An idea about the Seekers Clan

[Xeriuth]

I propose an idea and request as much input from players and immortals as possible.

Training, is something that all new players to 4d need, and something not all players get. Currently as it stands players start off in Seekers and have the opportunity to go through Mud School and the newbie areas. Once they remort, they are no longer in Seekers and are forced to fend for themselves or join a clan. This has worked, but I believe it could be better. Molly supports the fact that there needs to be a training clan, and I agree. Dragons is supposed to have been a training clan but it doesn't quite work since Seekers is where players should be trained. Not leave a clan just to join another for training. I suggest that Seekers becomes the primary training place, where new players can learn what it is like to be in a real clan, rather than something very temporary it is now.

How will this be done? Well, first, it needs a mortal leader, which should be a Helper because that will be their primary function as a leader. Will take Molly's advice and it will not be anyone who is also leading another clan. However they can still have alts in another clan, just not be the another clans leader.  This will be a dedicated position, one will have to really live up to their title of Helper to do what is required. Teach, support, encourage, etc. Since the Immortals are the current leaders they would of course be fitting to pick the predecessor, but this can only happen with player support. There can be other people or Helpers, if they choose to be, that are there to help and assist new players and show camaraderie. The point is to teach players from the start what a clan is supposed to be to them.

Also to further make this work when a player remorts, they no longer will leave Seekers, they remain in the clan until they choose to leave on their own accord. If they choose they want to walk the path of a Loner, or join another clan that suits them, it is their choice.. no longer forced. Since there is a clan leave command now, it works perfectly, as long as it doesn't give the cost of 1 Silver, leaving the clan should not have any form of punishment.This exception should be made.
With this being done it allows any player to gain the maximum amount of training they need, before they go on their way and follow the path they have chosen.

So to sum everything up:
Dragons will no longer be a training clan, Seekers will be the place to train.
Seekers will have a mortal leader. Leader must not lead another clan. Leader must be a Helper.
Remorting will no longer expel the player from Seekers. They can now leave on their own at any time with clan leave yes, and it will not cost a silver token.
Seekers will function much like a normal clan, have clan ranks, participate in deeds, etc. Have fun.

What we mostly need is people to say whether they are in favor of Seekers becoming the primary training clan and allowing new players to stay there as long as they would like? Also if a mortal leader is acceptable there, it certainly won't be stealing members, it'll be the first line of recruiting, recruiting to the mud, which in turn brings more players to all the other clans. So thoughts?

[Molly]

I suggest that Seekers becomes the primary training place, where new players can learn what it is like to be in a real clan, rather than something very temporary it is now.

This is a rather revolutionary proposition, something that would probably have a significant impact on the Mud. Spontanously I think it's a good idea, but of course it needs to be discussed, and I think it needs a majority vote from the currently active players before we implement it.

The main reason why I like the idea is that it would potentially make more newbies stay a bit longer, which would in turn increase the chances of them getting hooked on 4D. What attracts new players above everything else is attention, and presently they don't really get that in Seekers, because the Clan doesn't have an active leader. To take just one example; how many newbies even realize that there is such a thing as ctell? In the past with a steady stream of new players there was a chatter in Seekers too, but nowadays I think their clan channel is rarely used.

There are some details in the proposed concept that I don't really like, but I won't go into those now, since they are just that - details. We can always discuss details later.

For now the main questions are:
- Do you like the idea or not?
- What are the main advantages?
- What are the potential problems?

[Virisin]

This is a good idea. Newbies are almost shunned as Seekers, because most Clans still live in the past thinking they can set tasks and 'only the best' will make it into the clan. When there are only 2 or 3 active newbies, all of them need nurturing in a real clan.

[kitolani]

Seekers are pushed from the nest way too quickly. By level 18, they aren't even allowed to enter mud school anymore, and anyone that's done only the quests offered with little to no hunting are leveling out of school before they've had a proper introduction to the way our world works.
I don't see very many drawbacks to having Seekers be a permaclan. It seems like an incredibly sound idea, especially if they have perpetual access to the awesome school/quest academy 4d offers.

[Xeriuth]

Newbies are almost shunned as Seekers, because most Clans still live in the past thinking they can set tasks and 'only the best' will make it into the clan.

This is something that clans can still do with this feature implemented. Seekers could rightfully spawn these great players by keeping them and training them and the "Elitist" clans can pick them up. Unless of course they are lured to another clan. Seekers could potentially have a lot of people, some may think of it as home since that's where they 'grew' up, but it wouldn't have a special RP of any nature, which is an attraction they would get from all other clans.

Seekers are pushed from the nest way too quickly.

I agree with Kitolani here, they are pushed way too quickly, and that's why we came up with this idea. And Viri kind of backed it up as well.

