Shattered Kingdoms

If you think there is a race or class that ought not to be able to be played by people who identify themselves as newbies, please list them here along with your reasons for thinking so. Keep in mind if we did this, it isn't because we want to punish new players. But some classes or races may be so difficult or controversial that they are not a good introduction for a newbie character.

An example might be necromancers because they are tough to play and everyone wants to kill you. A debatable one might be griffons. On the one hand, all darkies want to kill you and even a lot of grey-auras think you are a freak of nature. But it is pretty easy to start out a griffon.

I don't know about races and classes...but race/class combos..

Like a newb shouldn't start playing a giant warlock or gnome merc.

...not saying they arn't good (because they are horrid)...just saying a newb would have a horrid time with them.

But we get people that make deep-elf mercs that are supposed to be hard and having Inzy stick around...

Nah...I'd say just leave it. If I was a new player I'd be like...necromancers?! I'm all over that.

That's the thing. Some of the worst choices, such as necromancers, are most appealing due to their weird flavor. But then when you can't kill anything, don't know what corpses to turn into zombies, and are PK'd five times with little RP because you have zombies, it tends to make people quit the game before they have a chance to learn things.

If you want to include race/class combinations here, go for it.

Griffons may be appealing for their natural, early ease with leveling, but they're not for newbs. The complexity of not being able to use many socials and be taken seriously, the wordless attacks from nashirans, the lack of easily accessible, decent gear, and the deceiving nature of the griffon help file make them a superficially appealing but an ultimately poor choice for a newb.

This may have been what you meant already Dulrik, but I wouldn't block off those choices for newbies. Rather, you should leave them in but when a newbie tries to choose them, have a little blurb come up about why they should't (e.g., "You've chosen the necromancer class. A warning - feedback from long-time players of the game suggests this is a class that can seem underpowered and will subject you to greater amounts of animosity from other player characters. Do you still want to go forward with this choice? (y/n)"

The wording could be better, but you get my gist.

I would have to agree with Szaldora on this one. "You can't do that" isn't necessarily something I'd like to see but allowing a newb who knows nothing to pick an overly-challenging race, class or combo without any warnings isn't good either.

Elf/Deep-elf choices for newbs should get a message about the polar alignments and automatic hate leading to PK then a "Do you really want to" option.

Griffon choice should get the polar message and the hate you because you aren't natural message.

Necro choice should get a "walking with zombies gets you killed" message.

Giant warlock should get a message concerning lack of int for spell list.

I don't know all the extremely difficult combos but each one should get a message for newbs that warn them of the difficult choice and short blurb why. But still they should be able to choose it after the warning.

Necromancers are the only truly difficult class for a newbie to play, because they're the only class which around half the mud at any given time will kill on sight or refuse to help.

I agree with the warning messages rather than outright denying newbies the ability to play something.

I think priests, paladins, and hellions should get a message letting them know that they can't cast most of their spells without joining one of the player run religions, or at least add it to their helpfiles. I don't think the game explicitly states that anywhere, and I know I wouldn't have started with a hellion if I had known that.

Necromancers definitely should be warned. I think elves, deep elves, and griffons probably should be. Giant warlocks since they miss out on some of the most interesting abilities a warlock has. Centaur bards really suck too, don't they?

I think gnome mercs are fine. They can do anything any other merc can do, just not as well, and if you're choosing a gnome warrior you HAVE to know they'll be subpar.

Yup.

I totally disagree that Griffons should be warned. I started off as a Griffon scout and I did just fine.