Shattered Kingdoms

So, here we are still bickering about the exact same thing in five different threads.

Leveling.

So the understatement of the year is that a good portion of the player base thinks leveling is either too difficult entirely, or too mind-numbingly boring due to its time consuming nature. I personaly believe it's a majority, but that could be argued that those that are not vocal about this don't think it's so bad, so I'll leave it at a good portion.

After taking a look at my own posts in the warlock thread, while I stand by everything I said, I can't help but think it comes off as a big cryfest that my class is too hard to level. While that is part of it because I picked a class that was specifically easier than most to level, it's just my general thought that I hate leveling, always have, and always wanted it done as quickly as possible so I could actually have fun playing the game.

So what the hell am I taking about when I mention the elephant in the room? It's the glaring point of contention that is only briefly getting mentioned in this entire back and forth squabble.

Simply put, this large portion of the playerbase is in near complete disagreement with the decision makers of the game.

So my question is this, how do we as a playerbase/staff/community reconcile this? Because until we do, all the rest of the discussion doesn't amount to much of anything.

PCP man, PCP.

I agree levelling has gotten much harder over the years. I remember when one could go to the wastelands and GM. Or Hell back when you could go to the ToM at master and stay till GM. Those days are gone though and now people are resorting to killing Taslamar noob school trainers and priests in the Temple of Exile. Or summoning various GM NPCs from around the realms. People want GM, people will get GM please stop making it a damn long grind...A DAMN long grind. There will be some people who will come on here and tell us that levelling is fine and that you just need to be leet to do it quickly. Yeah some of that is true, but some classes are much more easy to GM than others.

All people want is to be able to lower their head and grind their way to GM so they can frankly start playing their characters. We as a species are competative, people will always strive to do the best and be the best in whatever they do. People do not want the top to be a hard long fought out grind every-single-time they have to level a character. No we do not want you to make levelling a breeze, but we want to be able to go into an area and get more than 3-4 levels out of it before its useless to familiarity. The point I am trying to make is levelling to begin with has always been a grind. Why is being made into an even longer grind? Why do you want GMs to be few and far between? Most people I think will agree that GM is really the START of a character. Yes there's RP and interactions in between but once you get GM the game TRUELY starts. People want to get to GM in a reasonable amount of time in a way that isn't stupid. I find as a darkie going into Exile and killing NPCs in the temple to be quite ridiculous. Yes I am even one of the darkies who had to kill the Taslamar noob trainers. Yes I -had- to. Why? Cause by the time I was mentor 5 I had used Elisair AND the Torrum arcana to their full potential.

Back on point, concerning quests. I think that if we have a very specific quest we would like to see in game, write it up and pm it. I think the IM's would be appreciated for having ideas like that about.

I strongly suggest, Muktar, that you hit the "preview" button before posting anything.

Jeez. I hate translating your crap into normal english.

Dulrik himself posted in some thread a few months ago that the immortals were definitely trying to add as many quests to the game as possible, and if you had something very specific in mind, writing up your ID and PM it to an immortal.

I believe he emphasized the point that they were also trying to use the quests to integrate more of the past history of the game into the current version, so themed quests were especially welcomed if they had a little bit of history woven in.

I know I wasn't exactly direct Muktar and Nate, but I couldn't care less about quests in general, and I'll tell you why?

Does anyone remember back way back when, when quests were not scaled for level, and the rainbow tower gave you a decent amount of XP no matter what?

Both of you are completely missing the point, even quests were essentially wimped in their XP gain because those that make decisions think people leveled to fast.

This isn't a thread to discuss fun new ideas to make leveling easier, I'd like it to be a thread for people to make their case for those that make the decision on why leveling is too hard, harder than it should be, etc.

Make your case on why leveling should be easier, not how to make it easier.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but D stated while back that GM wasn't the start of the game. A complete character should be complete around master, not GM. Anything past that would be icing on the cake so to speak. GM has some huge boons, even though people don't realize it. Addy armor, uber enchanted items, absence of level thieves..And from what I hear it has a moderate HP boost once you actually level up to GM, though I don't know.

All I know is at champ 1 as a Hellion with a cold iron landy, i've never one shot cleaved any GM, and I've cleaved a few. Most people around my level though I generally would get lucky, so that says something. But one shotting people isn't hte point. While I agree that levelling is too tedious, the fact that having to move around so often and eventually running out of places due to them being packed with either grouped NPCs and requiring a group or just too strong, a character doesn't start at GM. You just have to be GM to hold your own against other GM's unless you have groups.

Then of course you have your twinks..Like some people who hit champ in less than 80 hours..Which is completely ridiculous. It's sad that we HAVE to do this because they do this and typically go on PK sprees shortly after. Thus most of your lowbies get caught in the crossfire. Playing a darkie only makes this worse as darkies typically want to command respect, and to do so you have to hold your own.

I'm still in favor for setting level / age requirements for champ / GM since those are epitome's of power so to speak. We shouldn't have 18-20 year old Grand Masters running around with fully spelled up gear etc. Grand master isn't something that's achieved in 2-3 years, it's not a small thing like a 2 year community college degree. (No offense to those that goto college.) GM is something that requires work, dedication and suffering, so it should take ATLEAST 10-20 years to complete in my opinion. That's however just my thoughts.

All in all, I agree. Add more quests to the best you can. Things like the Elf quest in Morea were fun. Leading a NPC, keeping him alive, things popping in to kill him and such. I liked that. There's not many other quests I knwo to do, or I would do them.

Edit: The conclusion to this long winded post is simple. Levelling should be made easier so people can actually keep up with the twinks who know the system in and out. I know this won't help a ton putting them on equal footing, but it will help close the gap between the two. You have a far better chance taking down a GM if you can reach master.

Also, as Achernar said, levelling should be easier so you can decide whether you like the class and also make it more casual friendly. People aren't going to play a game that takes up tons of their time. I quit Everquest and FFXI because of that. And trust me, when you wait 12 hours a day for a party in a game that you cannot solo in WHATSOEVER at the end game, it's not fun anymore.

Do you remember back in the day when there were only 3 quests basically? One in Vaerlain, one in Necropolis, on in that tower. And people used them to get the whole last level?

Why were they wimped? Was it because they were scaled with level? No, because 234524312 more quests were added. And as 32414214515 more quests are added everyday in SK now(I know every new area must have quests in it), it only makes sense if they are wimped a bit in the XP they offer.

And since you got the golden age syndrome, do you remember back then when it took you as the average player at least 200 hours to GM and none bitched about it also? Actually, in 200 hours people were happy. After 500 hours it started to be considered slow.

Now, because a few years ago people presented us the Chancel and the CoH(it all pretty much started from there) and generally a LOT of sick levelling areas were implemented and people managed to hit GM in less than 20 hours, now people say that 100 hours to hit GM is too much.

So decide what you want. Do you want the golden age syndrome or not?

Anyway, imo levelling is fine now. Perhaps a bit too fast also if you want people to consider their characters complete at master and not GM. At least I considered my chars complete at master back then, I was getting out PKing and RPing and all from there pretty much and if I had a chance to level up a little more I wasn't saying no, but generally levelling wasn't my priority. Now you are able to hit GM within 50-60 hours(no twinking/hookups and considering my outdated knowledge of SK in the last year), so yes, SK levelling is fine and nothing to [REDACTED] about.

Sorry, Muktar derailed me.

As for the original post...

EDIT: Wow I really caught the down syndrome or something, my follow up post still wasn't on topic. I'll get back to this.