Hm. Are you including the very beginning welcoming scroll that describes the learning process? Every guild's got one, and novices are asked to read it when they come through the Portal so they've got a very basic understanding of what to do. Then a teacher actually goes through all the lessons with them. It seems like you'd prefer even that didn't happen, instead having the teacher just immediately going to them.

I think a tiny bit of GHELP reading once you've gotten through the Portal is all right. When I was new to MUDs, it helped settle me down a bit. I was still really confused, of course, but I kind of knew what was going to be asked of me when training started.

I agree with Aiakon on this statement.

GNT being heard on all planes is also a good idea.

I would also like to see a way of measuring the guild's novice retention rate for the Administrator, Guildmaster and Champion.
If we have solid numbers we can tailor our policies and undersecretary roster accordingly.

As an active GM, I can clearly see how well we're keeping novices. Statistics don't really help anything.

Having people who -want- to help out would make the biggest difference. I'm not sure if a change to CNT will affect the number of willing helpers at all.

Ista is right on the money here. Fusing GNT with CT would result in the same people teaching over and over again. A possible solution is for the Divine Patron to give exemplary teachers a wage per novice trained/retained. This could take the form of credits or lessons, or something more intangible like a free Harmony Blessing, so the next time they do go bashing the time they spent for teaching is somewhat compensated by the experience bonus. A Favour from the Divine Patron is another option.

I disagree.

As an active GA it is also easy to see the novices we've retained. But seeing the names do not tell you WHY more/less novices are being retained.
I ask novices about how they are doing and why they like the guild, but without solid numbers it is difficult to determine if a guild policy change (ie revamping the novice training program to be simpler, inspiring undersecs to be more friendly) has an effect. As a GA or GM half our weapons are whom we appoint as guild officers, but the other half is how we craft the training program and set guild culture.

For an example, if corporal punishment is instituted for disrespect, does this drive away novices or not? In magnagora it may actually retain novices, given it is the 'evil' city.

In regards to Divine giving "wages" to people who train novices, that is something we should not be doing. It should be the guild's goal to want novices trained, novices returning, and novices enjoying themselves and telling all their friends about the "Cool people" in their guild. If a guild's administration chooses to "pay" novice aides then that is one thing, but the Divine should not be "bribing" people to do what they should willingly be wanting to do to make the game and environment a better place.

Why people train novices is beyond me. I play this game to have fun - and, more than that, I ONLY play this game when I'm having fun doing so - and frankly there are much, much more fun things to be doing.

Shamarah's post just following your own pretty much says it all.

I don't really see why putting in a commune channel for novices will really make this different. They might not say 'Go ask your guild' but they will point you toward a guild scroll. I'd also like GNT to be kept in, I don't really like the idea of novices not having -any- channel with their guild for 24 hours.

As for the paying to teach novices, I'm -very ifish- on this idea. There are some people who would teach novices just for that reward, and that would likely make the reward more important than the novice. I could see the teaching be poor because of this. So, it would have to be a very small reward, but that probably wouldn't help boost teaching.

The Ebonguard pay people to teach novices and nobody ever seems to collect on it, except 2 people.

I completely agree. Answering questions from novices on GNT and taking the time to explain one aspect of the game is one thing; taking half an hour to an hour (or more) explaining EVERYTHING introductory to a novice is a bit much.

The undersecretaries in the Moondancers get paid, albiet a meagre amount, and Laysus will favour people he sees teaching. I'll agree with Shammy, though, teaching novices isn't fun, so there are other things most people would like to do.

Also, I'm against the CNT idea unless it is seperate to GNT, as it would spoil the seperation between the guilds (something I actually like to keep distinct in the Moondancers, even if my communemates don't like that).

Speaking from personal and rather limited experience:

Ur'Guard training is completely separate from how the other Magnagoran guilds train their novices. As far as I know, those ur'Guard novices that get trained by an experienced representative usually end up being contributing members, while those that don't end up leaving shortly. I don't see how if there's nobody in the ur'Guard around to train a novice (which has been rare), another guild would be able to train them correctly. The issue is about available teachers, but expecting someone with no knowledge of a certain guild's policies (let alone not having the skills) to train said guild's novices is expecting far too much. Novice retention is about learning lessons and engaging RP. CNT just doesn't sound like it would help this at all. I can't agree more with the people that have suggested to focus on the problem guilds and leave everyone else alone.

