Combat and Coding Channel
Imperian already provides players with amazing access to combat help compared to any other IRE game I've seen - thanks to the way ring works, pretty much. That is, if you are in the right circle(s). I am sitting pretty, what do you mean you don't have qualified combatants around most of the time to patiently answer (most of) your stupid questions?
What about something like... when they are actually in the mood to answer questions, combatants "blessed" by admin as such "log on" to the combat channel as "guides". That way, we know they are ready and willing to answer questions for the time being, and it opens those people up to cross-circle questions (you know, if you don't have your own combatants around who know almost everything about every profession). And, so long as people aren't overly considerate and "take it to tells", a lot of the discussions would honestly be a great thing for everyone to listen to. I think there should definitely be a reward, too. Like, at least a cool satchel 
(and also probably credits). Don't kill me if you hate it 
(and also probably credits). Don't kill me if you hate it As things are now, you can of course always ask people, say, in tells, but you never really know if they're busy or not, especially if they're not in your own ring, or in a clan with you, and of course there are forums, but ring has been VERY kind to me in trying to get things accomplished, and if that could somehow be extended game-wide, it seems like that would be great. It could be a bit unmanageable if the game was a LOT bigger, but for now, it seems like it could be pretty good. If it got to be too much, you could probably split the channels, with one or two leads on each. And, for players who are tuned into the channel, when a combatant was taking questions, you would see something like the occasional admin announcement "so and so is accepting questions right now" (except it would hopefully be a LOT more frequent than that). There wouldn't always be a "qualified" combatant taking questions, much like newbie doesn't always have a guide, and in that case, any kind person who might try to answer your question... well, take it with a grain of salt. They might be right, they might not. "Guides'" names would also be a special color in the channel who, and they would only be in the channel when accepting questions. They would of course be able to leave the channel at any time, say to respond to any sort of in-game conflict that might arise.
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"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
If I have lost against certain person(s), and asked what I could do better, I've always got a helpful answer. Also, if someone asks how they could perform better against me or someone I know, I tend to help and give tips.
Identifying the problem and thinking of solution is the first step. If you don't know how to put the solution in practice, then ask for help.
Starting from the very basic can be helpful. IF this happens, THEN this should happen afterwards.
Generally, when someone is having a rough time with me in the sap train I help them regardless of circle(Kaywinett for example) which kind of sucks because now she has learned how to not die in 20 seconds against me, but I would rather her be more confident against me then just leave the second I walk into a room, because that is not fun for anyone.
If you can learn variables and if/then/else you can figure out how to code absolutely anything you need for this game.
Granted, it might take you 200 lines of spaghetti code with 30 different variables and two dozen nested if statements to match what Ultrix does with 10 lines of code, two paperclips, and a bottle of superglue... but you can do it.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
Noone who is actually "top tier" in this game is an information hoarder. Sorry, just isn't true. If they are actually good, they don't rely on a gimick that only works as long as someone doesn't know how it works, because everyone else in that skill group will stomp the hell out of them, because they'll pretty much know all the lame/gimicky things already and have abused them ruthlessly in the past/present.
Personally, I'll answer just about any combat question if you catch me when I'm not busy. I'll tell you how to code something, but unless I put you at a 7 or above on the I like you scale I probably won't code it for you. I'm pretty sure that is about the stance of most people.
I differ in opinion. Coding is easy, at the level required for Imperian. You can handle everything you need in this game with nothing but if/then/else and variables, and I am convinced that anybody can learn that in maybe an hour tops, if they're willing to stop crying about how they can't code and just sit down and go over it.
The hard part is learning to think programatically, learning how to approach a problem in a manner that can be solved with code. And, really, that's not a coding problem. That's just learning how to break a complicated problem down into smaller problems that you can solve. As an example, rebounding:
Problem: I want my attack button to raze automatically.
Subproblem: I need to track rebounding status
Solution: Make triggers for rebounding status change messages that set a rebounding variable
Problem: Triggers fire on all status changes
Solution: Make triggers change the variable only if the message applies to the current target
Subproblem: My attack button needs two modes.
Solution: Use if/then/else based off of rebounding variable.
Subproblem: Status does not update with new target
Solution: Make target alias set rebounding status to show rebounding is up
Once you break something as seemingly complicated as a 'smart' offensive alias down it becomes a simple matter of "trigger checks for target's name(this uses if/then) and sets a variable" and "alias checks state of variable and chooses an attack based off of it(this uses if/then/else)".
People get intimidated by the idea of combat because they think that you need Septus-tier skills and a Septus-tier system to fight decently, when the truth is that the basic fundamentals of "varname = 1" and "if thing then this else that" will cover a solid 90% of everything you'll ever want to do.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
Having in the past been principally a deathknight limb combatant, at a time when my 'afflicting' consisted of spamming metrazol/ciguatoxin with the rare aconite or what have you before benzene/benzene etc., I am still wrapping my head around this, which is partly my own fault, and it is largely the thing I spend the most time frustrated over. That is, converting real logic into interpreted scripts.
You're welcome for the help :P