I was a novice aide for a real life year. For a year before that, I ran a program dedicated to nothing but giving up my time and money to help novices, as nothing but a near novice myself. I've done my share of training, and I try to answer questions when I can. I've been a guildmaster, and dealt with having a seperate clan newsboard because half the guild can't read the official one. When you get a clue, then you can comment on my expertise.

Do we want to help novices into our culture or not? The reason GNT isn't intimidating is because it's quiet. Plenty of us are friendly and will gladly help answer questions, even if we're in the middle of planning a battle or something. All it takes is a bit of encouragement. I firmly believe an announcement on CT is where we should start; see how it works, and if people think we still need CNT, then we can give it a shot.

Actually, the organizational identity is much more important than the guild identity. Newbies should be proud members of their city/commune, and only secondarily proud members of their guild. Right now, we stress the opposite (which isn't by design, if you look over what some of the admin have said in this thread). Part of the purpose of CNT would be to encourage the org's RP as a unit, with each guild adding to that their own bit of identity on the side.

Newbie is very useful, and you're right, it does have a large pool. The problem is that it doesn't actually provide a forum for relating. There is a huge pool of people, including even enemies. There is no RP tone at all, and it's much more difficult to really encourage the novice and help them to fit into the organization using newbie. These are all things which are currently done in GNT, but could perhaps be better done with a CNT.

'Accusations' is the wrong term, I think.



1. I did. I made the point that even though there would be a larger pool of experienced players within the city than within a guild, their experience would not necessarily be of use.

2. Yes, perhaps it is. However, you must allow me to reiterate: "It is by no means 'the majority of what people are saying'".

3. n/a.

4. What do you mean 'even you'? I've always looked after novices... are you trying to suggest that I haven't? I don't understand what point you're trying to make. It has no clear relevance to mine.



Either I don't understand what you mean, or you have not read my points closely enough. What do you mean by 'city-wide training program'; how are 'all' my criticisms related to it?

I believe I made this point: that a CNT would require experienced citizens to learn how to train newbies in other guilds. If they didn't, a CNT would be redundant, as there would be no more expertise available than there had been under GNT. If they did, then that would be a step forward, but it would be a step forward regardless of whether CNT was implemented or not.



1. Yes it will. As I understand it, the proposal is to implement CNT in the stead of GNT.

2. The point was that spam would be increased from the norm, for everyone. There would be a greater likelihood of novices turning the channel off. There would be a greater likelihood of more experienced players turning the channel off. Your point 2 does not take this into account in its observations... I am bound to wonder if you really did read my post, rather than just quoting it.

3. Thereby limiting the number of people who could reply on it and increasing the pressure on the select few who already train to train more...? I more or less agree with you. What do you make of my suggestion of a forwarding system whereby if no other guild member is online and has GNT on, a message is passed to other guilds.

In fact, how about this variant on it:

Grunt blah asks a question on GNT. There are no Ur'Guard in the realms, so the guild tutor announces on CT that Grunt blah is asking a question on an empty GNT, can someone help.

That's all well and good. Your tone and continued arguments show, however, that you are not talking about a topic that you enjoy. You are degrading quickly into insults, rather than sticking solely with the issue at hand. You have come off as a person who does not enjoy working with novices, yet you continue to argue about how they should be trained. To me, this seems similar to someone who hates fighting becoming an envoy.



Actually, the very problem is that there are not enough people who are friendly and able (and around) to answer questions. Also, quiet does not equal unimtimidating. GNT is not intimidating because novices know it was designed specifically with them in mind, to help them get plugged in and ask questions. The concern is simply that there aren't enough people to answer those same questions, and that novices cannot be expected to just buck up and ask their superiors over a more sophisticated channel like CT, especially if they have some OOC-type questions.

Before I leave for class, I'd like to quietly reiterate my concerns regarding information overload for the new player, which would be increased further would yet another channel be put in. Yes, I know, people in lots of clans can have who knows how many channels going at once and do just fine. That's great! I'm more concerned about people who, having stepped from the reasonably serene tutorial, are plunged into a fast-scrolling, incredibly colorful world. I don't want to see the inclusion of CNT cause any sort of CT-based elitism (i.e. "Why are you asking that here, novice?"), although I realize the latter is more a player issue than an administrative one.

I do think players need to feel more connected to their city from the get-go, without feeling like they have to scrabble for cityfavors to "really get it."

