Turns out there is ALOT of stuff people need/want to know about.

For example, one of our wyrms expressed to me the fact that it would have been nice to know that when in enemy territory you lose alot more xp then while in the commune.

Well, I was going to respond to this, then I realized.....

Back to names:

Shikari had a clan that was once alled the 'Proving Grounds' or something like that for His Order. Whether or not it is still used (I think Shikari is its leader, and he is the only one who can induct and some sort) I'd think it would be best to not use the name.

However, I -love- 'The Learning Grounds'. It would be even cooler if they can enter the burial mounds in Serenwilde to learn about the culture - maybe even get the chance to speak to some ancestral spirits for quests.

This idea is absolutely amazing! I hope that it goes well.

I think this is a very good idea.

Previously when the Admins suggested that a citywide novice channel be added to bring novices together, I argued against it. I felt it would dilute the culture of the guilds.

However I have since revised my opinion. There are three elements, I think, that are essential for keeping novices:

1. Vertical communication – Superiors in the guild welcoming novices and asking them how they are doing. Guild members showing novices around, hunting with them, lecturing on the Supernals etc. This communication serves to mentor the novice and bind his/her loyalty to the guild through a personal relationship.
2. Horizontal communication – novices should have peers to talk with and work with towards a common goal. This builds friendships, which in turn increases the loyalty of a novice to the city/commune and the game itself. It also provides a venue for novices to ask ‘dumb’ questions in a much more comfortable and receptive environment.
Put it another way, if I had a great conversation with Billy and I know Billy is online, I’m going to be more willing to play even though I can’t figure out the technical details of curing aeon or something.
3. Fun

Recently I made alts in Magnagora and I noticed a few things:

1. I was greeted by the city and the guild (Thoros is particularly good about this)
2. In general the guild and city aethers are silent, even though there are three to six members on at a time.
3. It is very difficult to get a hunting partner to tackle quests/bashing areas of the same level. The exception to this is Newton were people are more willing to team up.
4. Undersecs in other guilds usually ignore you (this is the case in every organization, I do it too)
5. After Newton it can be very difficult to get fellow novices or city mates to join you to do anything. Advertisements for hunting on the city aether were generally not responded too, with a notable exception. Asking novices from other guilds to join me did work, but it requires you to be proactive.
6. My alt was outgoing, and a handful of people in the guild and city responded and spent a lot of time interacting with me.
7. The problems with 5 and 6 are that most novices are not outgoing.

Here are the problems I see. In a low population area like magnagora the novice will notice a lack of activity on the guild and city aetherwaves. A lack of activity makes a new player feel alone. The more alone they feel the less they will be willing to try to explore lusterina. The remedy to this is player interaction and a sense of activity in the city. This is less of a problem in Celest, because of its greater population size, and hence greater number of ‘sociable’ characters.

Most importantly, there is NO impetus for novices to work together outside Newton.

A notable exception was in the ur’guard, several months back. Karnagan took my alt aside and told him about the Spike quest. He then offered a bounty for specters if I gathered them with two other grunts and a nihilist. This was an excellent example of a leader building horizontal communication in a group and getting them to work for a common goal. Unfortunately leaders cannot do this all the time.

Based on this experience I conclude that Lady Estarra is correct and we DO need a ‘city novice organization’ in order to retain new players.

Ideas for the Lyceum:

A quest that required or rewarded novices for working together would be ideal.

Run out of ideas at the moment. More to come.

I would appreciate if we could receive some more IC information. I understand that the collegiums themselves will be IC and hence why the announcement was made IC (at least it was in Magnagora), but it's difficult to say things about curriculum and such that you know won't work OOCly but you cannot definitively state IC.

That shouldn't be the case

If you want, I can help you turn any ooc reason for it not working, into an IC reason for it not working. I spend lots of time doing that in Glomdoring

I really like this idea, or at least what's been presented of it so far. A lot of its effectiveness will come from how the organizations of each city and commune shape their respective collegium, so it's really too soon to make any predictions on whether it'll retain or drive away more novices than now. But I love the idea of having a tangible place where the culture and history of each city or commune can be demonstrated and shown to the novice, rather than subjecting them to endless lectures or telling them to read such-and-such scroll. This way, they can hopefully see it for themselves and get a taste of the org's RP while still a novice.

I might suggest, though, that the time requirements be reduced a little to match the current requirement of 24 hours. Making novicehood last 30 hours in total might be a little daunting for people who may not have a lot of time to play continuously but really want to get into the heart of the game. Perhaps split it for 12 hours in collegium and 12 hours as a guild novice? Otherwise, having a long novicehood might just end up boring new players.

It's only 6 hours though, and there'll still be advancements. I'm sure guilds won't get rid of advancements.

The reason why we put the collegium at 20 hours was under the assumpion that some of the collegium quests might advance students upon completion to cut down on the time (perhaps 5 quests that reduce the time by 2 hours each, thus potentially halving the time).

Hmm, depending on the nature of the quests, I personally think that if a novice completed all the quests then that should be enough to graduate them out of the collegium.

So, I'm new to Lusternia. I've come from the other IRE muds as some may know.

Anyways, my view on this is that I think it's a good idea. I made a geomancer named Draid and while some of those in my guild are friendly and out going and willing to help, a lot of the others keep quiet and to themselves. Unless you do something that really gets their attention. So far, I've had a very hard time coming into the realm cause it's not very newbie friendly, I guess you could say.

