Abhorash

Hadoryu

I ignored that point, because it's been addressed before. No, it's not been proven. People are killing themselves to maintain activity. The second they no longer have an axe at their neck, you'll see this 'maintained activity' vanish.

4 was not chosen at random, it isn't just a number. Give the admin this much credit at least. They have the numbers of active, house vampires to work with.

And it doesn't have to be russian roulette. The trailing houses know that perfectly well, but are locked in an apparent game of house-destruction-chicken.

Haedyn

Hadoryu said:

It's fine if all the people flock to one house. If it's a successful environment, it'll retain the numbers. If it isn't, it'll bleed members. In any event, the numbers will regulate themselves according to the organization's success at providing a good environment.

I can't read 'makes a compromise to ensure survival' the same as 'compromising integrity.' If everyone is already metagaming to stay on top, I'd say integrity is already compromised. Now you can make a good thing out of this and actually end it the way you said you'd end it (and thereby causing the stress that's already been experienced) or you can back out, achieve nothing in consolidating the playerbase into a smaller number of orgs and STILL have caused a ton of stress over essentially nothing.

Yeah, you don't like being in this situation. Yeah, you don't want to be the one of the three to have to make the sacrifice. Why not them? Why you? The thing is, you're there already and this is a thing that has to be done so new players can stop being funneled into small/inactive houses and houses can stop being the Aetolian darknet where everything goes because they're irrelevant as orgs.

This is a design modification on a game-wide scale. It isn't about what's justice IC for the houses. You're getting a chance to not be the house that gets the axe and you're getting a chance to make this thing not stick out like a sore thumb immersion-wise. RP it out as best you can, but don't ask for this to basically stop and go back to the way things were.

What part of "The playerbase has already enacted the fusion to which you are speaking in the form of the agreed-upon mergers between Voltaire/Ve'kahi and Nebre'seir/Bouchard. Dar'sroth is clearly on its way out." in my post or "The margin between all the Houses is really razor thin at this point." in Ezalor's post did you not comprehend? This test has already served the purpose to which you are referring.You are swinging wildly to the other side and speaking as if this test just started, there are still eight Houses, and the playerbase is just whining because they don't like change. 

The problem now is that it is going too far. So far that it is leading to organizations being cheap and acting flagrantly outside of normal RP for the sake of survival. Moreover, I can guarantee you that if a House like Bahir'an, which has stuck to its integrity (and was -already- far more active than a number of the other Houses), gets dissolved because they did not metagame hard enough to keep up, their players are not going to want to just merge to a "super House" and continue happily playing Aetolia.

 I understand the spirit of your viewpoint on this, Hadoryu, and I believe it walks hand-in-hand with the administration's vision when they originally put this whole thing into motion. But if you were in the game and watching these TOPHOUSES positions fluctuate like the bloody stock market, you'd see that it really has become ludicrous. I am in no way saying that your opinion here is without value, but I believe it is very misplaced in the context of what is actually happening between these organizations in the present. 

Ezalor

That's exactly part of the problem. You're going to see an honest House, which probably has a much higher level of "true" activity, get axed in favour of a less "truly" active House that has artificially boosted its activity. There is no doubt that artificial activity is going to be the game changer.

As for axing another House increasing the quality of the game for the survivors, I firmly disagree. The Houses are -so- different now. You've already seen the Houses that are willing to get along merge. With all the remaining 5, you're going to get a resounding "hell no" when their members try to move. I know I wouldn't give a second thought to shooting down most of the people from other Houses trying to seek refuge in D'baen. We've created a certain type of atmosphere and identity and worked very hard to foster it. Keep in mind I'm not claiming at all that our identity or atmosphere is superior, but it's vastly different from the other Houses and jeopardizing that for the sake of numbers is not at all in my interest. I'm sure many of the other Houses feel the same way. Do you really want to see, for example, Lunare dissolved and its members shunned from everywhere because of how they are viewed? It's the extreme situation, and unlikely to happen, but the same principle exists there for any other House getting dissolved. They still have unique identities and purposes and suddenly forcing a whole House full of these like-minded people to seek out another very unlike-minded House is not going to make things better.