I do think other guilds should be more inclined to help novices if nobody of their chosen guild is around.

I still feel that some way for city members to see a total of who's in what guild--and even how many online are unaffiliated--in their CITYWHO is a good idea, and that GUILDWHO should list that there are X people on their current plane, and Y more off-plane, so a small guild filled with explorative sorts doesn't look smaller than it is to the first-time player who doesn't know how dimensional travel affects the who readout.

If we do get a CNT, I will try to use it, but I'm still unsure as to whether or not we can't already simulate its use with existing tools.

And now I really need to be going.

I said 'even you,' meaning that while you seem to be arguing that those outside of the guild cannot effectively help guild novices, when the time came up you took it upon yourself to do just that, deeming that that novice would be better if you (as a non-ur'guard) helped him than if you did not.

My point is that the citizens who listen to CNT would not have to know how to train novices. They would have to know how to answer basic novice questions. Geomancers would not, most likely, take over the training of nihilist novices - beginning novice training should (where possible) be reserved within the guild. The purpose of CNT is to answer all of those other novice questions which do not require the answerer to be intimately familiar with the training practices of the novice's guild.



1. That is an idea I'm not a big fan of. I'd like to see them both.

2. That may be slightly true, but I still doubt there will be all that much spam. I doubt that the volume of questions would change much, only their location would. Questions that might have been asked on GNT or Newbie would now be asked on CNT, which might be more appropriate depending on the question. My previous point was that not everyone views it as senseless spam. Some of us listen to the Newbie channel quite a bit because we enjoy answering those questions.

3. I think you're again confusing helping with training. I do like the idea of your forwarding, which would accomplish much the same thing. The problem is that it does not account for people who just ignore novices, or who are around but inactive (maybe against the rules, but it still happens regularly enough).

So, basically, there should be no more guild identity. No more ur'Guard military versus Geomancer insanity. The organization is the be-all and end-all? As that RP would have to be dropped on this CNT in order to get a functioning mesh of novice-aiding, that isn't one person saying "Listen up, maggot!" while another is doing something completely different. Thus, the novice has NO idea what they're getting into, as they aren't even seeing their organization's RP at this point-- the people on this channel had to drop it in order to effectively help the novices without stumbling all over one another.

The guild identity is an important part of the organization identity, I feel. :/

Ahha! I'm finally getting your point... I was being dim. Yes, you're right. A CNT would make it easier for novices of all guilds to ask generic questions. Yes, I was focussing entirely on a newbie's first steps. Having said that though, is it not the newbie's first steps that are the most difficult? Once you've been put through your paces, given your skills and shown what to do... any further questions will surely not be as urgent. CNT is being billed as a solution to the problem of not retaining novices... I would argue that a much greater proportion of novices bail out at the initial stages than later on (I'm not sure if that's true or not), and so a fix which doesn't account for the initial learning exercise is hardly a fix at all.

I'll make this simple, because I'm tired of the silly ad hominem. If you don't like me, too bad. Debate my point, not my attitude.

I like helping novices. I like helping people in general.

Ok, that's taken care of, good. Are you trying to say that if Geb gets tired of fighting all the time, that he has nothing to say about it? That his opinion is no longer at all valid? My problem isn't with helping novices, it's with the long boring training times. That's one small aspect of this whole debate.


I find this rather insulting. We're not their superiors, and CT isn't any more "sophisticated". CT is for people who belong to the city or commune, simple as that, and that includes novices. If this is the attitude newbies are presented, no wonder they leave. Once again; fix what we've got, we don't need more. If we're not friendly enough, another channel won't do a damned thing.

Glomdoring as a whole has a very distinct identity. The guild identities fill in the gaps. I am hoping to keep GNT up as well, so that the guild can still encourage people to fit into their role within the commune, and CNT will give them a practice grounds to do just that. Still, as it is now, if a player learns the military identity of the ur'guard but does not learn the taint-serving identity of Magnagora, they've missed the more important part of their role. I expect something like CNT to ease them into the organizational RP and dynamics with the other guilds earlier.

I disagree with that assessment, actually.

I don't see Magnagora as taint-serving. I see Magnagora as tainted and coping with it. All this WE MUST TAINT THE WORLD stuff is for the Geomancers really.. feel free to disagree with me if you wish.

