House Renaissance

Mishgul

What did we decide

Nim

Mishgul said:

What did we decide

yes

Asmodron

Nim said:

Mishgul said:

What did we decide

yes

Sartan will appear and say "We're making a remake of the houses", Mhaldor will reply "ok". It's quite straightforward.

Bukariin

Some of the Houses have rather dumb/pointless newbie requirements, I now realize.

One (which shall go unnamed) requires that I collect 200 gold flakes to be given to one of the House aides.  I don't see how this is supposed to help me in any way, there's no RP justification, just "do GATHER CLAY for a few hours and give us everything you earned."

Valaria

tell your patron about it, Bukariin..

Kinilan

Bukariin said:

Some of the Houses have rather dumb/pointless newbie requirements, I now realize.

One (which shall go unnamed) requires that I collect 200 gold flakes to be given to one of the House aides.  I don't see how this is supposed to help me in any way, there's no RP justification, just "do GATHER CLAY for a few hours and give us everything you earned."

No no, thise deserves a Name and Shame. That's horse shit. You just know, somewhere down the line, some asshole is using this to make a profit for themselves selling inks.

Hod

Kinilan said:

Bukariin said:

Some of the Houses have rather dumb/pointless newbie requirements, I now realize.

One (which shall go unnamed) requires that I collect 200 gold flakes to be given to one of the House aides.  I don't see how this is supposed to help me in any way, there's no RP justification, just "do GATHER CLAY for a few hours and give us everything you earned."

No no, thise deserves a Name and Shame. That's horse shit. You just know, somewhere down the line, some asshole is using this to make a profit for themselves selling inks.

Don't think that is necessarily true. Could be inks going to a house shop which the funds are used by the house. Still, I agree noobs shouldn't be expected to do something like that (maybe reward them if they do... but not require it.)

Tecton

Hod said:

Kinilan said:

Bukariin said:

Some of the Houses have rather dumb/pointless newbie requirements, I now realize.

One (which shall go unnamed) requires that I collect 200 gold flakes to be given to one of the House aides.  I don't see how this is supposed to help me in any way, there's no RP justification, just "do GATHER CLAY for a few hours and give us everything you earned."

No no, thise deserves a Name and Shame. That's horse shit. You just know, somewhere down the line, some asshole is using this to make a profit for themselves selling inks.

Don't think that is necessarily true. Could be inks going to a house shop which the funds are used by the house. Still, I agree noobs shouldn't be expected to do something like that (maybe reward them if they do... but not require it.)

Requirements like this certainly don't add anything to the newbie experience, and it's something we're trying to avoid. If you encounter requirements like this which are over-the-top, then feel free to drop me an email (tecton@achaea.com) and I'll take a look.

Bukariin

Kinilan said:

Bukariin said:

Some of the Houses have rather dumb/pointless newbie requirements, I now realize.

One (which shall go unnamed) requires that I collect 200 gold flakes to be given to one of the House aides.  I don't see how this is supposed to help me in any way, there's no RP justification, just "do GATHER CLAY for a few hours and give us everything you earned."

No no, thise deserves a Name and Shame. That's horse shit. You just know, somewhere down the line, some asshole is using this to make a profit for themselves selling inks.

Warlocks.  Specifically Khaibit.

Message #2 Sent by Khaibit

9/28/7:12 You are to gather 200 gold flakes, have a look at AB GATHERING CLAY to see how you go about getting those and then deliver then to Ryldagh. The you are to get hold of a journal, they are about 6000 gold, and you are to explore the north, enter the wilderness and using SURVEY you are to find 4 villages in the wilderness map and write a little bit about them. What quests you find, ways to make money, interesting things. You are also to get 10 of every edible cure, alchemical or herbal, I don't mind, and 1 of every liquid vial. Write all these requirements in your journal when you get one.

Obviously having cures is important, but that's right at the bottom of the list next to "prove that you know how to use a journal"

Hod

Bukariin said:

Kinilan said:

Bukariin said:

Some of the Houses have rather dumb/pointless newbie requirements, I now realize.

