After reading through this thread and seeing some very good ideas, there are a couple points I would like to make.

1. There are two kinds of leader, those that say "Ok all of you go do this." and those that say "Ok guys we are going to do this" then head off to get it done and if people follow they follow.

Serenwilde tends more to the latter, and the issue is that nobody follows. They see someone else doing it and say "Well ok it's being handled I can go do something else." Apathy unfortunately breeds from this form of leadership as people tend to expect their leaders will just do everything and when something doesn't get done it is obviously the leader's fault. Perhaps, try changing to the the former kind of leadership for a while. Delegate and say "Go do this, because you are a member of this commune and it needs to be done." If they say "Well why should I do it?" The answer is simple. "Because I just told you, you are a member of this commune and it needs to be done." Add in an implied threat if you really want.

2. The majority of this thread should be in Seren news. Instead of coming to the forums and asking "What can we do?" Go to the Seren news and say "What can we do?". Find out what it is your people want, don't want, like, dislike and build from there. Getting a limited scope of biased and unbiased views on the forums isn't going to help you in the end, when the answers are all sitting among those who never bother to read the forums.

Ok, lemme explain what I wrote earlier, about "doing what Glom is doing."

Worry more about interal conflicts. Just ignore the outside world if need be, you do not have to turn to the world and show it the middle finger and say "screw you all." You can worry just about yourself. Worry about what needs to get done to help resovle conflicts. Get leaders who actually give a damn about the Wilde and its needs. Get the guilds to help each other. I know that in the Blacktalon we have a ritual that includes a Shadowdancer, does any of the Hartstone OR Moondancer rituals/rite include a member of the other guild? You also need to get leaders who have a backbone. No offence to any of the Wilde leaders. I understand that as a leader you don't want to start up fights and stuff, but...if something starts up over..say the Fae incident tell over CT, GNT, GT, whateva it's beening fought on, that it doesn't matter if Soandso "enslaves" the fae, each person has his/her own way of HELPING and TAKE CARE of the fae. And yes, you can have your own bloodly opinion BUT that person can also have their own idea of taking care of the fae. If need be, beat them down. If they show disrespect then they need to be told/shown that that kind of behavior is not tolerated. Elders earned their place in the Commune, and you're a younger member? What do you know? It needs to be show and honestly I don't think it is.

-Respect needs to be shown
-Leaders need to give a damn and show that the do care about their Guild and the Wilde
-The guilds need to be on better ground.
-Have a goal in mind for the Wilde, whether it is taking care of fae, nature, etc. Something give people a purpose, a reason. Don't expect people to know what the Wilde is about, don't expect them to know anything about the wilde except that its the "Good commune."
-As said before, make novices feel more than just a novice. Make them feel like a member of the commune. I think that's one of the major faults of all guilds. Why do the novices have to go out of their way and try to spend time with full guild memebers? Even though I was a full memeber of the guild, Yeralih has several times flowed to my location to poke me, and eye me before flow off because I didn't respond. I ask AFK, but when I came back I saw it and I thought "Yeralih is weird!" But I liked that she did it. I found it rather cute. I think it'd be good if that's what others did too, find some way to interact with their fellows, whether novice or not.

Anyone ever told you how much I hate martyr complexes?

That has nothing to do with it. At all. At. All.

Glomdoring's RP is not the same now as it was when our current leadership stepped up, but I can tie all activity fluxes in the Glomdoring to changes in the leadership (either personel or activity). Like I said back on the top of page two, activity is really your department. You can't blame the admin. You can't blame the would-be ministers and secretaries. An IC leader who approaches me with that mindset gets yelled at, and then I dance a merry, merry jig on what's left of their ego.

Try this. Go out of your way to be the people that everyone craves to be around, not because you're sweet or supportive, but because things happen around you. Shayle did it, and look what she has. Yeralih, who runs the Blacktalon moreso than the other two of us, went on vacation, and now the guild is so sluggish that even I don't feel bad for putting more time into my alt. It's not magic. It's not admin-created. It's not a matter of getting more devoted individuals (you already have too many--send some our way, where we can at least get them involved in the game). It's a matter of doing what your guild has entrusted you to do--get up and lead.

Before I started a Glomdoring character, I had a little Moondancer for about 5 weeks, fully intending him to be my main. (I even put credits into him ) Five weeks later, I was shopping around for a different org for him on alts.

