Well, that's the case about 80% of the time. And out of the remaining 20%, those that don't get kicked out immediately usually leave anyway.

Judgeing by the number of people who play Achaea, I don't think Houses are the worst thing to happen to muds ever.

Going to make this post as on topic and straight forward, constructive and on topic which is about "Guild Activity" where nobody in a guild is around in general. First off, I will state my guild being the Spiritsingers and say that I'm very content with it even though as stated by the OP theres not a lot of people on and active in general. I strongly do not believe the reason for this problem is with Novices not being trained, but the sheer facts of:

A.) People feel that Bards are a very weak and underpowered class compared to the other ones. Which I do feel as though there are things that need tweaking, but don't want them overpowered so people jump on the bandwagon.

B.) Tying into above where people don't like the class - ANYONE can sing songs, write poetry, and express themselves without having to be a Bard which I feel is just purely cosmetic. And for the record, I do believe everyone should be able to do these things without having to be a Bard class.

C.) Or the quite opposite where they don't like doing things like writing, putting on a play, ect. and have a different preferance.

These are what I feel the reasons why my guild is empty. And nothing can really be done about anything except the first part with certain tweaks being done that won't cause a massive flood of people jumping for power. Though, thats something which should be left for the Envoys and won't get into specifics here. As you can see theres nothing in there that states we can't keep Novices because lack of help, since to say that would just be an out right lie. With all the scrolls, Newbie Aether, and people who ARE around they can easily get the help they need if desired.

Novices already have plenty of options for learning and communicating which is not really an issue, though nothing much really for them to communicate about and take part of to ACTUALLY learn something is the problem. For the most part everyone I've seen keeps to themselves anyways unless poked at to talk, and when they do it usually is something about saving up for equipment or killing things in Newton. Still haven't met anyone who was like "Tell me stories about the past, or show me things other than Newton!" - like how I was since I guess they figure Novices can't do anything else.

Really, I believe it all boils down with things people can interact about other than fighting. Then most of what you can do requires money or a lot of hard work just like real life. To run a shop that takes knowledge of a trade, then supplies. If you want an Aethership or complex it will cost you credits. Theres also getting involved with the Divine Orders or plot lines, writing stories, poems, songs, plays, or anything else creative.

To reiterate: Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

EDIT: Erm, that was replying to Daganev.

The problem with the bard guilds is that they're always going to be low in activity because there's just TOO MANY OF THEM. They're not like warriors, which are interesting to a large number of people; only a smaller subset of the population would really be interested in playing a bard, enough to support one guild or maybe two. But there are FOUR of the things and they're not really that different from each other, hence this small subset is being divided even further so that there really aren't enough people in any of the guilds. That's my theory anyway.

The three other guilds were populated by the initial influx and interest generated by the game as a whole. The bards were populated by the interest generated by their own creation. I don't think we can make a comparison between bard populations and the other three guilds/org for a while yet.

I won't even touch on Houses- I've had enough aggravation with twits in Achaea as it is. But the House I'm in is pretty fun to be in, nonetheless.

As for Bards, I personally tie the success/decline of them based on the situation in which they were founded. Cacophony and Harbingers seemed to have a lot of political/guild leader issues, and the turmoil so early in the guild's history seemed to have driven people away. (Note, that's just an outside view. Don't go and nag me for it- I don't have a character in either guild.) Ialie selected two leaders, one her son, one a champion from another guild, and the guild was completely settled and started to make its history.

In my experience, Spiritsingers are just...<3 <3 <3. Fairly often, it's me and 2-3 other people online. Sometimes, it's literally just me and the other leaders. Large enough to not be desolate, small enough for everyone to feel like they're notexcluded in anything.

It's pretty much true for the Cacophony. The arbitrary wayh in which guild leaders were selected ended up in a guild which lost vast swathes of initial leadership and organization and had a complete reconstruction of its newbie system before it had trained ten newbies. An utter mess.

