Shattered Kingdoms

Ha, as much as I like or dislike your idea, we don't have to meet in the middle. We aren't deciding outcomes of ideas, we just give them. (The decisions based on our discussions, are the imm/development staff).

I actually already suggested alternative ideas regarding your initial idea above, and while I'm not really opposed to highlighting mentors (in the sense of guiding players through the game - though that can be somewhat of an OOC goal) to help new players. If this is about connecting people within the game together to spam train increases at cheeper costs, then I am not as interested in facilitating that beyond what exists already.

The idea of blanketly giving an aspect of a character's history or private information on the who list is somewhat of an abhorent idea to me. (I prefer allowing those things to be learned in game through player interactions).

KEEP IN MIND that many "new" players aren't new. I *especially* cannot say that's always true, as I'm a new player, and I've met a few others, but I would expect most "new" characters on the mud are players making new characters.

And without any change I have certainly been overwhelmed by the number of mentors who have guided me around, or interacted with my character. Regarding the use of the mentoring of skills - I've actually used relatively few mentors to gain skill increases in that method, I cannot say that I haven't, nor that I haven't over-time learned as much as I can about languages and writting - though I didn't do them all at once on purpose - that's another post entirely, but I didn't need the who list to help me find them or them find me.

SO what does this all come down to.

Perhaps we're looking at this from the wrong angle. Perhaps it's the leaders and mentors who should be recognized as countrymen (those who have been around longer and have built a reputation), as opposed to the new player? (But even that's abuseable, anyone could make a new player and figure out what nationality everyone in the game was, new character by new character)

Maybe characters from level 5 or 10 and below should see something to indicate mentors (of their nationality) rather than the other way around?

Honestly I think the game would benefit more from an OOC NEWBIE channel which allowed for IMM and trusted player responses to help new players rather than something that identified nationality and mentor+ RANK.

(By the way I do like a censor skill for Tribunals to list citizens, something that has a reasonable cool down timer - like a week or two weeks, but produces something like a NOTE which could be shared by the tribunal (if the leader was so inclined) It would certainly help collecting Taxes ha! You'd be given a weekly check list, and would introduce a lot of RP.)

Some countries could also issue mandatory militia duty for their citizens, that sort of thing.

I think you're misunderstanding the idea. New characters would not automatically be shown to be from a specific kingdom, only new characters rolled that start with the "New To Pyrathia" title who are starting as new players to the game entirely.

Yeah. At character creation, after choosing your password, the question "Are you new to Shattered Kingdoms?" is asked. If the player answers yes to that question, then they get the words ", New to Pyrathia" set as their title automatically, and as such, are susceptible to the highlighting or different colors that is suggested in this idea.

This is a great idea to allow for a bit more newbie friendliness, which is always good.

This is a great idea. You can keep a text file with the name and home location of different characters, and then when some inevitably become your enemies you can camp their recall spots and kill them until the game is no longer fun for them.

Oh shut up, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. This idea is awesome, because that way you can send tells to true newbies without having to guess their language.

This.

I think this is a fantastic idea. And really helpful. A Taslamaran can still go help a Zhensh newbie, especially if he notices there aren't any Talons on or something.

Anything that makes things easier and more newb-friendly is a good idea. Real newbs aren't gonna get the mentor system, Aelandron. When I rolled a character in SK for the first time, I didn't know ANYTHING. I didn't know there were multiple languages, I didn't know how to move from room to room, I didn't know about the SK map, and I certainly didn't know to look up on the who list to ask anyone for help, much less try to guess at their nationality and figure out if they'd help me or not.

Aelandron, everything you just suggested is infinitely more complicated than just having colored "New to Pyrathia" titles. We want this to be easy on players, IMMs, and newbies. I've not seen such camaraderie and agreement for an idea in quite a while, and there's a reason for that.

There is no downside to being able to help newbs more effectively, IMO.

True, except for one suggestion which is still probably (from a newbie perspective) the best, better even than coloring a who list:

A newbie channel which is OOC.

Almost all Newbie questions are OOC ones, honestly.

Not knowing there are multiple languages (OOC)
Not knowing how to move between rooms (OOC)
Not knowing the mentor system (OOC)
etc.

Thankfully I've played Muds before, so I've not had that much issue with many ooc things, but even I had to be told that languages coresponded to colors OOCly by a friendly player.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against helping new players or having mentors help new players. I'm not in the least. I just want to caution against providing excessive IC information via the who list, which is despite the established convention, very OOCish in the first place.

I do think you'd be gaining a whole lot more bang for your buck so to speak by impelementing an OOC newbie channel though.

From my experience players are already resorting to OOC explanations at times anyway.

No, there doesn't need to be any chat or newbie channels. Color the titles, if the player selects they are new to SK during character creation. Having other players know the kingdom your character is from won't adversely affect a character if the player is truly new to SK. If they aren't new to SK, the title won't be colored.

There is no slippery slope or potential pitfalls with this change.

That SK has no such global channels is a point of pride for this MUD. D has specifically created the mentor system to cut back as much as possible on straight OOC help. It's still necessary from time to time to go OOC, but most things can and should be relayed IC.

If there was an OOC newbie channel, I bet most players, even those who currently use the mentor system, would have it turned off.