advantage of new player government programs.
I think giving new players the responsibility to be a squad leader, platoon commander or company commander and looking out for other players newer than themselves was an important aspect of creating activity in the USTC.
With proper accountability DoCA would then be able to lighten their distribution networks by supplying food to the Training Corp and using their network to get it to the citizens that meet the requirements. Rather then 50 citizens getting food distributed individually the DoCA could supply a Company Commander who then distributes it to each of his or her Platoon CDR down the line.
Thir
Identifying a weekly top Platoon within the USTC with a reward would encourage activity and teamwork and would be completely achievable internally with the command structure created to support the USTC
America Loves a Winner!
So I was recently commenting in Derphoof Presidential Article about how I missed having a MU focused on new players. As a nation, integrating our new citizens has always been a struggle, and for me, the USTC provided a good foundation for learning the mechanics of the game and getting my first opportunity to get active.
So while I was whining, Senry fortunately called me out on, basically saying if your willing to lead people will try any dumb idea once.
Since, I am a glutton for punishment,enjoy feeding trolls and need 25 comments anyways, I thought I'd outline some ideas and get some feedback from the community about what would be neccessary to make this work.
First: As a community we need to decide what role new players should be groomed for. Before the maverick pack there was a role for n00bs to maximize strength and contribute to the lower divisions. Today, however, I personally see very little role for new players in the war fight except to contribute to the air battle.
As a nation, we have a very limited time left to get new players on the air track before that becomes irrelevant as well.
The reason being that like strength training, once perception is implemented new players will immediately begin to fall behind the daily climb in perception stats and eventually like strength training it will take years to be damage relevant.
While Plato could change the mechanics at any time, does anyone else see a possible focus for our new players?
Secon
😛While it would be nice to have a dedicated MU for new players the reality is that it would be too challenging to steer new players there and MU's provide an important aspect for community socialization so trying to take good players out of EZC, Bear Calvary or the USAF, would probably be counterproductive.
My suggestion is rather than build a separate MU we create a parallel command structure across MU's (maybe a deadicated regiment?) that is devoted to new players, have new player leaders and work to maximize new players to take advantage of new player government programs.
I think giving new players the responsibility to be a squad leader, platoon commander or company commander and looking out for other players newer than themselves was an important aspect of creating activity in the USTC.
With proper accountability DoCA would then be able to lighten their distribution networks by supplying food to the Training Corp and using their network to get it to the citizens that meet the requirements. Rather then 50 citizens getting food distributed individually the DoCA could supply a Company Commander who then distributes it to each of his or her Platoon CDR down the line.
Thir
😛As a community I think we should develop some competitions that only apply to new players. While its very difficult for a new player to win BH or CH medals, I think with proper data collection we could create contests within this new USTC that would give new players something achievable and meaningful to keep their interest.
Identifying a weekly top Platoon within the USTC with a reward would encourage activity and teamwork and would be completely achievable internally with the command structure created to support the USTC
America Loves a Winner!
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TLDR Version. Lets find a way to get new players involved by bringing back the USTC and commenting on this article so its done right.
Also this is meant as a discussion not the answer. Will follow up after synthesizing everyone's comments. Goal is to give new players a chance to get involved.
Nice ideas. 😃
Maybe in each MU that support to help nation wide new players they can assign a special regiment for new players. With a special Discord channel they can try to help each other to higher levels. This with the help of several social and training programs already on nation, party and MU level could bring some new life.
Thanks. The beauty of the old training corps was that leadership was mostly new players maybe 6month or a year. After about a month I was a squad leader and had to take care of 5 newer players.
I made sure my guys and gals got their food, voted DoD Orders and put their Damage in priority battles. After damage got higher people would apply to move to other military units with a bigger budget.
It was nice having a deadicated support group.
Most interesting.
"new players"
Does that mean we don't have any? That would make it hard to train them.
I know it's hard to believe, but they do exist.
derp actually has a great idea with empowering each mu todo just this. hell if just ezc's tax money portion could be reinvested back into ezc. I am very confident gnil and deep could go a LONG way with it.
I like Derps plan too and Gnils and Deep Chill are amazing. CURAHEE, I think my plan wasn't actually one that would lead to increased damage, at least in the short run. It was more of a plan to give new players something to strive for. If a player started today the mechanics of the game would make them start at an almost impossible disadvantage. So without Our community creating some mechanisms for rewarding new or returning players and providing a competitive outlet there isn't a lot of reasons to stick around. So was hoping to create a realm for new players to get involved with minimal cost and risk to the real war effort.
Funding and education is a big part of training newbies. strength training is pretty much being by passed to concentrating on air at this moment. i really wish the maverick pack was not a thing. how can a newbie compete with that ya know?
Great concept.
Are you suggesting it as a pan-MU organisation? Regardless of which MU they join, they're also part of US training corps. The initial leaders could then be kept in the MU of their choice, rather than pulled away.
Yes it's a parallel organization. New players choose a MU but would also be part of USTC with their own leadership, contests and supply chain.
Course if that's a stupid idea then would love to improve on it to make it work.
I believe I saw something about needing 25 comments and amazingly, this will count as one.
Let's start with the discord channel and see if the infrastructure falls into place.
I think the discord channel is a good idea. Although I think you would need an infrastructure to drive new players to visit. It wouldn't have to be a lot just get existing MUs to push new players there and current players willing to monitor the channel.
Some people will intentionally disrupt us, even if it's a good idea. We should have the infrastructure, first. I'll help.
Well I think for this model to work you'd need at least luke warm support from MU leadership. It would also have to be voluntary. If the biggest MUs don't have buy in I don't see how it would ever work at the national level. Although individual MUs could develop their own programs. I think organization of the training companies would be centered around MU regiments anyways.
As Jimmy says, I deal of disruption that idea ... which is not the case now. Good luck!
Good luck Jasper, I don't have the commitment to eRep anymore to do something of this magnitude but if some CC will help I'd be glad to pitch in
So how many new people do you think are actually playing this game for longer than five minutes?
Probably not many, as has always been the case the community has to succeed despite the eRepublik mechanics. However, I'd argue that there isn't a lot to keep new players around. I was hoping that providing a tiny micro competition might give something for new players to keep clicking.
Interesting article.
CURRAHEE
CURRAHEE!!
CURRAHEE!
The major issue is that new players are fucked any which way.
I mean, it is retarded in the first place that any game puts the responsibility of player retention on the players themselves.
Not to mention deliberately sabotaging them. While maybe not true today, there was a time when following the missions and Plato suggestions would cause a new player irreparable harm.
CURRAHEE!