Customisable Loading Screen

[Mimmiroo]

Hey all, 

 

I've gotten a couple of marathons in and I've run into a good chunk of frustrations. 

 

One is, with the holiday sale just ending, a massive surge of newbies. People who hop onto DST without ever playing Dont Starve and trying to survive with a group of mixed experiences. At best, they're a nuisance that drain resources and moral. Is there any way to filter out inexperienced players? I'm really fatigued with teaching newbies how to play, only to see them run off in frustration or lash out when scolded for messing up.

 

One solution I came up with is a customisable loading screen - one you'd typically see when you join a TF2 server. It would be cool if I could have a screen with rules of etiquette ( ie, replant seeds when you harvest farms, COMMUNICATE with your team, etc. ) Majority of players pick up my requests when I give them the spiel when joining the server, it would be nice if I didn't have to say it every time someone new joins. 

 

Or maybe a user can type "/help" and a custom intro with server rules can pop up? 

 

Otherwise, players are pretty respectful. I occasionally get a good experienced player that makes the server incredibly fun to work on.

[imsomony]

There isn't a way to filter on experience at the moment. It's been suggested, but we still haven't figured out what can be used globally to determine player experience.

 

We can't use hours played because you can start the game on Steam and never actually play, but your hours start tallying up. We can't take someones word that they're experienced either, since that means something different to each person (think "I can survive through winter" vs. "I can survive 400 game days").

 

Any ideas for other factors that can determine "experienced"?

 

As far as gameplay rules (like replanting farms, etc)... yeah, I feel ya. Understanding when/how to do those things comes with, well, experience. IIRC, Klei does plan to implement a more robust version of server descriptions at some point, so the host can provide more details up-front. That could help, assuming players take the time to read it.

 

Your idea about "/help" is one I like, it could be tied to the server description. Something else that could work would require knowledge of coding to create a custom mod. As a new player joins the world, you could have a series of network announcements (similar to "so-and-so just joined the game") that provide the rules you want to set forth. Then you don't have to stop to type every time.

[Mimmiroo]

So far what I've done is built my main base faaaar far away from spawn - usually at the end of a road and beef that up. I'll leave signs / trees along the road to direct players to the base with spots of mini camps ( fireplace and chests full of beefalo poops ).I figure anyone who can find their way to the main base are good enough to stay on the server.