Yes. Exactly yes. I know this will happen, from personal experience. The problem with being awake and in front of a computer for most of each 24-hour period. Being awake in down times means training -all- of the novices that show up, no matter what guild. I've had to do it without knowing what their help scrolls are. Awake during peak hours? Guildmates whisked off-plane when a novice showed up, weren't greeting, weren't chasing them down...and most importantly, weren't teaching. I would teach two at a time, go to get some hunting done so I could clothe the next naked ones to show up...and another would pop up in the middle of it. Burning power teleporting to chase down the stray ones who like to run up the mountain...I love training, I loved doing it...but I hate those people who insist that they are too busy standing idle to help train and take interest...and yes, I was curled in a fetal position muttering 'Learn 15 Nature from Rowena...NATURE TALISMAN, WIELD TALISMAN'

The key to getting novices to stick around is having more PEOPLE INTERESTED IN THEM STICKING AROUND! One or two people per city/commune doesn't cut it! At least four people per guild. Interested people. Ones who will drop whatever petty task they are doing to GO AND GET THE NOVICE when they're lost/unresponsive. And people who can deal with what seem to be redundant and retarded questions. And...have at least 10k on hand for clothing all those bedamned naked ones...

It may be easy to just say "Go train the novices" but when you do it extensively and only see a very small percentage stay (none of my trainees have become full characters), it gets very frustrating. It takes about on hour for me to train a novice, and when the novices just ups and poofs, I get annoyed. I particularly loathed my time as an undersecretary and had to constantly remind myself that my services were benefiting me indirectly.

EDIT: Oh, and it would also be helpful if alts wouldn't go through the system and waste both players' time.

I couldn't agree more: feeding a novice a list of rules is a bad idea. However, automating the basic announcement to a novice on guild entry doesn't necessarily mean feeding them lists of rules. I would make a point of writing a guild help scroll specifically for novices of my guild if I could insure that they would all have easy access to it, and that each and every one of them would be informed of it's existence upon arrival into the game. Such a file could give a person completely new to the game a reference as to what they could be doing, how to use the help system and some examples of useful files, how to use channels and what each channel is for, a basic outline of what the guild is and how they can fit into it and a variety of other essential information. I would think of it more as a beginners guide than a guild guide.

Each guild could do the same, and be assured that every novice - regardless of when they come into the realms - has a comprehensive guide to survival that is tailored to their guild.

Of course, this is highly dependent on the ability and desire of each guild to write a decent guide.

As a reference: Achaea was my first IRE game. When I signed in for the first time, I had only experienced one previous mud, and it was nothing like Achaea. I logged in and found noone in my guild online that I could see, noone greeted me, and i was completely unaware of what I should be doing. I stayed in the game for maybe two hours and didn't log in a second time. Aetolia, however, did me the basic courtesy of providing a list of help files despite the fact that noone bothered to actually -talk- to me. I played that character for a long time, got into the 80s for level. Simply being given a bit of guidance can certainly make the difference as to novice retention.

I've had novices in nearly all the guilds save 2 or 3 before finally deciding on the Paladins. And frankly, the most of you are either being honest with your disinterest in novices or are all talk. There's 4 people I can think of that were ever genuinely helpful in the least. Basically everyone seems to want to spew off a list of helpfiles for you to read (Which is quite interesting I must say) and jump off to another plane as soon as possible.

Now, I highly doubt it's as grim and uncaring as I make that seem, but -that- is how it feels a lot of time coming in to these guilds as a new player to Lusternia and novice. I have a feeling the potential changes to make these channels cross planes automatically would make a huge difference on that level. I'm sure a lot of novices see people on their gwho, or know they're on, ask a question, never get an answer then log off. (Seen it firsthand, actually). I'd say the biggest enemy to novice retention against anything else people attempt to do is other players interests in them and helping them. It doesn't even take a lot, most novices take little more then 20-30 minutes to get out the door wacking gnomes and finks as -they'd- rather be doing that once you give them the tools to do so. At which point they'll probably ask questions on GNT and through tells to those who've been helpful.

Getting a novice up and running shouldn't take more than 20 minutes. If you are spending an hour+ then you are filling the novice with information overload. It is no fun for you and no fun for them. Novice training should follow an old acronym. K.I.S.S. (Keep it simple stupid)

They should learn the skills they need, and where they can learn later on. Then set loose to have fun. Everything else can be taught to them as they grow and have fun. They however should not spend their entire 24 hours as a novice with never having met a member of their guild, and worse being asked if they need help, and when told yes, being assigned a help file to read.

The proliferation of, "Here, read this helpfile." *jumps off plane* is almost absurd.

Charune's post almost mimics my own only in putting it in a more diplomatic and better way.

Meh. The novice training file had so much in it back then. I think we've just reformed our training program though, so that probably doesn't apply anymore. Some novices were just slow too. Hm. I always felt like I was rushing back then too. Meh again.