Requirements to get class

Razmael

Hey folks,

Just going to copy/paste/sticky a post I've just made on the Leaders news board, as the information is relevant to all players, not just leaders.


LEADERS NEWS #401
Date: 8/19/2014 at 18:11
From: Razmael, the Synthesist
To : Everyone
Subj: Guild requirements (GR1 - GR3)

Hey folks,

This isn't going to be a popular post for some of you, but is something we've been needing to crack
down on for a long time. This post is about the maximum requirements for someone to reach GR3 that
you guys are allowed to impose on players. You'll find below a template of example requirements.
This is what we consider to be the 'ceiling' for difficulty on requirements to get GR3. Your
requirements can be easier than what I've listed, but should be no harder.

Also, forget about any kind of essays, they're terrible. You can include essays in your optional
GR3+ requirements if you want, but they should never be used for the GR1 to GR3 requirements.

Please remember that choosing to progress through the guild IS ENTIRELY OPTIONAL. I don't care if
someone sits at whatever guildrank they are all day, that's their prerogative as a player of a GAME.

If you guys have any concerns or questions about your requirements in relation to this post, please
bring it up during our meeting with you.

Novicehood -> GR1
-----------------
Nothing, this is what the GRADUATE FROM NOVICEHOOD command is for.


GR1 -> GR2
----------
- May be advised to find a sponsor within a guild. Not required, but advised.
- Level 35
- Have a description
- Be fully clothed (if you have a guild uniform/armor/weapons, get those)
- Graduate from a city's academy
- Familiarize yourself with the TASKS system and complete as many as you'd like
- Familiarize yourself with HELP LAWS
- Be able to find the post office, bank, and guild hall
- Be prepared to answer an open-ended question such as, "Why are you here/what's your goal/etc."


GR2 -> GR3
---------------
- Obtain 5 health and mana vials, along with 2 vials of every salve and remaining elixirs.
- Obtain 100 of each herbal curative. (HELP CURES)
- Obtain 25 rations.
- Obtain a tinderbox and three pipes and know how to properly smoke a pipe.
- Level 60
- Attend 3 lessers
- Read NO MORE THAN 1 book (of appropriate length) on guild history, and be prepared to summarize it
in an interview, no essays
- Be able to talk about the tenets of one similarly-aligned god
- Know how to find 3 bashing areas
- Donate 5000 gold
- Know basic curing (how to turn firstaid on)


GR3 and beyond
--------------
Whatever you like.

Penned by my hand on the 24th of Lleian, in the year 427 MA.

LEADERS NEWS #402
Date: 8/19/2014 at 18:14
From: Razmael, the Synthesist
To : Everyone
Subj: Experienced players

Someone just asked me if they're allowed to impose harder requirements on experienced players.

Simple answer: no.

Penned by my hand on the 24th of Lleian, in the year 427 MA.

LEADERS NEWS #403
Date: 8/19/2014 at 18:27
From: Razmael, the Synthesist
To : Everyone
Subj: Re: Houses and these requirements

Another good question about how this applies to houses. Obviously the system you guys have is a bit
different to guilds, but you can consider these requirements as the requirements necessary for
someone to get full class in any organization. In the case of houses, this means getting embraced.

Penned by my hand on the 24th of Lleian, in the year 427 MA.

Moirean

I was intending to bring this up at the Carnifex meeting with admin, but maybe this is a better spot to discuss it.

I've implemented a new parallel sort of progression in Carnifex recently in response to interest from players. This is a more customized and advanced - and demanding - thing that people (experienced people, not newbies) can OPTIONALLY choose as an alternative to normal progression.

Putting this in has brought up the thought of guild structure as a whole - atm it's very linear and without much room for customization. This means more unique options or even just divergence from the straight 1-20 climb have to be shoved in, highlighted through non-traditional methods, or covered through the bajillion clans each guild has. The result is that stuff feels scattered, clunky and not really legitimate and it simply doesn't feel as "real" or cool - getting a rank in a clan isn't nearly as nice as seeing something on honors or score.

