Kagato:

Lately I have been offering to assist new arrivals that I see, however it is completely their choice if they wish to take me up on it or strike out on their own, I can't force them to take my advice.

One thing I would like to see is instead of dumping a new arrival at the portal of fate, maybe they arrive at the newton caves or at the nexus of the city/commune they chose, there is not always a fate awake to assist brand new people with enquiries they may have.

If you ever have an idea on how to make things better, use the IDEA command. Believe it or not, we do actually read through them!

rika:

Lots of people have told me I'm not helpful enough when novices or less experienced people ask what is going on or how they can help. The problem is I can't really afford to teach every single person who has no clue what is going on and what they should be doing, because these things are complex and they are competitive. Even if I did waste valuable time telling you, you likely wouldn't be able to help, because many of these things require you to have both mechanical experience (ie don't bother coming when you are level 50. You're just going to die instantly) and the experience from playing the game (ie don't bother coming if you don't know how your skills worked because you spend most of your time afk snuggling or afk aetherhunting). I also hardly ever get around to explaining it to them after, mostly because I usually just forget. It's hard enough to keep up with the fight or whatever is going on without having to remember what every single person said.

Bolded are the main issues I have.

I used to be one of those afk snugglers. In fact, I was for about four years, before getting into combat and learning a lot more. I've invested six years into this game of learning how to play it and how things work, and not even I have half the knowledge base of most people who have played as long as I have. In other words; I just don't know what is important and what is not, but I know that you can't teach someone everything about Lusternia overnight. I can answer questions, sure. Great. But in terms of actually guiding them through - all of the information is generally available and if they REALLY want to know, there are tons of help files (I will still go through and hit "HELP " before I ask questions) and the CGT/GNT/GT/even CT aethers.

Kayte:

I know that you can't teach someone everything about Lusternia overnight.

Nobody is suggesting that you should. That's an unreasonable goal. Just as it's unreasonable to assume because you help one, you must help every novice through the portal. A very common anecdote is that it was another player that initially gets you hooked. Why not be that player?

You'd be amazed what you can learn while ostensibly teaching. Who says you have to be some font of knowledge to help a new player learn the ropes? It doesn't have to be a mentor/protege sort of thing. There are many, very many things you can learn together.

Riluna:


Nobody is suggesting that you should. That's an unreasonable goal. Just as it's unreasonable to assume because you help one, you must help every novice through the portal. A very common anecdote is that it was another player that initially gets you hooked. Why not be that player?

You'd be amazed what you can learn while ostensibly teaching. Who says you have to be some font of knowledge to help a new player learn the ropes? It doesn't have to be a mentor/protege sort of thing. There are many, very many things you can learn together.

Although I feel that that sentence fragment was taken entirely out of context and examined, my emphasis was meant to stand on that I simply don't know what is Very Important and what is not. I don't mind mentoring though at all, but I just prefer to be asked direct questions rather than general ones.

Kayte:


Although I feel that that sentence fragment was taken entirely out of context and examined, my emphasis was meant to stand on that I simply don't know what is Very Important and what is not. I don't mind mentoring though at all, but I just prefer to be asked direct questions rather than general ones.

That's fair, although I wasn't trying to take you out of context. I thought I addressed your entire post (and others in the thread) and I was just trying to make a point. You don't even have to "teach" them. People generally stick around because early on, they found somebody to play with and had fun. Not because other players only told them to read dozens of help files. Very often, asking questions about gameplay is the only way they know how to reach out to other players.

As for what is important or not to teach, that's up to you, really. I would say anything a new player doesn't understand, that by answering helps them just basically play, or enjoy a new feature, is important. You'll find that the vast majority of things they ask are the same very basic things. Things I promise you, you know, unless you've been playing for six years without refilling a vial. Nor should you feel obliged to help them alone. If you can't answer a particular question, help them find someone who can, and now you're learning about it too.

You can also always ask your GA for a general guideline. I've yet to see the guild that does not have an organized list of things that a novice should know.

Nocht:


If you ever have an idea on how to make things better, use the IDEA command. Believe it or not, we do actually read through them!

You do? I thought you bundled them up and fed them to Zenos as a mid-afternoon snack! (I kid! Please don't zap me >_>)

Seriously though, once I've thought it out and spoken to a few others to get ideas of where might be a good "starting point" rather than in the middle of avechna's peak, I'll submit an IDEA.

Kayte:



Although I feel that that sentence fragment was taken entirely out of context and examined, my emphasis was meant to stand on that I simply don't know what is Very Important and what is not. I don't mind mentoring though at all, but I just prefer to be asked direct questions rather than general ones.

What I'm saying is the problem originates with the attitude that many think 'if they wanna learn ba enough, they will'. The sad reality is, no one wants to learn until its worth investing time into. Either by getting a new friend or being taught some new interesting game mechanic.

Don't teach them anything they don't absolutely need to know is 'The Spiritsinger Way'. We have the fastest novice-intro scroll/instructions in Serenwilde, with the goal being, get folks out and actually playing the game. Get them 20 minutes of person-to-person interaction, then set them free in Newton or the Collegium. Help 'em when they ask questions or get stuck, but get them out and playing the game first, with questions coming after (and being novice-driven).

Looking at the above posts, I think this might be one reason we have a really high novice-retention rate. We don't answer, "where can you buy potions" or "what are greatrobes" or "how do I advance in the guild" anywhere in our intro. We don't require getting to Teleport in Planar because they don't need it yet. So we only use 80 out of 150 lessons (halving the time needed to learn), and try to get folks playing first.

