Who, besides the Moondancers, coach novices that enter the realms? I just made an alt to test out the new character creation sequence and was really shocked to find the the Guild I joined didn't even greet me, let alone give me some direction with training and whatnot.

Maybe I'm too used to Tsuki and her entourage of folk training novices, but still, if I were a new player experiencing that lack of interaction I just did I wouldn't be hanging around for long.

EDIT: And yes I did check, there were several people on, some quite high ranking.

Well, topguilds pretty much sums up who is doing lots of work with novices and who is not.

Celestines and Ebonguard do. I can't really judge the Blacktalon, since Xavius can't pass for a real novice. They do ask about me from time to time.

Well, in Geomancers we greet the new novice, tell them what help scrolls to read, and if they request it, someone will personally teach them. I do want to sort of make it more personal, but I don't want novice training to become a sort of, "*Groan* Who wants to teach?" thing, because that's not fun either. People, myself included, also occasionally ask them how they're doing, but usually none of them really ask for help.

I'm hoping the guild you joined wasn't Geos, was it?

The guild I joined is currently in the top half of TOPGUILDS. I don't want to point fingers, so I will leave it there.

Most Nihilists have a trigger that goes off when we get a new one. Mine is this:
gnt Greetings, %1. Please read GHELP FATED and GHELP LAWS. If you've a question, please ask here by doing GNT (message)

Then if they want help, they ask, we give it to them. If they've having problems, try and solve them, that sort of thing. We just don't get many novices.

Wow, automated coaching... we really should add that in HELP AUTO as something that should be banned.

I loathe reflexes, because some people have really long welcome messages, and they used to be reflex and that just created a big old mess on GNT. I just asked everyone to get rid of it.

And granted, not ALL high ranking members deal with novices. At least in Geomancers, although most will step up if no one else is around. Now I'm itching to know which guild!

It's one trigger to tell them what to read, and anything else is manual. I'm sure the Gods will forgive us that.

It doesn't matter which guild it was, I guess I just want to give people a kick in the pants and say "look after your novices". We need them in character, since players invariably leave over time, and IRE needs them to bolster sales and whatnot.

I would have been stuck at the portal if someone hadn't have wandered by at about the same time as I arrived and started dawdling about. It just wasn't good enough.

EDIT: Hopefully it was the exception and not the rule.

Oh, so YOU'RE the novice I forced to kick guards and die several times becaue I ... oh, umm... NONE of you heard that...

I have an automated response for new novices on java, but not on any of my clients that I swap around. It's useful when I'm the only ranking person around, but sometimes we get uber spammed because I few others have those.

I think the Aquas do a pretty good job at novice coaching. Most of our undersecs really like helping younger people. I usually just kick back and watch most of the time.

I have a trigger to capture the name of a new novice. And a macro for my greeting message, so if nobody else is offering advice on what to read, etc., I can do it.

Of course, sometimes, this backfires, as other people do the same thing, and we all wait to see if anyone else will greet....then, when nobody does, we all do our macro/alias at -exactly- the same time.

I don't understand why you can't just greet them and train them first hand. If it's an alt, sure, they won't need the indepth training, but we should always assume someone is coming to us with no MUD experience, and take it from there. Being sent to read GHELP TEACHYOURSELGIMTOOBUSY isn't the greatest way to get a newbie rolling.

We have our guild read the help files and then we teach them one on one. I actually LOATHE when the novices teach themselves. That's how you get novices with all of their lessons all over the damn place.

Serenguard don't (or didn't when I made my novice-treatment testing alt).
Hartstone does (or did when I made my novice-treatment testing alt).

(I was curious how other Serenwilde guilds treated novices)

Aquamancers do, I think- noone introed my nexus-testing alt, but there was only one other member on at the time and he was GR1. Someone came by later and asked if I was introed, and was very sad when I wasn't.

Celestines didn't back when I made a random alt long, long ago.

Actually, I prefer them teaching themselves. They learn more that way. I can't stand dealing with people who can't figure out -very- basic things, when they've been given instructions on how to do so.

If I give a few help files that list pretty much every question a novice asks, and they keep asking me questions that's answered in there, I get very, very annoyed.

The game should be about interaction, not reading scrolls :S.

I think it's different for different guilds, really. A lot of our novices don't have a problem with it, and our novice help files actually says that they can request a teacher OR be taught by Ardrak. I think a lot of them choose to just learn themselves, and they do fine. We answer all of their questions, and if they ask for a teacher we teach them. Granted, some people in the guild may go out of their way to teach, but we don't require it to be done. It really kind of goes along with Magnagora, where people are encouraged to learn things on their own. We don't mind if someone really wants to be taught personally.

I think my attitude toward is it a leftover remnant from Achaea, where when a novice would join, all you would see on GT was, "Someone needs to teach them." "Sorry I'm busy." then you'd get a tell begging you to teach them.

I like a level between being left to helpfiles and being force-fed half an hour of information that probably won't mean anything for a good while.

I think a newbie that's just arrived from the portal of fates should have the option of getting indepth guidance if they wish it, but otherwise they need only be directed to learn what they must learn, how to interact and ask for help, and then sent on their way.

Making sure they know everything about their skills and all the intricacies of combat/travel/communication can be done later. The last thing we want to do is overload someone who is just casually checking out what it is like in Lusternia with too many details.