I've got a really novel idea that a lot of people won't like. (rant)

[Morgan Evanar]

I'm sure you all are surprised at this.

While this relates to GJO for the sake of examples, I feel it negatively impacts the board as a whole, so I'm bringing it up here.

I've seen a lot of newer people show up and make a bajillion accounts, all asking for training at the same time.

It really frosts me. On many levels, I find it to be terribly inconsiderate.

1 - you're new. You're learning the ropes, so you're going to be making a lot of the same mistakes on more than one character. Isn't that terrible?

2 - to a degree, you're taking up space another new person could have with your second character. It is especially bad at GJO where we have a billion padawans to 15-30 active knights and masters.

3 - some people have gotten uppity when their second character isn't snatched up immediately. I don't check the recruitment center very often because IC and OOC, I'm not a super diplomatic individual, and I have my own agenda.

This really makes me want to reach through the monitor and hit you with a newspaper in a manner befitting an ill behaved dog. Only a lot harder, because you've wasted my time twofold. I read your stupid thread for your new stupid character when you JUST joined the other day with one. And now I just checked your e-mails and they matched.

So learn the ropes, go slow, and make complex, interesting, realistic characters.

[Daiquiri Van-Derveld]

That is one of the reasons Ive never made a Jedi char. I was told the waiting list for a Master is a mile long :(

[Pierce Tondry]

I'm considering taking on two or three Padawans, but it is quite a deluge to sift through and would be much easier if there weren't as many double identities.

[Slayn Cloak]

I've always had one character for many of those reasons. I hasn't been until very recent that I even considered another character. Morg how long ago was it when you turned me on to the boards, back in the EZ days?

[Morgan Evanar]

Yeah, I think it was.

[Dove]

Let them learn on their own how best to roleplay. You don't have to make them feel uncomfortable about signing up another character as a Jedi just because you in particular don't want to be imposed upon.

[Pierce Tondry]

There is a very real overcrowing problem at GJO. If people would cut down on multiple training-intensive characters it would lessen somewhat. Because Morgan writes in first person does not mean his opinions are not shared by others.

[Figrin D'an]

It is, indeed, a very real problem. It's also something that the GJO staff has begun discussing.

[Daiquiri Van-Derveld]

Originally posted by Dove
Let them learn on their own how best to roleplay. You don't have to make them feel uncomfortable about signing up another character as a Jedi just because you in particular don't want to be imposed upon.

Its not just Morg who feels this way...several others do, too. He wasnt trying to make anyone feel uncomfortable...he was pointing out a very real problem at the GJO.

[ReaperFett]

As an idea, couldn't you make it a rule where secondary and further Jedi characters must be declared as such (Although not neccesarily WHOS secondary character)? That way, those assigning newcomers could make sure everyone has SOMETHING?

[Sejah Haversh]

I have two padawan characters, myself; Sejah Haversh and J'ktal Anajii.

But, I do not feel as if I am one of those Morgan is talking about, as Sejah has been a Padawan for a year and a half now, and J'ktal was only inducted into the order six months ago under Sage, and has mostly been on haiatus because of Sage's disappearance, but is now back to active duty under Falcon Gyndar.

Even though I have multiple padawans, I do agree with the point raised. The mark of an amatuer writer is one who simply makes up new characters, or adds them in when they feel stuck for an idea instead of making their original idea work. That isn't to say that having multiple characters is bad, but just that if you're struggling with one doesn't mean you should just make up another.

Perhaps we should impose some form of limit as to how many padawan characters a person could have at one point in time as a temporary fix to this problem. Of course, I do realize everyone is different, and this should be employed in a case-by-case basis.

[Dasquian Belargic]

I think Morg makes a very good point.

[imported_Eve]

Section III.B.1 of the FAQ says that if you join a new group with a secondary character, you must tell the group who you are.

If John Doe registers one account and tries to join GJO, then registers another account... and tries to join GJO then they will be telling the group heads who they are. Group heads can say "pick an account, and we can consider another account later after others have had their chance too."

You could make a waiting list thread too.

