Shattered Kingdoms

Regarding the first post: It seems to me to be an excellent mechanics guide, of which I don't think there would need to be more than one. That is to say, you're explaining how to learn to play the game and merely using a priest as an example (which is also a good as it's the easiest class to become involved in roleplay, since people will seek you rather than only the reverse).

My specific suggestions are listed below.

• Add URLs to each of the HELP instructions, so folks can read the help for any given command right from the guide.
• Remove level numbers (e.g. "1-20" and "6"). They're not visible in-game so you could end up confusing them.
• Spell check - just a minor thing given the size of the post, but it all adds to the quality of the guide
• Add in the good explanation later on in the thread of training skills/spells vs. training levels (since they both involve spending hard-earned experience points).
• Suggest being less concerned with exact level breaks than the concepts you're trying to explain (e.g. referring to the change from using a weapon to using magic for inflicting damage could be left up to the player as to when they do so, but it's a good concept to explain).

I think there will always be a knowledge gap from when a new player works out how to connect vs. when they actually feel comfortable moving around and advancing their character concept without having to read help text. The fact is, we already provide ALL the help they'll ever need: it's just that it happens to be a long list of individual help files that folks will never painfully trawl though beginning to end. So a quick-start guide is a useful bridge.

I do think there is a danger in providing anything that looks like a "walkthrough" though - I myself would probably feel rather jaded if my in-character efforts to learn the game from scratch are stomped on by twinks who have simply connected to the game for the first time and then followed a walkthrough immediately. The lack of IC information is what helps your case in this regard - naming pet NPCs though is probably not necessary; perhaps "Ask around about what pets are sold in your starting city." would be better.

Last piece of advice: there is always a danger in any guide to expand it ad nauseum until it's really a reference manual instead of a quick-start guide - feel free to cull sections if they aren't a core concept that newbies would need to get going.

Regarding OOC channels:

I'm from Dulrik's camp on this topic - the number of times I've joined a new MUD only to be spammed with discussion of politics, FPS games, URLs - you name it - made me wonder if even the process of shutting off the channels was worth my time. If everyone was so active in the "chat room" (which is what it becomes) why would they ever bother helping me play - IC or OOC ?

I think there's a certain level of focus you can expect from other players at SK - although there's always the common instant-messaging clients, you can at least be confident that the game itself is not distracting anyone you're roleplaying with.

Having said all that, perhaps we do need to add some very blunt and clear help text for newbies - if HELP COMMUNICATION isn't clear enough about SAY, TELL and PRAY then perhaps we need to rework it some.

Nudging newbies about the specific help file on communication during the creation process is probably a good idea too. I've already asked Dulrik about a script command to fetch whether a player answered yes or no to the "New to SK?" question, which could help with the first-timer spoon feeding, if that's the direction we want to head.

's open again, or at least I saw someone roll a char there yesterday.

Im not sharing my lvling sekrats with n00bz!!!

Anyone wanna save me some trouble (I just got home from work and I'm feeling lazy - so bite me) and tell me what's the big deal with the Northern Wastes and why I should bother enriching their land with my fabulous presence??

's a cool place to be.

If I play a darkie, I LOVE the northern wastes. So many ways to make your character twisted.

we have a blackhole that perpetually spits out elven prostitutes for either:
1. leveling
2. slavery
3. the nasty

do you need any other reason.

(We have the strongest hellion in game dictating the Northern Wastes - reason enuff)

Okay, back to Newbie Help, which is not a place for the above post... Northern Wastes is one of two starting places for the truly evil. Northern Wastes is a demented evil, generally speaking, and the Empire is a militaristic evil, generally speaking. Beyond that, I'll say find out in-game, I guess.