Some observations from a newcomer... (long)

[vurdijak]

Because of the placement of your post under Sairina's and the fact that the quotes in that post are not from my posts, I thought you were referring to her with the comment about relating to a specific case. I have read every word you wrote, and I agree with you that roleplay is the desirable solution here. My point here is not to influence a specific IC situation, to diminish the importance of roleplay, or to blunt the sharp edges of Geas that cut us all so wonderfully from time to time (this is not sarcastic, as I think a world full of rules would be bland). My point instead is to give players, new and not-so-new, at least a verbal agreement that their request for guild membership must be answered, and with this agreement also acknowledge the value of their time.

Edit: Just wanted to add an edit to say that, in reference to the original post on this thread, the observations are mostly right except that especially lately I have seen a pretty good balance of the zealots with those not so religious types.

Also, its only fair to acknowledge the limitations of guild leaders time as well. As a former guild leader, I admit that I found it very difficult to balance the situations I have talked about before. In some cases I feel I accepted people too early, and yes in others I probably denied access to the guild in error. So making people wait (especially newbies) isn't always so cut and dry, and my only hope with the 6 month suggestion was to take some of the guesswork out of it and add a time limit. As an idea for this, in most guilds there is a room that only the leaders/top people can access. Maybe a book could be put in the room, a short list of experiences of past leaders or something. It would be useful to the new leaders and could be an IC venue for advice/guidelines.

[Sairina]

Because of the placement of your post under Sairina's and the fact that the quotes in that post are not from my posts, I thought you were referring to her with the comment about relating to a specific case.

I wasn't referring to any case, nor do I know of any. I was referring only to what you wrote before.

[Delia]

Being(for quite lot of time) the sole person able to induct people into two guilds...its been trying and hard to decide who goes in and who doesn't, with th e added fact that I might not be around that much at times. OK currently I've been around quite a lot and its paid off, big time, in terms of guild members. But the main fact still remains...Delia is still the only active master two take people into Shao-Lin or Scribes, and I know it sucks for some people for different reasons...dunno what I'm trying to say, just that its hard, and I'm a little bit drunk right now. Night!

[kaspars]

I think people here are concentrating on one particular topic from all stated in original post. Additionally I dont think that mechanism how to join a guild is the most important topic when we discuss how to attract more people to the game and what makes newbies stop playing or what makes them happy. I seriously doubt that newb, who just started to play and is trying to guess the syntax or find that_certain_area_with_goblins would care about joining any of major guilds (just think about finding shaolins or HIS humble servants). And if they even care, then I believe it is a bit too early, anyway.

After reading the original post I see at least one topic that was mentioned there and could be easily fixed to help newbies - it is help files and general information about Geas.
After checking web page I see that quite some guilds have `no information yet`. What if leaders or members of respective guilds just write and hand some info to wizs so they could post them? What is the gain? More info for newb, more fancy details to attract people, better web page. The same for help files - I doubt wizs would be too angry if you hand them fixed or improved help file.

About newbs - help them, give them few copper coins, impress them and hand them even more info about this world. Cutting ears off in pretty style could help too, just dont forget - it is newb, who might not know who the hell is HE and that it is badbadbad to have red aura.

About RP .. well, some like RP with action and PvP , others like chatting at the inn. It is about preferences and I think Geas supports both types of players quite well.

[chara]

Documentation would be great, and generally welcomed by wizards. The process for writing history for the mud has been brought up several times here in the forum. Other than that, it's not all that helpful to say "There's a bunch of stuff that needs better documentation" because it's so unspecific. It's been a very long time since most of us wizards were newbies, and it's hard to know where gaps are missing. The report tool would be useful for pointing out these gaps.

If you provide actual text for the documentation, implementation would surely be quicker and easier.

[Lyrael]

*content deleted*

[rex]

I really like the probation idea, makes sense to me. This way if its not what you wanted it to be you can leave and look for a different path.

