cosmin wrote:i admit that newbies dont read the FAQ and dont care enought to look at all the options, thats why we get a lot of 6 player, freestyle, escalading, chained games.
most of then dont even botter to pick out a different map so they stick to the classic.
That pretty much sums up what I did

. I'm still playing the classic map in all my games, just with different options.
... but their not anything you can do about it, just you could try to make some kind of a shortcut, when people join the first time to be sent to the FAQ and possible read a few before starting playing
I was thinking of a way to find a set of options that are good for new players, and then using those options as a way to find the best games for them to start out with. As a new player, I feel that I probably have a good perspective to offer on this issue.
After I first signed up, the web site took me to the "Join A Game" page (or told me to go there, I forget which). Its a pretty daunting list of games, and I signed up for one of the first games that was shown to me. I've looked and I don't understand the sort order used in presenting the list. It's not by game number, type, or board.
I think I had an expectation that the system was showing those games to me as an introduction-level set of games, much like starting at level 1 in any game or the lowbie zone in WoW, but it looks like a random assortment.
As it turns out, what "Join A Game" shows isn't a very good intro for at least one reason -- the number of players in each game is usually 6. There's nothing wrong with 6 player games, but they take a long time to go through the turns if it is a sequential game. As to whether a freestyle or sequential game would be better, that's probably a question of style. But if you asked the user a few basic questions and then presented them with a list of low-population games, it might make a better first impression (at least, that's my thought

).
Once I figured out that I could join additional games (the 4 game limit wasn't clear to me, or maybe I just missed it along the way), my level of frustration dropped dramatically. I've completed three games since I joined, and I have 4 that are in progress. One of those is that first game, a six player sequential game with 3 people who have missed turns.