Shattered Kingdoms

From my perspective as a veteran returning after years of absence: I think the new newbie school is a great addition. Still, I think there are ways it could work better:

* Prepare new players for the graduation dump to the stones

It's harsh to go from such a well-structured environment to the wilderness, with no clearly-defined path to good places. I basically know where I'm going, and I still found the difficulty increase daunting. Possible solutions: Dump graduates at their home inn. Provide a scroll with directions to their home inn. Add an "Adventurer's Guild" NPC inside the school to dispense travel hints.

* Enrich the kingdom description rooms

I'm a fan of the god room, and the kingdom rooms are also good compensation for having a single school. However, each of the current rooms is split between two kingdoms, which reduces the strength of any one presentation. The rooms also focus on detail descriptions of multiple museum pieces. I know enough SK history to recognize some references, but I think it'd be pretty abstract to a new player. It'd be better to introduce stories or legends. I'm afraid I got bored before viewing them all.

If there's an issue with not having enough vnums, it seems possible to combine merchant and trainer NPCs instead of giving each his own room. We could do without the Deep Realms, which aren't a cohesive culture in the first place. A few strong pictures can do more to sell SK's background than a complete listing.

* Add more hand-holding to the big quest

Good quests are a great selling point, but I feel this one assumes too much for a newbie area. For example, I know secret doors need to be opened before you go through them, but a newbie may need a hint. Either I'm out of practice, or the "complete" portions are harder than some Initiate-level quests elsewhere. I'd also suggest that the quest should make more accommodation for SK's low population density.

Hope that's helpful.