One (which shall go unnamed) requires that I collect 200 gold flakes to be given to one of the House aides.  I don't see how this is supposed to help me in any way, there's no RP justification, just "do GATHER CLAY for a few hours and give us everything you earned."

No no, thise deserves a Name and Shame. That's horse shit. You just know, somewhere down the line, some asshole is using this to make a profit for themselves selling inks.

Warlocks.  Specifically Khaibit.

Message #2 Sent by Khaibit

9/28/7:12 You are to gather 200 gold flakes, have a look at AB GATHERING CLAY to see how you go about getting those and then deliver then to Ryldagh. The you are to get hold of a journal, they are about 6000 gold, and you are to explore the north, enter the wilderness and using SURVEY you are to find 4 villages in the wilderness map and write a little bit about them. What quests you find, ways to make money, interesting things. You are also to get 10 of every edible cure, alchemical or herbal, I don't mind, and 1 of every liquid vial. Write all these requirements in your journal when you get one.

Obviously having cures is important, but that's right at the bottom of the list next to "prove that you know how to use a journal"

Not surprised it's the Warlocks. They are obsessed with gathering.

Bukariin

That hardly excuses subjecting novices to many hours of pointless gathering just to make HR2.

Hod

Never said it did.

Drodak

Even if some tasks may seem questionable I try my best to try and follow the spirit in which they are written. Khaibit's requirements assuming they are hers specifically seem as though she wants you to learn to make gold more efficiently than the average. Anyone can gather flakes as a means of income to contribute to the education your house is about to give you and I know firsthand the areas in the wilderness have proven far more lucrative than the mainland as you rarely have competition hunting and questing.

I can see how as a not-actually-a-real-novice it is easy to call bullshit if you already have an opinion on how your time should be spent. It is also easy for someone to be cynical and think of how she must be trying to exploit your time and effort with gathering and is learning more quest secrets from your efforts. As a real novice I would have not thought twice about those requirements. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt until it becomes clear where their interests lie.

Synbios

Hod said:

Not surprised it's the Warlocks. They are obsessed with gathering.

I guess you could say that they're

(•_•)

( •_•)>⌐■-■

(⌐■_■)

Magic, the Gathering.

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAH.

Kinilan

Wow and freaking wilderness exploring? Looking for villages? Up north? What the what? aside from Aran'riod and Wegava they are all buried in the tundra and mountains which takes forever to walk through unless you can fly. That stuff makes sense later sure. But there is nothing up north for novices. If you want them to learn something make 'em read the mythos or history of Seleucar. At least that shit matters in developing a sense of the world.

Bukariin

Drodak said:

Even if some tasks may seem questionable I try my best to try and follow the spirit in which they are written. Khaibit's requirements assuming they are hers specifically seem as though she wants you to learn to make gold more efficiently than the average. Anyone can gather flakes as a means of income to contribute to the education your house is about to give you and I know firsthand the areas in the wilderness have proven far more lucrative than the mainland as you rarely have competition hunting and questing.

I can see how as a not-actually-a-real-novice it is easy to call bullshit if you already have an opinion on how your time should be spent. It is also easy for someone to be cynical and think of how she must be trying to exploit your time and effort with gathering and is learning more quest secrets from your efforts. As a real novice I would have not thought twice about those requirements. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt until it becomes clear where their interests lie.

I'm not complaining about the questing requirement.  This is about making new (HR1) players spend several hours gathering resources for specific House members. 

Drodak

Bukariin said:

Drodak said:

Even if some tasks may seem questionable I try my best to try and follow the spirit in which they are written. Khaibit's requirements assuming they are hers specifically seem as though she wants you to learn to make gold more efficiently than the average. Anyone can gather flakes as a means of income to contribute to the education your house is about to give you and I know firsthand the areas in the wilderness have proven far more lucrative than the mainland as you rarely have competition hunting and questing.