Haven

Ezalor said:

The point's been proven with 5 Houses. They've all maintained activity. So really, what's the fixation on 4? Unless the admin have some purpose that I'm not seeing, 4 was chosen to ensure activity was upheld and the over-saturation of Houses was destroyed. Those goals have already been accomplished, so why seriously piss off/stress a portion of your playerbase to uphold an arbitrary number? You argue that 5 is somehow anathema to successful Houses when it's been proven it works just fine.

And trust me, I can inflate D'baen's number by a LOT more if I'm forced to it. At the moment the furthest thing we've done is call in one old friend back to Aetolia who is actually fully committed to playing the character. Do I want to stoop lower to ensure survival? No, but when survival's the name of the game, integrity is a losing strategy. I already know some of the other Houses have done far more. And judging a fight based on who wants to metagame more to survive the Russian roulette round just really, really blows. 

Here's  the rub about saying the intended goal has already been accomplished and will maintain: the Houses are only as active as they are right now because there is a competition going on where the loser gets deleted.

It's kind of like saying the amount of people active during a weekend long Great Hunt will be the same and maintained when the event is over. It's just not true.

Hadoryu

Haedyn said:

What part of "The playerbase has already enacted the fusion to which you are speaking in the form of the agreed-upon mergers between Voltaire/Ve'kahi and Nebre'seir/Bouchard. Dar'sroth is clearly on its way out." in my post or "The margin between all the Houses is really razor thin at this point." in Ezalor's post did you not comprehend? This test has already served the purpose to which you are referring.You are swinging wildly to the other side and speaking as if this test just started, there are still eight Houses, and the playerbase is just whining because they don't like change. 

The problem now is that it is going too far. So far that it is leading to organizations being cheap and acting flagrantly outside of normal RP for the sake of survival. Moreover, I can guarantee you that if a House like Bahir'an, which has stuck to its integrity (and was -already- far more active than a number of the other Houses), gets dissolved because they did not metagame hard enough to keep up, their players are not going to want to just merge to a "super House" and continue happily playing Aetolia.

 I understand the spirit of your viewpoint on this, Hadoryu, and I believe it walks hand-in-hand with the administration's vision when they originally put this whole thing into motion. But if you were in the game and watching these TOPHOUSES positions fluctuate like the bloody stock market, you'd see that it really has become ludicrous. I am in no way saying that your opinion here is without value, but I believe it is very misplaced in the context of what is actually happening between these organizations in the present. 

It's not a matter of comprehension. It's a matter of relevance. That steps were made does not mean the goal was achieved. It isn't, as of now, as there are still more than 4 houses. The precarious situation, as it exists now, is a decision of the houses to keep trying to win by a hair rather than drop out or compromise. Yeah, it's stressful, because there's a lot at stake. It doesn't HAVE to be that way.

Ezalor said:

That's exactly part of the problem. You're going to see an honest House, which probably has a much higher level of "true" activity, get axed in favour of a less "truly" active House that has artificially boosted its activity. There is no doubt that artificial activity is going to be the game changer.

As for axing another House increasing the quality of the game for the survivors, I firmly disagree. The Houses are -so- different now. You've already seen the Houses that are willing to get along merge. With all the remaining 5, you're going to get a resounding "hell no" when their members try to move. I know I wouldn't give a second thought to shooting down most of the people from other Houses trying to seek refuge in D'baen. We've created a certain type of atmosphere and identity and worked very hard to foster it. Keep in mind I'm not claiming at all that our identity or atmosphere is superior, but it's vastly different from the other Houses and jeopardizing that for the sake of numbers is not at all in my interest. I'm sure many of the other Houses feel the same way. Do you really want to see, for example, Lunare dissolved and its members shunned from everywhere because of how they are viewed? It's the extreme situation, and unlikely to happen, but the same principle exists there for any other House getting dissolved. They still have unique identities and purposes and suddenly forcing a whole House full of these like-minded people to seek out another very unlike-minded House is not going to make things better.

