We would scrounge up prizes if we had none available while we were getting it ready and while it was going on. If we couldnt get them, wed promise to give them something special later on. Sometimes though there were prizes before hand.

Being as Serenwilde's usually got people up on ethereal(myself included) we've had a lot of experience with how gnt channels are -not broadcast channels like they should be. I was willing to believe this had been changed in the last few days.. but I was just on ethereal(mere minutes ago) and confirmed with moondancers on prime helping a seeker we were keeping an eye out for that they are still -not- game-wide channels. Newbies can't hear you if you are off prime, and you can't hear them, unless they have shortwave.

*nod* Ok, because I know everyone isn't going to be like me and go "OMG!!! QUIZ!", I always felt the best prizes were helpful ones. Going to throw out a few suggestions, just to perhaps give ideas for future quizes.

Suggests for gettting novvies interested in quizes:
-Try and find out what they're knowledgable in.
-If you've got a mixed amount, throw a few combat questions in, history, influecing etc. Spice it up.
-Make it short, 10 questions should be good enough.
-Give prizes, possibly vials or herbs. Advancements are good too. I wouldn't give gold, but that's just me.

Just a few ideas.

Oh, I think it'd also be good if...though I'm not totally sure how well it'd work here, but in Imperian guild hunts happened quite often and novices were included. This I think would be a good way of interacting and showing novices that there's other places outside of newtons. Guild gatherings are good too. Commune/city ones are good too! I liked what Mag was doing, holding the festival. That looked pretty neato burrito, y'know. But it could just be a story telling session or the Guild/Commune/City leaders speaking on a subject to the young and old alike. I just think that communes/cities really need to be more interactive, thus making it a much more tighter and friendlier place. I think things like treasure hunts would be good for novices to learn the lay of their city/commune, though guilds do have this as an advancement not all novices do advancement.

Oh...um derailing again, aren't I? Well...maybe not since novices often go away because they feel neglected and this is after the training.

Okay, I just tried the newbie intro out and I have to say it leaves many things I feel should be essential. First of all, there should be a hint right after leaving the Portals telling the newbie about the Newbie channel and GNT (I know Newbie is mentioned in help newplayers, but a better reminder never hurts). Next, please include more information about skills, perhaps as a reminder such as- Remember to do HELP SKILLCHOICE and SKILLCHOICE LIST to learn about Lusternia's skill system. Also, as mentioned in the the other thread, there shouldn't be any reasons skills that are restricted by class aren't automatically selected (Knighthood/Athletics, Cosmic/Rituals, Elementalism/Illusion, etc.).

Lastly, please do something about the default color configuration as of right now 13 of the default colors are set to grey and looks pretty much like everything else, making them very hard to stand out, likewise with the hints to make them even more visible. A small reminder about the CONFIG COLOUR command would also help.

Honestly, I dont really follow our guild novice prientation guide. I know that if I follow it, they would qq right in front of me. It says we must tell them our history, someting about ethereal, the commune.. The way I do it, I only teach the skills (together with the actual skill use), how to use the channels, and how to use GHELP INDEX. I believe these are the basic things they really need to know. If they need to know more, they can ask over GNT or check the GHELP INDEX. I usually end my orientation after 20 minutes or less.

Also, I have a suggestion. I know that the warrior novices are having problems tarting out. They are the bunch who usually tires out of the game because they get sick of kicking and punching. I know that warrior guilds tries to help provide them but, providing every novices will surely be taxing in their armory/funds. This is the usual problem within the warrior guild. So why not make a 6-month old weapon for Novices choosing the warrior achetypes. 6 months will be more than enough for them to bash for money to buy even at least Bob's weapons.

Ours? No, most depth it goes into is how were doing with the other orgs which is open war, cold war and okay terms.

I don't like teaching novices. At all.

I find the process of sitting down for half an hour to an hour to 'train' someone that is a) only there to try out the game and just wants to find out if they're going to stay or b ) already knows most of what they need to is a chore that I don't enjoy in the slightest. I really dislike that some guilds force everyone to guide every novice through a complex initiation procedure, which is essentially the same as forcing every person to write those long essays for graduation.

Some people enjoy the process, but I just want to play the game and this element comes dangerously close to work. I know that it is a common reason for burnout.

That said, I quite enjoy answering questions that I don't have to sacrifice a large chunk of playtime to help with, and I like being able to do things with novices that are interesting or receptive to it.

