Guides and the Guide Program.

Discussion in 'General Gameplay Discussion' started by ARCHIVED-Twicket, Mar 16, 2008.

  1. ARCHIVED-JesDer Guest

    Lyger@Mistmoore wrote:
    For me .. only one typo means I am having a good day :)
  2. ARCHIVED-Rqron Guest

    Guides are well..they are like your local red cross volunteers that do a lot of work for others, have no power to influence anything, have to write a lot of reports and seem to be totally useless...until one realizes that without those efforts a lot of people would have given up on those games because they are bored to hell. Guides do a lot of work during official and unofficial hours to better the game play..but don't really get anything for it besides a free account..bah I spend more money going by myself to McDonald's. Having RP as a requirement in a game where the majority does NOT RP is tacky at best though.


    J.C.
  3. ARCHIVED-JesDer Guest

    Rqron wrote:
    We have some people who actually RP.. Most people on the internet are RPing in some amount anyway. Guides are just "required" to RP within the game's lore :)

    I enjoy harassing the guides on unrest as often as I get a chance.. I have even had the chance to bug Pabinee from time to time ;)
  4. ARCHIVED-Salticidae Guest

    Of course I am the guide who is quote impaired.



    "
    I'm sorry, and I'll probably get in trouble for saying it, but... ewww. Converse with players? Run the occasional dynamic quest, answer "circles"??? Conduct weddings?

    That's it? That's what being a guide is? Not helping players out of all the trouble we get into? Guides have zero power to do anything well, frankly, useful?

    Wow. That is really suprising and disappointing."

    lol Well, everyone's experience of the game is going to vary, along with their interests and what they find in the game that keeps them playing. This is what is fun about MMORPGs: they can be many different things to different people and we all make it work. So, the weddings and quests may be more enjoyable to some vs. others.

    Guides are here to try to help. As we're all player volunteers, our experience with the game and different aspects of it varies widely. I could not give a guarantee that all guides know the answers to all questions - it would be out of our scope as volunteers. One person may know much more about the UI than I do, but I may be able to better walk you through the petition process. But, we do try - if we can't answer your questions, we can at least attempt to get you pointed in the right direction.

    Overall, we are all here because we love the game, like interacting with the players and the community, and we do want to help. And, we will try to do so to the best of our ability (one cookie at a time! " />).

    "We have some people who actually RP.. Most people on the internet are RPing in some amount anyway. Guides are just "required" to RP within the game's lore"
    I'm a guide on a non roleplay server. I am always surprised at how many people will play along with roleplaying and give it a fair try & just how talented some people are at it. I had no experience with it before Guiding and I'm still a novice - some players are very comfortable with it and, something that caught me by surprise, very funny.
  5. ARCHIVED-hansomepete Guest

    Small quiz? Have to know what kind of questions are asked? Curious mostly, I would imagine that this would be a small stepping stone to become a GM. I mean you had to start somewhere right?
  6. ARCHIVED-Sr_Guide_Kellin Guest

    When I started in the guide program eons ago our roll was much different than it is today. We handled petitions and did mainly CS issues. Little by little our roll has changed from CS issues to Quest/Roleplay as to try to make the games more interesting for the players and guides alike.
    Feedback on quests/events is very important. Please tell us what you liked about Oglethorps quest for his lost golden whatsit of power of tea. :)
  7. ARCHIVED-Asp9873 Guest

    The guide program looks like it would be alot of fun
  8. ARCHIVED-Ayateriaxx Guest

    Asp9873 wrote:
    There are quite a few folks who agree with you :) There are some great role players out there, on both roleplay and non-roleplay servers alike.
  9. ARCHIVED-Magnamundian Guest

    Sr_Guide_Kellin wrote:
    Shame really, would be nice to know that knowledgable players were checking petitions and CS issues.
  10. ARCHIVED-Twicket Guest

    hansomepete wrote:
    Well there is no requirement that you have to be a Guide before you can become a GM. However, there are some GM's that did start off as Guides.
  11. ARCHIVED-Rosabel Guest

    Asp9873 wrote:
    The Guide Program is a lot of fun. When I first applied, I was seriously intimidated by approaching a player and starting to role play with them. Senior Guide Siodachan and her team were a great inspiration and really helped me with that. Still, to this day I much prefer running a quest to just random Role Playing. Or telling stories of lore. There is a place for even the newest roleplayer, to the master roleplayer in the Guide program. Most people can find a niche for themselves doing something they really enjoy. Quests and Lore are more my niche.
    I can remember being an apprentice on Befallen, running around in just her shift, role playing that she had lost her kitten, and everyone was trying to help her and console her. They just could not resist this little blonde gnome who was so upset.
  12. ARCHIVED-retro_guy Guest

    I really wonder why we are made to jump through so many hoops to become a guide.

    I've looked at becoming one many times but get put off by the stupid quiz - I mean half the questions are about EQ1, which I played for all of about 3 months, the quiz really needs to be updated to be appropriate to the game we play.

    Also, we are told in the info page that they get huge numbers of people applying to be guides, if this is really the case why have I only see 2 guides EVER since the launch of EQ2? (That's playing 50-60 hours a week too).

