We're soon going to introduce the ability for certain NPC denizens to incitizen and inguild players. This is in response to a need we have seen for greater availability of this power, and in order to make it easily accessible to newbies.

HOW THIS HELPS YOU:

• If there is a raid going on and all the high-ranking players are busy or away from Prime, there will always be someone available to incitizen/inguild newbies
• If you are in a low-population guild/city, or someone wants to join during off-peak hours, there will always be someone available to incitizen/inguild newbies. I think this is particularly a boon for guilds
• It makes citizening/inguilding a painless and quick process for newbies who want to learn to play the game, allowing them to get onto the more enjoyable aspects of Lusternia and making it more likely that they will stay around to play (believe it or not, we have seen real newbies get frustrated with things as simple as reciting oaths and quit, because the game didn't grab their attention quickly enough)

HOW THIS WILL WORK:

• For cities and communes, the Keeper of the Nexus will incitizen/welcome
• For guilds, the Collegium tutors will inguild

LIMITATIONS:

• If someone has been kicked out of the org previously, they will not be able to re-join through an NPC.
• If someone is an enemy of the org, they will not be able to join.
• If someone is an enemy of an organization the org is closely affiliated with, (such as enemies of Moon trying to join the Moondancers or enemies of Celestia trying to join the Celestines), they will not be able to join.
• Update from Shamarah: If someone has ever been an enemy of the org, they will not be able to join via an NPC.
• Update from Xavius: If someone is prohibited from joining by the above, the Guild Administrator or Ambassador will have a special command that will waive their inability to join via an NPC.

We're announcing this beforehand to give you a heads-up on what to expect, and to allow you to give some feedback before the system is coded and released.

Oh my, great!

I think this helps many new players. Also, make them unkillable!

Is there some sort of age/level limitation?

In this case, could some adjustment be made then, to have Ambassador mean something? Otherwise, may as well just remove the role. High rank citizens can welcome/induct, the collegiums removed a lot of the work with helping the collective young of the commune/city, and this just...minimizes the role even more.

If an adjustment to Ambassador (aside from purely RP roles, because anyone could be dubbed Ambassador and carry a title, but a city/commune sanctioned role is more and more obsolete) would be considered, I'll write down the ideas I have had for it, to discuss.

Wouldn't this mean someone that we don't want in the city, who's not enemied (let's just say Person A) would be allowed to join with no explanation? There should be some sort of hours-played or level limit.

Would there be repercussions if we kicked someone out who was able to join that we didn't want in?

I think it's nifty and the limitations take care of any problem I could think of. Course, I usually tend to give people more credit than others so I'm sure someone will think of a way this can be horribly abused that I wouldn't have even considered. But frankly, I think it's nice. Especially for those folks who want to join an org when it's like 3am and there's only 2 people there and neither of them can do it.

As for Ambassador, I've always thought that this Ministry should have some sort of tangible effect on inter-org relations, diplomacy and so on, as much as welcoming new members. After all, when you hear the word 'Ambassador' don't you think of foreign relations?

edited cause I can't spell!

Sure. I agree that the Ambassador isn't a very interesting Ministry at the moment. Feel free to start another thread on how we could make the Ambassador more meaningful.




I don't see a problem with a person who has remained in good standing with an organization joining it easily. Why should there be an hours-played or level limit?

There should be an "unwelcome" list to prevent people from joining that way who are known nuisances or past transgressors but not enemies. Alternately, make people unable to join by this method if they have EVER been an enemy.

Other than that, sounds good.

Yes, I think its good that new people can join through the tutors in the Collegium, but I think that people who are a certain level or age really should have to do it the old fashioned way, for the reason Forren mentioned. The Celestines have different requirements depending on a persons history and relationship with Celestia (far beyond enemy status), and I wouldn't like to see all that tossed into pointlessness. Some people just would never be inguilded, for varying reasons. It would be a bad idea to take control of those kinds of situations from the guild leadership.

Though, I suppose you could just kick them out immediately after you noticed. It would be terribly odd IC for your tutor to accept someone into the guild its obvious the guild leaders wouldn't, though.

EDIT: To be more clear, after seeing Morgfyre's response above.. Someone may not be an enemy because they pose no active threat to Celestia or do not any longer, but that doesn't mean they'd make a good Celestine or be allowed to join.

There are some citizens of other orgs whose sheer idiocy and stupidity would bar them from joining Celest should anyone ask "Would anyone mind if X joined?" on CT. Why shouldn't established players have to go through the regular process?

If the list of limitation is a bit bigger, I think this'd be fine.

Enemies of any party associated with the city or commune should keep you out. Not just Moon for the Moondancers, but Faethorn, Moon, Stag, Moondancers, Hartstone, Serenguard, Spiritsingers, and Shofangi enemies should all be stopped from even joining Serenwilde.