Romertien:
We don't require getting to Teleport in Planar because they don't need it yet.

To be fair, that's because we have majorsixth.

Throughout my time in IRE games and other muds, I teach others because it is the best way to learn things. Most of my strategies in combat (in other muds) come from teaching because I gain new insight about the subject through reiterating it to someone else.

I look forward to teaching novices combat and other things when I gain enough in-depth knowledge about the game to begin doing so. And I'll never truly consider myself a good Lusternian if I can't teach a youngin' how to fight, defend, and take care of themselves in less than a year.

*edit* And I don't care if it's an alt, because my time will never be wasted since I still get the benefit of practicing my knowledge. And who knows, maybe that alt was just someone like myself or other players who needed a really great tutor to show them the things they need to know to really get into Lusternia.

I don't count as a youth anymore I don't think. But my primary reason for exiting the game is twofold. First, well, new baby. Six months old, healthy and seems huge for his age, especially compared to his cousin. He kind of sucks up a lot of time. Second, the few hours that I have each week that I can spend playing a game, I have to decide what I want to play. Skyrim, New Vegas, SW:toR, Lusternia all present a very compelling argument to play. Lusternia to me seems rather stale at this point. I tried taking a leadership position (which I failed horribly at, apologies Sentinels) to try out an aspect of the game that I've never fooled with, and it wasn't for me. So...yeah.

Oh, and I never really developed Lilija as a character. She's more of a vehicle to get me from A to B in the bits of the game that do interest me (primarily PvP, though I'm rather terribad at it). I think had I come in with a story in mind, a background, etc., that I could have done more. But...yeah. I have no idea where I was going with this.

Could also be demigods hunting people who aren't even Lv80 yet when they're in denizen-org enemy territory (not even a Plane!). I've been jumped now 8 times in areas that weren't protected (4 in Gorgog, 2 on Earth, 2 on Air when I was in Serenwilde ). As someone fairly new to Lusternia, it does nothing but make me not want to hunt in the places I need to make money for all the equipment I need.

I come from Achaea, where a city can maybe claim one area of protection (Mhaldor protecting Blackrock, for instance), but you don't have to worry about being jumped if you're not infamous by a random dragon unless you're hunting in that handful of locations.

I'm not trying to complain too much, I didn't die or anything, but it doesn't really make for a nice introduction to the game for newcomers. If I just started playing MUDs and then got jumped trying to level up to participate in the game, I may just not come back. Demigods jumping demigods? All right, understandable. But those who are new to Lusternia... hrm.

There are many places one can hunt that are not enemy territory, and other ways to earn gold besides hunting. The choice to return to the places where you get jumped is entirely your own.

And, for every person I hear complaining about getting jumped, I hear another that says it was an exciting encounter that made them want to learn more about combat.

Now that you mentioned it, I remember this being the exact reason I left before. My char kept getting jumped while hunting. As a matter of fact, she just had a group from Gaudiguch demand she hand over all her essence when she was hunting in the fire plane. First of all, they are supposed to be allies. Secondly, Glomdoring's essence gathering sucks in comparison to the cities. I can see why some people only stick around for a little while before ending up pissed and leaving.

Was this near the beginning of Gaudiguch when they had very little power? If then well.. no wonder they wanted it.

Nope, just now. Something about an immolation. If we're going to allow orgs to claim territory like this, perhaps we should give every city/commune an equal plane where essence can be gathered easily and in equal amounts, instead of it being lopsided.

Near:

stuff

Also, both Mag and Celeste tend to not like people who appear to be trying to unseal the gorgogs. You do seem to have been attacked an unusual number of times; have you done anything to anger the factions in question? Generally, most people are polite enough to not attack non-enemies, even if they are from an enemy nation.

ForgotOldForumName:

Nope, just now. Something about an immolation. If we're going to allow orgs to claim territory like this, perhaps we should give every city/commune an equal plane where essence can be gathered easily and in equal amounts, instead of it being lopsided.

Mag expects that people bashing Spectres/Earth hand over all of the corpses/essence unless you have special permission otherwise. You can hardly expect Gaudi to allow you to steal essence from their plane.
I think that totems are intended to make up for having worse essence gathering, but we all know what a can o worms that is.

That makes no sense to me at all. Delete totems, then. Novices try to gather essence to feel USEFUL. Deny them something as simple as that, and what else do you want them to do?


Edited to add: Great way to make players waste money here, only to outguild them, causing them to lose lessons after spending a shitload of money on a character's skills. Is this how you intend to keep players?

ForgotOldForumName:

That makes no sense to me at all. Delete totems, then. Novices try to gather essence to feel USEFUL. Deny them something as simple as that, and what else do you want them to do?

I'm not saying that it's fair, I'm just saying that the admins really like totems, and we probably won't see a change on them, and the issue has already been talked to death. You can't expect others to just let you steal their essence though, any more than Serenwilde lets Mag steal fae.

ForgotOldForumName:

Edited to add: Great way to make players waste money here, only to outguild them, causing them to lose lessons after spending a shitload of money on a character's skills. Is this how you intend to keep players?

I don't see the problem with punishing people for a lack of commitment to their guild, and the lesson loss isn't that extreme. I would rather not see people being allowed to guildhop on a regular basis. I;m sorry you weren't happy with your guild. Want to come to Mag?

It isn't guild-hopping if you're kicked for having a mind, instead of blindly following. But, if that's the way you want to run Lusternia, there's no wonder people don't want to stick around and spend money here.