What do disciples like in a mentor?

[davidgr1200]

We are always discussing mentoring from the mentör's point of view, but what makes a good mentor from the DISCIPLE's point of view?
A lot of us have been disciples at some point, what was it about our mentors which we liked? Which caused us to continue in the game and reach graduation?
For my part the most useful thing was that he was available when I was online. That meant I could ask questions and get answers when I needed them. He also took me on hunts and healed me when I was injured, but did not give me weapons or ammo (he did lend me a weapon once so that I could try it out and see if it was worth me buying one.)
It would be interesting to hear from others what they thought was important from their mentor.

 

[Sparhawke]

I dont ask for much, simply a willingness to answer questions occasionally rather than simply adding every random person who steps out of PA for nothing more to get their rating up with the law of numbers.

I guess thats what I do myself, answer questions when I am able and expect the same from others, with my mentor I am lucky, she took me and another group down to Nea's and answers questions from time to time

An example of a question that could be asked is how to work out percentages to a newbie, I still have trouble working it out but not many answer well:

BID price / TT price = %

How many people actually write it in a way newbies can understand instead of trying to baffle with bullshit?

 

[Foenne]

From my point of view (a quite inexperienced one, so please forgive any mistakes and feel free to correct).. a mentor should be something like a buddy! Buddies somehow know when they should help and when not! I think for some disciples it will make more sense to give them the directions instead of holding their hands while whatever they are doing (like pointing them to the map of the TPs will be sufficient for someone, but the other person would like you to join them on a run). As a mentor you should also take notice of the fact that not all new players are the same and so will maybe need another way to handle them. Like in real life all these new girls and guys are other persons, although they all quite look similar. So you should not forget that behind this avatar is a real world person which can have completely different preferences and expectations than you have or that any other disciple has. Ok, I think I repeated myself enough, but I see it as quite important.. and all this individual stuff can make mentoring very hard (that is why I really have a lot of respect for people able to mentor people in a virtual universe), but at the other side I assume also more interesting!

But of course, having a mentor/disciple that is online at the same time makes a lot more sense than being in complete different time zones. But maybe you can play around with that as well. For example if you are somehow able to play during the game quite often, then it would make sense to take multiple disciples (if you would like to do so of course) in different time zones. Like that, you are able to focus your time on one disciple at a time without 'neglecting' other disciples and of course having some time to play your 'own game'.

Just my 2 cents.. (dollar cents, euro cents or PECs.. you can choose )

 

[Zacariaz]

I have never been a disciple in the normal sence, but I have had a lot of mentors, people who were allways willing to help when needed.

So, what What I think a mentor should provide is this: time. A mentor has to be willing to spend the time needed on a disciple. wether it's time for advise, tpå runs, and so on is irrelevant.

I have also been a mentor a couple of time, and I have lived by this rules, even when it has been complicated. Fx. right now I have a disciple from australia, which is somewhat complicated as I live in Denmark. what that means is that we don't often meet online, but he has my e-mail, and whenever I have the opportunity I log on, if just for a moment, to see if he is online and have questions or any need for help. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and instead of going right back to sleep, I smoke a cigaret while logging in to see if he is online. It may sound exstreme, but really, it's only five minutes we're talking about, even if it's in the middle og the night.

 

[davidgr1200]

I take your point about percentages. I had problems working out the how much I should sell a Basic Target Assessment for when I got one a few months back. The markup was so many thousand percent that the numbers didn't seem real. (4 PED each in the end)