Shattered Kingdoms

Seek help! Seriously!

You know, by the time people start talking about buying a pet that doesn't exist, you'd have thought everyone would have realized that said people have no idea what the hell they're talking about.

Props to whoever is working on Kytar... unless this is old news, but I made a noob there and was pleasantly surprised to find a series of chained quests that end with you going to the city! A step in the right direction, bravo!

Pardon the late comment here, but I'm only stopping by occasionally nowdays - due entirely to levelling taking too long. And I don't mean GM, or even Master.

I'm a big believer in roleplayed PvE, and in the game not starting at GM. Not everyone has to be PvP competitive all the time. Lesser ranks have their charms. I find the eager but naive apprentice more fun to play than the experienced master.

The problem is that all the interesting group activities are focused around Expert-or-higher play. That's when zones become interesting and require more group effort. That's when characters have enough abilities as to have a variety of tactics. And that's when characters have enough power to move around in the gameworld easily: to at least participate in activities with established characters.

I agree with those who have said quests are not the answer. Riddles are not roleplay. Fetch-quests are hardly better. I'd like to suggest something more radical:

Reward lowbies for time spent in social centers (inns and other major meeting places)

If a lowbie sits in an inn for 3 hours, and contributes to the roleplay, then he's interacting far more than if he's spending the same time in the Twisted Wood grinding. I see no reason why he should be rewarded so much less.

Not that characters should be sitting on their duffs all day. After a lowbie has gained a level or two in the inn, that source of XP should stop until he's earned some exploration and fighting XP. The other obvious source of abuse, idling, is especially easy to catch in public places.

Note this method of levelling would still be slower than power-grinding, which would still be an option. But there would be some sane way to level without the grinding. That's the critical need.

Dulrik is definitely considering changes which address some of the major complaints about leveling. Its good to have you sound off on this, Forsooth. I think that leveling does take entirely too long, which keeps away players like yourself. It definitely frustrates me to have to put in numerous hours to get to a point where I can feel safe when walking from town to town.

I can't tell you about the specifics of the changes Dulrik is considering, but I think they are going to affect the complaints that many players put forth here and elsewhere. All of the ideas are from the players. Please keep checking back, I'm sure there'll be something sooner rather than later.

You phrased that sentence backwards, especially when Dulrik is mentioned in the same post.

Dulrik does have a life. I hope. o.o

Nah, Dulrik is actually just an idea that sprang from Werttrew's head one day. Poor Wert got a headache from laughing at the QQ waves his nerf bat made. When he realized what happened, he decided to keep the entity we know as Dulrik around to do the stuff he doesn't feel like doing.

Sorry, couldn't resist. Also, Wert>Chuck Norris.

So, the scheme was revealed...

Now that it's been more than month since I started playing again, I figured I'd go ahead and post my opinion. In the month since I've returned, I have played a swashbuckler to expert (34), a sorcerer to master (43), and a mercenary to Grand Master (50).

I maxxed charisma on the swashbuckler, but the sorcerer only has influential (16) and the mercenary has sociable (11 or 12). On all three characters combined, I have less than 150 hours played. The mercenary hit grand master at about 50 hours, with no outside help until I joined a cabal at mentor/master level.

The leveling speed is fine. I mainly leveled in older areas that were in the game when I played last in 2002/2003. In fact, the leveling is easier now than ever before. Please don't waste your time on leveling issues, Dulrik, but instead take a look at the damage melee classes can deal. A buffed mercenary, rogue or barbarian can kill another character so quickly it's not even a challenge and certainly doesn't require any amount of skill (just a bit of preparation to get the buffs).