So this new way of interacting with the novices and newbies and helping them to get a better experience of the realm in my eyes is a good thing. It might bring the guilds closer together and create stronger bonds. Which in turn could also help increase RP as the students are going to be taught about the history of their cities and guild, if I am understanding correctly, which might make them feel more a part of it and willing to do what they can to make their city great instead of just themselves.

Anyways, that's my two cents on the subject. Hope you enjoy.

Nope, everything in that post is what I actually feel. No trolling there.

Now that I've calmed down a bit, I can get back on topic and actually talk about the Collegium concept. This doesn't seem to have changed much since it was proposed a while back, so this should be fairly easy:

The basic idea of the concept is good. Commune-specific novice areas are a great idea, but it looks like these areas only serve as an introduction to the history, not the actual game mechanics, which is what I personally have found to be the most challenging aspect of introducing new players to Lusternia. I think that these areas should be include an auto-tutor, who is programmed with a training script and a bank of questions answerable by keyword about many common things. ASK TUTOR DEATH, for instance, would have a paragraph or two (broken up into two-sentence bursts over tells for readability) about the various consequences of death.

In addition, the current newbie tutorial needs to be overhauled. It deals with very little that has to do with anything a novice would typically encounter, and mentions none of the Cool New Features that Lusternia has to offer. There is no mention about taking a ride in an aethership, transversing to another facet of the Shallamar bubble, or even drawing power from a nexus. Make the novice feel like they're part of the game, and not just a tutorial, from the start!

EDIT: Sorry, one more thing. Bumping the "lol novice" period up to 30 hours and splitting it into two stages may make novicehood feel like more of a grind. I propose just adding these zones and keeping the "freshman novice" category as is.

EDIT 2: Before I'm criticized for having a post that's too constructive, rant rant rant Lusternia's dying rant rant the administration is doing a lousy job rant rant rant I hate you all.

What will the novice path be?

Optional introduction to Portal of Fate to Newton Caverns or Collegium or Lusterina Proper

Or

Optional introduction to Collegium to Newton Caverns or Lusteria Proper

As a newbie, I have a few.. somethings to say! Observations, I suppose.

I will start with the summary! If you want detail and how I came to this conclusion, read on, but my main point is:
Addition of the Colleges and a city wide newbie channel would be perfect additions to the existing 24-hour guild-based novice system!

That said......
I like to start small and work outward. First, the focus is on me in the introduction. I learn all I need to know in order to function at all.

Next, I must learn to make experience and money, so I need to broaden my focus to include things pertaining to my guild, most immediate of these being my skills. I learn I must dress appropriately to my guild, my ability to protect myself (armor) is based on guild. This is the stage I am in right now.

Next, I have set my sights on the city, and plan to learn more about them. Right now, it is like I am looking at the city from inside a bubble. They function around me, but they don't notice me. I can greet them but they are silent. If I ask a question, only by grace do I get an answer. As far as questions are concerned, if I don't get an answer on GNT, I now skip city entirely and ask on newbie instead. I feel intimidated by the city environment, it's like the city is the "advanced players area". I can be part of them later, if they think I'm good enough...

It is not a malicious intent on the part of the citizens, instead it has a feel of "This is simply how it is done, the new ones learn from their guild."

Now, how all this relates to the colleges:

I think the idea of a city-wide newbie channel is AWESOME. If there's no one on in your guild, then at least there's an appropriate place to ask a greater range of people. I did try to be a Harbinger first. I played for several hours on 3 consecutive days, and in that whole time, there was 2 people who logged in once. Neither of them spoke to me, and when I went to say hello, I typed GWHO and they were gone again. Not on another plane, either, unless the "other planes" part doesn't include some. I have not had this issue in Celest, but it probably happens there, too.

Skipping the guild environment and putting me into the city environment seems counter intuitive. You're dropping the fishbowl goldfish into the ocean instead of the koi pond where he'd thrive. Most of those people have no reason to care about me other than the fact that I'm a fish like them. The fish that do want to help me have to contend with the fact that my focus is split.. I am trying to acclimate myself to the temperature of the water and learning how to fight off predators at the same time.

I'm not saying this can't be done well! It can, but I think that each college would have to have a definite and tangible tie to each guild, and be added to when there's new guilds added to the game. I think the best way to describe what I am thinking is to just outline it as if I was already in the college.

Imagine that the college itself has a hut for each guild, and within each hut, an NPC. This NPC will soon stress the fact that he is my teacher. This makes me feel distinguished. Perhaps all the other NPC teachers gently apologise, but I should go back to my own teacher for instruction. The teacher will be my primary source of information, my initial quest hub, and will provide me with sensible leads to new quest givers (probably within the college). My teacher will tell me all the basic CELEST information, and then will tell me how my guild fits into it. Then, all the NPC teachers give out the same quests, regardless of class. but it still feels personalized, tailored to me, the bard!

Now, the 20+10 idea... I don't think I would have liked the idea of 2 novicehood type scenarios. I'm still a novice, and I'm OK with that, but if I was going to be dumped into another after this, I think I'd just give up.

I want a place I can go to learn more about the city, to find immersion with people outside my guild, but not outside my philosophical and moral sphere, and most of all, somewhere to go before level 20 that isn't Newton caverns. (Awesome quests there, by the way. took me 11 game hours to figure them out, but then I was left with "Oh.. now what till level 20?")

Anyway... that's my ramble. I hope it's not too confusing!

Blastron, I'm sure that if you send a letter to your city/commune patron with your idea, you can help to work that into your organisation's school.