Shattered Kingdoms

We've had lengthy disputes about the game's leveling. I suggest a solution to make more people happy: Let people choose how they want to distribute the leveling burden.

I suggest an option with 300% speed up until Expert, and 40% speed thereafter. This would be great for players more interested in fountain roleplay and adventuring than in being part of the cabal wars at GM. You'd get into the exciting part of the game much quicker. Powerlevelers would never make such a trade, since it makes GM much more painful to obtain. But their willingness to level still gives them a competitive advantage; there's no injustice.

I realize SK isn't centered around fountain RPers. But having enough players in inns is necessary for a superior IC roleplay experience. We're beginning to have trouble with that. Let's reduce the barriers to playing SK.

Ideally, players could choose the fast-Expert option any time in the first 10 levels. That's enough for new players to decide whether they can stomach normal leveling. And by making it a command found in help files or via mentors, you avoid the problem of bad choices in character creation. (Many newbies have much enjoyed getting into the PK game with their first character. This is for newbies who prefer to first try an experimental or RP character, as well as for oldbies who can't stomach basic leveling yet again.)

amature to expert is not that difficult.

people complain more of leveling from expert to GM than amateur to expert.

This would just make it even worst.

I would suggest to let it be as it is, just increase the areas someone can train in, from master to gm. Tom and Beozastar to gm is not a solution at all. You need group to get there and some people may sole it some people not. Simply place 2-3 more areas from champion or master to gm.
Or create some more quests, that can be easily done.

I find scaling leveling as mentioned quite interesting. Though there should be more steps on the ladder.

I seriously -really- -really- miss the days where it was -really- something when someone got to lvl 50 or near it.
The old wastelands leveling became trivial towards the end, but really - it was alot more entertaining than it is now. More social, more challenging, more cool factor all over
It didn't feel like the same grind-fest as a lot of areas are like today.

Those are often the PKers, not the fountain RPers.

sleeper

3/4 the fountain rpers that I have seen are champ / gm :/

A good chunk of people for making mentor to GM leveling faster are the type of people who want to GM before doing anything. IMO, fountain RPers fall in 3 categories:
1) Don't care about leveling, but get sucked in enough adventures that they eventually level.
2) Have useful spells that they use so much, they level that way after a period of time (1 and 2 are somewhat interchangable)
3) Have raced to champ/GM and have nothing better to do.

1 and 2 are still around because they have built their char around fountain RP and enjoy it. That's usually why there are often so many... 3, I think, tends to be the group of people who last the shortest (not always, but most of the time). These come and go, and are usually replaced with an alt who frequents the inns for 1 and 2's help.

sleeper

I don't see it ever getting easier to get to GM. I don't see any need for leveling to be easier after mentor at all. I'd actually rather increase the requirement on those levels a smiggon if we could cut in half the numbers on the first twenty five. Adding those points at the end instead would only be slightly noticeable and the ease of advancement up to mentor would make the game fun at almost any stage.

I support Forsooth's idea.

I should not have to spend 90, 70, or even 50 hours being completely [REDACTED] bored so that I can start enjoying the game. That isn't my broken playing mentality, it's just a simple reality that the game is not fun to play without most of your skills, without the ability to explore the world, without the ability to participate in group events, and without having any cool equipment.

The makers of every modern RPG have grasped this, from Blizzard, to Mythic, to Bethesda. Please, for the love of god, let me play the game. The necessary time to level to Expert needs to be drastically, drastically reduced.