Shattered Kingdoms

Alright, let me preface this by saying, that the deep elf of mine there, I actually disconnected and left link dead there. And now the why:

In the Newbie Area in the Empire, at the Quarry Pond, there is an ooze that manifests out of nowhere in the middle of the water. And this might not seem problematic at first glance, until you enter the situation as I did, inadvertantly, at level 2. It will attack you until you are stunned, which kills all your movement, and you wake up, unable to move, unable to flee, unable to recall because it attacks again before your pulse slows, unable to delete because you're locked in perpetual combat, and unable to quit because your pulse is racing too much. Which even still would not be a problem so much, if it did not break the weapon you start with so quickly that you wind up punching it unarmed and unable to kill the friggin thing to get out of this endless combat loop which you cannot flee, recall, die, quit, or otherwise break or escape from.

I got around this by going linkdead for an hour or so, coming back to full stamina, and being able to flee, thankfully. Still, seemed important for this to at least be known about as I'm imagining a new player on their first character coming into the situation, when they go linkdead, it may be the last time they do.

I turned tail and ran as soon as I saw that ooze thing for the 1st time; I expected no good to come out of any interaction with it since as a general rule across D&D heritor games, oozes are notoriously annoying to deal with in combat (and notoriously difficult for extreme lowbies with non-magical weapons and/or very limited spellcasting to successfully defeat).

After reading this, I'm quite glad I didn't even bother trying I'd have been pretty pissed if I found myself stuck in the situation you described.

That said, what's the point of this creature anyway? I mean, eh, I get it--ooze NPC in a nasty pond, that's perfect flavor--but as stated above it was immediately and intuitively threatening to me as a brand-new character upon 1st discovery. I'd have to echo OP's sentiment that any newbie might well try fighting it and get trapped in a loop which could easily result in superfrustration.

I figured maybe it dropped some interesting crafting- or quest-related item (this was before my searches on other sites turned up blanks in regard to any quest that dealt with such a creature in this area), or possibly could be skinned for some cool hide (although since reading some recent threads here in the last several days, I guess this actually is no longer possible? And no, I haven't bothered to read help files about such things, but from the posts, I understand that weird magical creature hides are no longer an option for uber armors).

I guess at least 1 other player has tried fighting in the last couple weeks, since one night I encountered one quite far from the pond (in the middle of the training grounds). I guess someone fled from it and logged out. Or maybe that was you?

Anyway, given the shovel quest, it seems a bit odd to have such an evidently-problematic NPC (for ultralowbies anyway) spawn in an area that they're directed to explore.

edit: lol, apparently any instances of the word "m o b" (typed normally without spaces) are automatically edited into "NPC"...ok...

Two thumbs up for the ooze and its epic trolling.

I'm telling you, every time I would flee it in that room I would wind up in the down room underwater until I was exhausted. That hour or so suuuuuuuuucked.

Doesn't this part of the area have a big, red sign warning you that it is dangerous before you enter it?

I was under the impression that this game was actively seeking to please/attract/retain new players.

I'm pretty sure new players have better things to do with their time then get trolled by a game's newbie area.

Or, for that matter, get trolled on the game's forums when complaining about how the newbie area trolled them.

(and no offense, both of the vet posts here are trolls of one sort or another; 1 is just plain trollish--albeit/admittedly a good and funny one--and 1 is lacking anything other than self-evident fail--having a dangerous creature in the newbie quest zone/training area which interacts poorly with Amateur status death script isn't excused by a sign that indicates a newbie should only enter the newbie quest zone/training area at their own risk...the bottom line is that it's just not fun and, as I asked originally and which has yet to be answered, what exactly is the benefit or point of this creature in the first place, other than the flavor of an ooze in a pond).

Then again, who am I to speak for others?

I can speak for myself, though: I have better things to do with my time, like be a troll/get trolled on other games that I already actively play.

I get more than my daily dose of trolling/being trolled on forums for other games that are nearly as trollacious as these forums, so allow me to categorically deny the notion that I need or seek out more trolling in my nerdlife. Again, I can't speak for anyone else, but I expect a reasonable assumption would be that most new players would similarly be unimpressed.