Rex

[ganandorf]

theres only one problem with that. if the leader of the guild does not manage the inflow, things such as spies can get in. people who may be aligned with taniel but are informers for sathonys.

[rex]

theres only one problem with that. if the leader of the guild does not manage the inflow, things such as spies can get in. people who may be aligned with taniel but are informers for sathonys.

If you are a spy for sathonys, and follow a good god, IMO you are breaking the rules, as, if God's are supposed to be 'all knowing' they would know of you being a true sathony follower and you would never get in. Sure you could 'pretend' to be a taniel but really a follower of Sathonys code-wise, but is that really fair?

[ganandorf]

i guess your right, but what if you follow taniel but have a pitch black aura, which in effect makes you bad. your karma is aweful, and you have barely no favour. i guess it is technically breaking the rules. but if you have more favour in taniel than sathonys and asral, though you only do bad deeds, you are technically a follower of taniel.
i guess instead of alignemnt i t should be baesed on karma and favour, which is probably what is applied.

[ganandorf]

oh yeah btw its not really breaking the rules because in effect thats just being a good spy. and gods are not all knowing. if a person does not believe in a god then there is no way they can fear punishment from that god. so thats really somethign about beliefs and should not be applied to the game

[Devi]

I think automated career guild joining is a horrible idea, as exemplified by Ganon's notion of "spying." Someone might worship Sathonys, do everything to be evil, and then be secretly plotting his character's redemption and subsequent destruction of Sathonys with inside information. While players could screen for this (at least a little), an automated system would only care about reputation and karma and such. Yuck.

Joining a career guild should involve a certain amount of hazing.

Instead of automating the system, I think it'd be better to give guild members more control and knowledge over membership. Here's what I'd like to see:

1) A voting system for all guilds: Elect guild leaders like judges. This ensures that inactive characters won't be stuck leading the guild. It also adds a certain measure of accountability. RPwise, this won't work with some guilds, but I still think it's necessary.

2) A system for petitioning a guild: A new character may petition a guild, notifying all members that said character is interested in joining. This would certainly streamline the wait-to-meet-up-with-an-X problem, where X is a thief/monk/priest/etc. Also, many characters don't know exactly whom to contact. Older characters often don't know either, given that many characters appear and disappear frequently. Once all the rangers know that newbie Drizzt is interested in joining, they may go out of their way to help.

3) Automated posting on guild boards: Every guild should have a clerk who posts a message on the guild board whenever a character leaves or joins the guild. Maybe petitioning could be handled this way. (I'd also like to see this for the Skalds, since many characters join without being noticed)

4) Member lists: Every guild should have a list of all active members, including the last time they've been seen in the guild hall. This list would be for current members.

It's been a long time since any of my characters have been in a career guild, but those are my ideas based on my experiences.

[ganandorf]

just wanted to say about devi's idea of hazing. according to what some people have told me, joining the guild of the sathonys takes a LONG time. ensuring the person who wants to join the guild is devoted and will not flake out. whereas i have also noticed that joining the crusaders does not take this much work and effort. a person can join the crusaders easily, meaning they will easily flake out etc etc. i could provide about 3 examples right now. if wanted, but it is IG info so i wont.

also just expanding on devi's post, im not gonna quote because its right there.

1. thats good, maybe it should be like judges of cities and towns. whereas if a person decides that the current leader is not good enough. they can do something about it.

2. i have found through personal experience that this is possible with some guilds. whereas you make a friend in a guild, and eventually you decide you want to join this guild, before you do you know all the active players in the guild and htey all decide upon what you are like and whether or not you can join.

3. this would be interesting actually, it happens now by the guild leader or high ranking member, but automated would be a good addition but a bit hard to code maybe (i dont know anything about coding so yeah)

4. this is actually something that is applied already according to my knowledge. but not updated ones

[tessa]

if a person does not believe in a god then there is no way they can fear punishment from that god.

Tell that to the Sathos that have visited the Taniel dungeon, or the Taniels that have visited the Asador cross.

oh yeah btw its not really breaking the rules because in effect thats just being a good spy.

