I'm going to agree with Naryisa and note that I've seen the same behavior in Glomdoring a few times when novices ask over CGT for help and get no response.

People will of course reply and go, "Well, -I- try to make an effort to help novices, etc. etc." or "Oh, well sometimes people are AFK, and that's just how it is." But that's missing the point. The point is not to come with excuses for specific circumstances and try to explain why this event is really an off case, or why it's justified, or whatever. The point is that these events STILL happen, that they're not isolated incidents, and that there are times when a generous portion of the commune/guild/org is on and novice questions and requests get ignored.

I've been ignored when I've made a novice more than once, across many different guilds. It's an unfortunate thing to happen, really, and the Nihilists always do their best to make sure it never happens.

That being said, I have an exceptionally short attention span and sometimes I forget I'm on prime when I go to read a website or whatever, and don't always get to a novice immediately. I can totally understand that. I cannot, though, understand not getting to said novice immediately after I return, or at the least sending them a message to apologise and letting them know I'll help out next time I see them, if they still need it. People who are consistently ignoring other guildmembers or even just other city/commune members in need should examine why they're even part of the system of assistance.

Personally, when a novice asks things over at CGT, I reply in tells.

I do too, actually. It weirds me right out to answer back on cgt.

When I had the energy, time and interest to help newbies I found it a lot easier to go through tells. Sorry that this did happen though, it does, it sucks, and I hope that since you've had better interactions.

I feel bad Naryisa if one of your alts was an Ur'Guard novice, I'll be the first one to not defend the guild's inability to keep novices, we're terrible at it. I do what I can when I manage to be around, which is sporadic at best and our GC doesn't play, and our GA is about as semi-inactive as I am. It sucks that the guild is empty, because I personally love the guild the most out of the three I've been in within Mag.

I try to help in what ways I can, when I'm active. Heck, I gave one of the latest novices my bashing axe and a plate/helm set for free because I know at least, in my opinion, equipment cost is probably the reason right next to neglect that makes our novices vanish.

tldr: sorry if one of your toons was one of ours, it's a problem I know exists here and elsewhere and if I had the people to fix it, I'd see it fixed :(

I'm glad the Nihilists are sorted so well now, because I have known it to be different. I was largely neglected as a novice, but then again I didn't speak up enough either.

Personally, I wish the game would be set up so novices are so at the mercy of how well or not well a guild is doing. If a guild is doing badly they are going to need that novice 10x more imo, because one day he or she might be the one taking the guild from bad to awesome.

I understand the argument of 'if your guild is doing badly you should be there for your novices' but if you keep trying and novices just fade away eventually you just stop doing an effort even when you know it is just a bad streak. Unless you have some kind of super willpower.

This is still a game and it should remain fun. There are some who don't mind it being a job, but sooner or later they'll burn out. It's alright to address that novices are not being properly looked after, but sometimes people do nothing but complain and show zero effort. Yeah, you might not know how, but have you even tried asking how you could be useful? If you don't get the answers you need, yes, then you have a point, but complaining without showing effort is something that really grinds my gears. I'm not saying this is the case for the OP, but I have been in this situation (not in Lusty, thank goodness), and usually that's resulted in just kicking people out.

Calixa:

Personally, I wish the game would be set up so novices are so at the mercy of how well or not well a guild is doing. If a guild is doing badly they are going to need that novice 10x more imo, because one day he or she might be the one taking the guild from bad to awesome.

I believe that's why Collegiums were added. If you have suggestions about ways to do that, please voice them! I'm not making any promises about whether or not we'll do them, but ideas are cool.

I'm an Undersecretary myself. And unfortunately, I always seem to be off when the novices are made. Another unfortunate event is that I'm the ONLY Undersecretary. Now, I realise that Undersecretaries are here as positions given by GA/GM/GC's to give players a taste of responsibility, and figure out how everything works when dealing with new players, but I don't think that novices should fall solely to US's. I was proud to see Nymerya get one of her Nihilists to initiate a novice while she watched, showing that she was making sure others could do the task if she was un-able.

Novice care can be thankless, but honestly, it shouldn't be up to your city/commune to thank you for it. If you're going to work with novices, you should be a person who likes teaching. I like the smiles when they see themselves CAST ELEMENTSHIELD for the first time, the thrill in their (written) voice when they kill their first darkling, the awe when they see me take down a Spectre Paladin in three hits. So yes, I am happy with it. However, I don't expect Leolamins or someone to see me do such, and cityfavour me for it. Sure, it's nice if it happens, but that's not what I'm doing it for.

And lastly, I'm sort of sad that I haven't been able to do any Geomancer novices of late. However, I think if you're going to be a novice aide, you should make sure to be able to teach all of your cities novices, even if you can't teach them their lessons personally. If it comes to that, I just run to their teacher in the collegium, though ;). I'll answer their questions, or direct them to scrolls where their questions can be answered, so yes. I'm a Novice Aide, and I'm proud of it.

Zvoltz:

I believe that's why Collegiums were added. If you have suggestions about ways to do that, please voice them! I'm not making any promises about whether or not we'll do them, but ideas are cool.

Collegiums are pretty general though. It would be nice if guild paths could be made official and sort of coded in just like the collegium quests are. We are having a pretty solid system in the Nihilists now, and we got an advancement ritual, which is really neat. I realize it is not possible for everything, but maybe the guild teacher could take up the boring bits of a guild interivew, just pretty standard questions with a clear answer that the guild requires you to know, like say name all the guilds in your city / commune.

It would be pretty cool to have some (mechanical) novice advancement quests that can be done even if other guildmembers are busy / not around.

Novices naturally graduate after 10 hours anyway though - so while it's horrible to think that those who want to be sped through can't always be due to non-responding aides, at least they will get to GR1 in the end anyway. I'd hate to think of people bypassing the roleplay opportunity (or even worse aides directing novices to go do the automated method). Graduating novicehood early is supposed to be an optional thing anyway. I don't know that making it even easier to ignore novices is a good thing, which I think will inevitably occur if less interaction with guild members is required.

The 10-hour thing already leaves people feeling it's "not required"; I personally feel like Collegiums did the most damage to guild / novice interaction possible (I mean, the novices can't even talk on GNT until they graduate the collegium, they're not even part of the guild for their first 25 hours of gameplay!). The release of collegiums was the last time I helped train a novice.

Might as well go all the way and allow little-folk the option to do the quest if they want, or the interaction end if that's what they prefer.

In Mag at least they can't complete the power quest without help, and most novices can't get to astral on their own, so some interaction is required there, but I see your point.

I will point out that my guild has maybe five active members, and I can't be around all the time to do intros. If you joined Shofangi and nobody was around, hopefully someone was smart enough to at least point you at the Ejei file

Lavinya:

In Mag at least they can't complete the power quest without help, and most novices can't get to astral on their own, so some interaction is required there, but I see your point.

Er, the power quest can be completed by a level 7 novice with a minimum of effort.

a level 7 novice? Considering most shouldn't be able to take on spectral boys and girls until at least circle 20...yeah that is FAR from the norm.

If you have sipping/shielding/hit and run/fire potions down, I'm sure its doable at low level.

Basically, alts.

Especially as a tankier class/race, it's doable. You just have to know to hit and run. I think the fire potion thing is mentioned somewhere in the chelps, something about them doing freezing attacks.

I don't use a system other than curing in discipline. Before that was introduced, I wouldn't have taken on the children before level 12, but now I'd say it's pretty breezy at 10, with women at 20-22.

Edit: And yes, I only meant as a Viscanti or Illithoid. But I've never found it necessary to shield with those.