Shattered Kingdoms

I can field this one: remove charm, sleep, and confusion spells, and all songs, from NPCs. You've added code to make the spells less debilitating, but I will still avoid attacking any kind of sorc or bard NPC unless it's absolutely necessary.

Oh my God. You are killing me.

I say have the last 2 levels or so obtainable through enlightenments only, then.

Or add 2-5 levels above 50 that players can obtain through enlightenments.

That way, no matter how fast you gm, you still have to RPz it out to get to par with the 'cool kids'

my real suggestion though, if you want SK to have players that can enjoy the game at less than gm status, is to fix the game that way. Right now, you need to be GM to play, more or less. Everyone important is gm, there are ways to get to gm fast, non-gms will die for laughs at pk, common NPCs on the roads will kill non-gms easily, etc.

I'd be all for changing the game to make leveling less important, or to make it so that the only way to get xp is through group fighting and thus give players another thing to do other than gather up and go pk. Still, i think its too late to change SK that way now. Perhaps if a whole new continent or something opened, much like wow and TBC, and 10-20 more levels were available to gain only through leveling with groups there, or enlightenments.

Too much fuss, though :p

Here are a few ideas:

1. More Judge Aztalyn (Exile) type quests in combination with Ch'zzrym Matron mark quests. They also need to be chain quests, like the assassin's line in Teron. Judge tells us we have an escaped criminal hiding in rogue's den, we go get him, then when we return to Aztalyn, she should say, hey you previously helped me with this guy, how about helping me again? This time, I want you to go see my covert operative near the entrance of Necropolis, say.

1a. Upon meeting the operative, he would tell us what's been going on in Necropolis. He says there is some kind of evil ritual going on and they have captured some elves and sprites. Then he asks us to follow him. He shouts 'For Taslamar!' and charges into the place. Certainly this idea isn't original in online games, but NPCs integrated escort/kill quests are very fun. The goal here is to disrupt and kill the ritual summoners.

1c. At the completion of the quest, the operative would remove his mithril shortsword (the subtype no one would use for PvP) and give it to the player and say, thank you, we will be fine from here, and drops a few heals and flight potions. He then says why don't you go see my captain by Northern Wastes? Then the quest resets. People can do it as many times as they want for fun but no more rewards after the first one. This type of quests help integrate story, prejudices, racial differences, kingdom origin differences into SK.

2. Quest advancements and area integration like Matrons in Ch'zzrym. Players start somewhere to learn about what's happening in the whole area. Then the mage gives players a mark so they can start exploring one House and a series of quests to get worthwhile loot as well as experience. Matrons interact, guards interact, and so they bring out the lives in NPCs.

2a. Craeftilin, one of the best areas of SK also has this kind of thing. The starting quests may be easy to do, read a book, answer the questions. Then they get to go down somewhere. More quests in there, maybe require players to kill a medium boss or two so they can gather two parts for the final boss.

2c. Final big boss would require a bunch of players to kill, and it would talk and react differently depending on auras. Lighties and darkies would have different reasons/quests to kill him. Maybe people get to zap a scripted item to take off its invincible aura of the final boss. No rampaging plauges please, all that does is annoy the poor healer that came to help.

I don't like NPCs that are only killable by groups. I also don't like the idea that the last two levels should be gotten by enlights only. I think I'm a pretty fair RPer, but I only got one small enlight in a month of playtime and 40 hours RPing this time around.

I'm a bit less than 200 actual hours of gameplay in and I'm still not GM. My last main characters (2004-2006?) accomplished this in roughly half the time.

That having been said I've been involved more in what feels like actual RP on this character than I have on any character previously. I don't think you need to be GM to play this game proper. Most of the people I meet are not GMs, they are master to champ. This was actually not the case on previous chars, years ago. Everybody was GM. Now, however, Temple trips are much more scarce and inconvenient. Even if you get there, there's no guarantee that the people you go with will be around too long, and once you have to go back you're boned for a while. You might blame that on the reduced pbase. Again, I have to express my displeasure at how "important" this area still is. FFS, please make another area for people to go to. Make it just as obnoxious of a production to get into, I don't care, but give us some variety on the home stretch!

As for Jardek, I'm sure if you continue to play your character the way that you claim to have been pre-Firekka thread, the OOC stuff will stop. Constraints about adjs have been around for a long time, as you know well, since you were able to point fingers back. In a very Algonish way you pushed the button, people got pissed, and the imms made a change to you. You can't expect people not to get a bit irritated. Fire-fire-fire, c'mon. It was purpose-built. It's obnoxious and immature that players felt the need to take justice into their own OOC hands when they should simply be letting imms handle that; as you should let imms handle them. Given your crusade against them however I'm sure that isn't very comforting.

Someone suggested required grouping to even gain exp beyond a certain point. If you're a polar char and you happen to be the wrong pole for the time you're playing, sucks to be you. You're not going to get exp under this regulation. I veto this idea.

Someone suggested required questing. If you're one of those types who can only solve quests by use of YIM, this regulation would be a total frustration point. I veto this idea and the fact I'm one of them is irrelevant.

Someone sugggested last two levels by enlight only. Despite the fact there seems to be an imm logged on during the wrong hours, quite a few people will still get the short end of the stick due to their online hours. How many GM PARs have enough exp to level? I was one but barely so. Two levels of that? I veto this idea.

To Dulrik: I can definitely agree to disagree with you regarding level speed and suchlike. While there are definitely numerous people who know exactly where to to to level and know lots of quests already or know how to solve them, there are still some of us who don't know other than the standard zones. I personally do not explore because I don't know how to get fair eq and cannot afford to lose my eq by exploration-death. Die at the wrong time and I'm just dead. Reinc is definitely out of the question for me with familiarity hanging me and death quest is out because I'm incapable.

As I've said previously and I still assert, when level speed of an elite subset is assaulted the level speed of a much lower subset is demolished.

I think this is something that was brought up before, but Dulrik, if you're looking for a way to get people to "play" their characters earlier, disable the level thieves after master.

You can't compete realistically in PK without enchants on your gear, and you can't enchant your gear without getting it stolen by level thieves.

I'm not sure I'd like this, because we might get more storage characters and hoarding, but I for one would be more inclined to jump into the political scene without GMing if I could keep decent gear.

Jhorleb's idea was exactly something I was thinking just earlier this day. I was thinking about how I'd like to stop leveling and start PKing a bit with my current character, and collect some decent gear, but then I remembered that's not really possible since it'll just get stolen from me.

Until people don't have to worry about item thieves past master the grind to GM will always be the priority.

This is absolutely 100% necessary for Dulrik's idea to come to fruition.

Good thinking, jhorleb. Personally, I think it would just be more sensible and fun and easier to just make it not such a [REDACTED] to get to GM, but D is completely zealous in his take on this.