Shattered Kingdoms

Good afternoon folks.

I'm making this post to give a small forum for people to offer feedback, questions, concerns, suggestions, or anything else they would like, as well as provide a bit of information.

I hope the people that have been able to RP so far have enjoyed it, and I'll be doing my best to try and find opportunities to initiate with people, but I'm trying to avoid bothering anyone engaged in activities that aren't really conducive like high-level adventuring, leveling, or training skills.

I'm continuing to update the announcement post with information gathered or obtained a bit delayed as it slowly becomes "common knowledge" in the realm, so even if you haven't been there first hand, there is still a way to stay up to date.

https://www.shatteredkingdoms.org/forum ... =1&t=26739"

One concern I've already started to address is to lower the amount of wind as the intent was to create a very cold and wet world, not necessarily the windiest. There are some small things that were already planned to help give some of that PE back later on down the line, but there will likely be a few more tweaks depending on how these initial efforts go.

The current plan is for this story line to continue beyond this bonanza, but plans as always are subject to change.

Algorab

I appreciate the outreach to get the playerbase involved. Good job so far guys and thank you for the first bonanza in while!

Can't wait to beat lighties up.

I meant to do a bit of an aftermath post before now, but it slipped my mind. I'll go ahead and just put some thoughts here.


Dig Two Graves Pt1
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Everyone who participated really impressed me with their desire and ability to RP. One of my goals was to try something a little different in this first section, instead of having planned RP events where everyone is fighting for attention to instead focus on smaller scale "fountain RP" type interactions that can then be disseminated in different ways through the larger player base. Updating the announcement thread with information bits as they became "common knowledge" was one way, but frankly, you players one-upped me for sure.

There were a lot of people who put together amazing notes, and really did a great job of "spreading the news" in an IC way. Kudos to all of you.

This was definitely intended as more of a mystery portion with some conflicting testimony, some vague divine information, and some red herrings. Funnily enough, at least one player found the ciphered note a day or two after the event had begun as I had placed it on an old Yenko-presenting NPC the day the bonanza started, but they didn't recognize it as anything useful.

Emmao is a nasty character, and pulled from some old forgotten in-game lore which I plan on making more widely available in-game before the next bonanza. For those who paid the price and went to visit, there should have been some stock RP interactions to give you some basic information. A few others got some more personal dialogue, but it was all roughly along those lines.

As I'm sure some are aware, there was a bit of an accident on my part involving the destruction of a few characters in an unfair way. This was definitely unintended, and I want to thank the people that handled a bad situation in the best way they could have. I'll be doing my best to minimize the risk of those catastrophic mistakes going forward.

Dig Two Graves Pt2/Pt3
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As I hinted at before, this was designed to be a multi-part bonanza with a running story-line as long as it was viewed favorably. I hope to have everything in place for part two later this month, and part three around the same amount of time the month after. I want to stress that plans may change, and I'm actively soliciting for input that would make things more enjoyable for everyone, but for now consider most things involving the larger story in a holding pattern until then. There are a few hints already in-game of the direction things will be going in for people to find in the mean time.

Some of those topics I'd love to hear from people are what kind of rewards they would like to thing, ways I can encourage people to continue their fantastic work on the noteboards, and what they might like as far as rewards go. Generally, RP rewards are simply rewarded with enlightenment, which then later leads to PAR and other things that can provide you tokens, but I've heard from a few people that it doesn't always feel that rewarding. Also, thoughts on the types of larger event rewards you like/dislike would be great too.

There has some sentiment that people want to be able to "win" the event, and I will say this is an event that is designed to eventually have some winners, but there isn't really going to be as much focus on creating losers.

Each section is going to have a slightly different focus. This section was heavier in RP and exploration. The next section will be smaller scale PvE focused. That's not to say there aren't opportunities for everyone to do their own thing either or RP in the small-scale PvE part, but the idea is to provide something a bit different in each section so everyone can have some fun doing the parts they enjoy.

I will definitely be doing my best to give a bit more notice before the next bonanza as well, and have at least one scheduled event as both of these were concerns of some players.

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Again, any suggestions, questions, and comments are welcome, and I hope to see everyone there next time too.

How about those who exhibit exemplary RP during the events are awarded tokens from the Guild to custom make any gear. They can redeem it with Thuban instead of the usual 50 obsidians. That way they can custom make items as trophy by contributing significantly to an event and it will forever stay with that character forever. Maybe add something special on top by like adding(Gleaming) to the item.

(Gleaming)The Head of Emmao

This will effectively shift the burden of rewards on the player instead of busy IMMs. I'm sure Thuban already has a template cookie cutter to make items so its no biggy. And more people would be more appreciative to the good work Thuban is doing.

I know 100% sure that RP'ers dont really farm coins, so this opens up this part of the game to RP'ers doing what they enjoy most, RP.

Would love if the guild sold some pets. At least a giant-sized flying mount.

Hi! It's Sanura!

I got to enjoy quite a bit regarding this Bonanza, and yet, there's still things that I think went on that I don't fully know about, and that's very intriguing. I am always a fan of the same narrative told through multiple perspectives. Doubly so that, to get those other perspectives, you had to cooperate with "The Enemy" or have mediators who do. I know there were story elements in Ayamao, the Rumbling Zakami, and I know of ones the Imperials received, so there was a lot splattered throughout. Even Sanura, who I think has worked hard to sleuth out a lot of this, I feel doesn't have a full picture.

I also want to say, that I am TERRIBLE at puzzles and ciphers, so making one of the big clues a cipher was awful (UGH, you guys want me to put in EFFORT?!)

I'm glad that I got to feel useful as someone who wasn't a Grandmaster (Or even a Master).

Sadly, I don't have anything to do with the guild.



This was actually a concern I had, so I tried to make it a fairly simple Caesar/shift cipher. I will also readily admit to be terrible at puzzles like that as well which is one of the reasons I tried to keep it simple, but initially effective.

Thanks for the feedback, seems like erring on the side of caution was a good thing.

The thing with puzzles - when you find 'em, don't feel you have to struggle through them alone. Some of us knuckleheads enjoy a good puzzle, especially when there's collaboration. I did enjoy a lot of the interactions myself, and observations.

Here's to the next chapter.

Just wanted to clarify the sarcasm in my post. (Not that I'm not terrible at puzzles, I am) I actually did enjoy the effort put forth. It took some genuine thought and time. Now, if you were evil and did that cypher while also writing in Deep from the perspective of someone not at all skilled in Deep, so every letter was additionally shifted one up or down, I would just peace out.

Erring on the side of caution was probably the best, but I don't want my statement to be taken as an actual negative. I just like to RP that I'm smart when I'm not.