Forum topic: How we can help

Hi everyone, so as you all know, the site went down for a few weeks and it sounds like Frank has put in an awful lot of work over the last month or two to build a new server to get it up and running again and a lot of bug swatting since. (So thank you again for this!)

One of the discussions on the discord server during the downtime, was ideas about what we could do to help on pitwall for making the game better, helping new players, making it more of a community space, etc. So this forum thread is for people to suggest ideas to do that.

Importantly, i want to keep these to ideas that are mostly things the players can do, with only a little work needed from Frank as he’s obviously got other priorities when working on the game.

I will try to edit this top post to be a full list of suggestions, as well as anyone who’s offered to help with any specific ones so all the information is in one place. I will also be offering to help with most of these, but will happily let more experienced/appropriate players take the lead.

The ideas

Updating the help wiki pages
Players- Myself, Dan Silver
This is self explanatory, but would be a useful resource for new players trying to understand the game. It probably needs the more experienced players to add detail and take the lead on this project, though i think anyone would be able to contribute easily as it’s fairly empty in some pages
*There seems to be an issue with confirming emails, so only those already signed up can work on it at the moment, until Frank fixes confirmation emails

Offering "Mentors"
Players - Myself, Dan Silver
A way to let players know they can message one of this list, (Or perhaps a way of us being assigned to new players to ask questions to help them with simple questions. I honestly think most people would be able to do this, but maybe if anyone can offer this help in another language that could be useful?
*We can do this ourselves by letting anyone who asks a question know of this list of players, or maybe adding those players to the next suggestion.

Writing a welcome letter to the game with some useful links
Players - Myself
I think an in game mail automatically sent to new players, or those returning to the game after a long break, containing a welcome message and some useful links would be a good idea to help new players, and increase community/interaction. Useful links could include; The discord server, The Wiki, and something like Matcaps “First days on pitwall” guide
*Frank would only need to copy/paste the mail and write some script to automatically send it to all players.

Artwork for the tracks
Players -
This kind of depends on if Frank wants this done, as obviously it would be replacing old artwork already in the game, but there’s 20 tracks and the artwork varies quite a bit in style, so potentially this would be nice visually for the game?
*Frank would only have to add the updated artwork

Descriptions for the tracks that don't currently have one
Players -
Similar to the artwork, some tracks don’t even have a description and it’s nice to have a little bit of “flavour” for the tracks
*Frank would need to make sure the descriptions of the tracks fits how they play. We don’t want a track that races similar to Spa being described like Monaco for example.

Forum/Chat Moderator
Players -
There might not be enough players to need this honestly, and everyone is respectful in the chat anyway, but maybe the ablity for someone to pin forum posts to the top could be useful (again, the "first days of pitwall" comes to mind)

A pitwall "Newspaper" AKA. The season recap
Players - Myself
A top-level newspaper, perhaps one that gets sent to all players at the end of the season in their desk emails (the in-game ones i mean), with the idea of it being a bit of fun and player involvement. Maybe interviews with top teams, a congratulations list on promoted teams, that kind of thing?
I was unsure whether to suggest this one or not honestly, i know the ability to write your own press releases is a supporter feature, so if Frank thinks this would undermine that, i will just delete this suggestion or move it to the not wanted section. I also want it to be clear that i am not suggesting replacing the supporter feature of writing press releases, just that there is an "official" newspaper too.

Sponsor Artwork
Players -
Small little sponsor logos for all sponsors would add nice some nice colour and visual to the game
Does depend if Frank wants this done, but i can't really see why he wouldn't.

Ideas not wanted
Coding Frank has said this would be almost more work than help.
Bus reports Please keep these to the helpdesk or main chat like normal
Gameplay features This would be a lot of work for Frank, so not what this post is meant for.

Thanks for reading the long post everyone, anyone with suggestions, offers of help or other comments, please go ahead.

