Guild Mentoring ProgramFollow

Seems like it would be the WoW version of working a IT Help Desk. Bad idea

DRINKING GAME!

Also, I'd not want to do this. While I enjoy helping out newbies once in a while, I would not want to spend a lot of time on it. If people can't read the internet without me holding their hands, I'd hate to be "forced" to do it. I started DCUO the other night and had no idea what the hell was going on. Took me a little less than an hour searching the internet and asking in-game while experiencing through trial and error before I understood pretty much everything I needed to understand.

People should interact with each other in the game more. That's how we used to do this sort of helping stuff. "Where's the AH?" "What does AH mean?" "Who am I?" and all that crap. Some people ask questions and other people answer them. I don't believe holding hands will make them understand it better or faster than letting them experience it for themselves. If someone asks, sure, answer them. Downright mentoring newbies, though...

Why?

Edited, Jul 18th 2012 12:58am by Mazra

Theoretically it is an awesome idea. In practicality though it fails on so many fronts. I will give them an A for effort, but a C- for thinking this one through.

I keep trying to think of a way they could do it, but it seems like everything I come up with could be exploited or abused in some way.

I mean having new accounts being able to offer rewards (gold, goodie bags, bonus xp, something else) to people that help them is asking for abuse. Someone could just start a new account and grant themselves free goodies, you could place limits, but not eliminate the problem. Any sort of recognition based thing is just asking for people who want recognition, not necessarily to help out. There's no accounting for accuracy of the information passed on to the newbie (you know there's some potential for fun there...). There can be good faqs and what not online, that most will never read. When I think back to the people who helped me most when I was getting started, I'm not sure any of them were after any particular reward or recognition.

One of those thing where it feels like Blizzard is trying to come up with ways to motivate/force good behavior on their population (see dungeon "kick" rules, looting rules, etc for other examples), which never seems to work as well as they hope.

Needs more definition but on balance I like it. But then, I'm in a very supportive guild that does a lot o that now. One thing I'd not like was a situation where the "helper" guild was expected to force-level the newbies. Leading someone twenty levels below you through content doesn't really help anyone. Nor would over-buffing them with armor and gear because at high level they'd not be of any real value. But advice, encouragement, help with materials for crafting, stuff like that couldn't hurt.

I may be wrong on this, but I see almost no groups questing. Everything, or almost anyway, seems to be solo play. For a true newbie, there's no built in social structure such as a lot of us recall from our early (not necessarily WoW) gang experience. An active, welcoming guild, COULD help provide a sense of structure and belonging that might encourage newbies to stay with it longer.

Edited, Jul 19th 2012 2:33pm by Ollamnh