Being that it appears to me that everyone is entrenched in their viewpoints and pretty much repeating themselves, I won't stir the pot further by repeating myself. However, I would like to comment on concerns about guild "identity". I suspect that the fear of novices being more city/commune centered would dilute the guild's identity stems from a misperception that the guild has to control the novice in order to "mold" him or her or shape his or her identity. I simply think this is a faulty assumption. Most novices rightly don't care about the policies and politics of a guild, they are more concerned with finding their footing. It is only after they have found their footing that they begin to get involved into the intricacies of a guild.

Also, I am floored by the concept that Lusternia's guilds are "weaker" than any other in the IRE game. In my mind, guilds are stronger! The city/commune leaders are the guildmasters, and thus there is a tremendous political power that guilds possess. Also, there is no war ministry for a reason--the guild champions and security branches of the guilds run the city/commune defenses. To say that guilds are powerless or weak or have little meaning is simply absurd when guilds collectively run the city/commune organizations. As I've said many times before, being in a guild is akin to being in a political party.

I'm not actually discussing molding a character or controlling the novice, Estarra. I'm more discussing the atmosphere. It makes for a far easier transition for the newbie if the atmosphere that they're going to be expected to live in has some bearing to the atmosphere in which they start learning the game. That is, an ur'Guard newbie shouldn't find out when they graduate that their guild is a military-oriented guild with strict discipline. This should be something that they've started to get an inkling of during their novice period-- perhaps not generally stated, and I'm sure the ur'Guard relaxes their strictness somewhat where the newbies are concerned. However, that doesn't change the fact that the RP is there and there IS that atmosphere, allowing them to decide... while a newbie... whether or not that guild is right for them (IE, without lesson loss).

I think your argument is a straw man. With due respect, the 'atmosphere' that you describe doesn't have as much impact on a novice as you might imagine, except negatively if the guild has oppressive requirements like interviews or essays or any sort of crap that makes them jump through hoops (which is a completely separate topic we may need to look into). I don't hear of novices leaving guilds because the RP or atmosphere doesn't fit them (they sort of get the picture through help files) but rather because they felt mistreated or ignored or frustrated.

However, fair point on the lesson loss. What if upon novice graduation there is a period of time where they can still change their mind? Again, the novice period would be city-commune centered whereby the novices would gain community with the city/commune first--i.e., other novices and players interested in helping them. And then once that period is over they get initiated into the guild proper.

I do!

No, you don't!

I disagree. Many players play this game because it is a role-playing game, and having a poorly-defined environment can and will break immersion. Novices don't leave a guild because they don't like the RP, they leave the game because of poor RP (and are probably counted amongst the pool of general non-retained newbies). Reducing novice RP will reduce retention of players who actually care about RP (a pool which should be important to a role-playing environment), which is probably a fair number.

The newbie channel really should be emphasized as a channel for newbies to ask questions about anything. Guides should be able to reference guild help files and hear guild novice channels so that they can give information and answer questions based on guild policy if nobody is answering their question on GNT.

Alternatively, perhaps an alternate guide role could be created that has this access but also appears to speak as a guild tutor (probably should be a new NPC besides the existing guild tutor) over that guild's GNT. This position would be given brief roleplay templates so that the guide knows generally how the character should behave (for instance, the Ur'Guard guide would be instructed to be harsh), but the guide would be told not to actually use the character beyond novice interactions. As this position would be an actual volunteer position (paid with credits), this would provide a much more constant presence on GNT. While this does require more monitoring and enforcement, it would greatly reduce the novice retention problem.

EDIT:



I do too.

I'm not sure if guilds are stronger or weaker. They're different, and far more politically based. Cities/communes are the major focus, though, and the guilds seem to just be different flavors of the community RP. In that sense, I think they are "weaker," in that they are not unique bodies that determine their own roleplay.

Looking at it from that perspective, it's easy to see how people can be afraid of losing what independance they do have. I'd hate to see the guilds just turn into political parties or sets of skills. I'm not sure that would happen, but I'm wary of things that might lead to it.

I think this idea is pretty decent. Logs are kept of what mobs say and do when they are controlled. Still, there aren't always guides about. I'm also not sure how fair it is to expect guides to be reasonably proficient in the ways of 12 guilds.

Regardless of CNT or anything else, why not open more guide positions? How many are there now? If there isn't a guide or two on most times of day, and I can't say I'm at all sure if there is or isn't, shouldn't we want more of them?