The way I'm reading this is "Lunare is going to win and a better house is going to lose, which is unfair, so the subjectively better house should still be allowed to exist." I get that you have a strong opinion on who should or shouldn't lose their house and how houses should be, but believe me when I say those things will continue to change over the next months. The number of houses, however, will either be reduced NOW or it will be too much work and stress to do it later. You don't necessarily have to like the short term consequences of a change like this, in order to be able to appreciate the long term consequences.

Haedyn

Haven said:

Ezalor said:

The point's been proven with 5 Houses. They've all maintained activity. So really, what's the fixation on 4? Unless the admin have some purpose that I'm not seeing, 4 was chosen to ensure activity was upheld and the over-saturation of Houses was destroyed. Those goals have already been accomplished, so why seriously piss off/stress a portion of your playerbase to uphold an arbitrary number? You argue that 5 is somehow anathema to successful Houses when it's been proven it works just fine.

And trust me, I can inflate D'baen's number by a LOT more if I'm forced to it. At the moment the furthest thing we've done is call in one old friend back to Aetolia who is actually fully committed to playing the character. Do I want to stoop lower to ensure survival? No, but when survival's the name of the game, integrity is a losing strategy. I already know some of the other Houses have done far more. And judging a fight based on who wants to metagame more to survive the Russian roulette round just really, really blows. 

Here's  the rub about saying the intended goal has already been accomplished and will maintain: the Houses are only as active as they are right now because there is a competition going on where the loser gets deleted.

It's kind of like saying the amount of people active during a weekend long Great Hunt will be the same and maintained when the event is over. It's just not true.

That's just it. It is this artificial inflation that has those of us with truly active organizations concerned. If the administration was dead set on there only being four Houses they would have been better off looking at average activity over a much larger window of time and simply dissolving the Houses that they found to be inactive on the average without giving folks the chance to artificially inflate numbers. While this current system may have provided some semblance of accuracy in the beginning, it is no longer doing so. We now risk seeing the Houses that were active before this whole thing started getting dissolved because they are not willing to compromise on their integrity enough to out metagame the competition. I just cannot believe that is how the administration intended for this test to work. Punish the organizations that were -already- serving their purpose and force them to merge with organizations that were largely inactive before the test started? It just doesn't make logical sense. 

Ezalor

Right, so basing a deletion race on metagamed/artificial activity is good? Sure in an ideal world everything is run fairly but this competition is not even close to ideal. You've seen a fair amount of activity maintained, to the point that even if some is artificial you're not going to end up with dead Houses ever. The point has been proven and achieved, going further is just going to open a hive of metagaming and shady tactics in return for very minimal gain.

Look, no offense to either of you, but everyone who is intimately involved in this competition is sick of it, and there's a very valid reason beyond just being crazed for survival. Neither of you have to worry about this so it's the easiest thing in the world for you to sit back and be yes-men for the admin. But for just about -everyone- involved in this situation, it's a vortex of stress, worry, and misery for the sake of minimal gain. And that has to continue for TWO MORE MONTHS. 

I'm likely to burn myself out of Aetolia completely during that time span. And I love this game, so the fact that I'm feeling that means I am far, far from the only one. Having to worry about impending deletion and come up with cheap ways to make sure it doesn't happen, that saps all enjoyment out of the game for me, just as having the House that we've put so much into and base our playing experience around deleted would sap most of that enjoyment as well.  That e-mail Sarita filed got 20+ names and she only asked around for a period of about 10 minutes. If she took a day even, I'm sure every single active person would be on that list.

Ezalor

Hadoryu said:

The way I'm reading this is "Lunare is going to win and a better house is going to lose, which is unfair, so the subjectively better house should still be allowed to exist." I get that you have a strong opinion on who should or shouldn't lose their house and how houses should be, but believe me when I say those things will continue to change over the next months. The number of houses, however, will either be reduced NOW or it will be too much work and stress to do it later. You don't necessarily have to like the short term consequences of a change like this, in order to be able to appreciate the long term consequences.

