Collegiums!

by Tael

Back to Common Grounds.

Tael2007-05-22 04:40:59
ANNOUNCE NEWS #806
Date: 5/22/2007 at 4:34
From: Estarra, the Eternal
To : Everyone
Subj: Coming Soon: Collegiums for Novices!

We have decided to we are going to implement a new feature for
Lusternia, called the Collegium System. This entails that each city and
commune will receive a new subarea, which will be a college-type area
that all new players (students) go to when first joining a guild within
a city or commune. In other words, this is the training center for all
new players to go BEFORE becoming a guild novice. The collegiums will be
jointly run by all guild administrators and their staff. Some features
of the collegium system:

- Each collegium will have quests to introduce new players to the
ambience, culture and history of the city and commune.

- Each collegium will have a separate channel.

- Collegium students will auto-graduate in 20 hours of game play and
move on to become a guild novice. Finishing collegium quests may speed
up this time.

- Guild Administrators can speedup advancement of collegium students who
fall under their guild.

- Collegium students will receive a full refund of lessons while a
student AND as a freshman guild novice.

- The time for being a guild novice will be reduced to 10 hours. Other
than that, guild novices will remain unchanged from how they are now.

Basically, we want the newbie experience in Lusternia to be as rich as
possible. We feel the collegium system will offer a more consistent
experience to introduce new players to the cities and communes as well
as allowing them to form bonds with others of their same level. Although
I know some guilds may feel that this dilutes their importance (I
personally don't think it will), the expectation is that this will ultimately provide a
more solid and consistent experience to help us retain new players.

--

Discuss!

And good job, Admin! Yay!

Morshoth2007-05-22 04:44:56
I am in love!!! I can't wait to see this system put into place, especially as a Guild Administrator!
Unknown2007-05-22 04:45:18
I use novices to feed my camel.

This displeases me.
Unknown2007-05-22 04:46:14
*slings poo*


*slings sarcasm repelent to throw everyone off*


*writes El Barto was here*

superninja.gif
Viravain2007-05-22 04:46:15
Each City and Commune has had a clan setup for planning/brainstorming/etc of their prospective collegiums. If you wish to be a part of this process please contact your local patron.
Verithrax2007-05-22 04:47:46
This will screw up novice handling in Lusternia entirely!

Or maybe, it'll make the Lusternia newbie experience awesome!

Unfortunately, there is absolutely no way of knowing. People are going go be separated in the "wootnessence! it's something new therefore good!" camp and the "But things work fine the way they are, why do the admin have to step in and screw everything up?" camp, both of which are wrong because we don't have enough information.

Pre-emptively close the thread now, thank you.
Morshoth2007-05-22 04:50:04
But it will also help out with the guilds that aren't as populated, and have few Undersecretaries. People are not always around to help the novices, so this will help out quite a bit, as well as making them feel they are part of something.
Estarra2007-05-22 04:50:15
QUOTE(Refugee @ May 21 2007, 09:45 PM) 410614
I use novices to feed my camel.

This displeases me.


There will still be novices... they just have to go through the collegium system first ... to ripen...



Anyway, the system will take some time to put together because we want input from the cities and communes to help in the design. To give you an idea of where it could be headed, we had sketched out the following (this is subject to radical change):
  • Magnagora: College of Undead
  • New Celest: Celestial Seminary
  • Serenwilde: Halls of the Ancestors
  • Glomdoring: School of Shadows

Xenthos2007-05-22 04:51:29
QUOTE(Verithrax @ May 22 2007, 12:47 AM) 410617
This will screw up novice handling in Lusternia entirely!

Or maybe, it'll make the Lusternia newbie experience awesome!

Unfortunately, there is absolutely no way of knowing. People are going go be separated in the "wootnessence! it's something new therefore good!" camp and the "But things work fine the way they are, why do the admin have to step in and screw everything up?" camp, both of which are wrong because we don't have enough information.

Pre-emptively close the thread now, thank you.

Well, it's not actually removing them from guild jurisdiction, and they'll still have guild novice time-- so it's better than CNT in that regard.

As to how it'll work out in practice-- that is, apparently, in large part up to us.

It has the potential to work really well.
Verithrax2007-05-22 04:53:04
Not all Magnagorans are Undead, not all Celestians are Guardians... and School of Shadows sounds like a Hashshashin version of Hogwarts.