I can see how as a not-actually-a-real-novice it is easy to call bullshit if you already have an opinion on how your time should be spent. It is also easy for someone to be cynical and think of how she must be trying to exploit your time and effort with gathering and is learning more quest secrets from your efforts. As a real novice I would have not thought twice about those requirements. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt until it becomes clear where their interests lie.

I'm not complaining about the questing requirement.  This is about making new (HR1) players spend several hours gathering resources for specific House members. 

Yeah, that was just my personal opinion after reading the message from Khaibit that was sent to you. I didn't quote you because I wasn't trying to call you out. 

Halios

200 gold flakes?

ROFL

If someone told me to do that when I was first starting the game I would've told them to kick rocks and quit.

Eld

I don't remember exactly how bad the rate for gathering flakes is, but I know I never had the patience to gather more than about 100. Even if you think it's going to teach people something important, 200 is a ridiculous amount.

Ryldagh

The Warlocks HR1 requirements are to get a mentor, complete some basic tasks set forth by that mentor, complete the achaean history quest, then you're done.  The list of mentors details each person that has put their name forth, as well as their areas of interest/focus.

If the novice in question picked Khaibit, someone who focuses on exploring and making money, but then doesn't like exploring or doing what they can to make money at that level... perhaps the issue is that the novice picked the wrong mentor.

Being one of the people that she sends people to with the flakes, I can tell you that it is a decent source of money for the novice.  I'm not sure about the others she does, but I pay notably above the market value on those flakes.

Is it boring?  Yes.  But is there much difference between moving from room to room and hitting enter on 'gather clay' or moving from room to room hitting enter on 'kill goat/rat' or 'catch butterfly'.

If you have an issue with the tasks given to you by your mentor in a message, feel free to take it up with the Head of Newcomers or a member of the ruling council of your house (In the case of the Warlocks, anyone that is 'High Councilor' or myself, and we can get you a mentor that is better suited to your playstyle.

Jonathin

Speaking of mentors.

I'm not stoked on forcing someone to pick an official mentor. I can overlook it, however, if time is allotted to the novice to make a thoughtful decision. Alas, it is not the case with the Warlocks (I know this because of my alt) nor any other House that pushes such choices on novices.

I joined the House as a novice and within 3 RL days, I had certain novice aides telling me that I had to make a decision in regards to mentors. It did not stop there. When I did not choose one 3 RL days after being told I had to make a decision, I was basically being harassed and threatened to make it happen.

It's good in theory, but it can really damage the whole mentor/protege relationship if it feels forced and unnatural. Assign or let me pick an unofficial mentor, but leave my official mentor up to me or give me time to sort it out myself.

Ryldagh

There are no deadlines set forth on finding a mentor, and people should be more than happy to progress at their own pace.  If you could let me know who is harassing, badgering or otherwise making life miserable for your alt, I can deal with that, too.

Whenever someone asks me to be their mentor, I tell them to give it a couple months (rl days) to make sure, take their time, informed decisions and all that, yadda yadda.  If there are others doing the literal opposite of this, then I need to know who.

Bukariin

I like how Shield does it: They recommend you get a mentor, it is not a requirement.

The main reason I dislike the idea of requiring a mentor - either as a true novice, or as an experienced player rolling an alt - is that no single mentor is going to give you "the real experience" of how this game is played.  You choose your mentor based on the thing in which you're interested at the moment.  If you find out you don't like GATHER CLAY x1000 after you've chosen a mentor, that's not something you should be stuck with, but the way Mentorship works, you're stuck with your first mentor or no mentor.

I chose Khaibit because she was on and helpful, and that made it convenient.  I did not actually expect that this mentor would throw at me a list of busy work to grind out before I could even have an evaluation for HR2.  Having cures and pipes and a journal is kind of a given, everybody needs that.  Knowing a thing or two about your House, that's another given.  But being put out on some bullshit "collect 200 things" quest is not a thing I need, not a thing that helps me, and not a thing that demonstrates some necessary knowledge of the game.  Like I said before, the exploration part didn't bother me, so don't bring that into it.