Then you're missing the point completely. I even said I have no intention of claiming D'baen's way is superior or the right way. If D'baen were to fall, I'm sure our members would have just as hard of a time finding other Houses as Lunare's would (well, maybe not just as hard, but it would still be hard). It's not about being superior or better, it's about being fundamentally -different.- I don't have a "strong" opinion on who should and shouldn't lose their House. If you ask around, I've been one of the only ones to oppose simple deletion of Lunare despite how much I don't respect them, because I realize it's unfair. If Lunare was the fifth House in this situation I would still be making this post. I do have a strong opinion that this entire competition is extremely flawed and placing insane amounts of stress and worry on everyone involved for very minimal gains.

Hadoryu

I don't think it's surprising that people don't want to lose their house. If they did, they could generally achieve that on their own power.

And, knowing that nobody wants to lose, I'm completely confident that no competition or arrangement would ever be considered fair by everyone. You can come up with many other ways to do this that seem more fair to you, but they won't to the people that would lose under those rules.

How do you imagine the admin should have done this? Just axed some houses? Can you imagine the outrage? If D'Baen was just gone one day without warning or a chance to do anything about it, would you have been happier?

They have to do this, because houses have long been a very underdeveloped part of the game, often times acting as personal clans and have historically been the worst run organizations in the game. The common excuse for this is that 'they don't matter as much as guilds,' but the truth is, they do matter a whole lot. A ton of newbies come to Aetolia to play vampires. That initial experience has to be greatly improved and conserving houses because they're different, to the expense of actual player activity, which is directly tied to newbie first impressions, is not sensible.

You have to look past the current turmoil and realize that this WILL be over and the game WILL eventually be much better off for it.

Haven

TopHouse update!

• Lunare - 6588
  
• D'baen - 6502
  
• Nebre'seir - 6349
  
• Ve'kahi - 6279
  
• Bahir'an - 5981
  
• Dar'sroth - 12
  

This race really is brutal!

Haedyn

Hadoryu said:

It's not a matter of comprehension. It's a matter of relevance. That steps were made does not mean the goal was achieved. It isn't, as of now, as there are still more than 4 houses. The precarious situation, as it exists now, is a decision of the houses to keep trying to win by a hair rather than drop out or compromise. Yeah, it's stressful, because there's a lot at stake. It doesn't HAVE to be that way.

What "goal," exactly, are you referring to? Achieving agreement with the "law of four?" The goal, by my understanding, was to pare down the number of Houses so that there was a much lower probability of a new player joining a House and hearing crickets instead of getting the assistance that they need. To say that goal has not been accomplished by two House mergers and the inevitable destruction of another House is just silly. The administration designed a litmus test to determine which organizations were inactive. That litmus test has served a purpose up until the present by encouraging those Houses that have a common set of ideals to merge. It has also served the purpose of shining a light on those organizations for which there just is no helping (Dars'roth). At this point, however, the test is no longer serving its purpose. It is -not-, by any stretch of one's imagination, separating truly active organizations from inactive organizations. It is encouraging the playerbase to act wildly out of character for the sake of survival. 

Macavity

Ezalor said:

Hadoryu said:

The way I'm reading this is "Lunare is going to win and a better house is going to lose, which is unfair, so the subjectively better house should still be allowed to exist." I get that you have a strong opinion on who should or shouldn't lose their house and how houses should be, but believe me when I say those things will continue to change over the next months. The number of houses, however, will either be reduced NOW or it will be too much work and stress to do it later. You don't necessarily have to like the short term consequences of a change like this, in order to be able to appreciate the long term consequences.

Then you're missing the point completely. I even said I have no intention of claiming D'baen's way is superior or the right way. If D'baen were to fall, I'm sure our members would have just as hard of a time finding other Houses as Lunare's would. It's not about being superior or better, it's about being fundamentally -different.- I don't have a "strong" opinion on who should and shouldn't lose their House. If you ask around, I've been one of the only to oppose simple deletion of Lunare despite how much I don't respect them, because I realize it's unfair. I do have a strong opinion that this entire competition is extremely flawed and placing insane amounts of stress and worry on everyone involved for very minimal gains.