By level 18, they aren't even allowed to enter mud school anymore, and anyone that's done only the quests offered with little to no hunting are leveling out of school before they've had a proper introduction to the way our world works.
I don't see very many drawbacks to having Seekers be a permaclan. It seems like an incredibly sound idea, especially if they have perpetual access to the awesome school/quest academy 4d offers.

I didn't mention it in my previous post, but a third change to code or scripts would be to allow anyone within the Seekers clan permitted to enter the mud school/newbie zones freely, just as Helpers can. So you are right on the money with that Kito.

This is a good idea.

Don't hear that very often from Virisin, so it must be a good idea!

With that said, we need more peoples input so if you are reading this, please respond with your words of wisdom and let us know what you think! Thanks!

[Molly]

Heh, here are my own thoughts, for what they are worth:

1. I think this is a hell of a good idea, which we will probably implement very soon, especially since it needs minimum code work.

2. I agree that Seekers are kicked out of the newbie zones too quickly, so I've already changed that. They now get to keep access until level 40.
(On a side note, let me explain why I put in the earlier level check before. We tend to base a lot of our actions on our own experiences, and so did I. When I first played a Mud as a total newbie I was scared stiff, because it seemed every time I ventured out of Midgard, I got jumped and killed by some goblin. Consequently Newbie chool became the only place where I'd feel safe, and I spent more time killing the mobs in the three cages of stock Mudschool than I'd like to admit. Every time I got into problems in the outside world, I'd return to the cage room. It made me feel more confident, but in retrospect it was really bad for my development. As a consequence I didn't do much exploring, and didn't learn to become a better player, until some imm noticed what I did and kicked me out of mudschool forcibly and permanently).

One more thing: The original level restriction was to stop older players from harrassing newbies or killing off the mobs for them. With the wide variety of zones we now have, I don't think any older players would choose to hunt in the newbie zones. Also at the time we had a bit too many players who saw it as their invocation to act like assholes, and who really liked to harrass newbies. But with the current restrictions against PK, that shouldn't be a really big problem either.

3. I don't agree that newbies never should be kicked out of Seekers. In fact I think they should still be automatically kicked out at first remort, just like now, because everyone should be forced to make an active choice about what Clan they want to be in. However, they should be able to choose to immediately return to Seekers, if that is what they want. In fact every player in the Mud should be allowed - and even encouraged - to apply to Seekers with an alt. Even the rule against multiclanning that some Clans have should make an exception for alts in Seekers.
The only rule against multiclanning concerns CL. You really shouldn't be a leader - or even a co-leader - of Seekers while at the same time running another Clan. That doesn't mean you cannot help as a member, in fact ctell and grouping allows every member to help. The goal is to create a chatter over ctell, that shows the Mud off as being active - (perhaps even a bit more active than it really is) - and make the newbies feel noticed and at home, which in turn hopefully would make them stay longer. And since getting more players is the key to a lot of things, I'd like to think that every player in the mud would work towards that goal.

On that note I was even thinking that having new players create with gossip toggled on instead of off, might be a good idea, to make them feel part of the community faster. Only seeing what's going on over gossip lately, I sort of rethunk that. You guys should really keep personal grudges off the global channels. :-P

5. Leading Seekers would need social skills, some true unselfishness, an active interest in helping players and preferably a lot of time to be on line. Since I don't think anyone could have that much time, Seekers should probably have two equal leaders, and those two should ideally spend the main part of their on-line time at different times of day, meaning they should be from different time zones. (Still, with several active players having alts in Seekers, this would become less of a problem. Seeing a newbie creating, while none of the leaders on line, would hopefully make them log their Seekers alt on).
And since the time we can spend on a mud invariably varies with things in RL, it's important to resign as Seekers leader when you no longer have that time. (This is important for any Clan, but most of all for Seekers).

6. I see only one big problem with the Seekers change, and that is that it would drain the other Clans of members even further, because most likely some would choose to remain in the safe haven of Seekers for a very long time. It would almost certainly kill Dragons, since like I already stated, training is their main purpose and robbing them of that, what would be left? Also it would drain at least one Clan - probably two - of an active leader, and with the current low pbase that might be a problem too.
Still I'd be adamant about the rule that no player can run both Seekers and another Clan even with an alt. For one thing the potential interest conflict is just too great, and for another being leader of Seeker requires full dedication.

[Virisin]

Someone needs to stop being nostalgic and nuke some clans. Clans are such a big part of the mud, without any friends or anyone to chat to while online, mudding is boring. We currently have about a clan per active player (slight exaggeration) when we should have no more than 5, max.

I think we should come up with interesting ways of nuking the following clans, in this order: Wamphyre, Mordonosse, Dragons, Vampires.. Even I'm a bit nostalgic to nuke any others but the more the better really.