As a final thought, I'd have to note that in just a short time of forumlurking, I've decided (more like, reminded myself How could I have ever forgotten? ) that there's a lot of truth and merit to a sentiment/observation that I've seen voiced in some old posts here: new players should avoid these forums for their own good. (Obviously the best answer is that trolling/unproductive posts/posts made out of boredom or for a laugh amongst other vets should avoid new players for SK's own good, but despite it being equally-obvious that such a thing never has and never will happen, I'm going to give it a shot anyway)

This could be beneficial to take into consideration next time SK vets/administration brainstorm how to attract and keep new players, who--if they're old/lame/nerdy/hipster-ish enough to discover or re-discover SK--likely already have had quite a taste of player retention issues on the old/lame/nerdy games that they already play(ed) before they came here.

Of course, that's just my opinion, and maybe others would gain a bit more enjoyment out of watching/participating in these issues on a brand-new game; one such type of player could be a troll that actively seeks out new games to troll as they move on with their trollfun. After all, in my experience, old/lame/nerdy games with forums freighted with trolls--or even well-meaning vets doing a bit of "innocent" trolling--tend to comprise a sweet nectar for some old/lame/nerdy/hipster-ish trolls. However, I believe that "the new generation" of gamers tends to have an extremely low tolerance for [REDACTED] in an ancient game that lacks the sweet nectar they desire, such as sparkly graphics, facebook status updates, multi-game stats networks, and micro-transactions (let alone walls of text and rigidly-enforced roleplaying); I also believe that most new players who would be attracted to SK are probably of an "older" generation, and thus either trolls or people likewise not interested in [REDACTED] (forgive the obvious eyeroller there, although it's true that I'm not interested in [REDACTED] either).

Unfortunately, attracting trolls might not be as useful or desirable for playerbase increase as might hope; again, that's just my opinion shaped by personal experience on other games that are similarly struggling to attract and keep new players, and struggling to display relevance for desirable new players (those who might evolve to be useful and productive, rather than just trolls that troll and move on as their fun eventually (and necessarily) dwindles as per the law of diminishing returns)...or even worse, old trolls who never go away and rarely/never play but always have time to troll on the forums...quite the opposite of being useful for the game

No, I don't deem myself as such a potentially-desirable new player; I don't have the time, energy, imagination, or--frankly--desire and intellect, to embark upon a new or even re-discovered nerdaddiction, especially one as difficult and demanding as SK (which is quite a remarkable and unique environment of top-notch nerds--I'm not being sarcastic; most gaming communities pale in comparison to, and would be green with envy over, the level of intellectual enjoyment that SK vets resonate with and produce for eachother).

Finally, no, I'm honestly not trying to troll you. (Not that anyone on the internet, let alone nerd forums, ever read those words and believed them ), but I have nothing to gain from a troll, and nothing to lose by being a simpering whiner/softie/bleeding heart non-realist And yes, I won't deny a bit of sarcasm, especially early on in the post, but after that, it's devoid of sarcasm and is an attempt at good-hearted constructive criticism.

I'm just voicing some thoughts that I'd been considering posting for a week or 2 now (and had kind of forgotten about/glossed over after some old memory-fun and laugh-out-loud non-troll enjoyment reading some very good threads here; although I must say that I truly do think the bad eclipses the good on these forums, unless you're already a vet).

I wish this game and these forums the best. If the reader internalizes anything from this post (other than "ffs wtf is this", and "wow this guy's a [REDACTED]"), I hope it's merely that some things are best left unspoken, or even best left out of the public eye, for the sake of newbies. This is a lesson that other game(s) have failed to learn and have suffered as a consequence. Of course it's already far too late (by many years, in some ways) to undo much of the damage done here, but tomorrow's a new day, and the future is a new page waiting to be written.

So if you read this post and you love this game as much as I used to, then try a new approach, as painful or boring as it may be: leave the toxic, the trolling, the drama, the [REDACTED] to the modern-day equivalent of the "YIMs" and loggersites of yesteryear, and leave the official forums to productive data and content and suggestions: dev/admin functions, goodwill-inspired positive discussion/newbie help, and tame pro debates about balance (this last category should be carefully kept in check since it tends to devolve into toxic [REDACTED] more often than not).

Troll this, laugh at it, snicker, eyeroll, assume manipulative intent, or whatever Have fun

For reals, that was a long winded post to get the message QQ across..

Achiral, grep is at least 90% troll.

Achiral, the fact that you picked a thread in the bug discussion forum to post your (what I can only refer as) manifesto sadly places you in the same category of people you try to avoid.

When you feel the need to speak against a behavior you do not like, your words have more weight when placed in the proper category of these fora.

Following your advice, this space should be reserved to discussing the topics raised by the original post - of a sadistic aggressive ooze in the empire newbie area.

You have plenty of good points as well as an equal number of bad points in your post which, however, should not be further commented on this thread.