Feature Cut: Mentors

[Ketchum]

Make it run the same way as the underground, you could use most of the same code. "an anonymous member writes" sort of thing, no contact created.

Have all new characters automatically join the 'n00b underground' , with an option to leave.
Give anyone who's played for 100 days a link to join as a mentor.

Make it clear who is asking -- "a player who joined 3 days ago asks the following question".
make it clear who is answering-- "a player who joined 1000 days ago offers this answer", and auto-quote the question.

I seconded this option with a minor change to the last part. The 1000 days taken out to be replaced by the longest days the player has been in the realm. As we may realize, creating a new realm will reset even the oldest player to zero days  :D

[Draco Tanos]

He means player, not character.  Meaning base it on when the account was created.

It might screw with the old players who return, but they're mostly a minority.

[egamma]

He means player, not character.  Meaning base it on when the account was created.

Correct.

[Ketchum]

Pardon me for my misunderstanding of player, not character  :-[

Hope this proposal will be accepted by Tom then  :-\

[Penchant]

Devs,
Was anything with this ever decided?

[Foundation]

Two things.

1 - Remove mentor class now or later?

2 - Reusing guilds is the incorrect solution.

[Tom]

We need the channels system running first, then it's easy to simply add a channel or two for this.

[Ketchum]

New Knight   (6 days, 8 hours ago)

A new knight has emerged from the ranks of the Oritolon nobles. Piers Beaumont is starting his career today.
He originates from Oritolon. He comes from a new noble family (OOC: 0 days in the game) and he might need some assistance to get started. Mentors, take note. You can check the background of this family or send a welcome message.
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Roleplay from Piers Beaumont   (6 days, 8 hours ago)
Message sent to everyone in your realm (15 recipients)

Greetings unto the most just and honorable of my fellow nobles of Oritolon. My family has sent me to serve this realm with my life by my sword and blood, and I pledge to do so honorably and to the absolute best of my talents, by the good graces of the heavens. I beseech you, that I might serve with honor and loyalty to this realm until I draw my dying breath. I am eager to seek out service in the name of our realm.

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Letter from Piers Beaumont   (6 days, 8 hours ago)

Of Piers Beaumont, greetings and blessings upon you, honorable mentor of Oritolon, Lady Ketchum

New to the goings of the realm, I beseech you for help in establishing myself in a position of trust and honor among nobles here. I understand that you help those as myself, and would teach me what I need to know. I ask that you mentor me, so that I may learn and grow in both the fruits of knowledge and wisdom.
Piers Beaumont (Noble)

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Letter from May Ketchum   (6 days, 4 hours ago)
Message sent to all students in the realm (1 recipients)
Sir Piers Beaumont,

First of all, welcome to Oritolon. I hope you enjoy your time here.

We have to find yourself a liege, a lord. A lord will offer you an estate for you to serve as the region knight. When the tax day arrive, you will have some gold income to pay your men and perhaps recruit more men to serve the realm.

I have help you to lookup the realm hierarchy of Oritolon.

Count Cleatus of Sovonoval and Count Jing of Grentzen may need knight. As we are about to add Alebad city to our possession soon, with new Duke to be elected, you may serve as the city knight soon if you can wait.

It would be wise to address Lord by their titles when sending messages worldwide. Our current Prime Minister is Prime Minister Rhiannon. Our current Judge is my brother Ash Ketchum. In private letter, you may address me as Lady Ketchum, I decline the formality.

(Out of Character: Battlemaster working based on Medieval system. Some characters/nobles prefer to be address by their titles unless stated otherwise, Lords, Ladies, Sir, Dames, Duke, as some of them may find offence. My characters are fine with you addressing them informally. Is this your first time playing this game?)
May Ketchum, Priestess of The Path Of Chivalry (Lord)

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Letter from Piers Beaumont   (6 days, 4 hours ago)

Lady Ketchum,

I have spoken already with the honorable Count of Grentzen, and he has told me he has no need of a knight at the moment. I would greatly appreciate whatever aid you might lend me in finding a liege. I can gladly wait to become the city knight of Alebad, if it would best serve the cause of the realm.

If I have given offense to any of the honorable Lords of Oritolon, I do wish to sincerely apologize; it was not my intent to slight them in any way. I am of noble birth, but sadly lacking in the intricacies of court life. I appreciate your fair warnings.

(Out of Character: I've read that, and in fact it's partly why I joined the game; didn't realize I'd already slipped up on that though. And yes, it is my first time playing this game, but not my first time RPing by any means. Thanks for the welcome.)
Piers Beaumont (Noble)

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Letter from May Ketchum   (6 days, 2 hours ago)
(Personal message to Piers Beaumont)
Sir Piers,

You did not slip up on anything. Just a friendly reminder because there are a couple other nobles who we do not know, may find it an offense. As I am a Path of Chivalry Priestess, I have no income at all. I trust my brother Ash able to help you fund and help pay your men at the moment.