[Molly]

Someone needs to stop being nostalgic and nuke some clans.

Heh, I suppose that 'someone' means me?

My response to that is; Why kill something that is already dead?
If a Clan doesn't have any members and a CL that never logs on, it is in effect dead.
Nowadays anyone can just leave a Clan, and they will too, once they realise nobody else is active.
So why bother nuking them?
Just let them die from natural causes.

[Xeriuth]

1. I think this is a hell of a good idea, which we will probably implement very soon

Awesome!

2. I agree that Seekers are kicked out of the newbie zones too quickly, so I've already changed that. They now get to keep access until level 40...The original level restriction was to stop older players from harrassing newbies or killing off the mobs for them.

Level 40 is an improvement, but why not just give access to anyone within Seekers and or helper. This will prevent possible harassment and mass killing of mobs by other players. If a Seeker is an alt and they make it hard on other players by harassment, the leader will take action and expel the individual, if it's a Helper harassing then they lose their flag? The end result however is though that, at anytime a player that wants to be in Seekers for training can revisit the school to brush up on some skills. For instance as guidance one could say, well go back to the Future area and read up again on that section. Despite them being level 47 T3.

3. I don't agree that newbies never should be kicked out of Seekers. In fact I think they should still be automatically kicked out at first remort, just like now, because everyone should be forced to make an active choice about what Clan they want to be in. However, they should be able to choose to immediately return to Seekers, if that is what they want. In fact every player in the Mud should be allowed - and even encouraged - to apply to Seekers with an alt. Even the rule against multiclanning that some Clans have should make an exception for alts in Seekers.

This would certainly be one less thing to code going about it this way. I just thought of it as simpler, and the leader/helper members express that members can leave at anytime, from the getgo, so they still have a choice, just don't have the hassle of expulsion upon remort.. I'm not certain if it expels you upon any remort, or just the first remort, will have to check on this.

The only rule against multiclanning concerns CL. You really shouldn't be a leader - or even a co-leader - of Seekers while at the same time running another Clan. That doesn't mean you cannot help as a member, in fact ctell and grouping allows every member to help. The goal is to create a chatter over ctell, that shows the Mud off as being active - (perhaps even a bit more active than it really is) - and make the newbies feel noticed and at home, which in turn hopefully would make them stay longer. And since getting more players is the key to a lot of things, I'd like to think that every player in the mud would work towards that goal.

I agree that you shouldn't run Seekers and another clan at the same time since Seekers is a much more of a dedicated position, that requires an active leader, other clans should have active leaders, but isn't enforced, at this time. But Ctell is a big positive of this change, agreed.

On that note I was even thinking that having new players create with gossip toggled on instead of off, might be a good idea, to make them feel part of the community faster. Only seeing what's going on over gossip lately, I sort of rethunk that. You guys should really keep personal grudges off the global channels. :-P

Agreed

Leading Seekers would need social skills, some true unselfishness, an active interest in helping players and preferably a lot of time to be on line. Since I don't think anyone could have that much time, Seekers should probably have two equal leaders, and those two should ideally spend the main part of their on-line time at different times of day, meaning they should be from different time zones. (Still, with several active players having alts in Seekers, this would become less of a problem. Seeing a newbie creating, while none of the leaders on line, would hopefully make them log their Seekers alt on).
And since the time we can spend on a mud invariably varies with things in RL, it's important to resign as Seekers leader when you no longer have that time. (This is important for any Clan, but most of all for Seekers).

I agree with everything you said here. However, at first, it would be good to get at least one leader, since how many people really fit the bill here? Also accept alts of players into the clan to help as well. In time two leaders would be best, but have to start small and work our way up, I'm thinking.

Does anyone think they are up for the job? Or think they want an alt in the clan to help?
How do we want to choose a leader? Nominations, like the Boba's? Merely up to the imms? Please give some input!? Thanks!

[Virisin]

Xeriuth you should be leader!

[Xeriuth]

Xeriuth you should be leader!

Is that a nomination?

[Molly]

I second Viri's motion, Xeriuth should be the Leader of Seekers.

First because the original idea was his, second because he is willing to make the sacrifices needed, and third because he is very good with newbies.

I'm not sure if he really can devote all the on line time that we'd like to see, at least there will be a short termed problem while he switches location, (which I understand will happen in a couple of weeks).

It would still be nice to have a second CL, but since it is a pretty demanding task it might be hard to find someone that fits the bill.
So I am hoping that some of the older players at least will put an alt in Seekers, to help guiding the newbies.

This change might not lead to an immediate surge in new players - in fact it most likely won't, so don't get your hopes up too high. But it definitely won't hurt either. Let's just go with it and see where it leads.

We'll probably implement this pretty soon, there might just be some code issues that have to be looked into first.