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 wiki
Players- Myself
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
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"
Players -
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.
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.
