We get it, Shamarah. As I've said before, I KNOW not everyone likes to work with novices. Apparently, you are one of those. I have absolute ZERO expectation that you would do something you consider hard annoying work. You probably have GNT turned off, so really none of this discussion should even concern you. Sheesh.

(well-written Immortally stuff)

However, let's assume for a moment that CNT comes into play and GNT is removed. What could be coded in conjunction with this (if anything) to help promote a stronger sense of guild identity?

Way back after my last post in this thread, someone asked why limit city-to-novice contact to Ambassador aides? Well, because (1) spam (2) if everyone can hear it, people are more likely to assume that someone else will help (3) people who are interested in helping will self-select for the Ambassador ministry (4) gives more of a role, hence more satisfaction, to Ambassador aides (5) there is no 5.

1. The game is very, very, very complicated, especially when compared to other IREs. There are so many nuances, and pvp combat is really impossible on Nexus, which many novices use.

Aiakon, I think you are really unfair to say we are posting this thread to "rubber stamp" a foregone conclusion. I've been discussing it with admin as well as other IRE producers and am not "charging" forward to implement something no one wants. Obviously, there are people who think this is a good idea, and we are weighing many of the good arguments set forth against it.

However, the "poor us" argument that the admin are going to "ram this down our throats" just seems like the old and tired knee jerk reaction to justify your point of view.

Mitbulls is right. Most peoples main argument against a CNT is, "But we don't know how to train these novices, they might ask questions we can't answer."

This is a blatent lie. Please read what people say before you comment on it.

Mitbulls is right. Most peoples main argument against a CNT is, "But we don't know how to train these novices, they might ask questions we can't answer."
People, a response wether or not the answer is given is better then no response.

I think the majority of what people are saying is "I don't like spending time training too many novices, and a lot of other people don't either, so this won't solve the problem."

I think the majority of what people are saying is "I don't like spending time training too many novices, and a lot of other people don't either, so this won't solve the problem." You're one of the exceptions; I know you've spent a lot of time training a lot of novices (including Derian, quite awhile back), and you brought up a viable list of ideas for the novice intro. None of that directly ties in to the idea of whether CNT would be a good or bad thing, though. I agree with a lot of your points, but they're separate issues, and don't seem directly related.

No. It isn't. This point has been made extensively by Shamarah and Sylphas, and very vaguely in passing by a few others. It is by no means 'the majority of what people are saying'. You can go join Serge in the sin bin.

Regarding your main post, it defies response. If you are going to argue on the basis of what you think people have said, or what you might have gleaned from speed reading through the thread, then there is little point addressing you - it leads to a circular process of argument whereby no consensus is reachable.

Novices are inadequately retained in Lusternia. No one doubts that, but I'm absolutely not convinced that the advantages of a specialist newbie city channel will outweigh the disadvantages.

Firstly, the reason we're not retaining novices is because our playerbase is small. There are times of the day when there simply aren't any experienced players in Magnagora. In this instance, a CNT will not be overly helpful. Indeed, I really don't see a relatively inexperienced Geomancer being capable of training an Ur'Guard novice, or a Nihilist training a Cacophone. In fact, I remember attempting to train an Ur'Guard novice a few months ago as a Geomancer, and not having the first idea.

Secondly, as Sylphas has said, you simply can't expect players to train novices if they don't want to do so. This is no indication of my personal perspective on the matter (I -do- train novices, and I encourage others to do so), but as a business, you cannot expect your customers do to something they may not want to do. You -have- to accept that, and you -have- to factor it in. Introducing CNT will balance things a little - scrupulous novice aide X of the Nihilists may be having a quiet day, and might take on Ur'Guard Novice Y... but ultimately, there are still a finite number of people interested in training newbies, and a finite number of newbies they're prepared to train within a given time. CNT may make it a little more efficient, but it won't change that fact.

Thirdly, I would argue that when experienced players -are- available, by and large, a novice is looked after. This may be relatively hands off - after all, training novices is time consuming. Whether you go for Xenthos's 50 minute training sessions or Charune's 20 minute ones, you're still talking a fair whack of time. See point two, above.

Fourthly, I remember being Archmage of the Geomancers and attempting to train an ur'Guard novice, and not having the faintest clue. If CNT is to work, then there will have to be city aetherscrolls detailing what each novice from each guild is to do and what the trainer should be doing. Ok, Great! That's not a problem, let's implement that! But.. wait! Can't we simply do that anyway? CNT may prompt a better ethic towards other guilds' novices... but so would a kick in the bottom to the city/guild leaderships...

Meanwhile, the disadvantages are manifold.

Having both a CNT and a GNT would be ridiculous. Is there a suggestion that these should be run concurrently? I can see it being confusing if they are... but on the other hand, removing GNT would be a disaster.

Why?

(1) Guild roleplay will be diluted.

One of the attractions of the Ur'Guard (believe it or not) is the quasi-military grunt training aspect. The other guilds won't approach this in the right way. Similarly, an Ur'Guard trainer will drill a Geomantic Pupil in entirely the wrong manner. End result: individuality will be dissolved and the basin will become a mass of homogeneity. Yuck.

(2) Newbie organisational spam will be massively increased

It's bad enough listening and answering the guild novice questions in your own guild. Now times the questions by four. Then times the number of answers by four, as everyone answers simultaneously. What do we get? Spam. And what happens when we get spam? People turn the channel off. And what will that mean? An even worse service than before. I can't tell you the number of novices I've seen turning GNT off because they're getting tired of the questions of other novices. Imagine how many more will join in.

(3) OOC/IC considerations.

It doesn't matter when the occasional newbie OOCs on GNT. A guild member can swoop in, take it tells, benignly explain the concept of roleplay, and sort out whatever problem the newbie has. However, when OOC questions reach a critical mass, they become the norm. I'm willing to bet that CNT will go one of two ways: either it will become entirely OOC, with the danger of it becoming a kind of OOC public channel for org members... or it will be treated in entirely the same manner as the full CT, and be just as threatening as before. Oddly enough, I would be significantly happier with CNT if it was called something different.

Over and above all these points, most of which have been hastily made and insufficiently thought out, is my -real- concern that GNT will be removed...

Still, those won't be affected by allowing novices to easily ask questions city-wide.

This whole argument boggles my mind. Novices already have a city wide channel. All we need if we want them asking questions of the city or commune is to push CT as the place to do it. I've never actually understood why GNT even was seperate, except that you CAN ignore questions just by turning it off. Hell, most seperate novice/lowbie communication is just silly. Of the three guilds I've been in, none have made good use of their newsboard, simply because many members can't read it. Channels are the same way. You either talk mostly on GT, and the novices get left in the cold, or you could mostly talk on GNT and GT is worthless unless you're talking about a novice behind his back. How often is GTS used, for example?

We have CT. Use it.

Actually, there's a pretty big difference. Novice channels are specifically for novices. They're much less intimidating, and allow some amount of OOC and 'stupid questions.' It's one thing to have CT, where the novices hear the leaders of the organization plan attacks and things like that. Having a devoted novice channel is entirely different. The purpose is again to make them feel welcome and comfortable asking their questions.