ETA: I think this is a plan that could work great, but could also be massively screwed up and result in something bland, frustrating, and sucky. It really depends on the execution of it.
Tael2007-05-22 04:55:45
Love this, really do. Definitely going to try to join the planning team for Seren.

..Do we get a way of putting bad novices in eternal detention?
Richter2007-05-22 04:57:10
They aspire to be undead, however. Mostly.

I think this is a fantastic idea. Between this and Newton mob possession/occurances, I think we are looking to up our retention of new players a bit.
Xenthos2007-05-22 04:58:10
QUOTE(Verithrax @ May 22 2007, 12:53 AM) 410622
Not all Magnagorans are Undead, not all Celestians are Guardians... and School of Shadows sounds like a Hashshashin version of Hogwarts.

ETA: I think this is a plan that could work great, but could also be massively screwed up and result in something bland, frustrating, and sucky. It really depends on the execution of it.

With the Crypt, all Magnagorans can become Undead.

As to the edit-- well, I think *everybody* hopes that the result won't be bland, frustrating, or sucky-- hence the creative process within the organizations as well as upon the Admins' parts.

We'll need to find out more to be sure, but it has a LOT of potential...
Yevah2007-05-22 05:01:05
Point of view of the Celestines.

The Good:

Pre-guild education. Very nice for considering what commitments to actually take, instead of having them forced on you when you enter the Realms as a Child in the Celestines and immediately have GHELP NOVICES, GHELP LEARNING, GHELP SUPERNALS, CHELP COVENANT (and Estarra knows how many more scrolls to read) and all your lessons shoved down your throat and making you read and LEARN FROM TORILI more than you've ever wanted to in a single day.

30 hours to consider this, and to learn everything that's needed.

The Bad:

30 hours total 'novicehood' for newbies who want to get into action fast. (But I suppose the extension is actually good, then again the novice might just get bored and leave before his or her time is over.)
10 hours total novicehood for people we need to keep an eye on. (i.e. newly converted from Magnagora.)

The Ugly:

Truly Horrifying: Restructuring the Raziellan path so that Raziellans have to be collegium teachers, instead of just remaining as only guild instructors.
Ugly: Restructuring the Raziellan path so that it is favourable for Raziellans to be collegium teachers, but not necessary.
Somewhat Facially Challenged: Raziellans, Undersecretaries and Guild Mentors have more work to do.
Verithrax2007-05-22 05:01:42
I agree.

And no, not all Magnagorans aspire to be undead. The Geomancers do exist, you know.

Besides, being Undead in Magnagora is either a transient thing or a sign of power, even with the Crypt. I don't think it's appropriate for a newbie organisation.
Unknown2007-05-22 05:03:33
First off, AMAZING idea admins. This will definitely help out guilds running thin on undersecs, administration etc.

Estarra:
QUOTE
... to ripen...


I lol'd when I saw that for some reason...anyways, I'm glad to have a small part in the building of the Mag college, I can't wait to see this project completed into fruition!
Razenth2007-05-22 05:04:58
It would be cool if bards somehow had a bigger connection to the collegium thingie than any of the other guilds.
Unknown2007-05-22 05:09:12
To share my $.02 with a quick thought...

Sounds like a good idea, but please don't put in quests that are hopelessly obscure and give you absolutely no leads to go on. What bugged me about Newton...Either the quests were given away completely by hints, or there would be /nothing/ to go on and it would be impossible to bring up with NPCs around there (Re: Catapult) or otherwise figure out what to do. Or, at least, that's how it seemed...
Arel2007-05-22 05:15:56
QUOTE(Eunkun @ May 22 2007, 01:09 AM) 410632
To share my $.02 with a quick thought...

Sounds like a good idea, but please don't put in quests that are hopelessly obscure and give you absolutely no leads to go on. What bugged me about Newton...Either the quests were given away completely by hints, or there would be /nothing/ to go on and it would be impossible to bring up with NPCs around there (Re: Catapult) or otherwise figure out what to do. Or, at least, that's how it seemed...


Everyone knows the Newton quests are evil. I doubt these will be like that. Newton is to get a taste for the quests in the game, these will be more like educational quests.
Anarias2007-05-22 05:20:03
Serenwilde's collegium name is almost identical to the name of a place in the Hartstone guildhall. That would be needlessly confusing though the concept itself is fine.