Some ideas I wanted to suggest included things like:

- Customizable progression types.
For example, instead of having rank 1, 2, 3, a guild could choose to have multiple parallel ranks up the ladder. 1a, 2a, 3a and 1b, 2b, 3b, etc.

- More powers and places to slot them, divorced from rank.
Right now, you're basically a secretary, a novice aide or climbing through the ranks, but it would be really nice if we could give guild privs out to individuals - for example, I wanted to make Bakhtuh a guild librarian because he's really into research and stuff. The only way I could do that was to put the library privs at his guildrank (ie for half the guild), which kinda undercuts the unique role I was giving him. There have been enough posts in the past about new types of privs and guild roles that I won't elaborate more, unless more discussion is desired, except just to say that more powers (and the ability to customize who gets them) would give people at all levels of gameplay more ways to get involved.

- Unique *official* titles and player notes.
We can title someone something special, but being able to see a line in honors, score and/or GWHO makes it carry 10x more weight and prestige, as well as saves people tons of time. Why should I have to update a project every day? That's so tedious and tiring, and GR 1 can't even access projects. Being able to type GWHO to see at a glance who path x members are or who to go to with donations or typing PNOTE TOZ to review the details about his latest project would be so much easier.

- Make paths official so we can do away with clans.
Basically fold in the functionality of clans to the guild system itself, letting secretaries be set as the head of path x, induct people to it, create ranks/titles, have GHELPs only path members can read, etc. Having to be part of tons of clans is messy, tedious to manage, and think how much more badass it would be to type score and see:

| You are the Guildmaster of the Carnifex guild.
| You are a Novice aide in the Carnifex guild.
| You are an initiate in the Path of Carnage.
| You are the Head Researcher of the Soullore Scholars.

Paths currently struggle at being attractive. Most guilds put a lot of work into them, but their lack of legitimacy and reward means that you usually only see people going through them for gold/credits/guildfavors. From my experience, a lot of people in this game are motivated by the feeling of being SPECIAL and IMPORTANT and a side-effect of folding clan functionality in and cleaning stuff up would be that people would be given more motivation to get engaged with their orgs.

- Let us have guild artifacts.
I know this has been shot down in the past, but that was years ago, so worth asking again? In the Carnifex, I hold a tournament and the winner gets a really nice weapon with several artifact runes attached which they then get to use until the weapon decays (just in time for the next tournament). The issue is, if I ever stop playing or decide to just keep the artis for myself, the guild is boned - but that prize is a REALLY cool one and people really wanted to win it. Guild artifacts are a great way to recognize people for work and temporarily reward them, be it for winning a contest, completing a big task, holding a special guild role - the options are really very versatile and would let us leaders create a ton of imaginative things. Being able to create guild artifacts like this would also mean that we could do most of the work, saving admin valuable time, AND it would mean that guilds have more tangible long-term goals to work towards (Guys, we're fundraising to get a new arti! Etc).

Haven

Toz

Dislike. But at least it outlines stuff so people aren't arguing over it all the time.

Areka

Can the list of places to know please be expanded? We at least have included some other key points in the city that are frequently asked about, that way it's just starting info - city arena, pylon, and vermin catcher (and city meeting room near the Pylon, but I can easily nix that).

Damonicus

Put the requirement for my novices to graduate from the academy. I will not be seeing a gr2 for quite some time :P

Moirean

Tbh, I don't see the point of needing to know specific places. Teach them to learn to use MAP, PATH FIND, LANDMARKS, NOD GUARD and AREAS and you cover far more ground. Use a few rooms to demonstrate that they know the mechanics.

Areka

Because they're places with basic/frequent utility and function and are useful to know (like going to the pylon to get fresh goggles, etc).

Moirean

Yes, but what I am saying is that they can access all of those places with the existing system. Testing them on using the system will help them a lot more in the long run, and cut out 20+ minutes of walking all over.

Rashar

Can you actually move without path find/path go? Huh!

Areka

I don't see how that conflicts? Still need to know the vnums and to path find to them, path find to the guild hall, and stuff?

