Well, I write this here because aelena doesnt seem to have its own news group.

So, the flavor of the guild is pretty neat...but I decided to choose it as my
post-rebirth guild...I've been putting around having fun doing quests,
exploring, and getting started in aelena...but I'm quite disappointed to the
gameplay of the guild itself...it's completely non-conducive to playing with
less than max (or close) levels. I'm currently at 13 of 20 levels in the
guild, and I find that my best combat abilities still come from things I had
before joining aelena, namely: chaotic spawn from disciple, and 30% magic
missile with no cast/mastery from civ background. These 13 levels in aelena,
so far, have just given me a place to dump experience, and a way to dispose of
corpses. Here's some of my gripes:
* You get some spells such as bite of the black widow to 10% at lvl 10 (28%
for me now). I have yet to be able to see what it does, because every one of
the 50 times i've tried to cast it, it "succeeds" but then tells me that at
the last minute I get hit by a backlash or whatever. Why give a spell that has
no effect whatsoever?
* You get the sting of aelena. This uses organs as reagents. With the 45%
dissection I have at this level, the organ you get is about 90% random,
meaning that I only get an organ usable one of the 3 poisons I can use (of
which only 1 is really a combat one), from about 1 in 10-15 mobs I kill. The
rest of the organs I get just decompose because I have nothing to do with
arms, legs, paws, snouts, eyes, spleens, stomachs, bladders, legs, ears, etc.
* There was an event for all guild members...oh, but not me, I was apparently
not high enough level to be able to sacrifice myself to aelena...
* There are quests to be able to learn new poisons, etc...but oh, you need to
have percents in the mastery skill, and you cant even get that till lvl 11 or
12 or so...and at 1% in that skill (the most i can train right now), i'm still
searching to see if there's a quest I can do, so it might be a bit later in
the guild.

So, in short, I've invested 23 levels in this guild path (between disciple and
aelena), and still am no more powerful than I was 13 levels ago...why not give
some usable skills/spells at lower levels? Oh, and there's wound skill...at
the %s I can get at low lvls, once per 3 skill uses it succeeds, and does
about 15 damage. Woot woot! At least give thorn spray or something to take
advantage of the cast poison, and mastery, etc...

--ooga

For the record, I have never, ever, in my 10+ years here "rocked hardcore". I
think I'm in touch with what power level a 3M player should have. And having
offensive capabilities beyond that of a lvl 15 guy of my same race+background
is something a 3M player should have. My gripe is not that I don't "rock
hardcore". My gripe is that I rock about as hard as someone with 1/6 of my
totals. There's no real power scale up in the guild until the end. That's the
problem. Add a level? Add 1M exp? I'm about as powerful as I was
before...where's the motivation to advance?

I'm really not asking for something all-powerful. I'm asking for the addition
of perhaps a spell such as "thorn spray" -- the equivalent to magic missile,
to be added to the guild so it stays in flavor, give something to use in
combat, and takes advantage of the cast poison, cast generic, mastery of
poison we can already train. I've invested 23 total levels into this guild
combo, and still am at 30% magic missile for offensive capability. For
comparison, looking at mage base, by level 10 I'd be able to train 100% thorn
spray, cast poison to 60, etc. I wouldn't have them at those %s, but I'd have
something I could actually use! In comparison, with aelena, there are
skills/spells I can train, but at the percents I can get, they aren't of
limited use, they are of no use -- why can't I bite of black widow a bunny
rabbit at least? The spell simply has never passed whatever checks it does in
the now over 80 or 100 times i've tried it.

A guild should have things to do at lower levels -- not powerful things, but
things. It's fine to assume most people will join a guild as part of a reinc,
and simply go to the last level in the guild straightaway...but, that may not
always be the case...if it is, why not just put all the skills at the last
level of every guild?

--ooga