You say it's quite good money for novices, but in truth, you come out from Lodi with about 20k gold if you didn't blow it on stuff like a bunch of Javelins (my very first character) or CFS (my second character).  You should be able to afford vials, ten of each herb/mineral, three pipes, and armor.  If you're not quite there, ratting the rest up doesn't take long.  There's no reason why you have to employ new characters to collect gold for you when they don't even need the gold until they're buying stuff like speed rapiers.

This is the House Renaissance thread.  We're trying to fix problems with Houses.  This is a problem.

Ryldagh

I'm entirely aware that this is the house renaissance thread, but have you considered that in a list of however many mentors we have, if one of them is giving a task for gold flakes (Yes, it was just her) and you don't like her tasks, you're also free to pick another mentor?  As of late March (about a half-year ago now) people have been free to pick second, third and even fourth mentors, if they just aren't working out. This is a problem that is already halfway addressed.

But still, I do hope that you've spoken to someone about this in an IC manner, for your alt's sake... HoN or council.  I know this is the first complaint I've heard on the matter (@Austere, you don't count). I don't want anyone in the warlocks to feel put upon with horrid tasks.  This is a game, afterall.  Chinese gold farming is a thing that some people enjoy, but not everyone... not even close.

Bukariin

I'm bringing this into the open in an OOC fashion mostly because I don't want this complaint to be a reflection of the character in Warlocks (who would not, as an eighteen-year-old, try to throw a wrench in the gears without also having some IC respectability first).  I'm resolving it for the character in an IC fashion, but here, I'm trying to resolve it for other/future players who might judge this game rather unfairly if they were tasked to fill an order for 200 things that aren't exactly easy to collect.

Sena

Eld said:

I don't remember exactly how bad the rate for gathering flakes is, but I know I never had the patience to gather more than about 100. Even if you think it's going to teach people something important, 200 is a ridiculous amount.

I just searched through my logs, it looks like (without harvesting gloves or the gathering trait) you have a 20% chance to get a single pile of gold flakes when you successfully gather clay. You get 1-6 clay at a time, so on average, completely filling your rift with clay will get you ~143 gold flakes.

Numbers are from 2011 and might be outdated (because I filled up my rift back then and never had a reason to gather more). That's also with trans gathering, if it matters.

Edit: If those numbers are still accurate, I hope the novice is being paid at least 6k for those 200 flakes.

Aktillum

Everyone who hates lengthy house requirements should join the CIJ. We're planning on deleting all the novice requirements except basic herbs/vials, and the telling of a joke. The houseleader doesn't know we're planning this yet, but we consulted our residential estate donkey-in-a-lion's-costume for his opinion on the matter, and he responded with an affirmative bray. Or was it a nay? They sound similar enough.

Eld

Sena said:

Eld said:

I don't remember exactly how bad the rate for gathering flakes is, but I know I never had the patience to gather more than about 100. Even if you think it's going to teach people something important, 200 is a ridiculous amount.

I just searched through my logs, it looks like (without harvesting gloves or the gathering trait) you have a 20% chance to get a single pile of gold flakes when you successfully gather clay. You get 1-6 clay at a time, so on average, completely filling your rift with clay will get you ~143 gold flakes.

Numbers are from 2011 and might be outdated (because I filled up my rift back then and never had a reason to gather more). That's also with trans gathering, if it matters.

Edit: If those numbers are still accurate, I hope the novice is being paid at least 6k for those 200 flakes.

That sounds reasonable. I may have had enough patience at some point to collect ~200 flakes, as I do recall stashing a couple rifts worth of clay on a ship after flake-hunting.

Khaibit

Could have, you know, talked to me about it before throwing things out on a public forum? I would have explained why it's a task, probably even changed it if you were having that much trouble with it, but that's fine, whatever gets you the most attention on the forums right?

Bukariin

Like I said before, my character would never do that.  It's not a reasonable course of action for a new character to ICly criticize their House before even getting to HR2.  It's bad RP on many levels.  He's getting his situation fixed ICly.