Shattered Kingdoms

That depends almost entirely on how heavy the requirements are. Yes, if you had to have (10) 3-hour long conversations in order to get from Champion to Grandmaster, I would agree that you are penalizing the introverted character types. But if it is (4) 5-minute conversations is that actually gregarious? I'd say that already leans toward introverted.


Even lone pioneers on the range that usually only talked to their dog came into town several times a year and had conversations with the guys who ran the stores. But let's take this out of the IC realm and into one of gameplay. Just about every feature in the game either reinforces or undermines certain types of behavior. There are currently lots of features that reinforce this loner stereotype, but why should the game want to promote this? SK is at its worst when played alone.

There are plenty of other free games that have a superior solo experience. Promoting loner behavior leads to falling numbers of players. Undermining loner behavior and promoting groups and roleplaying would do a lot to help bring up our player counts again.


Walking into a room and greeting all would get you nothing. The system as proposed requires a reaction from the other party before you would receive any reward. There are several ways to accomodate situations where there are multiple people in the room: probably require either a sayto in response or else several statements in proportion to the number of other players that are in the room.


Which, as I mention above, I believe to be a highly desirable goal.


I think that your idea of not being in active combat for a certain amount of time would be the nail in the coffin to ensure that those not inclined to role play in the first place would never use it. In contrast, my proposal does not necessarily require any interruption. It could be done just as easily by a group while grinding as in an inn. But finding new people would require you to mix it up outside the twink zone.

We are kind of coming at this from different angles. You are trying to give rewards to players who are already inclined to RP -- and I have no problem with that and I want to do more to encourage it. But I think that's the easier problem to solve. I think it's very important that we desegregate the RP and tactical populations, or else SK will never fully achieve it's advertised potential of representing both.

The problem is that the "RP-only" population self-segregates, because the people who are RP-only are b!tches, and b!tches do not get to pretend to be bad-ass when in the presence of actual bad-ass tactitians. Most of your tactitians RP very well.

It's already harmful to target any changes at one or the other crowd. There's no need to further increase hostility between the two (or D's inclination to talk to or hear from only one side of the coin).

I agree that there is no need to increase hostility. But then you cheap-shot me, following your motto to "Never miss an opportunity to diss D", even when it makes no sense. Historically, one side of the coin has received 99% of my attention and it hasn't been the RP crowd. My insistence on ALSO making sure that role players are heard when discussing potential RP features is only fair. There's no reason to allow them to be rolled in the forums the same way you would roll them in a game fight.

I think both crowds are role play crowds. I think the real distinction is that there is one crowd that sees PvP as a centric part of the game while another side is one that puts PvP to the back burner for whatever reasons. Not liking dying, not being successful, whatever reason. I think that some people enjoy PvP more than others and the ones who don't like it dislike being pulled into unwanted fights.

That's understandable, but it seems a little bland to try to avoid conflict in SK and actually pull off useful RP. On the other hand, I believe there are people who enjoy nothing more than forcing these types into fights they aren't interested in fighting. Neither crowd is more important, but both have their own take on what they consider appropriate.

There are a few who do a very good job of walking the line between the two camps and this is where I enjoy watching the most. In the end, its a spectrum that allows for people to choose where they want to be, but the middle ground is the best combination of ideas.

I'm not cheap-shotting you, or avoiding "missing an opportunity to diss D." I'm taking you at your word when you implied that pk-oriented players had degenerated the quality of RP in SK by being pk-oriented. I'm working within a framework of argument that encompases both camps, instead of aiding in a seperation of the two. Inclusion is better, yes?

From my own point of view, and I suspect this is the same for most of the mechanics-oriented players of the game, I started as a fountainer. I'm actually pretty proud of it, because the skills I developed there translate to the pk side of the game. The thing is, this game IS meant to combine the two. As I said before, trying to emote a bad [REDACTED] and then getting your face shoved in in pvp is terrible RP. If you want to be that uber hero/villain, you have to back it up, so I *learned* the mechanics side. I'm also, by no means, the top of the food chain when it comes to that. I know my limitations, they just happen to put me a notch or two above the pure fountainers at this point in the learning curve.

I think any fountainers that got pushed away from the game because of the mechanics crowd were, in the main, unavoidable to begin with. You've said it yourself before, this is a niche market game that makes a great effort to combine both tactics AND RP. I think it does that pretty well, but you have to have the mindset to want both to enjoy it. Pure fountainers, for the most part, don't enjoy the mechanics side, and having it be an unavoidable part of the game just means this game wasn't for them in the first place. It's unfortunate that such a niche limits the pbase to a certain extent, but at the same time you are not going to find many members of the mechanics crowd who do not, or are terrible at, RP, purely because they all started to one degree or another as a fountainer and just *developed* the mechanics side over time. The RP is still there, and the quality tends to be as well, it's just a crowd that has more fully embraced the core concept of the game in its entirety, instead of trying to focus on just one side of SK's coin.

This is where rule #1 comes into play. People who attack and kill fountain players just to get their goat are being inconsiderate. Sure, if you take on a title bigger than your butt can cash, you deserve to die. If you join a faction, it comes with conflict built in. You can't complain about fighting. It definitely is important that people know where they stand and do their best to consider the other group. Its when people go out of their way to grief the other camp that things tend to get explosive.

I know you find it hard to believe, Dulrik, but I don't instantly and always go for the throat when you rear your head. I have in the past congratulated you on changes and actions that benefit the game. I have also thanked you for improvements that I particularly appreciated, and I have defended your decisions when I have agreed with them. I will, however, argue for what seems rationally to me to be a better way, or against changes or implementations that take away from the PLAYER experience of the game.

You say you dislike that I "always assume things in the worst possible light" and that it frustrates you when I do so. I don't always, but I will readily admit that I'm usualy more willing to believe that someone has done wrong than instantly assume they're acting rationally and appropriately. That's probably a failing on my part, but I've very rarely had it actually proven to be incorrect. I see a similar pattern in you, and can trace it back to quite a lot of frustration from your players. You get an idea in your mind about certain players (not just myself), and anything they say ever you assume is a slight to you or your game or otherwise some sort of attempt to undermine your staff. That's just not true. Very often, those most critical of your game are just trying to argue from a player perspective (out of caring for a passtime they enjoy and want the best for), or play devil's advocate to show that a particular idea or implementation is not necessarily cogent within the game's current framework. Granted, we don't always have the long-view that you have, as some of the things you implement might be a first or second stage to a grander change that is more cohesive and appropriate to player enjoyment of the game, but that doesn't mean we, meaning those players you take exception to, are not pushing for the best for the game as a whole as well. Hell, I don't even really play anymore, but I still want the best for the game and am willing to argue for it, because I appreciate SK.

So maybe keep that in mind the next time you're inclined to read an insulting tone or implied insult in a player's post. You might, just might, find that your relationship and communication with certain elements of your playerbase improve when you both understand that you're all trying to accomplish what is best for the future of this game.

Gawd damn, you boys are just going "at it" tonight..