newbie help via associations/guilds?

[Sdjflop]

I have been reading many of the posts regarding newbie and newbie help, and being new to Soj3, I totally agree with a great deal of the comments about the difficulty, as well as many of the suggestions on how to help out newbies, namely adding more help files/maps, remaking the newbie area, but most especially others helping them.

Being new to Soj3, but not to MUDding, I found Soj3 quite difficult to get the hang of, and were it not for a couple of friends addicted to Soj3 like Crackbabies who help plvl me and whatnot, I would be more or less lost and turned off. So comes my humble suggestion:

In a previous MUD I played, there were various guilds/association, much like ones in Soj3 or so I am told. One of these guilds, however, had a noble responsibility, to be Helpers, especially to newbies. And really, thanks to various members of this helper guild, I was truly introduced to good MUDs... I was able to COMFORTABLY ask questions, explore areas, and really gain the social interaction that makes MUDding different than single player games. I was so impressed with this system of helping, in fact, that I eventually went through the initiations and became a member of that guild later, and helped others to feel comfortable in the MUD and ease the learning curve. And in return for those services, I was rewarded with exclusive association/guild spells and equipment, and soemtimes exclusive parts in quests or even exclusive quests (the latter 2 rare, but rewarding when it happened). Not to mention you gain a lot of friends and feel good about helping others.

I think such an association needs to be implimented here, or if it does already exists, it needs to be more advertised so that newbies know right away that people within this guild are people they can approach at any time. (perhaps a certain phrase or symbol in the description/who list?) And to keep it helpful for even higher level characters, you can have various ranks within the guild, and in order to get new ranks you could would have a great deal of requirements (extreme knowledge of the realms, plants, mobs, towns, and even vast amounts of history of both the guild or soj3 in general), making them useful to more than just newbies. But I digress. Let me know if something like this exists, or if something like this is even possible.

Sdjflop

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- To Help Another is To Help Yourself

[Ragorn]

Talk to the people in Northern Star. I know almost all of them, and they are exemplary newbie helpers and question answerers. NS is loosely based off a guild from last wipe, one purpose of whose was to help out new players and make sure they knew enough about the game to have a good time. I'm sure almost anyone in Northern Star would be able to help out with what you're asking.

- Ragorn

[cherzra]

Anyone who wants to can become a newbie helper.. they see everything on NHC and, hopefully, answer as much as they can. Weak point of this system is that it depends on people actually becoming helpers, and that at times newbies' calls are unanswered because nobody is on. They may then interpret this as nobody being interested enough to help them simply because they dont know that there aren't any helpers on. Maybe more people should be asked to become newbie helpers, or everyone should be able to use the channel, with stricter monitoring so it doesn't become another OOC?

Anyway here's something that may help you if you're new:

http://www.sojourn3.org/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000863.html

[Nida]

I really like the idea of a helper-oriented guild-- I've never had any problems myself; I've gotten help every single time I've needed it, and often when I was just bumming around, too. But the guild would really help the newbies who aren't around the Helpful Highbies often. Just so long as the pallies don't take up all the slots... Perhaps one guild for the good side, one for the evils, with every class and race represented.

[Abue]

It might be a hard place to crack but it isn't because of the people. At the beginning of the month I decided to give Sojourn3 a real try. I deleted my necro and started an Illusionist. I started with nothing. At level 1 I could barely kill birds by turning point. By the time I was level 3 enough nice people had stopped by and given me a little piece of equipment or a little advice. Invisible people come by and spell me up with out me even asking. Although my equipment isn't rocking it was nice to help me get started. When ever I had a question I would randomly pick a high level Illusionist. I always got a nice answer in a prompt fasion. Maybe it is just that the Illusionist are nice here? hehe. Ohh... the druids seem nice here to. Once I get bigger I will see how hard it is to crack the zone groups but at this point the early stages of nothing seemed to be easy enough with the help I recieved. With out the help it would have been rough. I couldn't stand up to even the birds with out getting beat down. So in conclusion of this post, Id like to thank all the nice people of Sojourn. Although I have a long way to go, my decision to switch to playing Sojourn has been made easy.

P.S. The newbie zone sucks. It took me longer to try and figure out how to get out of there and into the main mud then anything. Ohh... why did the creators of the zone make the newbie food so heavy? We are talking about newbies here. Give them a tad bit of a break. Let them carry a shit load of food to the main mud. If it were not for some nice person Id have starved because I couldnt kill any mobs with coins because I was to wimpy.

