I think having novices have a flag of some sort to show they are a newbie even after they are over level 21 would be a good idea. That way players who are more experianced can remove it and no one really worry about them, but those who are true newbies would still have it up and people would be a little more accepting of their questions and comments rather then imediately jumping to stupid young person mode.

I've seen recently a few younger mags who I believe are new players to muds, or ire all together being assulted, talked down to and just being blown off while they are usually just asking for a little help. I don't know if this happens anywhere else but I think this flag would help people be a little more understanding to these new players.

You mean like grace of innocence?

No... just something like:

(Newbie) Dumbnoob is here.

Which lasts until end of novicehood.

I don't see the harm in this besides the break of immersion, but I think that it's more effective to try and keep people in your guild from abusing the poor newbies.

I think this is a good idea.

Guild leaders should give titles to those in their guild who are completely new to mudding to people know to give them a bit more slack.

I think I'll discuss this with my guild.

Uh? You're going to ask if every new novice is new to Muds and then title them stating that they are really newbies?

In a much more subtle way, yes.

I like the idea of the novice flag. Would be nice combined with the right to keep talking on the newbie channel. I know I missed that channel a lot because I found it very difficult to ask questions to my guild because they were rather ooc.

Well the ebonguard just decided to call any novice who we find "has lost all memories of even the most basic activities" to be retitled Recruit instead of the normal novice title

Thanks for the very good idea.

Shouldn't you just like I don't know treat all novices about the same and offer them all help, advice and aid anyway? You shouldn't blow off any newbie in your guild or city if they are just asking a question or two about how things work. I mean I've been helping this newbie aiakon understand how maneuvers work for a while

The only problem is that it can get to be a big waste of time explaining the basics to an 'experienced' newbie, and it's mildly alienating to assume 'real' newbies know what's happening.

I like the idea. Maybe, when making a character, ask if they would like the flag? If so, add something to their titles (not guild-specific though, as that'd be way too confusing...we don't need to be recognizing 32 different guild novice titles). Those with the title should only be treated with extra patience when explaining basic stuff, nothing else, so that no one who's not a real newbie will take it.

Like the choice on character creation. And instead of in a title, show the flag in their honours? So people won't treat the novice as a real "dumb clueless noob" the moment they spot it, but rather can check it when needed?

Just make a new title in your guild if you like the idea. its working nicely in the Ebonguard so far.

It would be neat to have it be a built in sort of thing that shows up in honors, though. Maybe tie it in with registration, if you say you have alts, the flag's disabled?

That might not be a good idea. What if someone is really new to the game and/or MUDs in general, creates a character and plays him for a day or two, but then decides he doesn't like him for whatever reason and makes another. Technically, he's got an alt, and will likely answer yes to that question - but that doesn't mean that he might not need a little extra help.

I think it should be a seperate question - like, when you type OUT to leave the Portal the first time, you have to decide then if you'd like the extra help or not.

I think the flag would be much easier than having every guild come up with two novice titles. We don't need any more ambiguous titles...I thought "Unblooded" was a Nihilist or Ur'guard title for the longest time...

If there could just be a general flag that has nothing to do with a specific guild, that would make recognizing them overall a lot easier.

And I lied in an earlier post. I just thought of how devious people could create alts with the newbie flag and sneak into other cities to 'spy' or do annoying things, but they'd receive a bit more patience because they have the flag. There seems to be some kind of trend developing with people making 'joke' characters just to annoy certain organizations...

It took me all of 45 minutes to find all the guild leaders, call a meeting, start a meeting, discuss the concept and come to an conlcusion on the issue.

Its not like anybody but the guild and city they belong to will care about thier newbieness.

Something tells me it will take more than 45 minutes for the admin to code in such a function.

We do actually try to track what organization various titles belong to - so we can identify where an annoying novice is from, and thus who is appropriate to talk to about them. And it might in fact make a slight difference in how we handle things, in that a true novice is going to be more believably ignorant about what they're doing.

Edit: Also, if you're able to get all your guild leaders together that quickly, you're lucky. It's a lot harder for some other organizations to manage.