The buzz about it is
true. The former leader of
Jump Academy (JA) has stepped down, and I have taken command. So what does this all mean?
JA is now
affiliated with jump.tf in the fullest sense of the term. No longer will it be a niche and isolated group that runs independently and nonchalantly against the advices and developments of the main jump.tf group. Communication will be re-established, and we can grow healthily together from now on.
This change was a necessary step to ensure the survival of entire TF2 jumping community. Team Fortress 2 is an aging game, and its current player base is already growing up and moving on faster than we would have liked. Even within the jump community, we are already seeing great players disappearing, and without new and talented players to take their place, we will lose the role models that players can look up to and push themselves to improve enough to challenge them as rivals. Sure, not every new player can be skilled enough for this path, but it's the dream that makes things happen.
Jump Academy has established itself as the go-to place for new or experienced TF2 players to learn how to jump. Whether this is for sport (i.e. speedruns) or as a practical skill to gain an advantage in normal gameplay,
JA presents itself as a group dedicated to helping players jump start into jumping. The promotional video expresses this motivation well:
However, while the goal was noble, the group eventually found itself struggling to sustain itself, or even justify the efforts put in to maintain it. The approach taken by the previous leadership attempted to tackle the problem of teaching by imitating the
tutoring aspect of actual education facilities. However, this is an example of where realities within gaming and real life
do not coincide. There is no reliable and guaranteed
persistence within a game such as TF2. Players come and go as they please and are not subject to trackable measures of their performance or behavior. Nor is there any real reason new players can have not to simply give up and
drop out.
The consequence of this system is that the teachers become
a resource that is simply consumed. In other words, new players, whether it is intentional or not, take for granted the services of teachers who have
volunteered to provide out of the goodwill and sense of accomplishment that comes from the natural desire to share the skills and knowledge they have acquired through much hardship themselves. Teachers teach because they want to teach, and because teaching is a way to help guide the inexperienced through rough challenges via smart or creative tips and tricks that try to make their learning experience
even better, easier, and more efficient than ever. However, this motivation to teach is being
killed by having teachers
removed from actually playing a game to
working to keep their title.
This sentiment has been noted from many former teachers. Many have moved on
to have more fun by improving themselves and challenging each other. Cue The Tempus Network (TPN). This is where a lot of them have now devoted a lot of their time, and even more so than before if they have already. This pattern highlights a critical aspect of
self-motivated learning and improvement. This is the hallmark of successful self studying in any topic -- not just jumping. But this does not occur just to people who have become bored and decided to do something for themselves just because it's fun and challenging.
We observe this behavior in new jumpers. New jumpers have an inspirational motivation to learn to jump
because they want to. Regardless of the reasons, this motive becomes established and is fuel for their continued improvement should they be provided the support they need. In particular, this motivation becomes
self-sustaining in a social environment where players in tight groups
strive to encourage and challenge each other. This small-group cohesion can be established friends or even new players that just met. But what works best is when this group is
similarly skilled so that at no time does a
subordinate relation form where it appears one players knows everything and the other player sees themselves as "newbie".
If this relation is established, despite any good intentions,
the respect between them is not equal. Respect in this setting is one that
cripples self-driven decision making that is an important part of the learning process. By being completely obedient in following instructions down to the letter, the student does not feel the need to explore why the given instructions are considered good instructions but simply take it as it is. In the event of disagreement, the student feels
compelled not to disagree and not try to find out a reason behind the disagreement. However, reconsider this teaching and learning scenario between friends of a similar skill level. They can argue and discuss, with each offering their suggestions and trying things out
until it works and they will feel content because they have solved their problems with
teamwork. This explains why despite the difficulty of the challenge, we see small groups of players
attempt to grind through difficult jump maps for hours even if the jumps or maps are above their current skill level. This does not preclude students bringing in outside expert advice, but the expert should not take over the session enough to discourage problem solving behavior.
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JA will still need official teachers, but only for the technical reason that access to certain commands that, while helpful to use when teaching, should not publicly available.
JA staff will necessarily manage the team of teachers to keep up standards of teaching. However, as shown above, what is necessary for the community is mutual teaching and challenging. JA's focus should be to encourage this behavior and guide it as necessary
as was the intention portrayed in the video. To help facilitate keeping track of student progress and skill levels, we will soon be implementing a system that can keep track of the completion and consistency of individual jumps of training courses in use by JA, which, for now, are the courses of the jump_academy map. Students will be able to identify amongst themselves while on the server who may have completed the jump they are currently having difficulty with and ask for help.
Responding to the request to teach is
completely optional, even for current teachers, but it is encouraged. And what better way to encourage doing something than
bragging rights? We will be implementing a karma counter system that allows students to thank/+1 the player that has taught them well. Players will come to respect each other more by how well they can teach, because this demonstrates not only jumping skill but that they also have the social skills to communicate both effectively and positively.
Over time, this system will be moved onto the JA rotation servers and be applied for all maps in the form of an umbrella project I describe as
JumpNet, and upon finalization will be
publicly released and available for use by any server so as to not be an exclusivity of Jump Academy, but as a tool for the entire jump community to have fun with.
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Please let me know what you think after you have had a chance to play. I can be reached at my profile, and my favorite jumping class is the Soldier. Thanks, and have fun!Do add comments, suggestions, and questions down below in this thread. Let's all work together to make the jump community a better place.
