The State of Things

[gorboth]

Donut Dwellers,

Firstly, I want to let everyone know that, having recently lost a bet
(YES I was drunk) with Armaggedon (AGAIN), I'll be too busy to enter the
realms for the next week or so, returning sometime after the 26th of
June. As such, please be advised that any mails to me will go unanswered
until my return.

Secondly, there is excellent news to report! The donations campaign has
now raised over $3,000 USD to be used toward promoting Genesis. A huge thank
you to everyone who has contributed thus far. We are nearing our goal of
having 30 people participate in the giving, so if you have been meaning
to do it, but haven't yet gotten around to doing so - don't let my brief
disappearance discourage you! I'd like nothing more than to return from
my (cough) trip to find the goal reached during my absence.

Thirdly, there is even more great news! The "in-game preparation" that I
listed as needing doing in part 2 of my "Pre-Promotion" post here on the
Common Board is complete, with a few extras thrown in!

1. I have constructed a brand new pre-creation sequence that I hope
will be both more friendly, more interesting, and less prone to
people getting confused and giving up. Gone are the signs and
confusing passage-ways (well, they have actually been moved to
the Greenhollow Library where players can participate in a kind
of basic-commands review experience.) Instead, it is now a
"learn by doing" situation, where you are given a great deal of
support to type the correct commands if you are, as we hope some
will be, completely new to Mudding. (check it out!)

2. I have re-worked the ascii art introduction image (that everyone
sees when they login) to be consistent with the look of the top
banner for the new website, and just generally a bit more attractive
and compelling (in theory.) Perhaps you already noticed this?

3. The tutorial is now instanced. The idea with instancing is that
players in the tutorial area are batched into groups of 5 - each
batch able to enjoy their own "instance" of the game. So, if there
were 20 newbies all in the tutorial at once, there would be four
instances generated to handle each batch of 5 players. This will
prevent large numbers of new players from having to compete with
extremely limited resources, and hopefully dodge the issue of a
choke-point for such a scenareo. At some point we'll probably want
to ask people to participate in a stress-test of this setup to
see how many newbies we can cram into the tutorial and still
have it function properly. A big thanks go to Cotillion and
Lavellan for making this instancing possible.

4. A seemingly small thing, but perhaps important - I've taken the
suggestions of various people and made it so that when players
first enter the tutorial each login, they are given a full belly
so they don't get exhausted too easily.

5. At last, the Sparkle tours are now complete, teaching the
following concepts to new players:

- The layout of Sparkle - How to find/use quest orbs
- How to find/use food - How to find/join the Cadets
- How to find/use alcohol - How to find local questmasters
- How to find/use ships

6. Many guild councils have responded to the Call to Action and are
successfully taking steps to clean house and prepare for the
new era we all hope to enjoy. Well done, all of you! I believe
this to be sufficient to alleviate the concerns expressed about
guild entry being a type of choke-point for new players, should
it continue as it is now.

So where does this leave things? In GOOD SHAPE for the first time in many
years, I think! We now are able to look exclusively to our issues that
must be solved out-of-game before we move forward with full-scale promotion
in earnest. The fact that we have so many people interested in helping
with fundraising has made it, frankly, possible to put these things right.
The funds now give us real possibilities to get things moving with regard
to our new website, play-now client, and promotional materials. More on
these things will be discussed when I return from ... well ... where I
will be.

Onward and Upward!
G.

[Kitriana]

Good to hear we are making so much progress in what in my mind feels like "in such little time"! Looking forward to the next step and what I, along with the rest of the community, can contribute to a successful campaign.

[Kas]

Oh damn...

Gorboth, WHAT IF...there was a single board between the tower and the church (or outside Inn, or inside Inn in Sparkle), entirely designated for Guild recruitment scrolls? (could be permanent, or write access only to guild councils)

Early exposure of avaiable occ (or/and laymans) guilds helps in creating goals and inspirations, even for brand new players.

[Cherek]

Kas: That sounds like a really good idea!

[gorboth]

I've thought that it would be nice to have a the Sparkle adventurer's guild be different from the others in the realm, having many floors and rooms - similar to the tower of realms, but for the various guilds in the game. Each room could have some way for guilds to "keep the room in shape" which would tell a visitor just how active that guild is, and give the guild a way to advertise what they do in their own way.

Might be one of my next projects.
G.

[Iliana]

Ways to determine how active....


