How to teach a newbie girlfriend

[old.Retardo]

My girlfriend expressed an interest in learning to play 'that game' that I play (counter-strike) last night.
Been trying to think of the best way of getting her into it, without her getting too frustrated and giving up immediately. Or getting too bored.

Have 2 networked computers (cable installed in 2 weeks) to play with.

Got any suggestions on how to get her started?

Maybe let her loose in an empty CS level for 10 minutes, to get used to the controls, then set her free in half-life single player, then progress to online play maybe?

First things first is to figure out which way she likes the mouse - inverted or not. Thats for sure

Any suggestions? Serious, preferably

(I've already got the rewards and punishments bit figured out, thanks )

 

[~Lazarus~]

Could try some bot programs - give the feel of online through the standalone pc

Then give her the chance online on the newbie servers - UK2.NET have 4 or 5 servers dedicated to newbies

 

[old.Retardo]

Newbie servers - didnt think such a thing existed!
Figured they would be full of good players slaughtering people stuck in corners

Thats a fairly good plan...

Firstly though, need to get her used to the mouse without getting either bored or annoyed with it.

 

[~Lazarus~]

You never know - she might be more "comfortable" with a joystick

Only kidding - good luck m8

 

[old.Retardo]

Oh gawd... here we go :}

R

 

[Wij]

...must... resist... crude... jokes....

 

[Wazzerphuk]

Natural way of moving the mouse for a newbie is moving the mouse up moves your view up. Don't invert the mouse.

Newbie servers *cough* wireplay*cough*

And get her to play good games, not fecking CS fs

 

[old.Retardo]

The mouse inversion thing isnt true - not everyone immediately thinks non-inverted mouse is right.
I didnt

Thats why I'm going to let her try both methods, see which one she prefers.
Not going to inflict my bias on anyone else!

And yes, CS, because although it was its problems, its still good fun. But this thread wasnt meant for that argument anyway

R

 

[~Lazarus~]

Retardo,

soz about the earlier comment - I couldnt resist it

Anyway, one thing I forgot to mention :

The UK2 servers are all numbered and the newbie servers are in the 45 - 59 list (I think)

If you get 12 or more kills in one map you get banned permanently.

 

[old.Retardo]

No worries - I was thoroughly expecting it

Cool - thanks
I shall give that a go when I think the time is right
Much better than the path I would have probably taken!

Ta

R

 

[Ono]

Just tell her that she'll get loadsa interest from the CS servers once she mentions she's a bird .


I see CS as not only a game but also a community thing (especially when you're dead). We can try to talk about shopping and clothes in Free-look mode if she wants.

 

[DAN200]

How about starting a thread called "How to get a newbie Girlfriend" instead. I'd be very interested in learning from the resuklts.

 

[Sir Frizz]

you cant learn from other people how to PULL dan, you teach yerself, its sumfin no-one else can effectively help ya with

 

[DAN200]

Damm.

 

[Custy]

a Joystick eh? not what they called it in my day

 

[Custy]

/me looks up and realises that the person who pointed out joystick had comfortable in "" thus using the joke...

DAMNIT

 

[DAN200]

well it was hardly original.

 

[Mellow-]

Hate to be one of the few serious ones, but seeing as CS is a mod of Half-Life, let her play Half-Life on the easy setting first. All the way through....


...give her a reward when she kills that floating moron at the end though

...then bots on a standalone, and then those newbie servers.

SORTED

 

[Trebz]

CS hasto be one of the worst games you could use to introduce someone to FPS, not only do you need to learn to move n shoot you gotta learn how to shoot properly and what are good weapons etc etc etc. You also gotta put up with vast amounts of morons...

Introduce her to some basic DM game, Q3 or sommat, ok so peeps say its a bit shite but remeber it was some form of Quake deathmatch that got most of us addicted, its simple and fun, even if your shit you get some kind of score.

 

[Nibbler]

Say you can go shopping on CS. Well, it's true innit? The buy menu.....












Oh never mind

 

[Will]

Start her on Wolfenstein - easy peasy.
Then Doom - teaches strafing (sidestepping)
Then Quake - circle-strafing
then try Counterstrike.

Plus gives her a history lesson, turning her into a well-balanced gamer, like me

 

[Wij]

Doing all that wouldn't leave much room for other activities

 

[stu]

oh...

I thought the topic was about something else.

nm

 

[old.Retardo]

I figured that going through all the old games would take far too long, and is unneccessary...
Was definately going to put her through half-life though, get her used to the controls and all that.

I suspect that CS is a bit difficult for a first online game though really. Bots would be a good idea, because I can increase the skill as she gets better, and she can get used to the weapons in her own time, and it will also teach her the maps, which is important.

Dont need to teach her cunning though - she's a woman.

R

 

[Wij]

At least CS is fairly slow-paced. It'd be a lot worse dropping her straight into QW like many of us had to. It wasn't so bad for the initial 'pioneers' when half the ppl played on keys but if, like me, you joined when lots of ppl were getting quite good you could spend more time as a pile of gibs than as a walking, frightened popgun-toting lamer

 

[old.Retardo]

Oh man, do I remember THAT!

Used to play Q1 on a LAN at uni, before QW really took off...
Everyone used keyboards, and I was the first in my small group of people to get the mouse sorted.

2 days later, they all refused to play me ever again, and to this day, they havent :}

The poor buggers didnt stand a chance! I vaguely remember the teams changing to me vs 7 people, and i absolutely thrashed the lot of them.

They were *slightly* upset

R

 

[Wij]

After my old clan had been formed for about 2 weeks (total n00bs) we had an improptu friendly against DC for about 3 minutes

Hmm, that introduced us to the idea of organised 0wnage rather than just running round shooting

More recently things are nicer for me. I can happily beat all my friends at UT when we LAN. Last time I DM'd em, me vs 4/5 I think I won about 30 - -6

0wnage is a funny bitch. It's fun to do but I can't help feeling bad remembering how shite it was when I was being 0wned

 

[old.Retardo]

That was like, back in '95.

Jeez, I feel old!
I bet most players now dont remember playing Quake1 on a keyboard!
Or how rocket jumping in Duke Nukem involved jumping over the rockets people were firing at you

Haha

R

 

[Will]

Those were the days...

I 0wned on keyboard - Quake, Doom, even tried Quake 2 (not really sucessful, but only had about 10 fps anyway).
When hlaflife came along - that's when I changed to the mouse (and really started playing first-person shooters)

 

[DAN200]

My first proper experience with first person shooters were demos of Quake I and II, being a complete and utter newbie at the time I thought they were CRAP. Many years later after losing my newbieness and becoming a proper gamer (I wasn't online at that stage mind) I played a demo of Half-Life: Opposing Force after reading about how good HL was in PCZone. And lets just say, I never looked back.