Ankyrean Anguish - Aetolia-based RAGE

Areka

I've been working on shorter interviews as well, and adapt them to what I'm seeing/getting from each guild member. My biggest thing has been to stop having people just regurgitate the books they've read and recite them in their own words, because that's lame and doesn't call for any engagement, so instead ask them about their thoughts and what they gathered as important or useful for the current era from them. That way it's at least a little bit more of a discussion than 'well there were three Seluno brothers that had names and they did these things: A, B, C'.

Elie

I think that's a great idea, and the best part about it - not being sarcastic here - is that it makes it possible for people to get through the interview without necessarily having read the books. Because that's a legitimate RP path, I think - being the kind of person who is well-suited to the guild, perhaps, and has a lot to say about it and its aims and tenets, etc., but also being the kind of person who just can't be arsed to read yer damn books.

Who's got two thumbs and gets lazy about reading while playing a text game?
<--- This guy.

Ishin

@Nola I think it's pretty fucking epic that you guys still use a book I wrote like 10 RL years ago. >.>

Aishia

I had pretty picture perfect advancement stuff for shamans but it seems to have died at some point when I wasn't playing. Pretty much went off those guidelines to a T. Was like a straight shot to gr3 with no overly arduous RP or writing or vague tasks about FEELINGS or lore or etc. I think if no gfs for 2 weeks was actually some alarm bell a lot more guilds than Syssin need some attention.

Toz

I miss how hard it was to get rank in some Achaean Houses sometimes. I still have my forestwalking notebook, because it took me a RL week to get it done..and that was just HR03, with full member being HR05.

Nola

@Ishin - I actually removed all extra reading beyond the Revelation (book-wise) as a -requirement- about two RL years ago because it was simply 'too much'. But we do still reference it for the Seeker stuff in learning about Mind/Body/Will. Why have material and resources provided by members over the years and not use it?

Rashar

You guys should come get a trial from Rashar.

I almost always have them at bars.

Demarcus

Toz said:

I miss how hard it was to get rank in some Achaean Houses sometimes. I still have my forestwalking notebook, because it took me a RL week to get it done..and that was just HR03, with full member being HR05.

I remember finally getting to be a full member of the Sylvanic Fellowship! Took forever. I mean a really, really long damn time. Rtiuals, essays, quizzes, patrolling for exterminations, exploration... Many times it was daunting as heck, but dang, upon making HR05, you be all...

Haern

I got class on my Druid for being cute, apparently. (because I literally fell asleep in front of my computer during my interview/test and came back apologizing x10000) Oh god, that was in '99. And then in '01 (I think, might have been '02) got Serpentlord class on my Naga for being A BALLER. Iosyne can attest to this.

Zsadist

I rage that the newly discovered teshen are so lame for xp gain. In small groups they aren't bad, but in large groups of 15-20+ they are rather daunting.

On a bright side, at least their worth 5 gold apiece.

Omei

In my infant days of playing Aetolia, I earned my first guildfavor in the Occultists by doing the BACKFLIP emote three times in front of the GM. You should encourage that.

Rashar

In my infant days of playing Aetolia..

Wait, that shit was last week.

Ezalor

I earned my first ever cityfavour because Kadvar accidentally marched a bunch of troops into Lodi and needed a newbie to march them back out.

Erzsebet

Earned mine because I mistelled cusswords to the city and got kicked out for it and Thrasius thought Kira had rank 2 when she was kicked for some reason so when he inducted her back, he cityfavoured, too.

Piper

Oh man, I'm going to out myself here... my least favorite requirements have ALWAYS been exploring. I freaking hate making my character walk around to get that elusive Forestwalker or whatever it is. Hate, hate, hate, hate it!

As a result of my HATE for it, I have NO idea what is near what and why or even how to spell it about 80% of the time. I've gotten better since I've started to harvest more on my characters but... still..

Xavin

Piper said:

Oh man, I'm going to out myself here... my least favorite requirements have ALWAYS been exploring. I freaking hate making my character walk around to get that elusive Forestwalker or whatever it is. Hate, hate, hate, hate it!

As a result of my HATE for it, I have NO idea what is near what and why or even how to spell it about 80% of the time. I've gotten better since I've started to harvest more on my characters but... still..

This is what the mudbot mapper is perfect for, honestly. Find an area, set it to autowalk you around, rinse, repeat. But man, getting that explorer rank the first time I made a character was a pain. I remember getting lost in the ithmia and having to tangle with that damn avo monkey.

Solaria

That is my most hated requirement as well. Dat explorer rank requirement - so stupid! Making sure someone knows how to get to key spots they need to? That's fine. Who cares if they go explore the world? If that's not their thing, that's not their thing. There are various other requirements I hate, but that's the worst. People should just make requirements simple, engaging, and fun - make people want to stay in your organization, not alienate them to do tedious things that even you don't really want to do. Sometimes you have to sit and think like a new player, rather than a person who's been around for a while/comes from another game. We do get a lot of true blue newbies, you'd be surprised.

Edit to add one thing. You have to think about the frustration that can happen with exploring. You find an area, start exploring, and get killed by aggros. At lower levels, you can lose so much experience. What if this happens over and over again because you just have bad luck in picking places, or you walk through somewhere (like Mhojave right now) that just has unusual aggros. You could easily get frustrated with trying to do all this exploring and dieing, especially if you are doing everything on your own without help from other players (which some people prefer when they first get started, so they can learn the game). It could easily chase people away.

