--- In hpmush-logs@yahoogroups.com, Jellyn <julie@c...> wrote:
Title: OOC Seminar - Orientation
What: A question/answer session, geared towards our newer players.
Who: Lots of wonderful players!
Note: I have removed a /lot/ of the poses to get at the real meat of
the
discussion. This will read rather more like a FAQ than a log. I
have also
rearranged some poses so it's clear what answer is to what
question.
When: RL date - November 19, 2002 / IC Date - June 1997
Watch For: Ron's secret!
Logger: Tengu


You say "Okay, might as well get started. :) This is going to be
pretty
freeform unless it starts to get really spammy. If anyone has any
questions
or areas of the game they want to know more about, fire away.
Normally when
someone asks a question, we point them to the
right 'news', '+info', or
'+help' file. We'll probably do a bit of that tonight, but we'll
assume
you've all read the news at least once. Or plan to in the very
near future.
:)"

You say "But sometimes the news isn't as clear as we think it is, or
you read
it once and forget about it promptly afterwards. :) So this
meeting is to
try to clear up any confusion."

You say "So go right ahead with any questions or concerns. You can
also page
me if you want it asked anonymously."

You say "Course I'll still know, but you get the idea. :)"

TIME
Mason says "I have a question. What is the time of the school year in
game
currently?"

Echidna says "the +time command will display that, Mason."

INCOMING FIRST YEARS
Delila says "I just made this character as an incoming first year. I
noticed
that school is out pretty soon. Do I have to wait and be limited
to London
until then?"

You say "One of the Admins should've pointed you towards +Bbread 2/10
before
approving you as an incoming first year. Yes, you /are/ limited,
especially
if you're Muggleborn."

<<Logger Note: The exact # of this bbpost changes as older posts get
deleted.
Here is the post:

================================ OOC - General
===============================
Message: 2/5 Posted Author
Incoming First Years Fri Nov 15 Tengu
----------------------------------------------------------------------
--------
You always have the option of becoming a pre-Hogwarts age child. That
is,
anyone from 0-11 years old. As it gets closer to IC summer, more
people
will choose this option. However, please be aware of the following:

* Muggle-born children will ONLY be able to play in Muggle London. No
finding
out about the wizarding world before you get your letter (IC July
and it
will be announced). If you and a friend want to play siblings or
Muggle
friends, you can create a private room to do this in. But it's not
recommended for new players. It's insular rp and you might have
later
trouble integrating into the rest of the playerbase.

* Wizarding children may travel by floo into Diagon Alley or
Hogsmeade.
Visiting friends, shopping. However, you will still have trouble
finding
people to rp with until school lets out at the end of June.

(For the two above, you may find you quickly run out of reasons to be
in
London or Hogsmeade if you don't actually live there.)

* You /may/ actually live in Hogsmeade, but we will be limiting the
number of
incoming first years who are residents there.

* It should go without saying that no pre-Hogwarts child can do
magic. Any
inherent talent they have will only manifest itself in extreme
situations
and unpredictably. It's illegal for them to perform actual spells.

You /never/ have to create your first character as a first year,
incoming or
otherwise. You don't even have to be a student if you don't want
to. We
have many openings for older students, teachers, other adults,
ghosts, and
even house elves. Please always be aware that first years CANNOT
try out
for Quidditch and CANNOT go into Hogsmeade on Hogsmeade weekends.
They also
cannot choose any of the electives. Be aware that we are in 2:1
time. That
means for your first year to advance to third year will take an
entire RL
year.

Just a sidenote: Our alt policy allows you to have more than one
character. If
you want the experience of being an incoming first year student, I
also
personally recommend a second, older character.
======================================================================
========
>>

You say "For the next RL month or so (You can check +events for exact
dates),
all students are still at school. That means people in London are
limited
to adult wizards. Muggle-born children are stuck in /Muggle/
London until
letters go out in July. Wizard-born children can hang in Diagon
Alley or
Hogsmeade, but again.. there will only be adults there and other
incoming
first years (and some NPC kids)."

Saifon says "How long, in RL, is the summer break?"

Echidna says "Saifon, it's one month long."

Pixie says "(ICly it's 2 months)"

Echidna says "IC, the school breaks for July and August. Since we go
2:1, it
only takes us 1 month."

Pixie says "The students should get their letters about a RL week
into the
break, so they'll be able to go to Diagon after that and have a
wider area
to play in."