Personally, I don't think the newbie issues we're seeing are really endemic to the bard guilds. Maybe some of them are still under poor leadership, but I doubt that; it's really just the game's overall diffculty in retaining newbies, coupled with the bards' low population.

Not necessarily.

I accept that three out of four of the bard guilds aren't terrifically good.. but the Cantors are, in my opinion, extremely strong.

Aeon tarot + perfect fifth + a skill which causes your ingested herbs not to take effect + an eight second instakill + blackout = ridiculously over powered.

The aeon tarot isn't really very useful when the anorexia chance is only 50%, they have no way of giving REAL anorexia, and they have no way to eat purgative balance or anything.

The ability to block herbs, though, sounds pretty sweet, given that all Music afflictions are herb-cured and deafness is herb-given. Is that herb block something that's easy to counter or cure?

It only happens 50% of the time and doesn't consume any kind of balance (so you can just spam the command to get around it if you're not aeoned).

I'm making that exact same face right now, without the crown.

Wow.. I have never seen a guild with that low a score.

Well, yeah, sure. I loved how Houses were fully customisable and you could do a lot more in terms of setting people "in their place". Such as giving just the librarian the power to work with the library, and then the HoN the power to appoint people and aides with even more specific powers that basically let the House be run by members willing enough to put in the effort (instead of just five people who were willing to be Secretary and take on a pretty large chunk of work). That was good for a time.

There are the bad points; the HoN of a guild isn't supposed to rely on the GM for everything except last says or anything that is going on that they aren't supposed to deal with. The HoN should be able to run the guild if the GM isn't there to do it. They get appointed as a step below the GM but they run the house the same amount, if not more, than the GM themselves. But with Houses, the GM could put a very tight and restricting leash on them; in my own experience, I was limited to just novices instead of the entirety of the House's advancement. For some reason the GM felt this was to be overlooked by someone else and no communication would be needed (wrong-o).

The HoN was only allowed to take certain steps, and then when something happened and I was the only one around, it went from, "Okay, let's change this and make this work smoother and I will run it by the GM for official approval," to, "Sorry, the Guildmaster told me I wasn't allowed to do that and I need to stay within my station. Figure it out for yourself. You could try talking to so-and-so though, whenever they're around."

Lusternia has more or less perfected this, I feel; the Guildmaster is point blank the person who works with politics and making sure everything is running smoothly in terms of alliances. The Guild Administrator (the HoN), is the person who overlooks what's going on in the guild. Both communicate on the same level, but it's clear what the jobs are and whose tasks are whose. There's no confusion. There's some nice customisable options for the guild to make each of them unique. I'm probably pretty naive, but the way the Celestines work, it looks smooth and it is very appealing. It doesn't look like high-school drama.

So, while, yes, I am bitter and the last few Administration positions I worked with in Achaea weren't the best, I did have fun for a short time, both working in/for the guild and just socialising. But I had a lot more fun before the headache of autoclass (autoclass affected everyone), and the stupid restrictions of House powers (such as not being able to title someone of a higher guild-rank than you. So someone who wasn't even that active in Achaea but was HR13 came back with a title like, "Snuggle Muffin" could keep it, because the HoN, who would only be HR8 or so, wouldn't have the power to change it. It is taboo to HF/CF someone more than once per RL day. Some houses don't HF or CF within 4 rl days of each other. Disfavours included).

It has its ups and its downs. But the ups just weren't worth it.

You all do what you want to attract novices. However, I feel the need to respond to this one statement. How in the world can anyone be lazy in an online game's organizational requirements? Just to refresh everyone's memory, this is a game. People play games to enjoy themselves, not to work. Some find requirements fun, and so do I. To a point. But, if you pile requirements on your members, is it a wonder you're not holding onto players? Just a thought to chew on. Flame me, or actually listen. It's up to you. Afterall, it's your game that's not growing...not mine.

