Shattered Kingdoms

I'm in the process of coming back from a planned, announced absence, and I read five pages of this thread and feel like responding before reading the rest.

1) I will miss Eralenax. Always really, really enjoyed my interactions with him on Ainhoa and always looked forward to seeing him on. I hope you felt the same!

2) On Ideysa, yes, she knew what Eralenax wanted and I won't go into the details of her decision here. The Hand knows what went on there. I was, however, fully expecting some confrontation with Eralenax when he came back and was shocked when there was none. Eralenax basically asked what she did and then seemed to begrudgingly go along with it. Had he stuck to his original guns, we'd probably have had a more satisfying resolution. Either some sort of coup or otherwise hashing it out ICly that would have led to his removal or Ideysa's but at least been an RP out. As it was, right before I left, he showed up, seemed to awkwardly accept it, which kind of left things feeling muddled to me.

I haven't been on in two weeks. I will be back in a couple days in full force soon. Curious to see where things stand now in game.

Trolling and tears are invariably more successful at creating long afterlife threads than well played, memorable characters.

1. Do not feed the trolls.

2. Feed good RPers.

3. I rolled a lowbie the other day and sat around in a few inns, musing whether or not I would come back to SK. The other people in the inns were a thin translation of their lol chatroom personalities. This kind of immature noob rage personality, both in the author and in the various people trolling him, is detrimental to real artistry in collaberative storytelling, and exactly why I and many other people no longer play.

Poliovirus only grows in rhesus monkeys and humans.

This is actually a huge sanitary issue with the production of poliovirus vaccines, since the culture medium, rhesus monkey, can carry many other infections that can also infect humans. The infection of millions of people with Simian Virus 40 (SV40) through contaminated polio vaccines is a great example of this sanitary issue, though controls are better today than they were during that contamination.

What I mean to say is:

An infectious agent only grows in the appropriate medium.

What is it about SK that causes 'nasty, hateful' players to stay in the game and succeed?

Answer:

Time. Hardcore success in SK requires more time investment than any psycho-socially healthy adult will invest. The remaining players are, by necessity, noobs in the game or noobs at real life.