I do think it's abuse of code to worship one god, but spy for another. From what I can tell, the god you worship isn't the one that likes you most, but the one you associate closest with. And, if you spy for Sathonys.. well, three guesses who you are most closely associated with.

The problem is, code can't read RP, and RP can't dictate code. I would figure it's the player's responsibility to match RP and code together. If, code-wise, your character worships Taniel, then IMO, the RP should show that- the character should sincerely favour Taniel above the others. If that's not the case, and code-wise, your char worships Taniel, but RP-wise, he prefers another god above Taniel.. then I think that the player should fix that accordingly.

RPing that you worship one god, but taking advantage of code restrictions by showing a less controversial god so you can RP as a spy without the consequences, in my opinion, isn't being a good spy, but rather being cheap, to be completely honest.

and gods are not all knowing.

Yes they are: viewtopic.php?t=532

Second post, paragraph beginning with 'Secondly':

Since gods are all-knowing, you can't hide your actions from them.

Since it comes from the mouth (or fingers, rather) of Abharsair, it's a pretty solid statement.

[Sairina]

The problem is: there is no way to hinder people RPing bad, and even with the current system, spying is very well possible. So I don't see this being a very conclusive argument against hard-coded solutions for entering a guild (well, maybe not *only*, then, but additionally?) This would make it impossible to join for newbs who don't know what they're doing, or for characters to be allowed into a guild too fast. Thus, it would minimize the work a player guildleader (who should be an active player, which could also be coded, I guess) has loaded upon him, which is a good thing, isn't it?

[anglachel]

I know that joining a guild can be a big problem.
I thought about a semi-automatic solution.
1) Every player can make an application for join by a guildnpc.
2) These will be notified to all guild leader.
3) Then a guildleader can mark the application, and speak with the potential new member. (Other guildleader know that someome take care about it)
4) After this and some tests the guildleader can rejecta the application or allows the player to join.
5) If no guildlleader take case about the application, the guildnpc will allow the player to join after a waiting time, when the player fullfills some minimum requirements.

requirements could be:
worshipper of a special deity (clerics)
A good or worse reputation
A miminum experince of char (high conflict guilds)
Fullfill a job for the guild.

[chara]

So are you saying that all the other MUDS out there that have successfully mplemented a "middle of the road" compromise to Guilds of this nature (I know of at least 2 active muds that enjoy logins of over 100 players on a regular basis - and are RP intensive - NOT hack-n-slash that use similar structures) are nuts and don't know what the heck they're doing? Sounds to me like you've got your mind set on a particular direction and no matter what logical points your players make, you're not about to change your mind. Which is a shame, as it seems to me some very good points have been raised.

No, that's not what I'm saying, and I don't really appreciate you putting words into my mouth. What happens on other muds is fine, but that doesn't automatically mean that they fit into Geas.

I've been a proponent of allowing players to automatically enter all but career guilds. If you disagree with me, fine, but that's no reason to call me closed-minded and state what my opinion about other games is without even asking.

And for the third and final time - everyone agrees that six months is a long time to wait. However, this was a specific situation that had more to it than people here are saying, and it is completely inappropriate to discuss the IC details on this board - especially since the involved players aren't even the ones bringing it up. It's absolutely irrelevant to this entire conversation.

You're right that it doesn't make sense for players to be bound to a guild that they know little to nothing about - that's one reason why automatic acceptance is such a terrible idea. That's why they should meet with the players of that guild, team with them, talk with them, find out about their way of life.

As others have said, you can't govern good roleplay, and I'm sorry that you had a bad experience with people brushing you off when you were trying to learn. But I do not believe that taking away their ability to build a guild full of characters who are like-minded and appropriate - which you can't simply determine by code - is the answer.

[Lyrael]

*content deleted*

[Abharsair]

Lengthy thread, and it became a little off-topic, but let me address some of the mentioned things.

