Excelsior

First a little about our guild. Our guild was established to assist newer players for 3 months. We offer advice on building skills, lots of guild events & give them a place where they can make friends & find hunting partners at their skill level. After 3 months, they graduate & move on to other guilds or strike out on their own. We have an area where you can place gates to your guilds, so newer players can explore the many guilds that Excelsior has to offer. We provide them with basics like spell books, a beginners bow and some arrows. When ever possible, we try to buy these from other players so we do not impact the economy in a negative way. As of today, we have 29 members. It's great fun watching them become friends! We have three simple rules. 1. You must follow the Codex! 2. You must be courteous to other players at all times. Even if they are not being courteous to you. 3. Keep the language & topics of discussion clean and free of swearing! It may have been my concept, but it will take a shard to keep this going. What good is a concept if it can't be executed? Player retention is important if we are to keep our shard healthy & thriving. Our hope is, this will increase the number of people that find a permanent home here.

Donations: We only accept financial donations from players with establish accounts. A good rule of thumb is if you account is 1 year or older. For all you other players, we appreciate your interest in helping, but hang on to your gold you will need it to buy armor and weapons. There are 6 types of donations we accept.

1. Low level artifacts & spawn dropped weapons:

While I have had some generous donations of starter bows, I would like to buy these as much as possible. Do not donate any valuable or highly desired items into the box. These are young players & accidents happen at this stage - things get lost! If you have these items and wish to give them to a player in need, give them to your newer guild members, or donate to a guild that has some younger players. Weapons & armor should be placed in the box to the right of the academy door as you enter the main room. If the box is full, pm Cassie. We also accept donations of Doom skulls & Travesty keys. When ever possible, these should be purchased from a player that sells them. We don't want to take away their means of earning money. These should be given directly to Cassie, Sufferance, or Trendin.

2. Other Items:

We could use 4 spammers to assist with training. I have one at my house that I will be moving, but it would be nice to have a variety of spawn for them to tame.

3. Time: This is the big one!

Some of these players will be your future guild mates. So it would be nice if some of you donated your time for an event at least once a month. We try to do a couple MOA & barracoon champ events a day. To volunteer for a champ group outing, you must follow a few rules. 1. Your time should be spent helping the ETA members. This is not a money making activity for the volunteer. While you can shoot at some spawn, your time there should be dedicated to caring for the new players. If you have a druid book, the ability to cast enchanted forest is highly desirable! Do not cast on the alter - only off to the side. This helps keep the newer ones alive! You will not be allowed to cast volcanic eruption. Remember - this short period of time is for the newer players. You must be able to resurrect pets & people. These events will start from the guild house. You can pm Cassie with a day, time & the event you would like to host. We also take them on the Doom Gauntlet. We collect the gold and split it for them after the event. So, a bag of holding is a must! The volunteer must make sure that each player has an opportunity to hit. We have issued them all bows, so we recommend that they use these at the events to minimize damage. As a volunteer, you should minimize the damage you do to the bosses. This will insure that everyone gets some good whacks in. We discourage the use of imps, or pets by the volunteer as it does too much damage too quickly. In Doom, everyone has an equal chance of getting a drop as long as they are hitting the bosses. Progress will be slow, so be patient! We do Travesty events (usually round robin style) and the volunteer does not collect items. An hour or less of your time can mean so much to these folks!

4. Money:

We will not accept any financial donations from accounts under one year of age. Use it to buy armor & weapons that will allow you to help new players in the future. We don't have a lot of expenses. There is our gate, which we will drop from time to time to keep expenses down. This runs about 200 - 300K a week. The other expenses are for new player supplies (bows, books, doom skulls). From time to time, i will ask for help in pubic chat. Right now, our ranks are booming. So, money is tight. if i get volunteers to keep these guys busy, i will also be out trying to bring in as much money as possible!

5. Website - I could use a volunteer to design a website. I would like to post events & training scripts there.

If you would like to be placed on a vendor list (items will be purchased at a fair market rate), please pm Cassie.

I know this is a long request, but I appreciate the time you have taken to read it. I am available to give tours to anyone that would like to see our guild.

Hey Cassie,

While I feel your intentions here are noble and I admire the thought you've put into this, there are a few areas here I would take issue with.

1. Donations-I appreciate you're trying to get them up and running more quickly, but between new player items, readily available quests (headband of power, gravedigger, Dinja), and mistvale, plus with the fast skill gains, etc. I'm wondering to what end? For example, I sell lower end looted weps, LRC, stat bonus jewelry on my vendor for 5k. Crafted Yumis can be had easily for around the same price or less, etc. That's maybe running the rat quest a few times. Same can be said for spellbooks or other starter items. Gold is so readily available on this shard and we have so many things directed at newer players that I feel like handouts are robbing them of progression and hurting the economy. Why should they be doing Doom Gauntlet/Travesty at less than 3 months of account age? I certainly wasn't. I feel like your emphasis is getting them to the higher end too quickly rather than on a path of progression based on their level.
2. Knowledge-Along the same lines, I feel like we are robbing people of the experience. If the goal is to join a guild so you can have someone answer every question or whim you have, I'm not sure that makes for a great experience. To me, much of the overall fun of UO, and this shard, is exploring, finding new places, seeing what you can tackle, and coming back to things once you've made some progress.

