I am slightly offended that a newcomer would make such a sweeping overgeneralization without any documentable proof. We have few people, but you'll see a LOT of the people we do have. And, truly, what basis do you have to say that it's Glomdoring, as opposed to the Moondancers' refusal to teach until they show a baseline level of skill? Wouldn't that be more detrimental to the playerbase, since it favors alts over true newbies? Even Tsuki, in an earlier post, said that those are the people who have the most trouble with it.

I know you were just using it as an example, but I feel compelled to provide clarification with details anyway. The ones who give the impression that they're new and still have trouble are having trouble with one of two things.

First, by missing the direction north into the northern Wilde off of the road. This only tends to happen to a few. The scroll at that point says: "From the road, walk east a bit, until you find the first path leading north and into the forest." That's actually the problem I had when I was a novice, as well. I ended up reaching Ackleberry Triple Junction before turning around.

The second place people have trouble is when getting to Loose soil, which has exits to the northeast and west, and not knowing which direction to go. The directions in the scroll say the following at that point: "Once you've entered Northern Serenwilde, travel westward until you reach an area of loose soil. Here, the entrance to the tunnel under the Moon River is hidden, but lies to the northwest. Enter this hidden northwestern tunnel, and continue northwest until you reach a thin forest trail."

The ones who have the most trouble with the directions overall aren't the newbies, but are actually the alts who don't want to bother reading them. Hence why I mentioned earlier that "when they take the time to actually read what the directions say and walk slowly to pay attention to the surroundings" they suddenly discover that it's easy.

If I recall correctly, there's even a part of the introductory tutorial where you have to move around a few rooms and get to somewhere else. Getting to the tower is an extension of that idea. It's also the first task and first accomplishment of a Moondancer novice. Yes, we might "refuse to teach" them their skills until they get there, but we're not ignoring them during that time and getting there is teaching them other things (newbie learns how to explore a bit, to ask for help on GNT if they get lost or otherwise need help, that their guildmates are paying attention to them, to pay attention to surroundings and read carefully, that there are hidden exits sometimes, etc.). I would argue that that's beneficial to the playerbase (and especially newbies of the playerbase), not detrimental.


But on a slightly different but related point, don't pay attention to rumours, and there's certainly no point in repeating them. In this case, the only source of factual information about the reason behind the announce post would be the admin, and as the admin haven't posted a similar announcement stating the specific details, any speculation is simply speculation and assumption. (When you "assume" and I agree, it makes an " " out of "u" and "me." (Think it'd get censored, so I saved a mod the trouble. You can guess, though.) )

Yeah. I guess I was harsh.

But did you really have to flame me?

That didn't look like he was flaming you at all. He only said he was offended at X and asked what basis you had to say Y.

Unless the perception was that my paraphrasing the saying about assumptions was directed personally? No, that was just paraphrasing the saying ... I'm not the only one who's heard that, am I? Some motivational speaker back in high school said it, along with such things as "Pointing the finger of blame requires the curling back of three, that's nature's way of saying that the blame must rest with me." That one, I remember word for word ... bah on rhymes that stick in your head for over a decade.

Now this I can understand. The Shadowdancers tell their novices to go to Rowena, and Rowena is down of Master Ravenwood, which is hidden. Even though its just one step, and is mentioned in the help file, many still don't get it when we tell them to go down. Either they mistake downwards for southwards, or they just stand at Master Ravenwood looking for a down. So when that happens, I usually stand at Master Ravenwood and give them hints, point them towards the help file and tell them the directions are in there, and if they still don't get it after awhile, I tell them to just try going down.

Maybe, what you can do is to station yourself at Loose soil, blended. When they seem to go in the wrong direction or get stuck, come out of hiding and give them little hints or tell them which way to go if they are still confused.

My last alt in the aqua's had a very bad experience as well. If you can't teach yourself, they don't want you. Novice training for him was "look at the scroll, here are directions to the pool, now shut up." There were 3 undersecs a sec and the GA around during my last one too. Two undersecs actually -refused- to teach me when I asked for help, saying I should just look at the scroll. Needless to say I let that alt die, I might like the skills, but I just got such a big turn-off from the training.

The alt I had before that one though was differant, back when Collvan was still GA, he was the only one around with a position when I stepped and personally saw to me, diligently answered my questions, had people checking up on me from week to week, took me as a protégé. This was quite a few months ago, so experiences vary do to who's in charge, and who's around at the time. I had such a good time playing back then I didn't get him to a high enough lvl and he was autodeleted.

Yep, I've done that at times, when time and circumstances allowed. Part of my "novice stalking" to check on novices, along with the trigger that colors lines so I can easily see where they are by checking WHO with thirdeye. Also do something like that if needed when outright following one if they need help like that.

And, love the avatar! Thanks for the link to the site, as I now have a pretty new desktop!

You can just ally them, it automatically colors allies and enemies on WHO.

30 allies is not enough to keep track of novices, I've useally got around that of serenwilders I might 'defend'. 30 seekers might get me through one or two days, but no more. Plus if I'm doing something else, and 'who', because I who often, and notice a novice just signed back in, it's a good reminder to me to look in on them (seekers are in BRIGHT YELLOW for me)

Edit: That's yellow on a black background... which while invisible on the forums, shows up very painfully on my Zmud.

Exactly. Plus, allies/enemies only have their names colored. Having a trigger to color an entire line that starts with "Seeker of the Moon," also colors the room title in the WHO list (more easily visible at a glance than tracing the line over with your eyes). Also colors if they do any custom emotes and talk, but the color I have it set to is the same as speech, and seeing the first line of a custom emote by a novice in color is fine.

It's really not that hard to build a system where you have an arbitrary number of allies, especially when you don't need them all at once, and the same with enemies. When I had zMUD, I kept three lists and aliases to quickly cycle through them.

I'm disappointed at this. When I'm around this never happens. I can see though why, if only one person was around on prime (because if you're off-prime, you cannot hear novices), that things wouldn't have gone so well. But it's still no excuse. I'll do my best to correct this, because the two things you were missing (GNT and Portals) are usually the things novices get spammed with.

Why bother, when it's much easier to put in #trigger {^Seeker of the Moon, } {#co aqua} and then you've got it, and no need to add people to a list or remember to turn the list on, and it colors the entire line instead of just the name?


Back on the topic of providing help to novices in general. If a guild doesn't have people to direct their novices to what they need, hopefully the novice knows to ask on CT or NEWBIE. The Serenwilde has this:


I've even had a few times when I've needed to direct a Dedicant or Brave to those scrolls.

I forgot about that scroll! I guess I'll need to check GHELP BRAVES again to make sure it's as up to date as GHELP WHATNOW is (which took forever to organize :fume: )

I hope that wasnt when a Undersec was around..thatd just be sad..

You've been really good from what I see. Whenever I'm at the mother tree, you're always coming to get new novices. I just find that awesome.

I wonder if it ever occurred to anyone that making alts purely for the purpose of testing a guilds novice program might take attention away from an actual novice that really needs help....

Thanks, just dont like hearing about novices being left unattended to.

Edit: 'ed by Tsu.