    Perhaps if you didn't make it so difficult to be come a guide you'd actually have a few more people applying!
  13. ARCHIVED-StormCinder Guest

    Well...there should be "hoops" to jump through to become a guide...whether the correct hoops are setup or not is a decision of the senior members of the program.
    There is a great deal of turnover in the guide program, which is why it gets difficult to maintain a suitable number on each of the servers. Granted there are several guides that have been in the program since the early days of EQ1, but the turnover is (IMO) due to the "work" required to remain a guide.
    There are commercials on TV/radio in the Northeast US. They are pretty good. The main tagline of the commercials is: "Is running your business getting in the way of running your business?" Meaning, is doing the day-to-day things required to remain in business getting in the way of completing the mission of your business?
    There are paperwork and accountability requirements that go along with being a volunteer guide. Those that just want to RP and enjoy helping other players, but are turned-off by all of the accountability requirements don't last very long.
    SC
  14. ARCHIVED-Rosabel Guest

    retro_guy wrote:
    Actually, if you are applying for EQ2. you do not answer any questions that are in regards to EQ1.
    Once you fill out the application and submit it, after some time if your application is accepted you would be contacted to see if you are still interested, then scheduled for training. (The time period depends on how fast our grading team is working, how swamped they are with applications) Training is pretty short before actually being placed on server with a Senior Guide and their training team as an Apprentice. Once they feel you are sufficently trained, if you so desire you can then be raised to the rank of full Guide. However, due to the work a guide does, training is necessary in order to be sure that the rules that we must follow are understood. SOE entrusts us as a whole with some very unique abilities and trust. So if we want to keep being able to do what we do, we have to have some hoops to jump through. Once you make it through those hoops though, it is a ton of fun, that is well worth it. Those hoops are there to safe guard the Guide program.
  15. ARCHIVED-LLoki Guest

    Ok here is my take on the guide program...
    In the days of EQ1 (pre eq2) guides were uber! they had powers and really added to the immertion of the mmo perpetual gaming world. Guides were respected, on frequently, and helped in all sorts of ways. The implimentation of guide program into the EQ2 program saw many ex EQ1 guides taking the roll and inadvertantly returning back to EQ1. The problem was as mentioned in previous texts there just simply isnt much in EQ2 a guide can do to help players.
    Whilst not a guide at present I was in the guide program for EQ2 and for obvious reasons cant speak about specific details. But I can say from my own experience and others who were my collegues it was boring! only a couple of quests to run, food that was low and not really any benefit to hand out and a commitment to log in x amount of times per week. Whilst we had limited powers, our help to the player consisted most of refering the player to help from the website , friends or official eq2 avenues, we couldnt really help the player. It sort of defeated the object of being a guide and this didnt seem to be the case years previous with EQ1.
    Whilst Im aware and agree that there have to be certain restrictions on the guide program as a body outside of the normal GM community I also feel for up and comming potential guides, SOE need to impliment more things for the guides to do and partcipate in, they need to be given more power to help and need more support and cooperatio from SOE. Again from experience some of the most memorable times I had in EQ1 were in guide ran events, something you dont see very often in EQ2 due to lack of events to run.
    So fingers out SOE for the community AND the guides to have something that people DO want to volenteer to do and provide another layer of immertion to the player. New quests, events, powers and more freedom around the land. Guides need a revamp with the inclusion of things they CAN say to help players rather than going in a round about way to say the same thing. Its my oppinion that a guide (unlike a GM) is a char who should be able to interact with the world, and if your lucky enough to have a guide appear and help then all the better.
    Im a player in a group, I zone into an instance with my group, halfway through the instance crashes and im locked out of the instance. I call a guide, he checks my validity and resets the instance for me. This is what a game guide should be able to do! I have attacked a monster in a raid group 8 times now to multiple wipes POOF a guide appears " want some help with that or wanna continue trying on your own?", again in moderation but hell yeah this would be a welcome to many raiding groups I have partcipated in. Guess what that raiding group will be talking about for perhaps years! yes you got it another level to the game that can and will enhance the game for many many players.
  16. ARCHIVED-megaira13 Guest

    " I have attacked a monster in a raid group 8 times now to multiple wipes POOF a guide appears " want some help with that or wanna continue trying on your own?", again in moderation but hell yeah this would be a welcome to many raiding groups I have partcipated in. Guess what that raiding group will be talking about for perhaps years!"

    You're kidding, right?
  17. ARCHIVED-LLoki Guest

    Definitely not kidding!
  18. ARCHIVED-megaira13 Guest

    I understand you're brainstorming here, and that's a good thing... but in this particular instance, intervention like this would defeat the purpose of something being a raid mob... if it's too hard to kill, you go back and work on other things till you get tougher, then go try again until you can beat it. Wanting a guide to give you a shortcut to the next mob when you're frustrated is like skipping to the middle of an algebra book - you miss learning the basic skills you need to solve bigger problems later. You may be able to get through those harder encounters, but you will always be playing catch up and you won't have the confidence of knowing w/o a doubt you can solve the problem and get it done under your own steam.

    So, I would personally find that sort of practice (guides helping folks kill raid mobs) abhorrent. But that's just my .02.


    The whole point of Guides focusing on RP vs. Tech support was, to my understanding, to free up both sides. I also believe things are changing pretty dramatically with the guide program recently - evidence of this would be this thread, even, as Guides haven't ever posted to the forums in EQII. Some of the new quests I'm seeing around (baby dragons running rampant, snow people sassing the populace, etc.), as well.

    That is to say - I would let this one steep a bit as it seems to be in the process of change.
  19. ARCHIVED-tibysti Guest

    posted by LLoki
    "
    I have attacked a monster in a raid group 8 times now to multiple wipes POOF a
    guide appears " want some help with that or wanna continue trying on
    your own?", again in moderation but hell yeah this would be a welcome
    to many raiding groups I have participated in. Guess what that raiding
    group will be talking about for perhaps


    Isn't that Dev's jobs?
  20. ARCHIVED-LoneGreyWolf20 Guest

    I'm curious about this guide program.

    Do you need to be high level to become a guide? The reason I ask is because I see that it says that you need two characters that have reached level 10 in the program you want to join. Now do they stick to that level 10 figure or do they see that the highest you have ever attained is level 22 and don't give you a chance at being a guide?