Having someone right in your realm, that is easily accessible in-game, who is dedicated to helping *you*, is a very good idea.
While I'm tossing out these various ideas, I'm not excluding the other ideas as well. It almost sounds like some people are getting the impression that if I state one idea, that I don't like the others. That's not the case. I think there are several things that could/should be done to improve mentorship and the new player experience. These can all be done together, some individually by themselves.
- Remove the Mentor subclass.
- Make mentoring an option selectable by any character in the realm that has been playing the game for more than 6 months. (Too long? Maybe 3 months? Anyway, more than 30 days.)
- Allow rulers to appoint official mentors for the realm.
- Create a Newbie Corner (probably with a different name...) on the forum dedicated to basic game play questions, geared specifically at new players. All new players should get an IG message to go there and ask questions.
- Mentors who receive too many bad reviews from the students should be removed from the Mentor program.
- Some way to encourage more mentor/student communications. Maybe put the Mentor/Student channel options at the top of the Messages screen, possibly highlighted in a separate colored box, with some explanatory text directing the to ask questions of their mentors? Also, put a link to the forum Newbie Corner there, too.
