Yea, that's why it's so frustrating. There needs to be more novices like Shorlen was.

When I first joined, a long time ago, I was originally a Hartstone novice. It was ok. I had Astrasia as my tutor. She was nice, very informative. As a novice, I was quiet. I hardly asked questions because I also read the scrolls in GHELP and CHELP. I remembered what they had in there quite well. The only problem as a novice I had, and still do, is the quest. The Hartstone guild wasn't bad...but by the time I got out of novicehood...I didn't know what the heck to do. I didn't know that I could go on Ethereal and what not..no one told me that sorta thing. So Lusternia got boring.

I really don't remember my novice training for Ksilrinda. But I like the BlackTalon because they're fun! I even lunch once.
I sort of don't like the Shadowdancers because they're...meh. I just don't like them. And they sort of ignored me.

Moondancers isn't bad, but they ignored me too. Celestines aren't that bad, but I had a weird teacher as a novice from them. Nihilists were actually rather nice. They didn't ignore me at all. Aquamancers ignored me. I've never actually tried any of the warrior guilds because they sort of repel me...but I'll eventually get around to it. Geomancers...I'll get around to them too.

Personally I enjoy Hartstone's novice training...they tend to be more "hands on" than the other guilds I've been in. They don't have you read, from my experience so far, at first. That comes after the training.

But out of all the guilds, I enjoy BlackTalon the most. And Glomdoring as a whole. They tend to be much more fun for me.
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I've never been a undersec. but I enjoy helping novices, its just a natural habit for me and I find pleasure in the fact I helped some. Made me useful

Out of all the novicehoods Ive had to do (All of Dia's and then the alts hehe) I found the Moondancers to be good, informative (That just may be because I had to repeat it fifty billion times *mumble*) Shadowdancers in the very early days was creepy, very very very creepy and hard because they threatened to fail me, and the two others I was with if we didnt fulfill our novice requirements when they wanted em done. Blacktalon and Hartstone I liked a lot, you Druids just rock for your novice trainings! Astrasia was an amazing teacher to have, and I surprised her and Nyla was cool to us novices though I didnt keep that alt for long..pretty much cant handle magic users in Glomdoring. Ebonguard..well..for both characters Ive had there I think they were both ignored, but their skills so easy to learn that it just didnt matter really. Celest I always had people to help me, great people too. My Aqua, my first Celestine, and Dia all were helped very easily into the city and Guild. I honestly love Vanthan and Airell for their help with Dia. Magnagora whenever I created an alt were always in the middle of something, but again they realized that they would run into the problem and had amazing scrolls written up to help young ones.

Ebonguard, Hartstone, Blacktalon, Nihilists, Celestines and Moondancers I congratulate you guys on your amazing Initiation Training programs you have. Other Guilds, youve done amazing jobs as well dont doubt me there.

I think of it as getting the next generation of Druids ready to ward off the cities and the taint.

The Taint doesn't exist.

It's an illusion created by the old Celestine Empire, and maintained by the Aquamancers.

Heathen.

WOOT! Go Iblis!! The "taint" no longer exists. Its like asthma for some people, they grow out of it. New Celest and Serenwilde just keep up the dang "Oh! Well, you got tainted by Ketharu, you're tainted!" Besides, Glomdoring isn't tainted anymore, We're wyrded! So we're BETTER than the taint.

Except for the fact Crow and Night are still tainted

Your forest may be Wyrded but your Spirits are still Taint, you feel it when you bond to Night and Crow

Like I said before, there's no "taint." Its just your imagination. You think and thus feel that they are tainted, but they're not. If you believe that they're tainted, than that's your belief. We of Glomdoring know better.

Blah blah bah. Off Topic!

Yeah, Hartstone, in my opinion, and from what I've seen is a leap ahead of every other guild I have tried. (Nihilists, Celestines, Pladins, Shadowdancers) Shadowdanacers were second best, then Celetines, Nihilists and Paladins were all Okay. None were terrible, in all of them someone asked me if I was doing well and such. But Hartstone is waaay ahead of the rest and the blame for that lies squarely on Nessa, who is the best administrator I've ever served under.

I enjoy teaching newbies.

I don't care for training novices.

I guess the difference is, nobody chews me out for teaching newbies "wrong".

