Amelioration - Tron School

Found the paper I had notes on..

This is what was on it:
grade 1: customization and controls (including name, cycle colors, language choice, perhaps some performance tweaks options in case they have low fps)

grade 2: basic concepts (most can be found at durf.tk/tut/2), basically lessons to give more cycle control

grade 3: explained gametypes: HR DF FT CTF SHOOTING (ctf or gtlc - explain brief rules and suggest servers)

grade 4: explained gametypes: FORT SUMO RACING and special servers like HFT MELODIOUS etc.. (advanced play)

grade 5: advanced customization + global ID (advanced use of colors, console, and custom client settings)

grade 6: advanced gametypes explained: in depth concepts regarding fort sumo and racing (techniques, tips)

grade 7: maps, map files, making maps, learning the XML that makes maps (wiki 'making maps by hand')

grade 8: administration (admin commands, game settings, console tricks, basically anything being admin)

grade 9: server hosting (hosting a custom map, making yourself admin, hosting options, all how to do it)

grade 10: advanced server hosting (language file, scripts, online control panel options, etc..)

grade 11: tron development (c++ tutorials guided around armagetron, the open source project)

grade 12: tron development (guided modifications, compiling... putting into practice everything from gr.11)

. . . . .

Keep in mind that these were just very brief notes and in posting this, I've considered switching some things around.

I know this is much more than what was asked for (grade 1) but putting it all here let's people know what I meant by tron school more thoroughly.
We can discuss in greater detail now that we have a bigger picture to work with

So yea, for grade 1 I think keeping it simple, straightforward, and most importantly IDIOT-PROOF, is essential for making something like this work. I'm thinking lots of pictures showing step-by-step instructions on how to customize everything
(like a picture of the menu after hitting ESC, then a green circle around "player settings", then another image showing the player settings menu with a green circle around "player 1 settings" as an example what might be included in grade 1, showing how to get to the place to customize name and controls)

also lol t33p's edit

on the contrary, I think testing for each grade is a good idea (optional testing ofc)

and making tron into an RPG is the exact thing that will hook new players into returning (having things to complete, things to still have to do)

As for special admission, I have thought about offering paid courses:
people hire a service that I (now we) would provide.
What they are buying is the guarantee that they will become a pro tronner.
The service I had planned at the time would have taken them through the grades, as well as in game training
The profits from this service could be used to help cover the costs of a VPS hosting service.

As much as I'd like to make money (lol) and get something from all the work we'll be putting in, I don't think its such a good idea for a free game to charge for resources like that. But the in game training would be worth it...say we did charge for it; tron would be your job...getting paid (vps costs) to train noobs how to play.

Anyway, its a thought; but I don't think any restrictions on the school would be a good thing.
At the most, I might have an option to log in to do the tron school (for keeping records of each grade and tests...progress, graduates, etc..)

Im never going to graduate

I put maps before administration for two reasons:
1) There's a lot more to learn when it comes to being admin (thousands of settings)
2) It's good to be familiar with the coordinates that tron uses (maps), before being able to use admin commands like teleport_player and spawn_zone.

There are some grades that I spent some time considering if they should be switched, and tbh I haven't cared enough about the order when I was writing the structure; I just wanted to get it down on paper quickly.

That being said, I put up the structure here, not only for you guys to see, but to scrutinize as well.
If you feel something should be added to a particular grade, or the order should be different, post about it.


Probably should have mentioned too, I had listed an "Intro" grade for before grade 1. Which would only be an intro into what armagetron is (explaining the open source project, the game concept, the community, etc..); an optional grade for those who want a more complete tutorial. Those who want to jump right into the tutorial can do so without missing much.
The intro grade would be pretty easy to do IMO; some of it is already done on the armagetron website.

There could be! Any form of testing can be added in.
But I don't think preventing people from doing the higher grades, because they didn't finish the grades below, is a good idea. Mainly because some people might fail a grade and never get a chance to get the info they may want.

Let's focus on getting the actual school in place first.
Then I can add in a "log in with global ID" for more personal things like tracking which grades they did; the log in would be required to do the testing if the test results are to be saved, otherwise the test would be for fun (anonymous).
But logging in isn't required. What's more important is the school material.