1. It seems to me that almost every instance of RP I've been a part of or on the fringes of has been very "heavy" - typically centered around religious preferences, and felt very fanatical and forced in many instances. ...

That's often true. But if you have only three fanatic good and three fanatic evil players online, you already have a disproportional large amount of extremists when compared with the moderate characters, and therefore it is quite likely to encounter them and their role play. That's the drawback of a small player base. And the only solution to that would be to increase that player base while keeping the extremist wings small, because what we really don't need are fluffy, non-fanatic Sathos or Crusaders. Also, many of the older characters, or second/third characters of experienced players, tend to join those fanatic guilds at some point, because they offer more conflict and goals which results often times in more entertainment for them.

Some of the in-game mechanics related to affecting your character's standing in various cities is VERY heavy-handed in my opinion. Take Lyrael for example...she gets herself into a big mess in the Elvandar sewers, and calls out for help. ...

Sure, this can be difficult for a newbie, but as long as those guards do not attack you for that, or make it impossible for you to access certain things, this merely is a minor inconvenience for a newbie (unless you carry stolen goods). And it doesn't matter if you know Charles Manson or not, if you are seen with him in public, your reputation would suffer. And this part is actually mentioned in the help files, and real newbies below a certain character age are protected from that anyway. Apart from that, things such as the reputation within a city are usually easily and quick to change as a player.

The lack of documentation is overdone in my opinion - I realize that wanting to have some things be part of the process of discovery within the game is the goal, I think there's a bit of overkill on this. ...

I agree wholeheartedly. Unfortunately writing documentation is one of the most-hated things for a wizard. Usually when I tell someone who just coded a new feature that he/she has to add a help file, it results in moaning. But yes, I concur with you.

Concerning joining guilds I agree with Anglachel, especially since we both already discussed it months ago. In my opinion membership in layman and crafts guilds should be automatically if certain hard-coded requirements are fulfilled. I never understood why it should be hard to become a member in the Alchemists or Scribes, especially since access to the more delicate features/knowledge can still be safe-guarded against guild hoppers.

Occupational guilds are a different matter, but for some (notice the "some") it would be perfectly fine to introduce the system described by Anglachel. You apply at an npc guard, the non-npc leaders are notified, and unless they actively deny membership, the applicant is a week later accepted by said npc. However, for fanatic guilds which are heavily involved in playerkill this would neither work, nor would it be desired.

Guilds which would in my opinion work with such a system:

- Shaolin
- Rangers
- Asral Clerics
- Taniel Clerics (borderline)

Guilds which wouldn't work:

- Crusaders
- Sathos
- Thieves
- Order

I also don't think a rule about having to make a decision after six months to either accept/deny membership is either needed or of any advantage. For one thing, for some people having to wait one week is already too long. Secondly, you make it sound like the applicants are incapable of making their own decision about how long is too long. They can say at any time "Screw you, I join the competition", and making one's playing in Geas dependent on the membership in one certain guild is at best a bit questionable. Also, as someone already mentioned it, this is not really a problem for real newbies. Real newbies worry about other things than the membership in a player-killing, secret, extremist guild.

[EDIT] I also want to add that while I am all for making things easier, self-explanatory and convenient (within a certain range), I am against dumbing down the game alá "The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion" in order to cater to as many people as possible by choosing the smallest common denominator in terms of complexity, realism and quality.

[Vargrahim]

I have a great/grand idea:

How about a Wiki (one that works =)) for documentation. Or a "section" completely devoted to it. A kind of "by players for players" kind of thing. Guild people could write a line about their own guild. Perhaps even helpfiles could be put there, so that when a player notices an error, instead of writing a long error report which takes about twice the time it takes to edit a file, simply can edit this page instead.

Lots of community-run software has this approach, and it seems to work. Especially with login-requirements, the risk that evil ones (not you, Abh) tries to destroy should be minimal. If it would be possible to add some kind of "page rank" system so people could rate the pages and allow others to find the really good guides/pages it could serve a noobie very well.

Just 2 cc