Before allowing people to use chat, require them to pass a reading comprehension test. This would remove much of the anti-newbie sentiment people experience. It is very hard to remain patient and kind and otherwise non-scathingly-hateful when people refuse to read their missions and constantly whine about how they can't jump out of the training sector.

Make them read some stuff and pass a test. Have a pool of questions so you can change them (and the order of answers) when they fail, so they don't just trial-and-error it. Offer a reward for passing, like a free 2000c or something, and decrease it every time they fail, to provide further incentive to get it right.

Make this once per-account, not for every single new char.

Edit: I realize this might alienate non-english users, but tough cookies. We are not your support team. If you want to keep people who barely understand english, get some translators and localize the game. We have better things to do than hold their hands and walk them through every little thing because they can't be bothered to read the tutorial.

one simpler approach:

Make default channel for newbies become /1. And make /100 not subscribed as default.

If they learn to change channels, they can listen/talk on /100.

This way whoever don't wanna hear newbies ask what tutorials teach simpy have to "/leave 100".

Last tutorial teaches to leave/join public channel, so no other change required.

Great idea. Next, let's fight racism by only allowing white people to play the game.

Happy blogging!

How very serco of you....

Asking questions on 100 seems to be a default and yet asking other players how to play the game in inself is a support issue.

Altough annoying to some and others enjoy helping this even becomes a conflict of what 100 actually is for.
I understood it as an in game communication tool but definately not a support tool.

Community support tool perhaps unintended, but yet NOT really.
Am I wrong ?

So if it's not really a support tool then it suggests that the help menus may not be complete enough for new players, or they simply did not read or understand what they read.

So it should be huge text in their face so they have to read it I would think.
Don't read it and Don't click OK then you can't fly your ship.

More importantly more emphasis should be placed IN the tutorials "That the same questions have been asked and answered at least 1000 times on channel 100", So please please please attempt to read the tutorials to be sure that your questions do not give the appearance of simply being too lazy to read the tutorials.
Or extend the trial time so that people don't feel rushed or compelled to quickly ditch the tutorial in anxiety that their free trial will end before they have a chance to even go explore the game.

I don't know if that is why or why they won't read them or what is the root cause but I can only speculate it appears that they don't read it; and thus channel 100 question spam.

Or perhaps better as you said default to channel 1, but also instruct them on how to use chat first thing, so they can get the help they need.

And instruct them to post that they need help with something without specifics and someone will PM them if they can help
If they know how to chat then they can spare 100 of spam questions and you will only see occasional help request question in general and you won't see the rest of it because that would be in PM and those who would be annoyed with the question won't ever see it.

Anyhow thats all I can think of something to urge them to learn to use chat and to read the tutorials, but What ? lol

It's not just that people don't read the tutorials. It's that they don't read anything. They ask a question that they should already know the answer to, and we answer it because we're nice. Then they keep whining about not knowing what they're doing for the next fifteen minutes because they're too stupid to follow the directions we gave them.

Fictitious Example, based on a true story:

<NewbMan> Help! I'm stuck in the training sector!

<HelpfulPirate> You have to finish the tutorials.

<NewbMan> How? It won't let me.

<HelpfulPirate> You have to dock with the station and take the training missions. It's the green (S) on the radar. Turn so that it's in the left radar and fly to it, then dock by flying into the docking bay, which has blue arrows pointing into it.

** minutes pass **

<NewbMan> Can anybody help me?

<FriendlyTrader> What's wrong?

<NewbMan> I'm stuck in the training sector!

<FriendlyTrader> Go dock and then take the rest of the training missions.

** more minutes **

<NewbMan> Can anybody help me???

----------------

I don't like being mean to newbies. Mischevious, sure, but not outright mean. People like this make it hard for me to stay civil. If it were possible to kill people in the training sector, I would create a new character just so I could murder these sorts of idiots.

And don't give me any bull about using /ignore. I'll still hear the other people trying to help the poor fool. /vote mute would be a better solution, and is one that I nearly began advocating recently.

I suppose sticking them on channel 1 would be better than nothing though.

what is channel 1? Help channel, where you are supposed to ask for help. Whoever don't wanna help, just leave /1.

And WHY do newbies ask questions in /100 instead of /1?
Simply because it is the default channel, and it is already selected when newbie press 't' the first time and ask questions that are in tutorial... like, how do I dock? Help, I'm stuck in station and cannot dock (while he is far away trying to jump away)...

So, a simple and elegant solution is making /1 the default channel for starters.

Not "racist", since if he read the last tutorial he will know to use /100 or any other channel, and they are able to any time. Only the default channel, the first ever, becomes the proper channel for asking questions, even the most stupid ones. While who wants to help can eply on /1, and those who don't want to can leave /1. All fair and way more elegant!

And does not oblige every player to see again the same questions that tutorials teach, since it makes sense to leave /1 instead leaving /100...

But I do want to help the newbies Alloh. I just want to filter out the ones who are idiots.

+1 if and only if we can implement the same test for forum posting, which would pretty much preclude Alloh from ever speaking here again.

make chat attached to finishing the training that should solve the problem + prevent future spam.
Also I have seen the repeat questions a load, to the point where I'm like READ @#$@#%#, and I'm not exactly know for my English skills ;), or make it attached to combat 3 ( so we get get of people that use VO as a chat box ), yes I have a person in mind with that idea ;).

+1 to OP. The biggest problem is with new players, that don't speak English at all.
I would also suggest to ask player for his native language and adjust active channel to the same language.
And make chat channels turned off by default, so if player doesn't understand how to choose his language, automatically /leave 100. So the default answer to the language selection should be "none" or simply "--".

make its a language option not a native language option and you have my vote, language because I would personally select English above Dutch, also make it clear its including the chat, so players that speak enough English to speak in english chat understand what they are selecting.

Tbh would be great if the devs would hold a language survive under the current player base and put them in all channels of there language, so we are sure there are vets in most language channels ( otherwise it becomes pointless ).

Deathzor, you realize you would fail this test in a 'crash and burn' way, right?