There was nothing to do for my character. Like Diamante said, there were older, established, much more competent people taking care of whatever needed to be done. I got brushed off pretty quickly when I asked around for combat training. ("Look, I joined Antaithe and want to learn to defend the Wilde. Now what?" "Oh, eventually when you get noticed, you'll get invited to join the Commune's combat clan and then we'll see. Bye!") I joined Ethereal Watch and... never got any sort of introduction to what we were supposed to be doing, or any sort of assignment. (I didn't know that there were fae in the trees and sky in Faethorn until my Glom character.) The post-GR1 advancement path in the Moondancers was not written down anywhere the whole time I was there, and I got a whole lot of shoulder-shrugging when I asked about it. (And an irritated answer from Tsuki, a propos). The only time I felt useful was when I caught a village revolt, spent half of it watching people, and figured out enough to spend the other half analyzing.

Life after novicehood just didn't exist.

By contrast, Glom seemed starved for people, and I found myself put to use in no time flat. The Blacktalon post-graduation paths were incredibly nicely laid out and detailed, and looked both very instructive and doable. And Fallen totally hit the nail on the head about making the new kid feel like the fate of the Commune rests on her shoulders. In the Blacktalon, at least, we start off novice training by explaining our mission (to tear down everything that is not Glomdoring, and remake it in Glomdoring's image, and all that good stuff). Just tell people, look, we have a sacred mission to do this-or-that (protect the fae, heal Nature...). And this is what you can do as part of that mission.

So part of the answer to your question is, make people feel needed. Don't rely on whoever's been getting the job done for IC decades to get the job done: actively assign and encourage new people to do it, or at least explain to them what can be done. Have training programs in particular areas, like influencing or combat, and favour people for reaching certain milestones. People need to have a job, or they'll get bored.

EDIT: Let me add to that, that yes, Tsuki, you do need to give people checklists - not of what they can do to reach GR10, but of what you can do to reach GR5. Most new players - who aren't alts of experienced players, and are the lifeblood of this game - don't have a clue what sorts of things they can do that really contribute. Moreover, it's really frustrating to sit at GR1 with no prospect of advancement. Checklists, assignments and training programs get people going until they can figure out for themselves how to be productive.

Here's the other part of the answer: Living in Serenwilde is really easy. When I started my Glom character, it was a shock to realise I couldn't do a single comm or village quest because my org didn't hold a village, or that I was guaranteed to die in 1 min after setting foot in Faethorn, where I'd strolled with no sense of danger as a Moondancer. The atmosphere in Serenwilde (room descs, giggling pixies, etc...) is also very pretty and happy. You need to have an edge somewhere. The histories give you one: callously letting city dwellers die at the end of the Taint Wars, washing your hands of all those outside the forest, single-mindedly pursuing the healing of Nature. (I think it's awesome that Hartstone has dirty buried secrets in its past.) Those sorts of things give your goals a sense of urgency, and you need to emphasise them.

Ialie tried that by porting to us yesterday-- had to summarily kick her curious hindparts out, naturally.

It was done nicely though. I felt like a little kid being pulled by my ear.

Again, thank you all for the assistance. It's been a great help.

I asked for this OOCly, because I really don't think bringing it up IC will help the issue, but rather exhaberate it.

actually Nej I dont even know my original fine. You didnt give me one.

I asked several times about advancement. Each time I was told, "Don't bother, we're still working on the paths." Now I've been told we scrapped the post-gr1 advancement path. It's just randomly getting favoured, at the moment.

I've been told to train novices (which I utterly loathe doing. I know it's needed, but I hate it.) if I want favored. I'm gr1, not an undersec, and trained my first novice entirely based on the ghelp scroll I was told to read. We need more undersecs, and people with a clue what they're doing.

Ethereal Watch, as far as I can tell from the channel and newsboard, is completely dead and has been for months. I'm quitting tonight when I get home from work.

...I'm sure I did.

Gah, Moondancers really went downhill then.

Ethereal Watch, on the other hand, was dead more or less since it was set up. It was like the SEG for non-fighters which focused only on Ethereal, so people simply handed fae-related matters on CT instead.

