Shattered Kingdoms

I have to agree with what Eddy said. It's really not the loot that makes people good at PK. Look at people like Syric. He knows where to get all the loot, but he's not too hot in PK. Or to go back a little farther, Imburr/Golaret, that guy knew where to get stuff /I/ didn't know how to get, and he was god awful in PK.

Loot just makes the good PKers better, because it gives them more options to play with.

It's not about the highest level scripted secret loot. It really is about the basics. Things that might be obvious for someone who has been playing for years and reads all of the pk logs as they are posted, really are not obvious to people who don't do those things.

The argument that it is better to learn the basics IC because not everyone learns the same way and once you learn it "IC" you carry that knowledge over to all subsequent characters -- OOC learning.

The argument that knowledge of the game doesn't make someone good, it just has the potential to make them better also fails as a reason to continue to keep that knowledge secret. I see veteran players every week coming up with a new complaint about how unfair some strategy/item/spell is and begging that the game be more balanced. Where is the balance when some players have OOC knowledge that greatly improves their chances of making a successful PK character?

It doesn't add anything to the game. It simply makes the learning curve higher than it needs to be -- too high for many people who would rather quit or avoid PK than take the time to learn the minutia through trial and error.

I shouldn't be able to look at a level 10 character and immediately tell that this is played by a veteran character simply because there is no guide and the things veterans do are completely unintuitive. This doesn't benefit the game.

Right, but this is something which has come about as a result of not having numbers in SK. If there were a list of every spell along with the damage it dealt, mana cost it had, concentration required, casting time, and all the factors that went into it, and the same for every skill, then the game would not be the same.

However, as it stands there is already a helpfile for every skill and spell besides religion and cabal skills, as well anyone who posts or peruses logs on *INSERT SITE HERE* gets free advice. A lot of extremely useful tactics, like luring away guard NPCs, are explained constantly on that site, yet still people don't do it. It isn't because they don't read the site either, it's just because they straight-up forget to do it during PvP.

I've always enjoyed the log sites/ alt forums more than the official forums. It should be embraced and not treated as a secret.
There used to be a really old site that I found by google that had a player made partial/outdated worldmap. The official worldmap was a step in the right direction. The maps of starting cities were as well. Let's continue along these lines.

The other thing I think would be incredibly useful for true newbies would be a list of EVERY area in the game, along with a short description of it and an honest estimation of what level range it is for if it's a levelling area.

This is knowledge that pretty much everyone has IC - we all start at young adulthood, as future heros and adventurers, and probably have not had our heads buried under three feet of sand so as not to know that something called the Iron Citadel exists or that people like to train in the Blasted Chancel around the expert/mentor range.

This is what the area command is for. If you feel an area listing is inaccurate, please file a bug or start a thread about it.

The problem here is that it seems like many irrelevant areas are listed. Unless I am total off base (which is possible) no one in their right mind will ever actually train in Menegroth, Kol's Moot, Sith'a'niel or any area that is subject to the law code.

The list is seemingly accurate, it's just not realistic.

Ummm...people train in sith'a'niel quite often, actually. Their temple is good xp.

I trained in Exile all the time.

Holy crap, twelve pages.

1. Jail sucks.

2. Attempting to pick a lock should be a crime (attempted theft)

3. Special items will be special.

/thread