Again, overall, I'm not against the idea. I would say that more emphasis should be placed on empowering newer players to locate the things they need and guide them along and less on freebies and "helping" them with things that should be above and beyond the skill set of newer players (i.e. a vet essentially kiting them through gauntlet or travesty). Best of luck.

Thank you for your input. I would like to comment on a few of your points if I may. Let me say first that I respect your point of view.

Re: " Donations-I appreciate you're trying to get them up and running more quickly, but between new player items, readily available quests (headband of power, gravedigger, Dinja), and mistvale, plus with the fast skill gains, etc. I'm wondering to what end? "

The items we give our new players are very basic. With the exception of spell books, and spell caster keys, they will be seeking to replace all other items within a short period of time. I know of no players in our guild who have not played the game previously. So they get no thrill out of hunting down spell books. There is not sense of discovery lost in that. We do discuss the vendor areas where they can purchase items. We are a temporary guild, so that is one of the things they will have to learn to survive here in the future. We also explain the [exex system to them.

Re: "Gold is so readily available on this shard and we have so many things directed at newer players that I feel like handouts are robbing them of progression and hurting the economy."

The economy was a big concern of mine as well. That is why I have stated repeatedly that these items will be purchased from players when ever possible. I have even requested that donations be purchased from shard players. Our goal is to help the shard economy by retaining players, not to hurt it. I think that is clear in my post.

As for robbing them of the experience, this is a short stay at this guild. Here they will see what the shard has to offer. It is really no different than joining a guild and being brought out on hunts. This happens every day, this is no different. We only do the more advanced events once per week. Each person gets one turn at looting. Not enough for them to get tired of the experience. There is enough custom entertainment on our shard to keep them going for a long time. I council people to enjoy the experience and not rush to become too powerful too fast.

Given that we are all different people here, we will never have a complete consensus on the right approach. My intentions are good. I am sorry if you are unhappy with the execution.

Here is what +Nyx had to say about Freebies

+Nyx wrote:- Freebies. Again, from the staff's see-all-viewpoint, it is clear that the constant giving of freebies to new players is having a negative effect on the economy. "+Nyx, you crazy chick, how can that possibly affect the economy" you say? Let me explain. Giving a new player a maxed mule or 5, some nice LRC gear, and a decent weapon may seem like a super nice thing to do; and it is nice. But it also essentially teaches that newbie that on UO, one doesn't really need to work very hard for the things they need in order to progress through the game. 3 years ago, new players were greeted by a staffer and given some goodies that worked for a set period of time to help them get started. Sometimes a vet would help them out with a single item, but it wasn't the common practice for a new player to be essentially showered with things it would otherwise take them a few weeks to earn. And 3 years ago, the economy was (for the most part) in a better place, new player retention was higher, overall game satisfaction was higher. In the last year or so, older players have begun showering newbies with items until the things they are given by the staff are useless to them. As a result, there has been a drastic change in the attitude of new players. This is largely because they are taught to expect things to be given to them, or to be easy. Ultima Online isn't a graphics-heavy MMO full of leveling and raiding like the Big Boys of Gaming, but it is in many ways a very challenging and complex game that requires commitment and work. Everyone on UOEX has the option to buy the ED for their gear via donating, but you'd be surprised how few people do that in a big way. A handful will donate for a relayer or two, but most don't. The attitude problem is coming from too much being given too soon by fellow players, as well as the general 'why work for it' mentality being bred via chats. There are other factors that go into newbie retention, of course, and those are being worked on (a more friendly and sensical new player starting area, more quests for the low and mid-range players, etc), but largely the older players are sort of shooting themselves in the foot by coddling the new players too much.

See the whole conversation in this locked thread:

http://www.uoex.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=7957

I have read that post. Which is why we do not give them items that they will want to keep over time. I will however contact +Colibri agai & get his input on this matter. He and the other GMs are very aware of this project. I have given them the concept and asked them to contact me if they had any issues at all with my approach - so far I have not been contacted. If they don't feel my approach is good for the shard, I am sure I will hear about it! But thank you for your input.

Cassie wrote:I have read that post. Which is why we do not give them items that they will want to keep over time. I will however contact +Colibri agai & get his input on this matter. He and the other GMs are very aware of this project. I have given them the concept and asked them to contact me if they had any issues at all with my approach - so far I have not been contacted. If they don't feel my approach is good for the shard, I am sure I will hear about it! But thank you for your input.

I've contacted you in game and thanked you for what you are doing. I don't have a problem with it at all. I just added that because it seemed relevant and good information from a Staff's perspective.