Trager

Maybe she means like, the already built-in commands?

PATH FIND GUILD
PATH FIND POST
PATH FIND PYLON
PATH FIND BANK
PATH FIND ETC

Moirean

Yep. You can also NOD GUARD to get vnums, or use LANDMARKS to see important places.

Areka

Again, I don't see how that conflicts with having some key places for them to be aware of and to know to get to.

Nalor

also going to the pylon etc IS in the academy requirements :P

Areka

I still don't see how any of this contradicts that they are important locations for new players to take note of and become familiar with. It isn't a "we'll follow you around while you manually walk places" requirement, it's a "these are important and you need to become familiar with them." requirement.

Roux

Honestly, I don't see a few additional places to know as being outside of what was listed above, regardless of how getting there is achieved. It doesn't really make the requirements any more difficult.

Moirean

The issue is when people then have to demonstrate them all at the interview - nobody wants to administer interviews because they take ages, and it's tiring/boring for the newbs to go through since you're just using the same command repeatedly. If you're talking about useful places to know, that's a different story entirely and not even really a requirement so much as a matter of course. Every guild has a GHELP DIRECTIONS as far as I know.

Areka

I still don't understand what the argument is. They don't have to demonstrate them in the interview, that has never been suggested, nor implied. They just need to know these locations because they're useful and will end up using them, no different than knowing how to read news.

Requirements != things that are tested. They're just required knowledge. Tested knowledge is something different.

Roux

I'm mostly commenting on that a mini-argument over whether showing you can go there or showing you know the path command is sort of moot. The requirement to know where to go/where places are is included, and it's really up to the guilds to decide how to implement it. Thus, we get the lovely magic of difference.

Ishin

I'm not seeing the difference in PATH FIND PYLON and PATH FIND 1111 - PATH GO.

Jensen

one teaches how to use the system, one teaches you how to get to a single specific spot. either way, I don't care, stop arguing about it.

Jensen

Sorry for double post, are we allowed to put older players new to the guild on a timed probation for advancement?

Kerryn

Jensen said:

Sorry for double post, are we allowed to put older players new to the guild on a timed probation for advancement?

Why would you do this? To me probation is a punishment. What have they done so wrong that warrants it by just -joining-? I think it sends the entirely -wrong- message. "Sure, join us but we're going to do this negative thing right from the word go." A guild should be welcoming it's members, trusting or at least until there's reason to -not- trust a member.

Jensen

If there's no time requirement, I could reach gr3 in the time it would take you to induct and interview me twice. If enough people were feeling nice, you could reasonably reach gr3 of each and every guild in a 24 hour period.

Kerryn

Typically, you may only take one interview each 'month'. So.. 3 real life days to get class. The whole reason for this is to allow people to get class -easier- instead of being guild rank 2 for a full rl month. There's no stipulation against said restriction of one test per rl month. Is getting -class- in 3 days such a horrible thing?

Jensen

I do it to let people I'm not sure of into the guild on a trial basis, if that's gone then my vote for them is a "no".

Kerryn

That type of mentality only hurts an organization. People are here to play a game, they have just as much right to join your guild as anyone else. If they are a clear trouble maker before? Sure, okay. But it should be real trouble. Not something petty or small. They must pose a real risk to your organization other than "They may apprentice someone we don't want to have our skills." That is a -whole- other issue Admin are working on addressing.

Moirean

Admin ruled years ago that you can't mandate people sit at ranks for a long length of time.

Omei

Please don't use guild probation that way. Use it for what it's for (a punishment of existing members).

Yarel

Maybe I missed something, But I don't really see the problem with an experienced player being able to get to GR3 quickly, or even a newb who is that sharp. When I joined Indorani, the Gm interviewed me. She roled all 3 interviews into one, and I was done in 15 minutes. When I joined Scio this last time, I never even had to take an interview. Did the guilds die because of it? Nope. In my experience, there are rarely very many people in any guild who are eager to give interviews. If we can get you done and on your way quickly, all the better for both of us.