Shattered Kingdoms

I forgot to address perhaps the most important part:

SK is completely different. That's the entire root of the problem we are discussing. Even when a mid-level character attempts to interact with high-level players in a reasonable way, they either get ignored or the [REDACTED] beat out of them. In an ideal SK world, a Veteran should be able to interact with their heroes and leaders in a respectful way and then have some sort of contribution they can make to the system which those heroes value enough to warrant their inclusion.

When it comes to discussing whether the enchantment system is at fault, that is certainly a valid thing to debate. It's safe to say that I've been convinced that some change in that area is necessary to move the SK world more toward my vision for a healthy game.

My two cents:

For one thing, when I first started playing I thought of the healing-the-other-guy tactic, and the only reason I didn't do it was because it didn't seem mana-efficient. I don't think that's twink at all though, considering you'd get to improve at healing spells even while leveling solo.

But I'm more interested in the idea that immortals want players to impact the game when they're at lower levels, and I just wanted to take a look at that. As it currently stands, everyone is going to want to level up to at least apprentice or journeyman before interacting much with other people (Aside from "Hey, want to level together" interaction). This is due to the fact that at lower levels, most classes can't even travel between the main cities without having to twiddle their thumbs at the stones for a decent amount of time.

So assuming that in general, most people will level to apprentice or journeyman, what can you do at that point in the game?
A) You can hang out at inns and meet whoever else is... hanging out in inns.
B) You can send tells to important looking people in the who list that'd you like to talk to, and converse with them.
C) Explore the main cities and their immediately outlying regions.

But I sure hope you don't plan on exploring anything that isn't within 7-8 leagues of a main city, because you'll probably end up dead.

That continues until about mentor-master status, and as you level further (or interact with more people) you end up widening your influence.

Here's the catch though. In all your interactions and/or exploring, you're going to be hindered more because of your level, (lower level characters will die more to aggro NPCs and have less PE/less PE-cost reducing skills, such as endurance) and the main way to alleviate this is to gain levels through grinding, because enlightenments aren't reliable enough to ever get too many levels off of, even if you're roleplaying very solidly (due to the fact that paragons and imms aren't omniscient) and quests, while useful, are exhaustible and cannot be solely used to level.

My point is this: If a low-level character isn't leveling, then whatever he does will be crippled, unless he's just sitting in an inn and waxing philosophical, and who seriously wants to do that? Then, after going through -all- the extra work and inconvenience of trying to accomplish things at low levels, he still has to grind! If you -really- want characters to "influence" the mud at lower levels, I'm really having a hard time seeing any incentive for that at my end, save masochism. Either increase the experience benefits from RP rewards at lower levels, or find some other way to benefit lower level characters when they try to impact the mud. As it stands, though, it's just an exercise in frustration if you try to get anything done at lower levels, considering that with much less trouble, you can travel to a grinding spot and be assured of at least -some- progress, even if it is horrifically boring.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSFCZSxD ... re=related

D, you're so insistent that grinding is indeed the most boring way to level (this having been said about four dozen times in this thread alone by the players of the game). It is also, however, the only really viable way to level in SK.

If you're going to throw the quest option out as an alternative, which I'm predicting you will, let me shoot it down right now.

So many of the quests in SK are brutally difficult to find, and once found, if by accident, become impossible to complete because there's often no way to be reminded of what's needed. Some quests, unless you're an expert at deciphering the language barrier code, can be impossible to complete even if you find them on purpose.

Every suggestion to make a "help wanted" board of quests that I've ever seen made (and I see one made roughly every five months) you completely shoot down, pointing to the "quest list" on the website. That quest list is entirely below the level of direction needed. A board in each kingdom with posts such as:

"Adventurer needed! My restraunt serves only the finest nethril snake eggs, but we're out! Please come see the cook at the Dragon's Egg Tavern on Dock Street in Nerina for more details."

is what's needed. For every quest, minus a few special ones.

If you want questing to be a viable way to actually level a character (instead of the "save all the quests you know oocly for the last few levels because finding more is like getting teeth from a chicken" mentality that exists today) you actually have to do something to make that possible. As it stands now, the vast majority of players without ooc hookups or info sharing habits have a [REDACTED] of a time finding even enough quests to get their last level or two, or to recover from an Edrain once at GM.

Some of the recently built quests (many at the behest of insistent players who are sick of being unable to find the quests they'd use to level if they could, and even more sick of the grind) do in fact help, but there's over 100 quests in SK, and some of them, even minor ones, are so hard to find that it would literally require walking into every side room in, say, Menegroth and speaking every (oocly) known keyword just to start it up.

Let us not forget that trying to explore the world of SK to find said quests is generally a suicidal option below vet-mentor. In some cases below GM.