Echidna says "There /will/ be a +bbpost going up to let you know when
you can
RP having received your letter."

You say "Okay, any other questions or concerns?"

PREFECTS
Saifon says "Not that I've done much RP to earn it, yet, but if our
characters
are chosen to be prefects or what-have-you, do we get that
information
then, too? ^_^"

You say "Yup, Prefects get letters in July more or less at the same
time as
the firsties get their letters."

Pixie would like to mention on the heels of Saifon's question, that
Prefects
are chosen from the class of people going 4th -> 5th. So if you
want to
become a /new/ Prefect, you need to have a character who is
becoming a 5th
year. Any other classes already have their Prefects chosen and
they're
named NPCs. The ones right now are listed in +bbread 5/1

Echidna says "The NPC 5-6 year Prefects could be created for next
year as 6-7
year Prefects, incidentally."

(Logger Note: See +bbread 5/1 for a listing of these NPC Prefects.)

OVERDONE CONCEPTS
Guest2 likes to go for concepts that aren't incredibly overdone. Any
particular character types that would be useful? Y'know, underdone
Houses,
that sort of thing. There's probably a newsfile, but . . . hey,
laziness is
my forte n.-

You say "There's a '+census' command so you can see the House/year
distribution. If you want to get more specific, you can use the
rosters
(+help roster), to see the gender breakdown."

Echidna says "There's also a newsfile that lists overdone concepts."

Echidna says "While we don't have one listing underdone things, you
can get
the picture of what to avoid."

(Logger Note: We actually do. See 'news oc ideas'.)

Tengu nods. And avoid everything in 'news char popular' if you want
to be
unique. :)

Guest3 says "Those calculations are for the current school year,
right? So
incoming first-years aren't noted? I'm basing this guess off the
number of
6th-year Gryffindors."

You say "There will be a lot of incoming first years if the last 2
Sortings
were any indication."

Pixie says "+census only lists people currently /at/ Hogwarts, right."

Pixie says "So to see the numbers for next year, bump everyone up a
year."

You say "Yes, +Census is everyone currently in school who hasn't been
idledested. Which is after 1 month. So it's pretty accurate."

Kirin says "Right, all those 1st year Ravenclaws will be 2nd year
Ravenclaws
in Sept. '97."

You say "Questions? I can give you topics to think about. :) Points,
Quidditch, adults, teachers, roleplay, logs, chronology, spells,
OWLS/NEWTs, um..."

LOGS
Saifon says "Are we required to submit logs? I was looking at the site
yesterday."

You say "You're not required, but you are encouraged. Features are
rather more
than encouraged. :)"

(Logger Note: More on logs in the OOC Seminar log after this one.)

HOUSE ELVES
Lorelei asks, "Do we have any house elves here?"

Echidna says "So far, we just have Dobby."

Echidna says "They're open for application, but people seldom do it.
OC ghosts
are also open."

You say "You can apply for Winky or an OC house elf if you'd like. :)"

Echidna thinks we have one OC ghost at present, but no FC ghosts cast.

TEACHERS & CLASSES
Cassie says "So do people have to RP their own class plans if they
apply for
teachers or do they get help/suggestions?"

You say "Teachers have to come up with their own lesson plans. But if
you're
inventing spells, potions, points of history, you should run it
past the
Admins before the class."

You say "Class lesson plans needn't be very complex at all.
Transfiguration in
particular is pretty easy. Pick something to turn into something
else. :)"

Cassie says "I guess so.. But surely there's more to it than that? :/"

Pixie says "It doesn't sound like much, I know, but running a class
and
keeping it interesting for yourself and your students is rather
challenging. There are a lot of lessons you could choose from, but
not all
of them will make for very good RP."

You say "If you write up a lecture, for instance, it's going to be
very dull
for people in the class. As anyone who attended Binns' class can
tell you.
Feel free to go read the log. :)"

Kirin says "Most teachers have an explanation part at the start of
the class,
and then some kind of activity that students can do individually,
or in
pairs/trios, etc."

You say "We would very much like to see a couple of teachers in
European or
other timezones. Most of our teachers right now choose 8pm Eastern
as their
class time most of the time, which isn't fair to some players."

You say "Pacific teachers would be good too. :)"

You say "If you're interested in applying for a teacher (FC, Extra,
or OC),
then I recommend going to read a couple of logs of different
classes. See
how each teacher does it differently and what you think would work
best for
you."

