Also, I don't know about other people but personally I found in the beginning I was always envious of other guilds when it came to skills and stuff. Warrior hunting is pretty weak at first, most of your lessons are invested into PvP only skills, and you have to pay a huge amount for proper equipment.
If the other warrior guilds have a similiar high novice amount + low retention maybe this is part of why.

The Paladins usually do alright, and Ur'guard have been doing very well lately, so I don't think that is as much of a problem for retaining near-novices. I'm sure it does have an effect on people who are already used to the game, though.

Yes, we're trying-- it's hard when your Chiefs keep leaving on you before they do any work...

Hey, I took a couple of days to prevent burning out, that's it! I'm around almost all the time aside from that







And it's a self-perpetuating cycle. It's extremely hard to get out of.

Yeah, Sojiro doing that was a large part of it.

I have to say I like the idea that a novice can select "random" for the guild and they're placed in one with novice aides online and haven't been getting a lot of novices in recent times. I think that would prevent a "roulette" style of selecting a guild for a novice selecting a random guild and it turns out that guild has no one online who can help them.

I myself have noticed how many novices the Serenguard gets, but not many of those novices stay around / have a great deal of interest in RP. The Spiritsingers are the Seren guild that tends to have the quick novices - the ones that don't go "? help im confuse help me", and it may be because "bard" attracts a specific type of person: the sort that likes to create or write things, which does turn out to be an advantage in a text game. Because of this, these novices may get a nicer response from undersecs who've seen one aggravating novice after another, and so, perhaps, a higher proportion end up staying.

All things considered, I quite like and envy the Spiritsinger novice system. Or rather, I envy their sweet, nice novices.

Agreed. I wish we got better Braves.

Let's change 'bards' to 'pirates'. That should boost up our stats

Personally I've always avoided warrior classes in anything I play, they appeared to just lack something... mysterious? about them. Perhaps I fall under the category of speshul people

It so would. Too bad my idea for giving bards swords was shot down

Before real life ate my play time, and my usual internet was reduced to a wireless connection that makes AOL look like the best thing ever (maybe I can log in tonight during class... I need to see how much you can see in the reflection in the window behind me) I was learning the ropes as an undersec for the Serenguard.

I'd helped many novices without the position, often forging up simple weapons and armour, and simple things like that. It's much easier to do it on your own terms and time. When you have to spend your limited precious play time preparing new players to do exactly what you logged on to do, but never get to... it does get draining.

The Serenguard do get many braves, and I think there is a lot of turnover. Not just from those that leave the MUD, but also those that leave for other guilds. Personally, almost immediately after becoming an undersec, that's about all I dealt with. It felt like I could barely get in a forging attempt or two without the teacher's channel lighting up with "Who's taking care of this brave?" or "My undersecretary is awake"... which is fine, its what I signed up for... but dealing with an unpaid and often very OOC position ALL the time you're on gets draining very quickly. On a more personal level, I figured out things myself pretty well until Rastor decided to take me around, RL days later, so I'm not a big fan of forced hand holding, unless the person asks, or clearly needs it. (Seeing as I'm nothing special at MUDs in general, it's not that bad.)

So, it often does feel like novices are funneled through the Braves as "test characters". Maybe it's an arrangement thing during Nexus creation, but I tend to think that fighters are "comfortable". They're like the control group of fantasy RPGs. You know roughly what you're getting. This is especially true in the communes, where you're alternatives are a sort of enigmatic (to a new player) bard class, a druid class that is called a "commune mage", a non-traditional wiccan thing, and, (for glom, soon to be) oddly named monks based on bug people or evil smurfs.

I'd like to see an interface that aims more at the base archtype, with a good, explination of what that archtype does, and once the archtype is selected, present the city/commune options.

You really should have been undersecretary when I was GA. Easy times for everyone.

But don't worry, we're going to be taking disciplinary action against Everiine for his harsh treatment of our undersecs.

Whoa whoa whoa, who are you? Why do I not know people's forum names!!




Soon before Faymar left I realized I'd been pushing people too far. You'll see me now training far more often instead of passing it on to the Keepers since it's something I really enjoy. Besides, if people don't like me, they can always vote me out. Nevermind I've won the last two challenges against me

How many Serenguard undersecretaries have your harsh methods driven out? OH WAIT.

Akui! Not that I've been physically able to play in like... a friggin' month now. But that's another issue.

Nor do I blame the SG chiefs for getting frustrated. I mean, it's what I signed up for, but all the same, when you set out to have fun, and logging on immediately becomes an hour and more of reciting instructions, and handholding, until you realize you have to log off...

Bah, I'm making it sound far worse than it really is, but... yeah... there's a LOT of Braves. And most of them don't last long. So all that effort feels for naught.

Clearly not enough if you made it up to Great Chieftain!



AHA! Akui, now I have your forum name and can stalk you when you don't show up

But, as I said, I stopped harping on the Keepers so much. When so many novices come through, it's hard to keep up. Maybe I should look into the Spiritsingers training program and see what makes theirs so successful (aside from the idea that people who join them really -do- want to be there).