I tend to kick out people who's inactive. I guess we offer GF rather than gold or credits is because we have so few of either.

Anyways, I've just opened the Undersecretary thingy for GR1. At the moment, in Cantors, it's too easy to get a promotion to Secretary, so why aren't people applying?

Once upon a time, there was a guild with a guildmaster. We'll call them the Blacktalon and Bau, respectively.

Bau had a job for everyone and made sure every job had a person assigned to it. Long after everything else Bau did had passed away, that system stayed. Then one day, the new guildmaster and administrator of the Blacktalon were trying to get things done, and realized that everything took fifteen times longer than necessary because every job belonged to one person, and not all of those people were what we might call "efficient" or "competent" or "more intelligent than a weevil's AI." The problem wasn't lack of people, because believe me, people can be found if you really care to find people. The problem was lack of excitement about the job. Then they all got fired, good with the bad, because things just plain needed to get done.

The moral of the story is never try to dig for something in your personnel that isn't there. No Cantor needs the job and you have no way of making sure it gets done other than their personal motivation.

After the rebuilding Secretaries and Undersecs no longer get paid. Just Champion, GA, and GM. Hopefully we're all doing our jobs.

But yes, if you agree to pay people, they need to get paid for -doing- their job, not -having- it.

Oh neat. Good work with that. Respect for Serenguard +5. Now make Sojiro get demigod.

I'm not exactly sure how to take that

Well, ever since Raan got GM, I saw the SG as deteriorating, and with that, my respect for it. And since you're undoing his work, it was a compliment.

Why thank you . /attempts to push thread back on topic

HOLY CRAP.

That's WAAAY to complicated. For a veteran player playing an alt, it's not TOOO bad, but a guild full of Alts won't go anywhere fast. For a brand new player, that's VERY daunting. I'd say lessen the requirements and/or spread them out so that when you tell a person to read the GHELPs they aren't blown away and give up.

Our advancement is ridiculously simple.

Brave (novice) --> Unblooded
--graduate collegium and have a mentor

Unblooded --> Serenguard
--pass a basic combat test and take an RP oath.

After that, just do your duty and you'll earn GF's and move up in rank. At least, that's the theory. No one seems to want to give out GF's, so I have to push.

I was once one of those delightful undersecretaries which everyone wanted. I sat there and helped novices. I helped them. And I helped them. It wasn't so bad. Way back when, the Paladin orientation took about an hour. One Page an hour, with a few people coming in an out.

Then, the great Page rush. Whenever an ad for Iron Realms or Lusternia gets put on on a popular webcomic, we seem to get a major influx of people. Okay, that's not too difficult...Suddenly, I'm taking care of two Pages at once on average plus the dozen other baby birds wanting attention and food. A short while after the Great Rush occurs, I burn out for about a week or two. We'll say that Jigan has issues with greeting novices these days (Read: "Oh, I really hope they don't answer me back. That means I gotta help them.")

The way we handle things is that the Under-secs take care of the novices, the Secs handle guild affairs, such as the Orders and our library and help scrolls. However, no one likes the word "pay". We always want someone who is willing to do it out of the goodness of their hearts, and so we end up with a couple bright stars who love teaching, and who quickly burn out and hate novices. Very few Pages become Squires, even fewer Squires become Knights. So, being a Paladin undersecretary usually means eventual burn-out, and the attitude of "Why bother? They aren't going to come back. My time is better spent hunting/relationshipping/talking. Let someone else handle him." Or, they get the "You know what? How many are going to come back, really? And how many of them will be any good? What the heck, I don't care anymore, where's the nearest source of alcohol?" attitude.

Sidenote: I'm working to solve this issue. Amazing what a week-long vacation does to one's mind, no? This is a serious issue, and we're working to solve it. Check's in the mail, honest.