Characters who fulfill the mentorship requirements (300 hours and over level 50) should not be able to move to the opposing org (Serenwilde-Glomdoring, Celest-Magnagora) once they've graduated from the associated collegium without talking to someone.

Letting newbies join is good (and I've asked for it for a long, long time now).

I don't really see a reason for letting anyone join, though, and my concerns are very closely related to Forren's and Creslin's.

I'm wary of the unwelcome list, because it may be the case that a "nuisance" becomes a very broad interpretation. I see no problem with kicking someone out of a guild as long as it's not on a flimsy or OOC basis, however.

If the person has ever been an enemy, making them join via a real person sounds reasonable.




I'm not terribly convinced by this argument. If you doubt whether a person will make a good Celestine, doesn't your guild teach them what is is to be a good Celestine and serve Celestia faithfully (particularly during novicehood and the low guildranks)?




You haven't answered my question so much as replying with a question to attempt to make me defend the notion that anyone should join who has remained in good standing with the org (very political of you!). However, I still believe the original premise is reasonable and stands on its own. Again, why should someone who has not been involved in conflict (and thus is not an enemy) not be allowed to join without any bureaucratic red tape?

Oh, another thought.

To avoid having trouble meeting up with someone, add a command to give an individual who would be otherwise disqualified (time played, previous enemy status, former org membership, whatever) to join through the automated system.

I like this as well. It sounds like a good GA/Ambassador priv!

That just reminded me - we don't incity people with certain enemy statuses.


Because the city's populace should determine what quality person should be allowed in Celest.

I don't want to name names - some people are viewed as trash and are very disliked by the populace of Celest. These people are not enemies. These people have not been kicked out. However, they would likely drive valued citizens to quit and provide no value to Celest. An example of this is someone who offered prostitution over market. I've barred citizenship for crap like that in the past. Is it not our right to have standards?

I see no need to allow established players immediate access to the citizening process - the reason for the "red tape" as you call it is to bring the perspective citizen past statues that test enemy statuses, make sure citizens are okay with them being citizened, and being to induct them into the RP environment of New Celest through saying oaths.

I don't see a problem with this working for newbs - I'd like that. However, for other players, the established citizening process is necessary.

A rather tame example: The Celestines generally regard walking away from their duties to Celestia after a certain point betrayal and limit the readmittance of those who do. They are required to gain certain support from other priests and make amends with Celestia. They're not always enemied, though, so allowing them to just talk to an npc would erase all of that for us. Even one who we know would make a good priest is required to do this. We also require baptism for those who come from other organizations and aren't novices..its a part of this teaching that goes along with novicehood and lower guild ranks, which would not matter if they could talk to an npc and join. A second example: Those who have spent their lives working against Celestia in ways that generally don't lead to enemying (due to their subjective nature). Perhaps leadership in an opposing organization, library submissions, etc.. The Heresiarch, should they manage to avoid being an enemy, certainly isn't someone I want to be able to join through an npc.

I like allowing novices to join, and I like the idea of an allowance given by the GA or their designates so that someone can join if they can't meet with someone in the guild who is able to inguild but would otherwise be restricted. I would prefer the following restrictions (which could be overridden by the GA as above): those who have previously been members of the guild, who are or have previously been enemies of the guild or entities associated with it, or who have been citizens out of novicehood in their rival organization (Magnagora in the case of the Celestines or Celest).

What is that? It smells like... fear. Fear of irrelevance and obsolescence.

I think what Forren is trying to get at, correct me if I'm wrong, is there are some people that a city/commune/guild just would not want let in. They may have never done anything to get enemied, but that doesn't include pissing the entire orginization off. I don't think I've ever seen:

Joe declared Biff to be a formal enemy Reason: For shouting smack about and the .

Or something to that affect. Otherwise, I think Kalodan would have been enemied to Celest and Mag two years ago. Usually if people are enemied to an org for trash talking said org's beliefs, it's usually from within, IE: A Mag trash-talking the Taint on Mag's CT. Most of the time a disfavour (and maybe killing the person) shuts them up, and if the problem presists, THEN they kick them out and enemy them. But there already stops the automated system because if you're kicked out, you have to go through people to get back in, and usually that doesn't happen.

So I think the Guild Admin and Ambassador should be able to not only remove people from the -list, but also add them too.


However, I think there should be NO restrictions on people fresh from the Portal to join.
I say that because it would make the game WAAAY less inviting for novices.
On a somewhat unrelated (but not really) note, it might behoove the Admins to add to the Elfen, Merian, Illithoid and Viscanti descriptions that they aren't welcome in Mag for the former 2 and Celest for the latter 2. That would save novices the hassle of having to reincarnate, and then perhaps realizing they STILL aren't happy with their race and not having a reincarnation. I say that it's not really unrelated because I don't think it would be long before Celest and Mag start clamouring to add race bans to the bannable things.