On the whole, I agree with Morg. Actually, I think there is a general problem with this and sock puppets. The staff has noticed some instances of old people (those who have joined a long time ago) pretending to be new again. They post in this forum with a "hi, I'm new, show me the ropes" thread. Again, this is wasting people's time, and considered a form of spam per our FAQ.

With all the talent we have here in regards to internet knowledge (and the fact that your IP is readable), I can't believe someone would try and do this.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

I totally agree that people should be limited to one padawan character per year, or something. If you want to have another character in training, then join a different group. GJO is vastly overcrowded with padawans, and I bet there are a few people who have at least five characters as padawans at GJO right now.


The madness should stop! :eek

[Dasquian Belargic]

I have a couple, but it's not like I'm clamouring at people to have them trained. I have Dasquian as my main Jedi, and all others are pushed to the bottom of the pile as far as training goes.

[Sonja Gealica]

Originally posted by Dasquian Belargic
I have a couple, but it's not like I'm clamouring at people to have them trained. I have Dasquian as my main Jedi, and all others are pushed to the bottom of the pile as far as training goes.

I actually only HAD (that's the term here HAD) Two padawans at GJO.

Angelica Shin (Who is no longer going to be affilated w/GJO) and Okashi Zutto (who I am working on) and I agree with what some people are saying here (Mostly Sej's tho) about newbies going "I'll join GJO, oh no one is training me, I'll make a new character and HAVE them join."....

DOES THE FACT THAT YOUR FIRST CHARACTER ISN'T GETTING ANY TRAINING MEAN IF YOU MAKE A NEW ONE THEY MOST LIKELY WON'T GET ANY EITHER?!?!?!?

*coughs*

And yeah, when I joined, I didn't make a big fuss about not having a master, I kept RPing and developing stuff, even if it wasn't TRAINING per-se, but it was good interaction, and getting to know other Padawans.


I'm, rambling aren't I?

[Brielle Acaana]

IMO, if someone has more than 2 chars/padawans waiting to be trained or that are in training, they need to let their others go for the time being and allow other ppl to develope/create a padawan.

Im not speaking only for myself. I know of a couple of others who have been waiting as well for the glut of characters to ease.

[Quay'Na Rakai]

well, in my list...

Quay's leaving the GJO soon

Jacali will be hopefully be knighted soon and she can help out with training

Rikki is being trained by Falcon and so is Hayden (Which Falcon knows about) which is one I just brought in from the med center, but if you'd like I can return him to just being a doc for now, it's no biggie. They are both going into the healing sect.

Angelina Kincaid- Is not a main char for being trained, I have no plans for looking for a master for her at all at this point and time

So really as soon as Jacali gets knighted, I'll only have Rikki and possibly Hayden, if you allow him to stay, but as I said it's no biggie, just let me know....:)

[imported_Jack]

The only reason kelt does not train padawans is because i do not have the time OOC to post enough as it is, let alone train padawans and let them down like i have seen in the past.

Eventually i might start, perhaps early next year, but right now as you might have noticed i hardly post.

[Rognan Dar]

Everything that has been said I agree with. But what I was thinking of just now was to refresh the padawan list. Check to see who is still active and if they are, contact them and see if they still want to be in the list. We might be able to cut the list down by half (maybe). But it still doesn't fix the problem at hand.


DOES THE FACT THAT YOUR FIRST CHARACTER ISN'T GETTING ANY TRAINING MEAN IF YOU MAKE A NEW ONE THEY MOST LIKELY WON'T GET ANY EITHER?!?!?!?

If you think about it, old characters that haven't done anything for some time, people forget about them and move on. So making a new on will more then likely get a better chance then someone who has been sitting around for some time. Like I said with the list, if they haven't done anything for some time, though they might have been waiting for a year, three years, who know how long, a new char will be looked upon more.

[imported_Akrabbim]

Well, the GJO could always adopt my idea. I think in my case, they have to some extent. I've had a character for quite some time. So, basically, my new Padawans don't have masters. They have a training thread, then are left to their own devices. This has been the case with Dust, Ezekiel Frost, Draken, and was sorta the case with Akrabbim. I had a master with Ak, but was still kinda sent out into the world. I always figured that if you have someone who's been around for a while, just do a single training thread with them and leave them be. Then, no more work load on the masters. Sound kosher?