Hmm. Is it possible to create small mini-bashing grounds/quests for each guild that new players can try out to get a sense of the guild RP, learn their really basic skills ("Curses, those blasted white ants are into my nursery again! You're a new initiate aren't you, Bob? Come here and I'll show you how to use your talisman, and you can clear these little buggers for me!"), and perhaps even intersect with full member quests for guild benefits to encourage working together?

I'd much, much rather let a novice into an area where they can really play around a fair bit on their own or with others, than have to sit with each and every new player to train them in the same stuff. I'd rather give incidental than fully instrumental help.

Quizzes can be good, but over aetherwaves gets to be a problem. Back when the guides were doing some quizzes over NEWBIE regularly, I actually had several newbies getting confused and quite frankly spammed by all the chatter there and I had to tell them how to turn the channel off so they could actually read what they were trying to or listen to what they wanted to learn or explore or whatever else they were trying to do. If the guides are going to have quizzes, it'd be better to announce one and have people who're interested come to the portals places and do it in person.

Well, I'm going to run a novice event right now! It might not be rush-hour but I'll give it a go

Reminds me of the quote in my sig:
(Pupils): Kissos says, "Remember novices: Don't go anywhere, because everyone hates us."

I'll preface my grumblings with a short resume for the sake of offering perspective. I did all kinds of novice training in Achaea which included drafting a novice training system, doing loads of interviews and a few real life months doing work as a guide.

So now I'm entirely with Elryn. I can't tolerate doing an actual interview/orientation with a novice because to me it breaks down like this: 90% of novices won't be there tomorrow, 8% are bastard covered bastards with a rich bastard filling and will cause you to smash things on your desk, 1% are tolerable after advancing from novicehood and 1% become some of the best people you'll ever know in the game. Nuts to that. I was honestly considering becoming involved with the novice training yesterday but changed my mind after serious thought.

That doesn't mean I'm going to spit on a novice if I see one. I'm more than happy to answer a few questions and throw 'em some herbs if they're of the more rare variety but if the choice is between an orientation and dying in aetherspace then I'm glad I've invested in vitae.

P.S. - I think the guides are compensated pretty well. I was able to trans a few skills in Achaea on guide wages with minimal difficulty.

A few things concerning the Fate Guides:

They are not supposed to roleplay. The whole Skein and Spindle/Bobbins relationship thing is strictly speaking not supposed to happen, as far as I know the rules. Granted, I can't remember ever being reprimanded for it. That, or Nobody ever noticed it.

Newbie quizzes:
Main problem is, they are -very- spammy, as Tsuki already pointed out. It's impossible to do one if there is only one guide if you still want to get normal questions answered. At least I can't concentrate on making up questions, keeping track of my "players", keeping track of the count and all the things you do when running a quiz and answering questions at the same time.

Also, there is only so much you can ask on a newbie quiz. If you ask for more than just the very basic then most newbies will be left behind. I can't remember any newbie quiz where the winner wasn't obviously an alt, who had been answering the questions while bashing up gnomes and probably having breakfast as they went. For them, newbie quizzes are pretty pointless - there is no material gain and no real competition.

Ah yes and, sometimes you're lucky if you get three newbies who're even remotely interested in participating, and a handful who tell you to shut up because you're spamming the channel.

That said, there are highlights. The glow-in-the-dark pills were definitely awesome, as were the rare moments when a (probably) genuine newbie would win - almost. Ah yes and the occasional attempts to sneak in answers by experienced players.

But hey, if you like them, we can have them, I guess.

Er. Sorry, got sidetracked there, back to topic
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I freely admit Lommy takes ages to teach novices. Quite often I sit there for one or two hours even. Mostly that is when I get the impression that a novice is looking for actual teaching, not the "gimme skillz + gear so I can bash Newton!!1" kind. Those get the two minutes run-through. And yes, it is sad when 85 - 95% of your novices go dormant after their third session.

While being more friendly to newbies would certainly help, I doubt it will make a huge difference in the player base. From talking to newbies probably 90% are familiar with at least one other MUD.
From those I know who have tried Lusternia from Achaea, Imperian etc a common comment I get is that our world is much more aggressive and it is very hard for new players to adapt to that.

As someone with more than 2000 hours in Lusternia, its certainly wearisome avoiding constant PK when you just want to have some fun killing mobs, chatting with people or wandering the lands.

This of course is part of the flavour that makes Lusternia different and I'm not advocating wholesale changes to the avenger system to reduce the opportunities for PK. However, if you really want to increase your player base, you are going to have to cater much better for those who wish to pursue non aggressive lives.