Ummm... do a, b, and then for c you get to pick from a variety of options to do? It can't be that complex, because people have been able to go through all of them over the span of 2 days (novice to GR3 or 4) O_o Perhaps I just explained the system awkwardly, or do you prefer a linear, non-flexible path? And after how many times I've tried diluting those requirements during my time, any more and I think we may as well just scrap it all

@ Jigan, I can totally relate to that!

oops, doubled

I feel your pain Jigan. Sometimes I'm the only one around and 3 novices will come in all at once. Training 3 or more at once is always a trip. I've learned to be flexible in training. If they are clearly only here to test it out or go killing things I rush them through their skills, tell them to finish reading the Braves scroll (knowing full well they won't), and send them on their way. I only spend more than 35-40 minutes with a novice if I can tell they already have a knack for RP.

I burned out a few times over the course of time. That's why now I"m so aggressive getting Undersecs to take the load, since we try to get every new Brave trained personally if possible.

Yeah, I had a similar experience in the Serenguard. When Rika was still young, I had lots of fun teaching. However, I started to find that with me being one of the only ones who wanted to teach (with people like Shiroii forcing -every- novice onto me), I started to burn out really quickly. Novice teaching went from an enjoyable part of the game to a chore. Things weren't helped by the fact that back then no rewards were given out for Undersecs beyond the (very) occasional favour (this was when the Serenguard hardly ever favoured anyone).

Soon enough, I started asking myself if I could be having lots more fun doing something other than spending 30 minutes teaching people who would spend 35 minutes total in the game before QQing and never being seen again.

So, when looking for potential undersecretaries, look for younger people who have some interest in teaching. Reward them if they really do their jobs and just try to keep the their interest in doing the job for as long as you can. However, you also have to accept that noone will want to teach forever, as this is a game, and they want to have fun too, so don't force people into teaching regardless of position. You ask them nicely, and give them chances to say 'No, I would rather do something else'. Sure, if they do this too often, they can be removed, but it is unreasonable to make someone sit for hours doing nothing but teaching.

Teaching novices has always been one of those things that is so integral to the game yet is also one of the things that quickly kills it. I still do enjoy teaching new novices, even if I"ll never see them again. But it is the single most draining, thankless activity I've ever engaged in in the game. It's hard to keep people training novices when it becomes such a boring job. Especially when we have a large emphasis on personal training.

This is one of the few benefits I see from the collegium. If no one is around to train, or people simply can't, there is a backup plan. While I certainly don't advocate simply pointing novices to a scroll and leaving them, sometimes it really helps to just run through a few quick basics and let the do it themselves.

Your lack of being in the guild makes the Zia sad.

Your constant praise makes the Zia happy.

Dear gods, the inner turmoil!

There should be little to none requirements for undersecs, besides being out of novicehood and being able/willing to help. Guilds with more active players could push it to be full-guild member (GR3) only. While undersec isn't really a position of prestige of power, it's still nice to make the future undersec work to achieve it, thus making it sort of reward, something to be proud with.

Honestly speaking it pretty much boils down to the structure of the guild and tasks undersecs are entitled to perform. Back when Enero was a Celestine and Celestine GA (as short as it lasted, meh, damn real life) I really liked to see only Orained (full members) players as undersecs. Mostly because technically, I found it to be wrong that an Undersec can conduct tests for becoming a full guild member without being a full guild member them selves. This of course can be avoided by making only Secretaries/GM/GA to be able to perform those tasks, but that as well is something that is entirely dependent on the inner structure of the guild. Celestines for example never has more than five secretaries at any time, who also has many, many more tasks at hand than undersecs.

So I'd say give undersec to whoever wants it, as long as they are able to teach and are willing to do so. I've always looked down on rewarding undersecs with gold/credits. An occasional GF is ok, but it shouldn't be something they are entitled to as I think it sort of ruins the whole purpose and makes an undersec work in their own interests and not for those of the guild. People should more think of undersec as a possibility of growth, chance to become a Secretary in the future. It should have more RP meaning than... well, RL practical meaning.
What concerns active members... well, it's not always about quantity. I'd rather see few but dedicated ones than a swarm of... let me find a more polite word... than a swarm of wackos.

If you have few active people, try to make them feel special. Offer them the position and keep them happy. Offer some benefits, but don't cross the line where they are sitting in their position just because of them.

Anyway, not that I really made a point here with anything... just my thoughts.

Ohhh??? How sure are you of this???