Shattered Kingdoms

I just hit master, and my hour are just now passing my lvl.

That's usually how it works for me too.

I am still trying to learn this game and so far I am engrossed with it. I have died numerous times and my character doesn't know anyone so it is harder for her. I did find a mentor one time but apparently his hours and mine don't coincide so that makes it difficult.
If I had a vote I would say that it would be better to not show alignments. I know this is a fantasy mud but it just seems it would generate more roleplay if there were some doubt to the morals of others.
If I had a vote I would say that maybe equipment and the like should fall apart a bit faster, the magical properties of said item contributes to the breaking down of said metal....I don't know anything about this code so I'm not sure what can be done.
If I had a vote I'd like more 'fountain' rp'ers, I haven't had much interraction yet with this character but I do enjoy listening and learning from others.

Welcome aboard!

Glad you are enjoying the time and immersing yourself in the environment. Let's see if I can't address a couple of points in your post here to give you a boost.

1. If you see a title of someone who looks like someone your character should know, should meet, feel free to start a conversation. In lieu of 'fountain RP' it's a good way to get the ball rolling. I find it good to have more than a single mentor. Always good to also know a priest.. (or shaman or warlock) before you die, when it's possible.

2. Most don't automatically know others' morals, as only some classes have the capacity. My interpretation of know alignment/detect aura is you get a gleam at someone's nature, but that may/may not be true to their demeanor. While SK is 'absolute' in a sense, there's still the capacity to RP life's remorse, grief, and RP seeking redemption (the actualization of the latter is generally a retired character). Depending on the character I am playing I will either lean more on depending to judge people on how they act/speak overall vs. a static alignment. I see the alignment as the 'overall concept' of a character, and the daily events the things that shape them. No one is really perfect, and the devil has many forms.

3. Items breaking - based on material type - of the item, and whatever it is clanging and banging against. Lower level characters tend not generally to run into beings wearing a suit of adamantite. For the higher level characters out there exploring or PKing, we tend to wish that stuff would NOT break so often.

Best wishes.

I don't know much about the hoarding and quite honestly I hope I never do. I just thought to myself, "Well, if it didn't last so long they wouldn't be forever hoarding it." That was what my idea was. I can understand why you wouldn't WANT your things to ruin. Maybe from disuse, an item hasn't been used in so long that it crumbles to dust inside of your backpack.

Some do, but I don't think this is a good idea. If you're actually USING it, like an extra weapon, it shouldn't be crumbling. There's no real way to track usage other than potions and things that would be crumbling otherwise. Auto dehoarding is not a good idea, imo, unless the character is inactive, which already happens.

Thoughts at the moment: I'm about to log on, and I'm anticipating it with a mixture of emotions. For one, I might get to go do something fun, or maybe I'll think of some cool item I need to go get, which will make for an interesting trip to wherever. On the other hand, I just hit Master, and as a Necro, I know that I won't be able to really get involved in large-scale politics until I hit GM, since such politics bank a lot on who can punch the hardest, and the gap between Master and GM is so friggin' huge for my class.

My mercenary I'm probably not going to log onto, because I find that unless someone wants me to tank for them, I end up pretty bored with whatever I'm doing with him. That's less the fault of the game and more the fact that I can't really find any interesting RP while I'm on him. Fountain small-talk doesn't interest me even a little bit.

'Fountain RP' should not be about 'what I did last night and what are you doing today,' but a sharing of character, personality, or making plans to make something more of your character, organization, goals, etc. It's the laying out of the development of the character, as opposed to the grind of levels. It's should be seen as a means to initiate/develop your character's personality.

Part of the 'fun' of the game is seeing how your character can influence others. Some may not get past the 'small talk' stage; some thrive on that sort of thing. It's the initiative you take with your character that makes the difference. It's not always about the fountain gossip, nor should it be.

A couple things keep me from SK on a regular basis:

1. The hours I play often leave me hanging when I need help. More often then not, I would find myself dead or stuck trying to get some where with no one of the right alignment around to help me out. There has been times where I've been dead for several days due to a lack of people around to help me out. Yes I could reincarnate, but when you hate leveling as much as I do, then redoing a level simply isn't a viable option. Also, we aren't suppose to use OOC knowledge to get to places, but when you play at hours when not many people play then what choice do you have? And where is the fun in any of it?

2. Other games keep me occupied for hours. Games like Warcraft, Warhammer, and so on have a much larger variety of things you can do in the game then SK does. SK has a habbit of getting repetative at times. Not always, but it can be streaky.

3. I simply can't find a race/class combination that I like. I often tend to play a race/class combo simply because it sounds cool, not because of the stats involved, and in the end when I start RPing and PKing I end up paying for it since everyone knows my abilities maybe diminished because of the unfavorable combination, or the combination itself decides to fail me in a fight. It becomes frustrating so I quit, and start the endless cycle of rerolling.

Those are the main reasons I go away for months at a time, all though I love playing this game, sometimes it's simply to hard to find something that makes me happy to play or sometimes other factors can make playing more of a headache then a reward.

My suggestions would be to allow players to reincarnate for a lesser penalty during off peak hours only. During peak hours they would still recieve the full penalty. Second, either make every current race/class combination relatively equal to the next, or get rid of the weak options all together, Giant warlocks come to mind when I'm thinking of this. That's all I have for now, I might post again later after work.

Reincarnate does not take a level. It increases (with a cap) depending on number of uses, but goes nowhere near a full level anymore, that I've gotten to.