It would be highly unfair to just delete Lunare out, more so when it had the numbers before even going into this mess of an ordeal we are in now.  Also keep in mind that under the old system the Living did not count for or against that score, and (correct me if I am wrong) but also the Undead did not count in that score either like they do now.  Only those who were Embraced Vampires were counted and still Lunare sat on top time and time again.

I am not sure what metagaming tatics are going on and someone please fill me in cause i would like to know, but I can say since I came to Lunare before this whole killing houses started I have not seen anything out of the ordinary for the House itself.  I personally have been watching the logs and novices that come into the House to insure that people are not being embraced any faster than they normally would should the House not face this issue.  I can also say I have been the main person logged in the most for Lunare and I am here in front of my computer doing things, bashing, RPing with new or old people, and what not.  by no means am I saying Lunare is perfect but neither is any other House out there either, we all have our ups and downs.  

But I do tend to agree that each of the 5 Houses are unique enough to sustain a healthy population, other than Neb at this point simply because Bouchard merged and that changes the dynamics of a House since you got two full on groups in one place now.  I mean which laws do you use, which set of teachings, peerage if different, ranks, councils.  all that sort of things and even the ideology of the houses.  But on the flip side they should at least be able to normalize their situation and allow time to evolve into whatever they are going to be.

Hadoryu

The goal isn't separation of active from inactive, it's consolidation. 4 houses will be more active than 5 houses. It is still VASTLY more than what guilds get in terms of internal segregation for one class/ideology. I don't think any of that is "silly."

Ezalor

Well it seems anything I say is just bouncing off a brick wall, and having experienced the situation firsthand I'm a brick wall in this too. I think we'll just have to agree to disagree, because the fundamental argument here is that you think 4 Houses will make the game incredibly better and more active while I think just the opposite. As with any decision, you have to weigh the benefits with the costs. Again, it's easy for you to sit here and say LOOK AT THE FUTURE BENEFITS when you don't have to shoulder ANY of the costs yourself. But for all the rest of us, trust us when we say these costs are massive and much more than any benefit that could be gleaned.

But I'll leave others to chime in before I keep going on with you, because at this point we're just going to go in circles and I don't think either of us is going to convince the other. I'll still be reading the thread and your response(s), of course, but I want to let others air out their opinions as well. I think I've already said all my viewpoints/opinions on this.

Haedyn

Hadoryu said:

You have to look past the current turmoil and realize that this WILL be over and the game WILL eventually be much better off for it.

The number of people actively playing Aetolia is already far less than it was five years ago. The game developer, Razmael, has openly admitted this. Moreover, it is this reduction in the size of the playerbase that is driving this slashing of organizations in the first place. Do the number of Houses and guilds need to be reduced to suit the current size of the playerbase? Yes! Absolutely! But you have to be sensitive to the players that you already have. Pissing them off by throwing them into a rat race of compromised integrity and letting the pieces fall where they may is not going to result in Aetolia "eventually be[ing] much better off for it." It's just not. If anything, it runs the risk of costing the game some of its more loyal players. 

Calipso

Go Dar'sloth! (

Hadoryu

Yeah, it runs that risk. Not changing it provides for the certainty of greeting newbies with sub-par organizations. You're drawing the line in the place you're comfortable, but if we're going to be backing out now, do the houses that already merged not deserve a chance to say how unique and important they are too? They would likely have preferred to exist as they had until now as well.

Yeah, it's a risk. And despite the admin doing their best to think this out and make it work out the best for everyone while they streamline a part of the game (which is necessary for the health of the game, even if it's unpopular with those directly affected older players), yeah, they can lose players. They don't want to and they're trying to work things out in the best way possible. But they also have the vision to see the necessity of measures like this.