Perhaps you mean to substitute enlights for leveling by grind? If that's the case, I think you need to rethink your position. You can get one enlight per day, and many characters go weeks without a single one for one reason or another. Considering the low turn over rate for some PAR slots, and the unwillingness of many PARs to enlight the same character twice no matter how much time passes between, leveling by enlight is a completely ridiculous idea. An elf would age death before reaching master by enlight.

So tell us, D, since we seem to be so woefully unaware of what viable leveling options exist in SK besides grinding, what we're missing. You claim that it's the choice of the pbase to take the most boring route to level, so tell us what our other options are. Clearly, we don't know them.

I know how much you would like to think it is possible to have a complete functional character at Master level, however it is not the case with leveling as it is now. Allow me to make a few points of what I see the issues are.

1. Upper level areas are insanely difficult to get to. If you manage to find a group that can take you to areas like ToM or the Wastelands and you lose whoever your tank is (in case you aren't) or the healer then recall is a necessity. No one wants to sit in the ToM if they're a GM trying to help a mentor-master. That leads to multiple trips and inability to rp/lead a trib or cabal/ ect...

Case in point my bard Caelynn led the Talons for a time. In order for me to get to the ToM I had to beg and plead with GMs to take me there and sit with me while I tried to level. Now the most capable of GMs tended to be in cabals and other tribs, so they couldn't stick around due to constant pk happening/needed.

I am not saying pk is the problem however making it so you have to have large groups to level or wait on availible leveling areas (I'm sorry MC and Keepers both leveling at the ToM without murdering one another isn't going to happen) is part of it.

2. MAKE MORE DARKIE MID-HIGH leveling zones! This will potentially eliminate some risk to having to run into those people's who are actually helping you, enemies and getting killed by association.

3. Make an hour/age restriction on GM. This is one of the main things that will cut back the number of GMs and promote rp. Are there going to be people who idle for hours to get their hour requirement after they shelf the character to the right age? Probably but it's much easier to track this kind of behavior than to beat the snot out of the people who can't level well to begin with.

4. Make mid level, leveling easier and friendlier. I personally hate to grind. I positively HATE it. I've shelved more characters and deleted more alts than I care to admit because leveling annoys the [REDACTED] out of me. I shouldn't have to sleep and wait so long on repops in order to get to a level where I won't be spam killed or ignored for being a low level. I shouldn't have to focus on leveling because that makes the game seriously not fun.

Yeah I could concievably sit around and keep a lowbie character and fountain rp, but to make ANY impact on the game (including be involved in some GRPs since GMs tend to cockblock that for lowbies) you have to level up to a useful point.

5. Why make leveling group dependant?
Let me explain why this is such a problem. XXX is at war with YYY. You happen to only be able to level with XXX for an hour a day. Everyone knows icly you're friends with XXX, so of course if they're allied or friendly to YYY, you're boned. You're dependant literally on the same people over and over to both help you to places and quest you up. Granted you could have recorded the quests and do those completely on your own but some people play the game where they are actually "new" to pyrathia.

There have been some really amazing ideas to include the hour and age restriction. Not either or. That is something I could totally agree with since so many people in this thread have said zomg it doesn't matter how long it takes me to GM just relax. Not everyone is a twink D, and you're punishing the masses for the minority.

The problem with your idea of age and hour restrictions is that those people you call twinks, and the people that this change would make -leave- the game, are basically the best it has to offer. Sure, it's believed that you have to be GM in order to do anything, but the thing is that once they are there, they are the ones that create the RP, they are ones that create something INTERESTING to do for the rest of the player base. Here is what your change would do: Make some of these players quit outright, so there goes a sizable portion of the player base. The rest will do what you said and RP for some of the hours they have to wait and idle for the rest. If they are punished for idling, they will quit. What remains is the people that never get past mentor anyway and are not the people that for the most part, contribute anything to the game besides fountain RP.

When I said 'they' for some of the above I really should have said 'we' as I am including myself in a few of those groups because I play this mud out of all of the ones out there because as it says, "Roleplay and Tactics Collide". As much as I love RP, and as much as I enjoy doing it, there comes a time when I need to do something else and for the most part that something else is either going to some high level dungeon or going to PK. If you're going to say that for the first several hundred hours of my character all I can do is RP and grind as I am not high enough level to do either of the others, I will say this is no longer such a mud and most likely leave.

1. You asked if levelling should become easier/faster.

I would like to note something as a new player (at least compared
to all the veterans in here). Playing lower levels has its charms
for new players, they can go RP respect for high level mentors,
RP how their character grows in strengths slowly, how he can
earn more with time to buy himself new, better armors. Cheer
when he finds some exquisitely looking strange weapon in a place
he wandered too. There is so many different types of armors
and weapons for a newbie in the beginning, it makes him dizzy.
A new player has patience for the game, and doesnt really care
how fast he grows, for he can have genuine fun out of discovering
new areas and all the features of the game, he doesnt even suspect
to exist. From veteran's point of view, buying an obsidian set of armor
from a shop, may be a waste of coin, but for a new player it can be
an important event.