[xsmokingmanx]

I have two Jedi Characters and only one is affilated with the GJO. I have choosen to leave my character Nexus Barton unaffilated until I get my character jackson to knighthood. I personally believe in one character per group and it has worked for me so far. It will be a long while before Jackson reaches knight due to switching masters and his new master disappearing. Nexus will continue to stay rogue because of this, although my dream with Nexus is to start a small stricter order of Jedi that will work allong side of the GJO that is a very distant goal.

I agree with morg something needs to be done, weather it be mass promoting allot of year and year& half old padawans to knight or if it means weeding out the extra accounts.

[imported_Jacali Danner]

My question, why is it taking so long to get promoted?

Wouldn't it be better to get the Padawans that have been around promoted and get the line moving faster, so to say?

[ReaperFett]

But then bad Knights are being made. A promotion should only happen when someone is ready.

[imported_Jacali Danner]

Oh, ok...understandable...:)

[Xazor Elessar]

Though Xazor is no longer a member of GJO, I still do have a character who is a Padawan there. So I guess this doesn't apply to me, but there is a huge problem with overhaul there. I remember trying to train too many Padawans and after a short while, it burned me out. I'm still burned out from training and I'm just getting back into training one Padawan.

|I

I think this can be fixed easily with the suggestions that have come forth already, but it will take more than a person or two to get it into action. I think for the time being, a good rule of thumb would be one Padawan per person until the problem is solved, or if you have multiple Padawans, do like has been suggested by Ak and start training threads on your own without a master.

EDIT:

What about those Padawans who have been around long enough to know the ropes -- can't you pull them from the general group and make them Knights so some training can be done for those others who are not ready? Perhaps compromise for a little while on the amount of time it takes to get to Knighthood so that a base of trainers can be built up so that there are not problems like this.

[Dae Jinn]

Why not do what TSO did, have mandatory "missions" people have to participate in, training, etc, and then decide if the rper is ready for knighthood.

*hasn't done any GJO training with Dae...cos she's slacking off :uhoh*

[Figrin D'an]

Originally posted by Xazor Elessar
What about those Padawans who have been around long enough to know the ropes -- can't you pull them from the general group and make them Knights so some training can be done for those others who are not ready? Perhaps compromise for a little while on the amount of time it takes to get to Knighthood so that a base of trainers can be built up so that there are not problems like this.


GJO has always had high standards regarding promotions, and that isn't going to change. We're not going to promote people out of necessity, simply to deal with an overload of padawans. Even a temporary adjustment is a bad idea. It will only set an apparent double standard, and be cause for people to complain about favoritism.


A potential solution is in the works. We hope to have it implemented shortly.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

I'm glad GJO has a plan in the works. I didn't think this was a "please help" thread, just a general "airing of grievances."

You could offer suggestions if you want, but GJO is under no obligation of course to do anything about any of them. The Administration of that group is very capable and will take care of the situation on their own.

What I believe this thread was supposed to be about was "new people with a bazillion accounts all clamoring for attention," not GJO's policies.

I thought I'd state the obvious, just in case.

[Sejah Haversh]

As much as it has annoyed me that I haven't been promoted het as Sejah, I completely understand, and agree with the policy of only knighting those who are worthy of it. In his case, he isn't ready yet. His skills are still fairly basic, though growing, and he needs better mental discipline. Though he's been here a year and a half, most of that time was spent with masters who did very, very little with me, and I got little help from others when I asked them because they were all busy with other padawans. I'm not mad, that's just how it goes.

So, I'd like to keep our GJO promotion policy as close to what it is right now, just because I think that's the best way to do it.

[Morgan Evanar]

GJO's promotion policy isn't up for debate here. If you feel wronged by it, you should know where to post by now. (Not directed at Sejah).

As stated in the title, this is a rant. But its a rant about a very real problem brought on by people abusing the Knights and Masters and the ability to roleplay multipule characters.

[Xazor Elessar]

I wasn't questioning the promotion process either, I was just making a suggestion or trying to figure out where GJO was going as far as fixing the problem. I understand that this is a rant and it's a plausible rant -- very plausible. The problem of overcrowding due to one person and multiple characters is real and perhaps putting out a message to everyone to knock that off for a while would be a good thing (seeing as though not everyone who joins GJO or is a member is necessarily going to read this).