[This message has been edited by Abue (edited 12-12-2001).]

[moritheil]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by cherzra:
Anyone who wants to can become a newbie helper.. they see everything on NHC and, hopefully, answer as much as they can. </font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually... I once peti'd asking out of curiosity, and Kia responded that only people who have been 45+ in this or previous incarnations may be helpers.

Or maybe it was the fact that I was disagreeing that day with another guy over NHC who was giving out quest information.

[moritheil]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Abue:
Maybe it is just that the Illusionist are nice here? hehe. Ohh... the druids seem nice here to. Once I get bigger I will see how hard it is to crack the zone groups but at this point the early stages of nothing seemed to be easy enough with the help I recieved. With out the help it would have been rough. [This message has been edited by Abue (edited 12-12-2001).]</font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Wheee! Good treehugger PR!
Zoning? Not hard... ask your friendly neighborhood barker... although, you might want to leave the room for certain area spells.

PS - sorry 'bout the corpses Nida :P

[Grungar]

I've never hit 45 in any incarnation of Sojourn or Toril with any character, and Grungar's been a newbie helper since about ten minutes after he hit whatever level they close the channel.

I guess spending all my time in the teens and twenties makes me a newbie expert or somethin'?

- Grungar "nhc Don't try and eat the dogs. It doesn't work. I know from experience" Forgefire

[Nida]

That's okay, Mori; I don't mind deaths all that much, considering I always have a good time in your groups. I'll manage to continue leveling despite all the fun. Somehow.

-Nida "God hates backstabbing faeries" Rocheron

[Jasix Prowlingwolf]

Ragorn is right, Northern Star was put together with the idea of helping others in mind. Most of the NS people were sick of asking for help and not even getting a reply from other high level tools. If your excuse for never replying is "I was busy" then let me cry another tear for you.... I've grouped with 90% of the high lvl players at one time or another and i KNOW your not always too busy. To busy to tell a joke or too busy to make fun of someone's monther? hehe I think not, too busy to give an honest reply because you dont feel like extenting common curtisy to a stranger (or someone you have known for years).. that's closer to the mark.

Yes we all get busy but I would bet 90% of the high lvl players see your tell and just ignore it. Some will reply soon as they can and this may be 20 minutes later, but the point is they do take the time to reply even if long after the moment has passed.

Not everyone is perfect tho, some of my good friends don't reply to me either (hehe prob with good reason at times :P) But i get on their case about it, in the hope they try a little harder next time. Being busy is not a crime, being ignorant is!

I will conceed to "leaders" being too busy, they have a lot to think about besides turnig on their rescue triggers and making up ways to tell everyone they nailed Gormal's twin sister behind the Mithril Hall tavern (only to find out it was just Gormal to drunk to say no *again*)

If for some reason I miss replying to you, i do appologise, i do get busy since i run 4 or 5 businesses while I mud, BUT if I can reply to 95% of the tells sent to me then most of you have NO EXCUSE!!!!

If not try this...

trigger: tells you
Command: #capture Tells

Really fargin hard to never miss a tell unless your ghosting that way.

Jasix "I'm no better then you, I just try a little harder." Prowlingwolf

[Jorus]

Hi Guys,

As an additional thing to mention, all people who volounteer to be helpers are visibile on "who" via a special flag.

"who helper" will show you any helper who is currently on the mud and not "anon".

If you aren't getting a reply via NHC, politely asking someone who shows up on who-helper may get a result.

Sometimes we have to turn NHC off if it's a particularly spammy day, or if we're just feeling too grumpy to be alot of help.

Regards,
Jorus

[moritheil]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Grungar:
<B>I've never hit 45 in any incarnation of Sojourn or Toril with any character, and Grungar's been a newbie helper since about ten minutes after he hit whatever level they close the channel.

I guess spending all my time in the teens and twenties makes me a newbie expert or somethin'?

- Grungar "nhc Don't try and eat the dogs. It doesn't work. I know from experience" Forgefire</B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Ah'm still the Littlest Helper :P

[Grungar]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by moritheil:
Ah'm still the Littlest Helper :P</font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's what she said

- Grungar "Peter, if you say 'that's what she said' one more time, I'm going to pop ya" Forgefire