Tza

I thought this "Dominion" would provide a newbie channel for all newbies? So if there's only one Ve'kahi and one D'baen novice, the Ve'kahi would help the D'baen novice. (Maybe I'm just pretty-painting the world though..)

If that's the case then it shouldn't matter if there's 5 instead of 4 hourses. I kind of feel bad already for whichever House isn't going to make it. :S

Haedyn

Hadoryu said:

Yeah, it runs that risk. Not changing it provides for the certainty of greeting newbies with sub-par organizations. You're drawing the line in the place you're comfortable, but if we're going to be backing out now, do the houses that already merged not deserve a chance to say how unique and important they are too? They would likely have preferred to exist as they had until now as well.

Yeah, it's a risk. And despite the admin doing their best to think this out and make it work out the best for everyone while they streamline a part of the game (which is necessary for the health of the game, even if it's unpopular with those directly affected older players), yeah, they can lose players. They don't want to and they're trying to work things out in the best way possible. But they also have the vision to see the necessity of measures like this.

Refusing to reconsider and adapt your original plan based on the discovery of an inherent flaw in said plan, is not being realistic. Period. All of your arguments continue to stem back from the original purpose of the administration to pare down the number of organizations. I, nor Ezalor, nor anyone else that is a proponent of this petition to keep five Houses has expressed disagreement with that purpose. We are stating that the mechanic that the administration put into place to accomplish this end has run its course and to continue forging down that path is going to have a negative effect on the game rather than a positive one. You are correct, a line is being drawn. But that line has very little to do with "comfort" and more to do with logic. If you look at the current numbers via TOPHOUSES it is a logical deduction that the current mechanic is no longer giving an accurate depiction of which Houses are truly active and should therefore continue to exist. It is, after all, -activity- by which the administration has chosen to determine which Houses will be dissolved and I am fairly certain that they intended "activity" to mean real activity and not idle bots, temporarily active alts, and speed-siring newbies. 

Hadoryu

Your entire argument is based on this being a matter of segregating the active from the inactive and culling the latter. I dislike repeating myself, but this is not the intent. It is not about punishment and reward. It is about consolidation. It is about the vampire population being spread over four houses instead of being spread over five or six or seven. Four is apparently the number the admin decided on and I doubt it was a random number. They made the call that the active vampire population is only sufficient to properly sustain four houses. The fact is, they were likely being overly generous, even in that estimation.

Insisting that something has been accomplished by purging a few less active houses misses that point and purpose entirely. I see absolutely no logic behind this position and I can only see people insisting on admin making sure their house is no longer on the chopping block. I consider this an argument based out of self interest rather than the improvement of the  game.

P.S. @Tza : Much for the same reason CT doesn't solve the issue with inactive guilds.

Tza

Hadoryu said:

P.S. @Tza : Much for the same reason CT doesn't solve the issue with inactive guilds.

The city channel isn't a dedicated novice channel either. Personally, I'd find it more useful if there was one fangface-wannabe novice channel instead of 4-5 seperate ones. It would heighten the chance that someone is around to help the newb - and I'm saying this as a off-peak player, I'm used to few people being online.

(Lusternia introduced city-wide novice channels years ago and imho those were (are?) useful. Especially during off-peak hours, especially for small guilds.)

/derail

Hadoryu

Useful though they are, novice channels do not make up for organization inactivity. A general novice channel can't give a novice pointers on who to contact in their org, on what specific requirements to work on and so on. It is a helpful extra thing, but it isn't what's being pursued here.

Macavity

Tza said:

Hadoryu said:

P.S. @Tza : Much for the same reason CT doesn't solve the issue with inactive guilds.

The city channel isn't a dedicated novice channel either. Personally, I'd find it more useful if there was one fangface-wannabe novice channel instead of 4-5 seperate ones. It would heighten the chance that someone is around to help the newb - and I'm saying this as a off-peak player, I'm used to few people being online.

(Lusternia introduced city-wide novice channels years ago and imho those were (are?) useful. Especially during off-peak hours, especially for small guilds.)