Plus I'm at work right now on my break and don't have much to do lol

Thanks for your support! Sorry I missed the point completely. LOL.

I know there are concerns about the economy, and it is true that too much "help" is not really helpful. But I know Cassie's plans for the newbie guild take those concerns into account. For one thing, there are donation chests for the newbies, but people keep raiding them, and selling the stuff on their vendors. Cassie is addressing that problem by making sure they get some starter gear. As for the spell books being too much help, magery is so weak on this shard that there are only a handful of spells commonly used anyway.
Excelsior Training Academy is primarily for the purpose of guidance. I remember the night I joined Excelsior. There was nobody there for guidance, and the first thing i did was go to Britain, do an escort, and headed to the old school trainers west of town. I know there are signs here and there, but I had been through the drill so many times on OSI, I just didn't read anything. Luckily, somebody saw me there, and set me straight. There is such a huge change of content from OSI, that newbies need guidance from the start.
If any of you have any concerns, take the time to go by the Academy and look around. Cassie has written books, copied books, (and paid for books to be written by other players), on many if not most of the skills and quests in the game. Please read the post carefully, and if you have concerns, talk to Cassie in game before flaming in the forums.

I fail to see the flame except the one mentioned in your post. As Cassie and I's paths have crossed a time or two and we've exchanged PMs on this as well as other issues, I'm fairly certain she understands that I'm going to be courteous and respectful of her views. I've offered my opinion and it stays the same. Low level donations for newer players. as you mentioned, are available via the donation chest. Starter goods are cheap and usually readily available. Hence, it is my opinion that handing these over rather than forcing the players, not the guild, to search for, earn, or craft them is the worse option. I feel the same way about Vets helping or guiding a group of new players through something they can't handle on their own (frowned upon or outright banned by staff in event areas and probably not a practice other players like as a whole). This is especially true in light of Mistvale and other enhancements only applicable to newer players. Again, I think the overall idea of the ETA is a good one. Getting newer players together and socializing could lead to great long term benefit to the shard and the economy. That doesn't change my opinion on the two issues above. These are forums for a reason and we can all have reasoned discourse. Cassie can take or leave my opinion. She's under no obligation to change her practices or even her thoughts around the subject. I say good day...

Cassie, I haven't seen any pages or received any emails asking for the staff's opinion on your endeavor. That said, now that I've read this thread and looked into the guild, it seems like you're doing something neat and unique. I do feel that giving too much help can be a huge detriment, as I've posted about before. New players shouldn't be getting shown through the peerless mobs, for example. But support and guidance, that's great and a worthwhile cause.

I didn't see any flaming in this thread so I'm not sure about that statement.

Carry on, folks

-+N

+Nyx - Thank you for for your feedback. I thought I had asked to you read my first post earlier in a help menu discussion (not regarding peerless) and asked that you let me know if you have any issues with what I was doing, but maybe it was only +Colibri that I contacted. We of course will respect your decision on the peerless visits. We had very low participation on that anyway, so it won't impact our activities. With the exception of one player, all have either played on the original UO and/or other free shards and are returning after time away. So, the game isn't new to them, only the custom features of our shard. They are fast developing friendships, so I'm sure they will be capable of seeking out these areas with their new friends.

ugh now i feel kinda bad. i have been giving a runebook with my library marked in it is this to much? < real question
\
ps no recall charges ont those^^ just empty runebook with one rune marked for the runelibrary.

Scuba - I hope +Nyx will comment if she disagrees, but there are many rune libraries around the shard. These are also provided at the youth center, so I would guess this is not a problem.

I would like to share my perspective as a new player as well as the newest member of ETA.

My back story comes as an old school OSI player. I started before we even knew what Trammel was. I play from 1997 or 98 to around 2006. I dabbled in a few free shards briefly here and there, but never found anywhere that I was satisfied with. I found Excelsior and read the Wiki and some of the forums before I ever signed into the server. So far, I am impressed with the population, economy, and customs.

I started two days ago, and found some guidance from older players right away. I won't say that I was showered with stuff by these people, but I was gifted a small chunk of gold, and a key right with about 30k of each reg. As a UO Veteran from back in the day, these two things were all I needed to get myself comfortable.

I read this post on day one, and two days later it was reccomended by three non ETA members that I seek out Cassie from ETA to get help learning the shard and all it has to offer, as well as to refresh my UO skills. I PM'd Cassie and got a response within minutes. She took me in and explained the guild and some details of the shard. I was given a new member bag which contained all the spellbooks, a cape and a few odds and ends. I was given nothing substantial that would cause any detriment to the shard or the economy. What I was offered was knowledge. Any question I had was answered and if she could not answer, I am sure someone else in the guild could, or at least could find it.

I think this is a great and unique deal being offered to new players. I believe that this guild will help with new player retention and it may be a wise idea for the shard administrators to endorse and help this endeavor whenever possible.