No, no one has actually chewed me out for training novices wrong on Lusternia.

They did on Achaea. Scolded for stepping in to help some poor guy no one else would answer and imparting what knowledge I had, I got told something along the lines of, "Train novices completely, or don't train them at all."

Basically, I don't bother getting involved in MUD organizations because the leaders nearly always throw away the carrot, and wield the stick like some righteous sword of justice.

You want people willing to train novices? Or take on other guild/community responsibilities? Try paying them.

The communistic tradition of treating guild and community credits as a resource to be distributed evenly among the populace, regardless of merit, is nothing short of absurd.

Sure, everyone wants tons of cheap credits, and there's going to be an uproar if you close the doors of that particular soup kitchen. But no one's actually going to starve for it. The last thing Lusternia actually needs is institutionalized welfare.

Serenwilde short of gold? Serenwilde should sell off credits at (or near) market price.

Serenwilde short of workers? It should pay them.

It's called capitalism. Try it sometime.

I do novices for free. When I was a Hartstone Undersecretary it was nice to see so many people I trained and see them rise often above my power level and become colleages. All along they usually respected me for training them. It's gratifing to go bashing with someone who you taught to kill rats. On another note, Hartstone has sooooo many novices I had no free time... that got a little extreme, but I was going to leave the Commune anyways, so quitting was pretty easy

As for the suggestion to try capitalism: Hope it never happens in the Commune of Serenwilde. Wouldn't be very Communal, or dare I say Communistic if they paid people, now would it?

I can see it working actualy, though it can't be a simple: Do X work, pay X cash. Our current system of guilds realy doesn't offer too many ways for the guilds to earn regular cash. Since the typical idea of buisness is to pay people when the buisness earns money directly or indirectly from them(Retail boy uses cashier, ringing in $500 in profit a week and is given $200 a week in a paycheck), most guilds would be better off paying their Tradesmen than their Undersecretaries, and even more so pay the people who buy OOC credits.

I CAN see the idea of giving benifits though. Selling credits at, say, 4k each to normal people and 2k to Undersecs and more credits to buy to boot would work.

Jacquin won't do it for her Undersecs and Secs: it's just not her thing, even if it is mine, but she already is supplying it for other important positions.

Lastly, make a note that many of the working divine/codemonkeys we have here are NOT payed either.

What the guilds and communities do earn regularly is credits. Everyone will accept credits as payment.

Wouldn't reward inidividual tasks, either, but pay a regular stipend based on job description, and dismiss anyone who was slacking off.

As for the unpaid admins, that's a much different situation, and no one's concern but IRE's.

Your concern is getting people to help with the daunting tasks of running a guild, and that takes time. Considering that in the real job market, anyone's time is easily worth 10 Lusternian credits per hour, refusing your government workers some token stipend for a job well done is just insulting.

And as for Shaedans complaints about having a commune with capitalism in it: oops. He's right. Better close down all the shops and re-open them as government regulated resource redistribution centers, which the managers operated purely out of the charity of their hearts.

The Serenwilde is not communistic, no matter what it calls itself, and real life has proven communism to be a failed business model.

You want more and better workers? Pay them.

I need to start training novices again so I can indoctrinate them with my subversive ideas:

"But I thought we were supposed to hate the Taint?"

"Uh, well, not exactly 'hate', more of a strong, uh, hostility maybe."

I thought about giving novices this one:
"The Taint comes from Kethuru, a God more powerful and older then even the Elder Gods. Therefore, if everything the Elder Gods made is natural, so must everything Kethuru made be natural as well." Sheaden still perscribes to that idea, but the whole "FOR ZE LIGHT!" aspect of Celest has given me all the reasons to kill I'd ever need.

What personally I dislike about training Novices, is a problem which I don't see a solution for - The fact that 8 out of every 10 will disappear after initial training, 1 other will disappear a little later, perhaps after Novicehood, perhaps even a GR or 2 into the guild, and only 1 out of those ten, and that's a rather optimistic assumption, I think, will grow into being a fully fledged fellow member.

Hmm, I've trained about 7 novices in Celestines... and one keeps having to leave every time we get going. I think 4 of them never came back... annnd I only think one is gonna stick around. But talk to them, because that helps too.