Or in many cases, disagree with a secretary and get guild disfavored, in a guild that never gives guild favors in the first place. Or better yet, get put on guild probation because of a useless system that one in particular uses to make herself feel like people have to take her seriously.

Or better yet, a secretary in a guild of knights who makes sexual advances on almost every female novice that enters the guild, and wont leave them alone; the and when the leaders are told, nothing is done because he is friends with the GM.

Sent requirements were downright lax compared to some. If you thought they were harsh, try the Sylvans. They actually had essays; we required 2 paragraphs of BS.

I know it was all crap. They should just wipe Achaea and start again

Umm, we didn't make our novices write a thing or buy any herbs at all before they passed their interview, just pick up two vials (total cost, 1500) that kept them from being helpless. You must be thinking Sylvans or something. Oh, wait, we made them write a description. Darn, guess we should have been more lax. The BS essay that noone fails even if they just write 'i wanna be a sent cause i luv nature' comes after, as does buying all those herbs.

Dunno, just feeling kind of bothered by the fact that people play MUDs but don't think they should have to write anything at all, even if they aren't judged on it. Seems... silly to me.

Way too easy to fail the interviews though, especially if it's your first guild. Like... rank the following in order of importance (where does pretty much almost every guild get off asking this question anyway?): city, friends, power, nature, guild, order, cookies, self, money

Rank them wrong and

If you read anything we tell you too, that question is easy as hell. If you order them differently, lie. No one gives it much weight afterwards unless things start conflicting.

Yeah lie. Some newbies are too honest for their own good, giving the actual ranking instead of what they're supposed to say despite me dropping hints like bricks, or even telling them outright.

Oh, and the Arcanists who accepted me despite my giving the true order of it anyway.

Now that I think about it, autoclass might be nice. If you don't agree to the guild philosophy (Nature > Guild > whatever), then we can boot you without feeling bad, and you won't care.

I played Achaea for about 4 years. In that time I watched guilds degenerate into nothing more than groups of people with leaders placing requirements and expectations on 'lesser members' that they themselves never had to fulfill. With each new leader, more requirements would be created to the point of it being entirely ridiculous. My characters in Achaea are rogues and have been for quite a long time due to my disgust with this sort of thing. The fact that Lusternia was different in this aspect was a huge reason I got hooked into the game. I cannot believe the things required of new characters (and players) in Achaea. Some are new to muds entirely, some aren't good at writing, a lot do not even understand how the game works and they're expected to behave and roleplay as if they know it all. Instead of teaching them, things are required of them. Read this, write that.

Lusternia > Achaea

Quoted for truth.

Wtf.

You got lucky then. Arcanists got it more messed up than the other couple guilds I played. :/

I never really played Achaea, but I was a GM in Aetolia. When I was a novice, they didn't have any requirements except an interview. When I passed that interview, I still felt like I didn't know a thing about the game, guild, anything. There were only a select few who felt like they would help novices learn stuff.

I became the Novice secretary and implemented some requirements, and a mentoring system. Granted, it wasn't perfect, but it worked really really well, as we were a small guild. It basically forced the novices to learn something. Older players seemed willing to help and it kept some of the riff-raff, spies, people who just wanted some mad skillz (even though we didn't have the greatest skills).

At the time, we didn't have essays, but we did have some RP questions about the purpose of the guild, blah, blah. Hardly ever did we keep anyone back who didn't answer the questions "correctly," but it did give us a chance to help new players develop some sort of RP. After all, we were a "light-oriented, combat guild." If you couldn't give two-s**ts about the light or thought fighting was "wrong," well there were plenty of other snuggle-bunny guilds you can be a part of. Also, you would not believe (well, maybe you would) how many times as a GM I got a tell saying, "one of you novices just did something really stupid." I think some requirements and focus helped alleviate some of that.

It was when we lost that focus of being a "light-oriented, combat guild" that we lost all cohesivness as a group and guild RP went right out the proverbial window.

In short, (hah!) I thought SOME requirements helped RP a little, just some guilds took it WAY too far. I like the system we have in Lusternia, but, at least in my guild, it seems like there isn't as much cohesiveness and a lot of people could care less if you get your questions answered.

If you're talking about the Runewardens, just log into your character on Achaea and send me a message, then I'll handle it.

well.. to put it a little more back on topic, and to give you some more insider info on what Achaea is doing, I will sum it up.

Basically, Achaea is phasing out Guilds, and Houses in. I believe what they want to do is create Houses which will cause more political turmoil in cities, because Houses can have armies. This sort of reminds me of the 'mob' back in the 20th century. What makes it very interesting, is that, unlike a guild, you are able to have a multitude of skills from different people in a House thanks to autoclass. This allows the House members to support each other... I.E. free/cheaper bashing runes or free/cheaper enchantments or free/cheaper armour etc., but I think you see my point. This is also very nifty because it creates for better RP (or atleast I would hope so). Also, it eliminates Guild elitism (as does autoclass)... and really eliminates the need for guilds at all. So all in all... guilds are out, houses are in. Woot!

Houses would be a good idea - if it wasn't Achaea. Achaea is a lost cause.

Yeah it is .

That's nothing bad. The other MUDs have taken its inspiration and improved on it.

It's you who's doing that, isn't it?

It's a shame they're implementing such a clever idea in Achaea, which is already doomed to crapness. Should be saved for the next IRE project.