Do ask the whole realm should you need any army order. As order in the realm is given worldwide, rather than inside an army(from which your liege or lord need assign you to an army).
May Ketchum, Priestess of The Path Of Chivalry (Lord)

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Report from May Ketchum   (17 hours, 57 minutes ago)
Message sent to all students in the realm (1 recipients)
Sir Piers,

Here's some manual instruction leftover at our library for your reference.
Hope you make full use of it. Some of the things may appear outdated, you can ask if you have any questions.

http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Main_Page

May Ketchum, Priestess of The Path Of Chivalry (Lord)

[Ketchum]

Hmm, suddenly I feel becoming Mentor is one priceless experience and I would not like this Mentor Feature to be removed. I have personally guide a few new players myself in the past and present, so I think I can speak from Mentors perspective.

See my last post. Until we make this become more "user friendly", it would be nice if we maintain Mentor Feature as of now. As the new players do make full use of the Students Feature and Mentor Feature :)

[Tom]

We are not doing away with the idea of guiding new players. But we want to remove mentor and student as classes and open things up to a wider audience.

[Velax]

Being a mentor is draining. Once had a guy who was very enthusiastic, asked lots of questions, seemed really into the game. At the end of it he thanked me for helping him so much. Twenty minutes later he deleted the character. Kinda took the shine off being a mentor for me. Especially when the next half a dozen new characters either deleted after a couple of lessons or ignored me completely.

[Ketchum]

Being a mentor is draining. Once had a guy who was very enthusiastic, asked lots of questions, seemed really into the game. At the end of it he thanked me for helping him so much. Twenty minutes later he deleted the character. Kinda took the shine off being a mentor for me. Especially when the next half a dozen new characters either deleted after a couple of lessons or ignored me completely.

Velax, I agree with you on this part. Being Mentor is draining, the incentive is few, if any student reward you with mentor points. Often we end up frustrated that we have given some of our time to train the new characters and they end up deleting their characters due to various other factors that out of our control. Perhaps considering give Mentors extra incentive as the characters usually volunteer themselves to do the service; community service if there is 1 word for it ;)

Tom, I see. Doing away with Mentor and Student classes is good with me 8)

[Tom]

Basically, we need some changes to the message system that are already in progress and then we can set it up.

[Fleugs]

I don't want to unnecessarily reopen this thread, but I think the entire discussion is missing one crucial thing. I've had my share of being a mentor and the reoccuring matter is explaining the game to new players (surprise). This is what made the mentor-class unbearable after a while. You repeat yourself every single time a new player joins. It would be much easier if, at least for the basics, they were automatically redirected upon joining Battlemaster to a page that explains the basics of the game. Yes, this already exists in some form, but it needs to be worked out more. I don't know how... but I know that many new players either don't get to that page, or don't learn anything from it.

This being said, whatever system you implement ingame (and the continent-wide guild idea is good except for the notion of complete OOC-abuse), you will get stuck with the fact that you still NEED players willing to, time after time again, explain the game entirely to new players. It's fun the first 5 times, but once you notice how little new players appreciate your work and how little the reward for your work is, you think "to hell with this" and go do something else, like complain that the player base is shrinking.  ;)

Some more things that, I believe, might help new players;

• A "Let's Play Battlemaster" video on youtube, preferably neatly worked into the main page of Battlemaster for all potential players to watch. Doesn't have to be long. Between 5 and 10 minutes. If someone feels like doing so, a longer version can be made as well. This can help new players understand the game and, you never know, recruit a few wandering souls on the internet.
• I'm still a fan of a special "place" for newbies to start playing where they can get easily acquainted with the game. Right now they're dropped in the middle of everything and often are lost after the first few minutes. I've suggested a newbie-mentor continent before but I understand that might be too much work.
• Facilitate the access to our IRC-channels. The reception of new players is often good and activity is generally high. Nowadays there are plenty of one-click in-browers IRC-applications that will get you in #battlemaster.

[Tom]

Most of that can be developed by players, and I would gladly support any such effort, but I can't run it. Do you want to start a forum topic or two to get people interested to make such a thing? I'd be willing to support it, for example by handing out free goodies and some other recognition to the winner of a video contest. I'm not sure BM is so well-suited for a video presentation, but I'm almost certain someone can prove me wrong. Not by discussion, but by making one.


Same for the other ideas. There is plenty of space on the Wiki for a newbie introduction and there already are at least two. But they can be updated, improved, made more accessible with images and so forth. Someone needs to do it.