Shattered Kingdoms

I've been going over forums posts, mostly about leveling. I've run into a question.

I ask because I care. Also I might have a solution (not a good one, mind you) for part of it that might make everyone happy.

Leveling is easy, but not too easy, especially at the higher levels. The change which made the lower (and also more boring) levels go faster, and the higher levels which are better for grouping take longer was a great change, in my opinion.

Veteran status is a brick wall. Getting through veteran takes 75% of my desire to get to GM and grinds it in a blender, poors it down a trolls throat, waits approx. 8 hours (or however long it takes for a troll's digestive system to work) and then it gets [REDACTED] out, then eaten by a dog who gets poison from the troll so he throws it up and dies while laying in it, and maggots eat the dog and vomit and turn into flies that go onto the highway and splattered across a truck's windshield.

In the entire MUD's history, leveling has been the same - kill NPCs as efficiently as possible. That's it. Kill NPCs until the point where you can quest to GM. Before quests, it was just kill NPCs.

"Familiarity" tried to artificially inflate the amount of time required to level by limiting the range of NPCs you could kill, which didn't make leveling "hard" - it just made it time consuming, which most people equate with "hard" nowadays.

There's only three things that have ever eased the way leveling occurs. One was the NPC HP regularization which lowered the HPs of practically every leveling NPC. The second was the weapon system overhaul, which readily spread high-damage weapons to everyone and expedited XP. The third was the increased abundance of XP areas. The first and second one happened years and years and years ago. The third - adjusting [castle A] to GM level, adding another area in [castle B] that covers master-champ, adding two areas in the mentor-master range, and a bunch of other additions/modifications to areas practically invalidated familiarity so that, once again, we're back to the cycle of people who know the sekrat combinations of areas to spam kill end up leveling fast.

This is not a bad thing. The game doesn't really even start until champ+. But that's what people consider "easy" leveling.

I actually quest from novice 1 - apprentice, then lvl, quest through expert, lvl then quest through gm.

Leveling is fine. Grind/quest for 50-80 hours depending on class/race/faction combo, and then start playing the game.

I've heard this before re: wait until you reach champion.. what's different? I totally didn't realize the encouragement to go "train" was actually based on more than just getting a little less likely to be killed. So, I'm not asking how the movie ends or for any ic secrets, but I'm curious how the interactions or dynamics change.

When you incorporate player-killing into your character's playstyle (or, as more often than not is the case, people incorporate that PK playstyle for you), you have some irreconcilable advantages when you're a higher level: you can keep the gear that makes you competitive from the login thieves, you have nearly all the stat points to complete your character build, any racial resistances you have will have almost completely scaled to the level of spells you'll be getting hit with, your spell components will have reached close enough max damage, you'll be that much more resistant to spells in general, you'll have all your skill/spellset, your class specific buffs (fury, specialize, etc) have enough levels behind them to be truly competitive, so on, et cetera.

It's primarily consideration of the PK advantages, combined with the fact that as people have less and less (read: no) need to level, they start endeavoring into RP more. And, if you're of opposite alignment, RPing with people who have reached that level usually ends up back to the PK aspect.

I like to interact with characters much before master status, though I typically don't stay at that level for long.

The reason that most people see that the game doesn't start until champ+ is that before that level you get most high-level things stolen from you and you're not at the best potential your character can be at especially for spellcasters: The difference between champion 4 and GM for locate object, for example, is like night and day.

Also the PK thing. Trying to level after PKilling is fraught with danger.

I personally don't like the whole "The game doesn't start until champ+" mentality at all. There really isn't anything other than skills, spells, and stats that you gain from leveling. It is just by champion status, when you have everything, you can be used like a tool by the veterans.

Sure, there are quite a few areas you wouldn't want to go as a lower level, not alone at least, but your level really should not affect one's quality or willingness to RP. In fact, taking your time and mixing training and RP (easy enough to do both at the same time if you can find someone to train with ) will help you to flesh out your character, give you stories to tell to the younger characters when you are a grandmaster teaching them skills/spells.

I'd say take your sweet time. Religions cannot refuse you based on your level, and I don't think any Cabals/Tribunals would if you insisted. I joined one at journeyman, and would have sooner had I been able to find a leader sooner! But with Cabals/Tribunals, you won't be able to do too much of any use until veteran status anyway, but the RP can be fun!