Shattered Kingdoms

Sry no, It's not "Golden age syndrome" The current taslamar n00b school is a piece of utter trash and a waste of space, I recently had a friend who hadn't played the mud for a few years try to start back playing it.
He sadly made the mistake of starting in Tas, and got utterly frustrated as he couldn't leave the place nor get around it.
A noob school should be simple in layout and allow interactions with other players not just NPCs. And no noob school should be a maze like the one that is there now. The goal is to have a place for utter noobs to learn the basics and get started on the mud, not to drive them off in frustration.

God complex syndrome?

Golden age syndrome wants the old dummies back. While they were easy to level on, it was still a boring, unoriginal place. Bad idea.


I had recently created a new character in Exile specifically to learn the new Exile- I am not familiar with the new city and I had never been in the newbie zone.

Taslamar newbie zone rating:
Theme: A+
Utility: D-

I see no problem with Taslamar's n00b school being outside of Exile... it works fine in the Ayamao and Empire. But the distance from the Taslamar newbie zone to Exile is excessive. From a logistic perspective, why would you force a n00b to burn so much PE and walk through the recall zones where paladins are getting chased and mowed over by necromancers? That makes them an easy target. From an RP perspective, why would Taslamar place the haven of their young in such a secluded, indefensible location? A few leagues outside of Exile is much better than how far it is now.


The n00b zone itself was obviously put together with good intentions and to reinforce the Taslamaran identity. I like the drawing upon history to designate the zones. But the layout is extremely confusing and difficult to learn. The map is nice to have, but even that I found difficult to follow. I kept getting stuck on one level or another and had trouble finding my way back to the healer- which would be a long walk for a dismembered gnome, BTW. In going for realism and a "cool" area, simplicity was lost, and there's little more frustrating as a n00b than feeling lost and stuck somewhere, unable to get back to where you were and need to be. In the real world- tough noogies. In the n00b zone? Counterproductive.

The NPCs in the area need some work also. While the concept behind it is a really good one, and the RP behind why a lightie would be there fighting them, the script has one drawback. If you are playing a scout and using your bow & arrows or if you are throwing daggers, your arrows/daggers disappear when you 'kill' the NPC, and that's just a hassle. They should drop everything before disappearing. Also, the quality of the levelling there seemed a bit substandard. It was hard enough finding which NPCs I was supposed to be levelling on where, that once I did, the exp gleaned from them seemed terribly inferior to other newbie zones for the effort put in. Regardless of their outward race/class & long/short desc, these NPCs should be internally built like newbie NPCs. That's the whole point of newbie school NPCs.


It had truly been my intention to fully experience the Exile n00b zone with that character. But after HOURS (and seriously- no veteran player spends hours in a n00b zone unless they are really trying to give it a chance), I finally got so discouraged that I actually preferred walking the distance to Nerina (I got killed in Teron ) to get my levelling done.


Honest criticism/ feedback from a veteran player. Take it as you will.

The new Taslamar collegium is much better than the old zone; I'm surprised that's being questioned. I'd agree, though, the Collegium could use a little work.

There are just too many rooms that aren't adding much to either the atmosphere or the utility of the place. Most of the courtyard could go, as could most of the barracks you have to walk through in the south building to get anywhere useful. It'd also be a plus if you didn't have to go up to get into a building - that's not making the map any easier to understand.

The portal to Exile is great, but I'm not surprised Timmel didn't find it. More could be made of it in the orientation. Some trainers and the shops are also a little hard to find. The old collegium handled trainers better, I think, by giving them their own hall.

I'd agree with Timmel that experience seems a little low too, especially considering the difficulty of the NPCs. Would it help to switch NPC alignment to diabolic, so the good vs. good experience penalty doesn't apply? Or to add a few simple combat quests, like Nerina has?

I also miss that limbs aren't being lopped off. It may be a bit macabre of me, but this is something that made an impression on me when I first started SK.

All in all, it's a great area, don't get me wrong. Thumbs up for the atmosphere, the lecturers, the spawn rate, the NPC variety, and even the fetch quest. But the place could use a little fine tuning.

I honestly think simplicity/utility is the most important thing for a newbie area. While the concensus seems to be that the theme of the area is great, theme comes in a distant last place for a newbie zone. This area probably needs to be moved back into Exile (indeed all the newbie zones would be better off this way) and reworked somewhat for simplicity.

Getting more opinions on things that ought to be fixed would be good. The best way to do this though is by making a character, playing through the area, and writing bug reports while there.

One other possibility that I've occassionally thought of, is to have one integrated newbie school for all kingdoms. This would end up completely abandoning kingdom-related themes for the first 5 levels in favor of a place where newbies would actually have a better chance to meet each other. Plus all our efforts toward making the area newbie-friendly would be focussed on a single place. Of course, it also means characters of all races/alignments would be mixing with each other. So I dunno...

That would drastically lower the rate of training since there will be more trainees in one area. Unless the respawn rates are crazy.

It will also bring alot of trouble on elf meets deep elf and so forth. We will have alot of trouble there, PK maybe, and less RP since everyone would be so eager to level up....

IMO this is not a very good idea.

One newbie school is a great idea.

That said, if you want the newbie school in Taslamar reworked, it needs to be much, much smaller, and more linear - having so many open choices when you have no idea where to go is (I would imagine) confusing to a newbie, especially when to all intents and purposes, most directions lead to dead ends.

At the end of the line, give them monster rooms, which should also be in a linear progression. NPCs that you want to kill should not wander between rooms, either.

While atmosphere may not be the most important thing in a newbie zone, it IS important. I'd see a common newbie zone as a loss, rather than a gain. And how could it be justified in SK's gameworld?

I also don't think turning newbie zones into a battlefield for opposing mentors is a good idea.

I would love to see this integrated, with a few changes:
1. The one large zone is separated by aura, giving a little breathing room for elf/delf/griffon.
2. Each aura-zone has its own healer.
3. Newbie shops and fountain, however, are located at a central location, wherein interaction could happen.
4. Mentors would report to the healer for instruction, and not be allowed in the central shop area.
5. An extended version of the newbie zone would be built in proximity to each starting city, for levels 5-10, where more localized mentoring and theme-immersion would take place.
6. All newbie zones are made no-pk.

My dismissive tone was purely meant for the old Exile newbie zone. No way will the newbie school of Taslamar go back to just 3 rooms, each with 3 non-sentient dummies, and 1 trainer (other rooms were ghost towns in comparison). Bill/Lorias/Tattalion deserves respect for the effort he put in to produce the current newbie school. What follows are tweaks and improvements, not a 'gutting' of it.

In the sole PM I received about this, the sender and I agreed on most of the points below. Anyway, to address the concerns that were raised --

1. I agree the basic movement sequence between floors is awkward - I'll most likely be moving toward a more modern-style 'stairwell' approach, where access to all floors is much easier to traverse and also easier to remember without a map.

2. The location of the newbie area thematically is corerct - the problem is that Exile is the 'frontier' and the newbie school is supposed to be safe in the centre of Taslamar. A new area (if it eventually opens) might help with explaining that.

3. The portal is the easiest method of getting to Exile, as per Menegroth's style. I can address its "buried" location and make it a bit more well-known around the place.

4. Starting newbies should be discouraged from the wilderness, but not prevented. I dont' recall restricting level 2+ from leaving, although I may have asked level 1 folks to at least look around before playing hookie from their collegiate classes.

More later.