Suggestions:

A city in the aetherspace that gets its power from something other than influencing (e.g. trade, or doing commodity quests within the aetherspace).

Add a newbie area purely driven by influencing to try and get the less aggressive types hooked on non violent 'combat'.

Have as a priority a very large area for bashing where you may not PK anyone unless they attack you first.
Clearly this area would have to be removed from the areas where influencing occurs and not near any strategic targets. It would probably also be only moderate XP, moderate gold and not high end mobs.

Come up with some rewarding quests that can only be done by two or more people to encourage group participation. Obviously everyone in the 'group' would need to get the honors line as well.

I like Elryns idea of guild specific areas which explain the first few skills. If they can get a little exp and gold while they learn the basics, that would make them more eager to learn, I'd guess.
And just to add: I used to make it relatively simple. Teach them the skills, then take them somewhere private, ask them if they need anything (like skillexplanations and all), then I told them the basics, like "So and so hates us, so you shouldn't go into any villages influenced by them. You can check POLITICS for that."
Not exactly the best, but, just to say: Lusternia was my very first mud and I had no one training me. I once asked about the Demonlords back when Ash was Nihilist, and after about 30 minutes of asking why Ashtorath doesn't overthrow Luciphage and reigns Nil alone, someone told me to stop asking because Bricriu got angry. Heh, it was actually pretty funny.
Well, I really liked Magnagoras flair. I read all the guild infos and all, and I didn't expect Nihilists to be nice to novices and all, I thaught myself, and I'd like to think after a year, I start to do pretty darn well.

I can't see where it would matter, makes things more interesting for the guides, and better for the novices' amusement too.


Back when I taught novices, I had them learn their skills from me, and while they learned, I had them ask me any questions they had about the skills or any other thing. Once they finished learning, I had them ask me any questions they had, and once I got through those, that was it. I told the novice to always feel free to ask me anything in tells, or to use gnt to ask their questions. Found that nice and fast. If my first experience with IRE was to sit in a two hour introduction to achaea, I probably wouldn't have continued playing, so I use that knowledge in deciding what to teach and what to let them figure out as they play.

Didn't read the rest of the posts, but here's my personal take on the issue:

I've played IRE games for over 6 years, I feel that the newer players are the ones to train novices. This is probably a holdover from Achaea, but in order to get that first bit of advancement in the guild, you needed to train novices. Then, as time marched on and you gained rank and status, you didn't have to worry about it. I feel the same way here. Vesar barely has time for himself, let alone holding a novice's hand for a while. Now, I WILL make sure that any novice who asked for help on GNT gets help, I just won't do it myself.

Another factor to bring into this (and it's probably already been said) is that Lusternia is so heavy on conflict. I know I've heard requests for help while we were on Nil or in a large group battle. No one has time for that, so we ignore them, or lose the battle.

I know it's not a good mindset to take with novices, but there it is.

In point of fact, I am given to believe that this IS a major problem, but I can't work out why it wouldn't similarly affect Aetolia/Imperian. Someone asked me just the other day if we'd been having problem with raids a lot because THEIR guild got one of ours after being ignored because of that...but I don't know what can be done about it. It's not like I'm able to just drop Etherwilde and go to help someone stepping through the Portal, especially when I can't tell if it's being handled or not for spam.

I despise training novices; it feels so pointless, since most of them never come back anyway.

I think there should be a way for guilds to create their own automatic tutorial with their guild tutor or something. The intro could still be given on a personal level by a guild member, but if no one's able to do it, they can just be pointed in the direction of the tutor.

I've also noticed the same problem as Vesar, where a novice asks for help when we're raiding or defending. There's really nothing that can be done in that case, especially in a big raid that pulls the entire city along.

I don't really mind training novices. It only takes me about 20-30 minutes so the fact that they'll probably never show up again doesn't get to me. It's not too much work is it? Answer questions. teach them skills, make sure they know how to use them and if they don't, how to refer to AB scrolls to find out.
The only novices I hate training are alts of other people where they obviously know how to do everything. Yes, I'll just stand beside the GUILD TUTOR and just type OK alot. That's a great use of my time. I even prefer the novices who take 5 minutes to answer a simple yes to a question.

I agree with you, something like an avatar or some NPC related to the guild like for example a Cherub for the Celestine Guild, Imp for the Nihilist, A retired warrior from the warrior guilds and some scholar from the mages guild? What do you think?

EDIT: Or probably extend a bit of the tutorial like when they left the Portal already?