When people actually did care in the Serenwilde, there was a lot of in fighting. Once a small group of people got a strangle hold on things, they pushed the 'Wilde down a path. If it wasn't for the general apathy amongst the rest, there would have been more in fighting.

I guess that is just reflective of not properly indoctrinating novices. You have to really force feed people an ideology. Then you have to keep them busy enough, that they don't have time to think for themselves.

If this had been about 2 weeks ago, I would have not given it a second thought and engaged a large group of Seren who would have fought together in a certain aether bubble a few moments ago.

*tease Shorlen*

Dang it, killing you was supposed to be a community building activity! Why did you have to ruin that by not attacking?

------

And maybe the fae event had more of an impact than I thought. When I asked a prominent moondancer why noone really cares for the Fae and why we have so few Ladies and why the guild is falling apart, I was told:

(someone) tells you, "*sigh* Moon is the most important thing for me now. My love
for the fae diminished, when they called us slavers ."

Well, I guess I could bring Lommy back to the Serenwilde, I'm not sure how much good it would do though.

I've been thinking about it for a while anyway, and now with Narsrim being more or less gone, I don't have to get past him and his "as long as I have a say you won't get unenemied"

But then again I was just thinking about leaving Lusternia for good too, and I really don't want to drop back to my addiction of times past and done. One hour a day would be my limit.

If you guys are up for it, feel free to contact me. Lommy sure has been yearning for his old home for a while now, but it'll take a wee bit of effort of making him realize. Maybe a bit complicated, who knows. As I said, if anyone would like to help me get Lommy into the Serenwilde again, contact me and we'll see.


Well, there aren't that many people left from my days in the Serenwilde are there? Nejii, Shorlen, Laysus... Elryn? I think you started out when I left. So many of my old friends have left and I've never had a chance to talk to any of the new kids, seeing as I was always one of the ebil taintsters.

Man, I wish TSloper was here, he would know how to respond to show you what you sound like...

He has a great guide for people looking to get into the game industry and compalain about all the unfair things, and catch-22 situations that prevent them.

Here is the quote I was looking for...


from.. http://www.sloperama.com/advice/designprep.htm lesson 3

Just a quick thing, Sarvasti - Lusternia hasn't been around for two years! Silly girl.

One of the things that I really don't think is fair - is that when people say we are apathy to novices who are trying to immerse themselves into Serenwilde by learning the history and everything, when we are really given very little. Hartstone has a history - thank goodness; Serenguard has a 'first' Chieftain; and the Moondancers just have a statue of Ellindel. That really isn't much to go on and even then - we barely have a history for Serenwilde itself unlike Glomdoring. To tell novices about their home is difficult, as someone recently told me that we are just likely guessing as well.

Oh, and Lommy! I can make you join Serenwilde again! I made you join Glomdoring, I can fix you right up all over again!

I'm sorry, but the Serenguard has TONS of history compared to what the Ebonguard had. I had to make up the entire history of the guild, on the spot. There was no intention of the Wyrdling becoming our guildhall, that was a request that Rangeul(sp?) came up with.

Only thing I was told, was to make the guildranks similar to that of the Serenguard, having the rankings focused on totem spirits... and then they go and change those titles anyways.

Serenwilde has THousands of years of more history than glomdoring does. All we know from Glomdoring's histoy is what we are not, not what we are. (i.e. we are not Gloriana)

I believe almost all of glomdoring culture is based on three posts by Viravain when the commune opened.(what is night, what is crow, what is Viravain) Is there really not enough information about Serenwilde out there? I find that hard to believe.

From what I have heard from when Gwylifar, and recently when Cuber mentioned on the forums granted that was OOC, that the Serenguard had little to no history - so it was on the same playing field with the Ebonguard.

Serenwilde does not have a thousand years more history. You may be basing that off from the official histories - but there are several things that we don't know. This may be small things such as 'Where did Abeytu come from?' or 'Who was Chuchip?' or 'Why is the Naiad here?' but those things really build up. To me, the only thing that people know is that Serenwilde is a forest - nothing much interesting else.

And I will have to say, while Glomdoring culture is only based on that - I was gratefully that something like that happened. It actually GAVE us something to work with, so we didn't have to run blindly trying to fit our own perspectives and trying to get butchered by the perspectives of people from outside resources.

You could, you know, define yourself independently of everything else in the game. What is Serenwilde? Serenwilde is Serenwilde.