The small numbers breeds small growth, though true, is a very linear type statement. Growth within these games isn't linear based upon population. Otherwise the Paladins would be growing a lot more then they are. This leads one to the other factors and simply put, some peoples and in this case groups of people are likely better at making new players feel welcomed and stay then others. It seems to ruffle feathers whenever I suggest that the playerbase in certain communes/city/guilds are a part of the problems. But to simply shove it off like a non-factor is naive. A lot of people have opinions on the matter, but I think a lot less genuinely care to help. I think those people who do care and do novice helpin', (such as Xenthos who seems to actively be into novice helping and cares) need to do all they can to promote the rest of their orgs to join in, even if in small ways to do so. A lot of players want to seemingly put this load and problem on the admins, when frankly I think the fellow players are the biggest factor in wether a novice stays or goes next to is anybody actually there.


As for the credits thing. Lusternia, from what I can tell, takes a significantly larger amount of credits(At least as a warrior) to become effectively equivelant in the gameworld in comparison to both Aetolia and Achaea, Imperian I'm unsure of. It's just the way in which Lusternia is vastly different in some ways, that I feel the credits bound argument is a very viable important one. We don't need more because we're greedy. We need more because from comparitively speaking we already have significantly less because we need more to begin with to matter or get anywhere in Lusternia. And really, the initial amount for Achaea and the other games is still just a naughty tease, but it's acceptable.



You're trying to tell me that telling a newbie to, use, 'SWING ' to kill things is so difficult and estranged from your daily practice that you can't possibly train an Ebonguard? Since when do level 5 novices go around PK'ing? Your entire argument seems pretty ludicrous in that regards.

QUOTE(daganev @ Mar 9 2007, 08:29 PM) 389742

Judgeing by the number of people who play Achaea, I don't think Houses are the worst thing to happen to muds ever.

The number of people playing Achaea took a significant downfall from what I can tell after the Houses system took root. And it's most populus time was maybe 4-6 months before the Houses system as far as I know (Actual peaks may vary.) But really, I'm not trying to argue wether Achaea is still popular or most popular. But I sincerely believe IRE lost a lot of players/customers on account of the Houses and the changes that happened then, a lot moved to their other games, and a lot also probably just stopped playing IRE games all together. Achaea isn't as full of people or as popular by any means as it was in the years before the Houses system. Sure there's other factors involved, but I think stating the population of Achaea as judging the Houses systems' success is a tad misleading, as Achaea is no where near as popular now as it was before the Houses system. But truly, that one change isn't the only reason for it either I'm sure.

Obviously, I could tell someone to SWING , although to be honest, until you said it just now, I didn't know that's what warriors did to attack. And is that the only warrior skill pertinent to bashing? There are no warrior guild skills that pertain to defenses or healing? And what makes for a good weapon? What stats are the most important? I don't know.

Would you be able to train a druid how to use her basic skills? Do you know what item we use to minimize mana use? Do you know which skills require you to have summoned a sickle and which ones don't? Do you know what our basic defenses are? Are you aware that we don't SWING at anything? Do you know what a novice druid should learn if they have -more- lessons than the basic allocation? Where they should go next? Do you know what creatures are the easiest and most difficult for a novice druid to hunt?

By zeroing in on one line of syntax and misconstruing my argument as, "I can't tell another person a one-line command," your entire counterpoint seems pretty ludicrous in that regard.

And don't forget, Druids have three different weapons. The Talisman, the Sickle and the Cudgel. Each reached at varying points of their learning in Nature/Druidry, gets confusing. I expect a Druid who has all three to be able to point out the differences no problem, but go down the line it gets difficult.

How do you explain a skill you don't have and have never seen? How do you explain a skill you don't have, haven't seen and will never see because you're not a Druid? How do you do this if your skills aren't even of the magic skill sets?

Imagine teaching a Bard which is so completely different and you're a Warrior.