OWLS/NEWTS
Guest3 glomps a topic. "OWLs and NEWTs - how are they handled here?
Both for
those whose characters have gone past either, and those who have
them
coming up?"

Echidna says "Characters who have past them need to tell us in their
application how they did."

Pixie says "They're not RPed out being taken, as that would be kind
of dull.
Basically, you're invited to submit your proposed grades to the
admins.
Then they'll go into the +info so there's a record."

Echidna says "These are standardized tests, so you shouldn't say
Snape was
unfair on your Potions OWL or something."

Echidna says "More detail's in 'news classes tests', I believe."

(Logger Note: Take a look at '+info hogwarts owls' and '+info
hogwarts newts'.
To submit your proposed grades, +mail the alias 'plots'.)

HE WHO MUST NOT BE NAMED
Cassie says "Does this MUSH see Voldemort being out of the picture
past next
IC year or no?"

Echidna says "In the interest of making things more exciting for the
players,
I think we might want to take the fifth on Cassie's question."

Cassie looks confused then 'ahhs'. Cass is Canadian. :P

(Logger Note for Non-Americans: Echidna means she's going to keep
silent. :) )

PLOTS
Mason says "And how do players creat plots of their own? Or can we?"

Echidna says "As for Mason's, I think there's an OOC seminar about
plots, too.
A plot that affects not only your character but others should
certainly be
run by the Admins first. Your character starting to date someone
does not
need to be approved by us. Your character getting a
disease /does/. Even if
they're the only victim in your idea, doing something like
creating a
disease will affect other people. Things like that need Admin
approval."

Echidna says "Check the log site for that one, because a whole
meeting was
held on that subject. :)"

Pixie says "We'll probably have another one, though, before the
school year
starts."

(Logger Note: That log's title is OOC Seminar: Plot Approval.)

Echidna says "More questions, stuff you've been wondering about...?"

INFORMATION CHANNEL
You say "We have an Information channel now if you ever want to ask
the
Admins/Patroni questions after you're approved and you don't want
to page."

Mason says "How do you join it?"

You say "'addcom in=Information'"

You say "'help comsys' for more details on channels."

SUGGESTIONS
Gabe changes his mind, and lowers raises his other eyebrow, showing
incredible
range of eyebrow motion. "Actually...I do have a question! Suppose
I have a
/really/ good idea for the improvement of the MUSH...Where might I
voice my
idea?" Gabe lowers one eyebrow and raises the other, and then does
a little
eyebrow jig with both of them...

You say "You can +mail the 'admins' alias."

Gabe stops his jig, left eyebrow raised. "Ah, but do you think ideas
would be
well received?"

You say "We'll at least say no politely. :)"

You say "And try to give you reasons why we did."

Gabe says " Well, I wouldn't expect an idea to be automatically
accepted, I
just hope it wouldn't /really/ bother anybody..."

Kirin says "Hey, if it's good and we like it, perhaps we'll implement
it. If
it's good but maybe not what we're looking for, we'll say thank
you."

Gabe nods slowly, and curls his lips outwards in a sort of, 'ok'
gesture.
"Ok..."

FC APPLICATION
Lorelei says, "Quick question. In the FC application, how strictly
should I
stick to canon? I don't mean I want to change it, but some of these
questions definitely require embellishment, for example, the
character's
history."

Echidna says "I believe it says that you should feel free to create
that bit."

Pixie says "Use the canon where you can, use what's been established
on game
where you can, and work out the rest for yourself. :)"

Echidna says "It says "create additional background information
whenever
necessary"."

Echidna points to Pixie. "What she said." :)

Lorelei says, "yeah, it says that, but how "free" should I be? And on
the
other questions, should I do that as well?"

Echidna says "Well, you don't want to say, for example, that Ron
Weasley is
really a man."

Lorelei says, "Okay, that makes sense. Thank you."

Echidna says "I mean, a woman. :)"

Echidna duhs.

Pixie snerks.

Lorelei laughs

Tengu laughs. Someone should tell Hermione.

Pixie says "You've gone and given it away, Echi!"

Guest3 boggles.

Echidna says "Something that makes sense. A believable story that
could
conceivably lead them to acquiring the character we know they
possess, and
have seen demonstrated in the books."

Echidna says "Rats."
--- End forwarded message ---