I hate killing your enthusiasm, but the priority of the game is to fix annoying bugs, balance the economics and then advertising the game to get many more players cause we are too few at the moment.

in the last year i contacted and helped all the new players that i saw around (including you), then i made the guide for the purpouse to help this new people because they always asked the same questions...
almost all of this new people leaved the game very soon or didn't contact me back.
i'm not complaining it's a normal thing, but there isn't much more we can do for the game as players.

i hope Frank will spent more time fixing and upgrading the game in an efficient way. for example i would have liked if Frank didn't revamp the suppliers system because he could have used that time fixing annoying bugs like the contract lenght issue or the other problems of the game.

that said Frank has always been honest with us: this is an hobby for him not his job and he doesn't want help in coding (i hope he will change his mind). so the fate of the game it's only up to him.

I think Gareth isn't suggesting changing the priority, but building up the community and increasing retention through this outside/alongside what Frank can do - i.e. reduce bugs.

The thing that's most surprising to me is the lack of interaction in the forum. Appreciate a lot of it happens through Chat (unhelpful if something arises as it gets wiped, whereas prior to the crash the forum's older pages were still accessible) - but as two examples:
1) there was a major Political proposal this season and not a single post arguing pros/cons (again, a bit in the chat, but really not much)
2) I had a design interaction question that only Gareth came back on and - not unreasonably - said that he was also returning and wasn't certain in his response

The presence of a discord server without everyone on/able to access is also a bit puzzling. Particularly when there is literally a forum on the site. I had no idea what was going on until a post on a Facebook page that was previously active about 8 years ago...

As to your substantive points:
- I'm happy to help with the mentoring/wiki. I wrote one for PW1.0
- Alas I am no good with most of the other suggestions . Including coding.
- Newspaper - the current div1 reviews are great - hats off to you Philip - but it does seem like one good way of creating community is to allow everyone to write press releases (which could be moderated). From memory this was a requirement of PW 1.0 as it influenced sponsor interest and was a good way of getting people 'out there' to generate content, interact and find out where people were struggling. I used 'bulk assign all parts' far too much in my first week, as I assumed it would just dock points for new parts, not those that would be taken off and then put straight back on again.

I think we need - and I intend - to give the best answers we can to any questions, but broadly I agree that some of the non-intuitive bits ("Risk" in development, for example) aren't super helpful - and can only be changed by Frank.

FWIW my limited understanding of the fans issue (I think this is what you're referring to re: 'economics'?) is probably not stopping the game growing. Maybe limiting the number of people at the top, but hardly stopping div3 being full.

yeah i know that Gareth isn't suggesting about changing priority and i agree almost totally on what you and Gareth said. basically you and Gareth are asking to build up the comunity, aren't you?

in my previous post i was just saying that the game needs more players as a requirement to have a growing and active comunity, active forum etc. and i think that to get more players the only one that can do something is Frank that should fix and advertise the game. then with more active people we'll have a growing and active community in the forum and everything you are talking about.

i also think that majority of active players in the game are people that are here since years and they already know almost all of the game and they don't need/want to be active in chat/forum because is wasted time from their point of view.

but anyway what Gareth is suggesting can be made in any moment so it's better than nothing for sure

Yes, that is exactly what i'm suggesting here. I totally agree bugs should be the top priority, but that's Frank's choice when and how he gets to that and like you said, this is his hobby, so i don't think it's fair to expect him to donate loads of his time.

My idea is basically 2 things; Firstly it's just a bit more fun for the players already here (or those who want to join in anyway). The chat has been active in my division this season and i've really enjoyed it. Secondly, if we can do a few small bits it will help when a new player does join, or if in the future Frank does choose to advertise again, having some ways of helping those new players, will help keep more of them around.

I do appreciate the honesty Matteo, and completely agree, we're probably not going to make much difference with whether a player stays in the game or not, but if we help one or two players stay, then great.

Most importantly, like you said, it's something we can do and better than nothing.

@Dan I will edit you into the bits you've agreed to do. Due to the low player count i don't know how relevant any of it will be, but if we also treat it as a bit of a hobby as well, it helps. (It's why i try to be active on the forums/chat too) I also LOVE Phillip's press releases, he's such a good writer. I didn't know there was a facebook page for pitwall until your forum post, so i've joined that too xD