This is mostly aimed at compulsive alt makers/rerolls.

Answer honestly: Which guild has given you the most attentive treatment, as a newbie? This doesn't mean which guild was the most snuggly friendly with you, or gave you the most free stuff. I'm interested in learning which guild has the best system for its newbies/early guildranks.

Which guild made you excited to progress within its ranks, and more importantly, excited to continue playing Lusternia? Be it an interesting way of including you in guild roleplay, combat, or even guild/city relations that were particiularly compelling. Feel free to post your reasoning if you like. I think it's fairly important that newbie systems are given a high ranking of importance when it comes to guild structure.


Additionally, which guild's program have you NOT enjoyed?

Please answer honestly, and not just to promote your own guild / crap on another.

You left out the two most important optons.

"Mine"

and "Everyone elses"

Since the collegium, I feel a bit cut off from the Paladin novices. I can't update cghelp scrolls and speaking intimately with them about the Paladins over the CGT aether doesn't appeal to me. I could go out of my way to communicate through tells, but I preferred GNT-pre collegium days. But that's just me!

I haven't made a newbie alt in a while, not since before the Collegiums came out anyway, so I don't feel up-to-date enough to answer this poll.

For being cut off I agree that it's worse...but I think overall the change is great. Plus, you don't always get landed with newbies since if you're busy you can usually let someone else handle the question without the novice being ignored. In return I try to help out members of every Seren guild when I'm not busy. It's convenient all around IMO.

More importantly, though, what are the SDs/SGs doing wrong? (And what are the Spiritsingers doing right?)

I really think for most guilds it just depends on who is around. There are of course exceptions, I've never made a Spiritsinger but they are obviously doing something really well, or some guilds just may never have anyone around. I've found places where I've made multiple alts (just because my old ones were deleted or something). In one guild, someone spent over an hour teaching my novice and talking about the guild and helping her get equipment, and another time I made a novice I was totally ignored.

In defense of the Serenguard-

I started in late September. Even since then there's been some position shuffling, so things aren't very formal, but I will say that Sojiro, Iasmos, Turnus, Elvira, and others were very good (and continue to be good) about making time for my sometimes inane and off-base questions. Even two or so days ago, I was firing off paragraph-long tells to Sojiro regarding manuvers and how utterly clueless I was about them, and Sojiro patiently responded in detail to each one.

I don't have much to say about other guilds, for obvious reasons, but from what I hear there's more of a structured hand-holding. In the Serenguard, I never felt like I couldn't ask for help if I needed it, but otherwise was basically left to my own devices.

I think the Serenguard and Shadowdancers both have pretty good novice/lowbie programs. Maybe people were thinking about post-novicehood experiences when voting in the second poll? Either that, or they've gone drastically downhill since collegiums.

Yeah. I can't speak for the SG, but the SD have been frequently praised for their handling of novices.

The collegiums themselves concern me a little more than the actual newbie programs. I can't comment on guilds other than the Celestines, whose program Aoife completed just before Celest got its collegium (but she did the quests later anyway).

I found the Celestine program to be fine, honestly - the time-advance tasks weren't too difficult and I was able to get help when I needed it.

My concerns are with the collegiums. I feel that:

- Newbies should still be able to speak on GNT while in the collegium. I like the idea of CGT because it allows a newbie who's starting out when there isn't anyone online in their guild to get help via CGT assuming anyone from ANY guild in the city/commune is online. Additionally, it allows newbies to confine their questions, which may be OOC, to CGT as opposed to CT. At the same time, however, guilds should still be able to communicate with their novices "privately" without having to spam tells at 2, 3, maybe even 6 novices at a time.

- The collegium quests are a little wonky, at least for New Celest. Most newbies aren't going to have learned enough Planar to survive on certain planes, let alone GET to them. I realize that the spirit of elders-helping-newbies means that the newbie should be able to say, "Would someone please help me get to Astral?", but it seems a bit silly to design a quest that a newbie CAN'T do on his or her own unless he or she buys credits as a newbie! Likewise, the Celest "curing quest" is wonky.

- The existence of CGT/the academy does sometimes cause "professors" to feel "oh, well someone else can take care of that newbie" and thus some, say, Tahtetso newbie ends up trying to get help from a Celestine professor because the Tahtetso professors are busy/can't be bothered.*




*This is an example and not an accusation toward the Tahtetso guild. In fact the incident I am deliberately referencing in a vague manner had to do with a different guild altogether.

Well, I know that for a while after the Collegiums came out, the SG struggled in adapting their training to it. This made it especially hard after the GNT change. However, I soon left. So, how have the SG changed their novice training ever since?

And I agree with Veonira, it really depends on who you meet.

It's hard to say, as I havn't been in every guild.

However, I did find the Harbingers and the Celestines to be very nice and helpful to the newbies in the guild.

EDIT: And yeah, I'd rank serenguard as one of the most un-enjoyable. It was a long time ago that I was a member, but at the time no one ever seemed to notice you were there, and if I accomplished one of the trials and asked someone to change my title, it seemed like they were aggravated to do it. >.>

I have really enjoyed how the Serenguard treated its novices when I was one. If you want a nice experience as one, come join us, people here are very helpful.
My first character was a Nihilist, and I didn't enjoy it at all, so I've killed him and moved to Serenwilde.

I've never encountered such a situation since I started as one, and that was two months ago.

Like I said, it was a long time ago, like 2 years. My first character here was a Serenguard.

And yeah, I actually voted for the Nihilist in the second poll. Based off of the experience with a more recent alt.

I agree and reiterate: pre-novices should be able to speak on GNT. I can understand why the admins want a separation between "collegium" novices, who are still learning about the world, and "guild" novices, but it makes it really difficult to speak to your guild's novices specifically. I usually send them tells asking them how they are, but it might feel kinda weird receiving tells randomly from different people asking how you are.

And I agree the quests could use a bit of improvement. The content is all good, but I remember a couple of the Celest collegium quests couldn't be done by everybody at the same time (ie, the healing one, although I think there's another one). When I saw that you could go to an aetherbubble to complete the planes quest, I was like , because expecting novices to solicit such a large time of an older citizen's time just to take them to an aetherbubble for a minute is a bit overwhelming (and most likely not going to encourage said older members to shuttle the novices back and forth).

The collegium does help with the sense of community though, I'll give it that.

Going to get vastly different responses. I, for example, like to be left alone to do my own thing, and learn what/when I feel like it - the Serenguard's novice experience was pretty nice for an alt of mine (and not just because I 'already knew what to do'). On the other hand, there are plenty of people (probably the majority) who prefer having someone tell them exactly what they need to get started.

Most Enjoyable: Ur'Guard (about 8 months ago)
Least Enjoyable: Hartstone (about 4 months ago)

I've always wanted to try an Ur'Guard, so now I think I will.

And yeah, Hartstone is pretty bad too. I also hate their advancement system for after you get out of novicehood.

I spoil my novices... SO badly

When I last made an Ur'Guard alt, I have to say it was probably the best novice treatment (albeit a little lengthy) but it was very good.