/derail

keep in mind this is all still new and many of the 'features' of the Dominion may not be in because the Novices currently still go into the Houses and no the Dominion like they are planned to do.  Just got to give it time and enjoy the ride sort of speak!  heh

Tza

Hadoryu said:

Useful though they are, novice channels do not make up for organization inactivity. A general novice channel can't give a novice pointers on who to contact in their org, on what specific requirements to work on and so on. It is a helpful extra thing, but it isn't what's being pursued here.

They can't make up entirely for guild/house inactivity, but they can come damn close if done correctly. For example: City newb channel and city newb helpfiles. One "How To Get Started In <guild/house> And Whom To Contact/Message ASAP" for each guild/house. I just think it'd be preferable if you're helped by someone in your city but not in your guild/house versus not being helped at all because no one is online to hear your questions on GNT.

If the underlying issue of must-have-4-houses-period problem is to ensure that newbies get helped and don't end up in an 'inactive' organisation, then it would make more sense to broaden access to the channel where newbies are going to ask for help. Even with 4 houses there's going to be times when no one is online. But there might be someone in another house who could help if they knew the newbie needed it.

(Of course if '4' is the magical number for other secret-y reasons, then I rest my case.... though I still think a city-novice channel would prove useful.)

Haven

I don't see why we just don't expand upon the novice/mentor channel we already have and just use that?

Macavity

Haven said:

I don't see why we just don't expand upon the novice/mentor channel we already have and just use that?

1) some people who listen to that channel dont know all the skills, I certainly do not know any of the Light skills, as I have always been Dark

2) I think this would change the way a guild or house interacts with their Novice and build upon getting to know them and see where htey may fit within the guild/house or not for the person who just joined.

Though it does need some type of revamp

Haven

Macavity said:

Haven said:

I don't see why we just don't expand upon the novice/mentor channel we already have and just use that?

1) some people who listen to that channel dont know all the skills, I certainly do not know any of the Light skills, as I have always been Dark

2) I think this would change the way a guild or house interacts with their Novice and build upon getting to know them and see where htey may fit within the guild/house or not for the person who just joined.

Though it does need some type of revamp

I don't find those to be sufficient reasons to not expand upon the current mentor/novice channel. The same logic for the first reason provided can be applied to GNT in that not everyone within the guild knows all of their skills or even knows them well. Not to mention the fact that guilds CAN and SHOULD have essential information easily located somewhere in their GHELP INDEX. Then mentors can easily say upon the novice channel if they don't know the answer themselves, "You should find the answer you're looking for within your guild index via GHELP. Lots of information specific to your guild located there. Check it out!"

As for the second reason, I do not believe that'd even happen let alone be the norm. Guilds should always be looking for ways to improve/enhance their community as they aspire to reach their collective goals.

Luna

Hado, given that you're not playing, from where exactly are you getting your conviction that four is the magic number of undead houses we should be at?

Seir

While I can't speak for Hadoryu, I think four is the appropriate number given that the Aetolian population has remained pretty static throughout the time that I've been playing and that four houses would reasonably accommodate players with proportionate population instead of being barren and empty, which draws the risk of losing new novices if they go into a house/guild that is empty and doesn't answer their questions. Their first line of thinking is that the game is dead. I would know because way, WAY back in the day when I tried Aetolia before Seir, I made a vamp in Lunare and I was the only one on HWHO for six hours. I didn't play Aetolia again until Seir because I wanted a breath of fresh air.

Hadoryu

Luna said:

Hado, given that you're not playing, from where exactly are you getting your conviction that four is the magic number of undead houses we should be at?

  Where exactly did you see me say four is the magic number? More importantly, as tempting as the low-hanging-fruit of excuses for an ad hominem is, surely you can agree that - one, I have a stable and significant history of running organizations in the game and two, nothing in the game has changed in such a way as to make me less aware of what it means to sustain a successful org.

So if I did say four is the magic number, I'm pretty confident I'd still do it with sufficient authority.