So, from the point of view of a new to the game, the levels dont need
to go much faster, as he will have fun from RP either way, and there
will be actually a point for the weaker armors to exist at all in the game.

(I played muds before, that you need RL YEARS to get to the highest
*gasp* 20th level and earn that ultimate respect and power, so
I guess this mud's "grinding" is a sunday picnic compared)

I imagine that RP-ing someone who learns from the beginning for
your 47th character is boring for some of you, but I think it is
not a problem of the game itself.

I have seen Ardwolf, Clandestine, and some other based on similar system...
I came to SK for it's RP.

So if you ask me - does harder levelling discourage new players?
I say - it does depend on what they look for in a mud.

2. About the ideas that appeared

Many many things get repeated all over, so I could basically
just insert some quotes here, but it's eight pages already, so
here it goes in short:

- less or no level thieves after master YES
- age restriction for Champ/GM YES


3. To Konrin
I just read your post, and man seriously, did you bother to read the posts?
All they try to do here is find a way to make master+ more playable, exchanging
ideas on how to make all the cream of the mud (yes, you too) less focussed
on GMing and able to impact the game more on earlier levels. The whole idea
of age limit comes from other players, who look for improvement of the mud.

So who are you adressing at all? Dulrik? Your friends who play with you?

He didnt voice this idea, he might take it under consideration though.

I find this sad on this forum, you people exchange ideas is fine, and it can
serve the game if you present those ideas to the implementors, but I dont imagine
how blaming and flaming any implementor can end up in anything constructive, you are
making the guy hate the idea you attack him with the instant he hears about it.

And yeah I'm the newbie, you can roast me

Nobody can roast you, this is gameplay.

All I have to say is this. PK happens whether you're GM or mentor, even apprentice. I've had apprentice characters who were slaughtered time and time again for looking like a necro etc.

You don't have to be GM and have the 'zomg totally l337" equip to go PK someone. That's the main problem with a lot of people's mindsets. My highest character has been champion 1. After that, I started to get burnt out on grinding and could never find a group nor even know where to go, so I said screw it. I PK'd with him just fine..That is when I wasn't getting ganked by twinks. which was a majority of the time. [shrug]

You can say that the GM twinks are the one who contribute. All they do is cause wars and go around PK'ing people most of the time. The RP i've seen from most as a darkie, especially cross aura RP is very minimal, and that's something that needs to be SERIOUSLY worked on by the pbase. The whole mentality of "Zomg keel j00 cause j00 are not same aura!" crap is getting stale. If it's just a couple of characters, I can understand that, but when it's literally about 90% of the pbase..Yeah. It tends to make the game not fun when you know, you're being hunted..And killed...Repeatedly..By 90% of the mud..And all the RP you get from them is them spitting on you, or treating you like a murderous bastard whe he's not. Etc. But meh, I'm tired and ranting so yeah.

In short, there's more mentor / masters that RP better thatn GM's in my opinion. You don't have to be GM to PK or RP. If the age requirement was ever implemented, sure we'd lose some players, but I think we'd be fine. I'm going to bed. G'night guys. Or rather morning. (mumbles about third shif jobs..)

The idea of an age/hour limit on GM I find repulsive to the whole idea of SK and its policy on you cant do that.

The idea is not to make leveling any easier or quicker, while allowing those who are not interested or able to grind another way to gain experience giving them a chance enjoying SKs other aspects.

What the idea of double XP is there for in WoW is to keep people with limited time in touch with their friends in terms of level. I understand where D is coming from with thinking it does not suit SK. How ever I would bring it back to the point of the rested XP is to keep slower leveling people on par with the norm. Effectively its a hand out to the needy which can be twinked a little but no better than to bring you back to the normal expected speed of leveling.

An example of what I have in mind for each hour spent in SK with "no Xp gained" (less than half a tick) a bonus half tick of XP would be stored for which Xp is doubled. For each real life 18 hours in which you dont log on half a bonus tick is awarded. To limit abuse a max of 2 ticks of log out time and 4 ticks of RP time could be stored.

On the idea of making mid levels more effective Ive said it before and Ill say it again (unless it gets changed). Rework enchanting so it doesnt add levels for the level thieves to prey on. A simple way to do this would be create a new spell that reduces the level of an item with a risk of destruction/fading. Hard way recode enchanting. I honestly think that is the only tweak needed to boost lower levels enough. While still leaving the cherry GM items as a goal for getting those last levels.