Just a small idea.

With the torrent of novices and problems with players being able to work enough to introduce them all properly, I thought a system to aid the process might be extremely useful. Not necessary, but so beautiful for imparting a sense of the guild's RP right from the start.

I don't want to detract from Undersecs guiding novices personally, but I want to augment their efforts so they can focus on addressing the individual needs and questions of the new people rather than having to repeat all the routine crap. This suggestion would work best when the novices have an undersec accompanying them and filling in any gaps they may encounter.

Basically, this would be a way to put the novice through a set amount of instructions or background info instead of forcing older players to continually repeat it. They are whisked to a room with a mobile who speaks to them like Lachesis in the newbie intro, and the text and RP is unique to the guild.

I'm calling it initiations only because introduction was taken.

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For example, Dain - the tutor of Hartstone.



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Notes:
** The mobile spawned for each novice disappears when they quit, or when they leave the room. It is also a teacher for all guild skills.

** Guild leadership who get to the intro room by ASK (tutor) TO OBSERVE INITIATION will hear all communications to the novices there. Edit: Bolded for emphasis. The idea being that undersecs go along with the novices and personally guide them, letting the mobile give each novice clear instructions for the real basics. In this way, allowing a few undersecs to deal with many novices at a time, without losing the individual experience or burning out the undersec.

** Would be nice if the novice got a small bonus for going through it.

** For the main content of the script I think would be great if it could be written by the guild admin and was changeable. For instance, give a new privilege "GUILD EDIT INITIATION" to guild admin only (costing 50000 gold), which edits a particular textfile. The format could be

So that every paragraph is a separate says, and any paragraph beginning with '-' corresponds to a "Do you want to continue?" break point.

That way the guild can keep it they way they like, without loading the guild patrons with too much extra work.

** Maybe limits on being too long would be appropriate, not sure.



I'm half asleep already, so I hope this make sense... but what do you think?

Something of the sort would be nice, if only to keep our poor hardworking novice aides from burning out.

Still requires getting to the tutor, which would be good. Don't think the idea of a bonus for completing it would be good, unless it was something really insignificant. Even the 3 lessons some newbies miss to learn how to Survey if they skip the introductory journey thing is significant for some people.

I like the idea, though it takes away the personal aspect of being taught by, well, a person, which is something I quite value, personally.

Personal aspect is to be preferred of course, but with the torrent of novices I'm worried about burnout of those who can and do deal with them. Even with the normal flow of novices there's been burnout in the past for some people. Something that took care of the general bits and ran through the basic stuff and then prompted the novice off to ask more specific questions and get a bit more might be useful, even if it detracts a bit from the personalization. At least it'd be somewhat interactive, unlike being told to read a scroll, and read another scroll to learn what they need to know if no one can help them.

Personally.... I hate the thought of the novices being stuck with an automated system all the way up to the end of their probation period, and not needing to even interact with another player untill they get curious about what to do after Newton...

That said... *Sighs* I'm forced to admit that the influx of novices is a bit overwhelming... I'm not surprised the guilds novice training secs and undersecs are overwhelmed... While a semi-automated training system would be very usefull... It should be kept as simple as possible, maintaining the RP, but short, concise, and primarily focused around their learning, and the various scrolls or books the novices need to learn...

The problem with anything like this is it will take the admins time to impliment it... If they decide to... Its only twelve guilds to set it up for... I suppose if they submit each of their own training programs it wouldn't be too hard for the admins to write it in... Meh... I'd rather hear what Estarra and the other admins think about this... I understand how its rather needed, but I don't like it much...

Suhnaye is correct that it would be a lot of work, but that's never stopped us before with a good idea, I'm curious as to what more people (and especially undersecs or new characters) think about it.

I know that when i was new, or when I invite new people in, or when I create an alt, to see if I like a guild, I find that most people despise having to wait for someone to come on. It is understandable though, sometimes having to wait a few days, simply because of difference in the time zones of the players perhaps. It doesn't bother me too much, since there ARE other things to do to pass the waiting time, but new players may not know this yet.
I can also see how the Guild Secs could be overwhelmed rather easily, as alot of us simply do not wish to spend 100% of our ingame time on helping the youngins'.
I am pro-this idea.

As an idea to take some burden off of those who are constantly training newcomers, I like it. As something that tends to remove the people from the loop, I dislike it. If there could be a better way to integrate this with the current methods of training, I think it could work.

For a few months I really tried hard to sell an idea like this to people in Achaea but it never got off the ground for several reasons. I think it would do a lot to help relieve a lot of grunt work on the undersecretaries part.

I think it depends on how the guild uses it. If it is used as the only way to train a novice, it's a terrible idea. If novices are helped personally when possible, and only with the system when it isn't possible, then it's a great idea.

In my opinion.

This is a fantastic idea, especially since it would allow you to get a sense of what the guild's RP is supposed to be. You could sit there as a novice for a rl week, and not know much about your guild (well, if you're a warrior ).

I think it would be nice, but, like Tsuki said, it still requires getting to the trainer. If there was some sort of reminder (As a fail safe if no one was online when a novice joined) coupled with a GHELP to read with directions to reach the tutor then I could see it working out well enough so it could subtitute when necessary.

And I agree with Richter. Even though you might want to personally teach every novice not everyone teaches the same. I know from my experience that most novices want to get out there and explore/level/gain new skills after being taught the ones they gain from learning the "requirements," but in this case you do get a sense for the roleplay of the guild you joined. You could play Lusternia for a good solid 24 hours doing things by yourself and not learn anything about being a Celestine (Just an example) if someone isn't giving you storytime or you don't realize the GHELP INDEX command (And then you'd be overwhelmed by 20-some different files).

I bugged the Jeebus out of Shikari about something like this...but I got distracted and didnt finish what he asked me to.. then there was the whole suicide thing.


And I asked Viravain about Damian sending messages to those who step from the portal and those who graduate from novicehood so they have some inkling of what to do. In case a village is up for play and all that and an undersec cant get to em.

Ah, I know what I was trying to say:

I want novices to have a good solid RP foundation for what their guild actually means. This would completely rock.

While this would be handy, I think it would take away from the personal touch of having someone from the guild teach you...

It doesn't have to. If it isn't required, but there to help out if and when it is needed, it could be a very, very good idea.

Well, the beauty of having a script decided by the guild leadership is that you could use this however you like.

For guilds that are having trouble adequately introducing novices personally, it allows multiple novices to be simultaneously introduced by a single aide, who need only add anything they personally feel should be said and answer questions. This vastly reduces the pressure on undersecs and focuses them more on addressing individual needs than just repeating what every novice has to hear.

For guilds that have plenty of aides and no problem with novices, it could be used more as a history device, for older novices to hear a bit about the background RP of their guild rather than the basic learning.

Again, this is not a system whereby you just shove a novice into it and that is it. I've tried to design it to work best when there is an aide also taking part in the process to give a more interactive experience alongside the basic but important content delivery.

In the example I also was a bit lazy in the guild-content part. I would expect a bit more care to be taken normally.

Oh, and I'd be more than happy to help out with the work if I was allowed... thanks for responding to the idea!

No.

His custom title says it all, folks. Don't pay him any attention.