Piper

@Xavin but whyyyy? You can be a productive, intelligent, and good asset to almost any guild without venturing to the depths of... wherever. Besides that, the idea of using a mudbot mapper to complete your requirement while you're barely paying attention just makes it even MORE awful of a requirement.

'I'm sorry, you can't be ranked as an official guild member until you've aimlessly walked around. I want to see those blisters!'o a

Edit to add that one thing that I DID like... and I forget what guild/game it was in but I recall these one requirements that treated Exploring more as a 'Find a place you like and study it a bit. Get back to us on it'. It was kind of like those patrol requirements that (some) forestals have across the games but wasn't limited to forests.

Xavin

Piper said:

@Xavin but whyyyy? You can be a productive, intelligent, and good asset to almost any guild without venturing to the depths of... wherever. Besides that, the idea of using a mudbot mapper to complete your requirement while you're barely paying attention just makes it even MORE awful of a requirement.

'I'm sorry, you can't be ranked as an official guild member until you've aimlessly walked around. I want to see those blisters!'o a

Edit to add that one thing that I DID like... and I forget what guild/game it was in but I recall these one requirements that treated Exploring more as a 'Find a place you like and study it a bit. Get back to us on it'. It was kind of like those patrol requirements that (some) forestals have across the games but wasn't limited to forests.

That sounds like a druid requirement. I know the Ascendril used to have an optional task about finding a place, exploring it, writing up a bit of a summary about what is in the area and maybe transcribing a map.

Toz

Northreach: (5,6)
Critters:
White wolf
Bobcat
Black wolf
White doe
Brown wolf
Buck
Spirit:
Euterpe
Leafy things:
Evergreen
Cedar
Pine
Dogwood
Juniper
Fir


Who had to walk through an entire forest reading every room description to figure out what trees grew there? This guy. Who had to do this same thing, for EVERY FOREST IN THE GAME? Oh yeah. It was painful, it took forever, but man it felt good once I was done.

Rashar

Think I would have stayed GR1.

I remember like.. I don't know, 10 years ago when I tried to play Aetolia for the first time. I just came for the PK (I had no idea people actually RP'd on muds at that point). Of course I was like sweet, I'm going to be a badass vampire. Then like three days later I got yelled at for not calling some guy a Marquis or some shit, and I was like later bruh. It's been three days and I haven't even seen a PK yet.

No way I would have done those reqs at that age with that mindset.

Aryanne

I rage that there's been, 3 new pages of this thread since I last looked and that I actually read through them all, but it has veered so far from the class-passing topic that I can't put my two cents in anymore! Nooooo!

My least favourite requirements of all time: reading books, followed closely by: writing essays.
I will gladly read a 5-'MORE'-long HELP, but if you expect me to go to a library and read 3 pages of two books... Nope! Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope.

It isn't so bad now that I'm not in school anymore, but when I was, writing an essay and reading a book was just never-ever-ever gonna happen. Writing papers and reading textbooks are NOT my idea of entertainment from the stress of school/work/schoolwork.

Have a 3 hour long RP'd / tells'd conversation about the contents of the book? AWESOME! Yes more please!

----For this reason, I know crap-little of Aetolia's lore that I wasn't actually there to experience >.>

Areka

So what we really need is Aetolian Cliffnotes.

Solaria

Areka said:

So what we really need is Aetolian Cliffnotes.

I totally used to do this for requirements I had setup at one point..forget where, might have been in my guild in Imperian. Best decision ever. More people should make slimmed down versions, containing only the important 'facts' people need to know, so that they can get an idea of information/background of organization without reading for hours on end.

Areka

Think I might go through our guild books and make a condensed overview version. What's tough with it is when they're stories, but at the same time, not everyone gets the same enjoyment out of them as others. I know I gave up on my Daru way back when after wrestling through that reading, where it seemed 80% of it was just going on about how awesome Sahmie and Clio were and less about what was actually going on.

Aishia

I can't remember the last time I read an IG book. In so much as it's an IC choice not to, I'm not sure where I'd even go to pick out the actually interesting ones. Reading is hard!

Erzsebet

I rage that I had a spiffy description done up for when I got level 100 on this alt, and my computer ate it, and because skype crashed yesterday, I can't even access the pasted copy of it that should be in my skype logs.

Teani

I remember it being a huge event being Knighted in the Paladin guild. I was literally bouncing in my chair when I realized it was me being added to the Knighthood. Kiyotan sprung it on me as sort of a surprise and I still felt like a noob.

Also, @Piper, you can check out the map on the website to get a general idea of where things are in relation to other things. I like exploring a lot and even though I haven't reached -that- high on any of my characters it's most likely because I've missed a few small rooms here and there. I wish I could get my rank up though...

Setne

The first time I tried Aetolia, I gave up because I was required to go undead and I didn't want to.

Riluo

First time I played I was a priest in Shallam (Aetolia) and got lost in the city for 2 hours reading room descriptions, then tried to kill a guard as I thought it was a bad guy. After that death I drew maps... one square at a time of the whole city, highways and chucks of newbie bashing areas. I still have it in a junk box in my barn outback.