Something needs to happen, though -- I agree with you.

[Estelle Russard]

LD, nice obviousness stating :)

To the topic at hand -
New "alternate-padawan" characters go to the end of the training priority line. Thats all there is to it. Dont expect otherwise, and you wont be disappointed.

A good solution is to quit making new chars and establish and build your present ones. Dasq and Sejah have both developed their original characters in depth and so another padawan is not out of the question imo. Theirs is a good example to follow if you wish to be multi-jedi'ed.

IMO, Morg summed it up when he said it was inconsiderate to other players - both with new single characters and to the knights and masters that feel obligated to try fit everyone in to train. Everyone does this rping in their spare time. The majority of us dont have too much of this commodity so common sense should tell you 4 or 5 padawans per person is a stretch on everyones availability.

[imported_Grev Drasen]

This is why I'll only allow myself one Force adept character: Grev.

Besides, roleplaying "normal" characters is more fun, IMO.

[Zasz Grimm]

i try not to spread myself too thin. I'm behind as Aejin- my one jedi. So I'll be catching up. But I completely understand.

[imported_Firebird1]

Aggh! Well that sucks for the GJO. In My Honest Opinion, those people who create four or five characters, and besiedge the masters with requests to train, should not be here. It's not only not fair to those who have only one Jedi character or only time for one, but at the same time insulting to the masters that are doing the training. This isn't a character factory, if you want that, go play Neverwinter Nights.


If you have only one Jedi character, good for you. If you don't then you might want to think of this. This problem would not come to this forum unless the GJO needed upper level support (aka Orge or Nup) in order to help them with this. We dislike cheaters here, so please remember that.

[TheHolo.Net]

Originally posted by Firebird1
This problem would not come to this forum unless the GJO needed upper level support (aka Orge or Nup) in order to help them with this. We dislike cheaters here, so please remember that. psssst, Eve is also upper level support. ;)

[Ryla Relvinian]

GJO has always had high standards regarding promotions, and that isn't going to change. We're not going to promote people out of necessity, simply to deal with an overload of padawans. Even a temporary adjustment is a bad idea. It will only set an apparent double standard, and be cause for people to complain about favoritism.

To put it plainly: Lousy padawans make lousy knights. If you don't take the time to learn things, how can you expect to teach them?

And, since I came into this thread a bit late, let me also add that part of this problem... no, most of this problem is due not to creating multiple accounts, but rather creating multiple accounts and then not bothering to develop them. I can think of several people just off the top of my head who have multiple, well-developed Jedi characters... and this is not who this rant (nor the discussions in our forums) is directed towards.

Recently, we've been getting an abundance of people who sit around and wait for someone to come and hold their hand... which is fine for your very first character or very first experience with RPing. However, when it gets to be the fourth, fifth, sixth time we hear complaints, it just gets intensely vexing because it's not MY job to make your character believable! Trust me, if it were, I'd be doing a better job. :)

[Dasquian Belargic]

Trust me, if it were, I'd be doing a better job.

-Jerry Springer style "You go girl!"-

[Ryla Relvinian]

heh... *dodges flying chairs, produce* ;)

[Tear]

Dont worry, soon the Empire will come solve the GJO Padawan problems :evil

(lol sorry Morgen, my apologies, couldnt help it)

For something that might help, weed out the "doubled" characters. I saw mentioned above which where group activities. The the spira bound thread that caught alot of attention and most of the active people flocked there. I didnt see toooo many many characters that were played be more then one person although there were a few.

Another idea is maybe for each new person that joins the GJO go through a series of trials with other Padawans the are recruited. The idea of which would be to make the thread in which the tests are administered, fairly lengthy and complex. With Masters administering tests to a group, which they must pass before passing to a new room with a new master or knight who gives another test. A riddle, physical activity, or something to bring out background information for character development.

Having to do so much with a single character might prevent people from getting bored and creating multiples..instead they might not have time to create another but stay with they're current and develop it.

Not only would it give a chance for character development but interaction between various padawans and the leaders of the

[Morgan Evanar]

[RP] Role-Play discussions. (no hijacking)

^ thank you.