Rangers -

This "office" looks more like a clearing in a forest. There is a fire ring near a large log laid flat along the ground. The surrounding trees encircle the area making it feel warm and cozy.

exa fire ring

This is a large fire ring with a spit over it for cooking purposes. The fire ring is currently [Choice1].

[Choice1] -
[completely empty]
[contains some charcoal]
[contains some warm embers]
[contains a small fire]
[contains a large roaring fire]

exa spit

This is a spit made from iron. It rests on two hard wood sticks on either side of the fire ring. The spit is [Choice2].

[Choice2] -
[empty and unused]
[empty now, you must have just missed dinner!]
[holding a small rabbit carcass with a little meat left on it.]
[holding a large coney cooked to perfection]
[holding two large conies cooked to perfection]

exa trees

The large trees surrounding this clearing have strange notches in them. You count eight notches.

exa notches

[Choice3] -
[The notches are all empty.]
[There are torches in two of the notches]
[There are torches in four of the notches]
[There are torches in six of the notches]
[There are torches in eight of the notches]

Limit each guild member to one task every two or three days. The choice items degrade slowly over a couple weeks at a time. If the fire ring is empty, spit is empty and notches are all empty, it means no one has been there in three weeks or more.

This is obviously just a suggestion but maybe someone from each guild to write up three tasks that need to be worked and what the levels of degradation might be. Also it might be possible to access this "office" from the guild hall, but using it as a passage to Sparkle could have a cost... mana, health, etc. By the way, love this idea.

[Tarax the Terrible]

I like the theme Iliana, reminds me of your glade
If it is just a signal how active the guild is then perhaps it could be automated not requiring you to visit. As I do not like the idea of having to go to the tower of realm to do stuff to show I am around the realms, I would rather be around the realms.

But I think that misses the main purpose as it doesn't tell me anything about how I might go about joining, who I should contact etc.

So perhaps a prospective applicant could get a message such as "you feel you should arrange the sticks and stones here leave a signal by arranging sticks in the ground if they want a meeting."

It would be nice if there was a teleport to a small area, perhaps a small clone of Ithilien and the rangers get a message someone is in there. This area would also be accessible from the rangers guild home. The idea being quick for both parties to arrive at and do not have to worry about pkill. Then have pre definied tasks for proving their worth. Kill x enemy (prove their size), Send me a scroll on your knowledge of the herbs to be found here. Prepare a scroll detailing your history in these realms and you ambitions, why do you think you are suitable for being a ranger?

Overall I think having to work to get into a guild is a worthwhile process, it makes the end more meaningful.

But that is all wizardly work.

If this room/area provided one function and one alone I would want it to enable you to join guild if no-one else is active, teleporting you to the guild start area.



Then for guilds themselves that need peer promotion to progress in the internal ranks and they do not have a safeguard process in place copy Louies system implemented with the Dragon Armies that it will be automatic on guild exp alone if no-one else is available.

And for the top tiers put a command in the guild halls for <assume leadership> which other guilds have already as well. (so if there is an active lower ranking member they can rise to the top)

[Laurel]

http://www.genesismud.org/forums/viewto ... =30&t=1516

I didn't see a message pen'ed from you, Tarax but you are welcome to apply to Rangers of course. All is required is a little shapeshifting, align-switching and guild abandoning

[Tarax the Terrible]

Have to say the Rangers seem in decent shape these days.
Kudos to the active ones bringing in the new blood, and the returning ones.

[Strider]

The Sparkle library would benefit from being the place where one would go to get information regarding the various guilds. Given the standardization project, I think I would give each guild a section of shelving in the existing appropriate rooms, in which there would appear linked copies of selected books in their guild library. This would allow each guild to easily provide current information as well as relevant or tangential texts of interest.

The Sparkle post office, or perhaps all post offices, should have some general, and perhaps standardized aliases available. I think "mail <guild> <leadership/recruitment>" might work.

Carlsan, as much as I like him, may benefit from some assistants or a change of job title, as I think that Sparkle could use a more active Town Crier, functioning as a news feed. To what extent this should be straight reporting of the occurrence of events of some interest (Big NPCS killed and by whom, character skirmishes, raids imminent, etc.), a guild propaganda tool (Red Dragon Army announces huge gains on plains), or simply a money sink for those wanting attention or to slag someone down, is certainly debatable but the sense that there is activity happening out in the larger world should be conveyed.