Shattered Kingdoms

A few of you are making wildly inaccurate assumptions that are untrue:

1. I was nto able to use the items that were stolen as I had to figure out how to identify them and if they were safe first, and I lack that.
2. I'm not sure how to identify items at all. How do I know if its something that will/can be stolen? I look at score, examine, look, etc and there is NO WAY to tell.
3, I never assumed; I read the help file like a good noob and it explicitly states that no artificial means of item control are going on.. except that is not true.
4. Not a single shop keeper has warned or informed me that something could be stolen from me. Not once, not a single time ever. I still lost stuff rndomly after logging out. Thats unfair and very hard on new players.
5. It does not promote RP when you create a character and the is NO WARNING of this in the character creation process so that you can roll your character with this in mind and not run into the conflicts I have. I never got any warning and I rolled my player based on the RP I wanted to do. I was basically tricked into making a character that will be weak in its profession with no good RP reason.
6. You are now explicitly telling me that RP is bad, after i have read everywhere on the site that RP was supposed to be a core part of this. Well what is the bigger priority? I need to know because honest;y this HAS KILLED my RP experience. It has not broken my desired rp, it has KILLED it.
7. So your saying that conflict is good for the game? I would disagree myself, and didn't I read on the forums while trying to figure out where to post this thread that you guys just banned a guy for creating too much conflict? You are giving me conflicting information.
8. I have used the 'mentor' command multiple times. I used it about 3 times after I logged in looking for an explaination and nobody responded for about an hour or so, and that was only after I made a full in the Inn in Exile. As a noob I feel like the mentor system is sort of broken; most of the time nobody is on.
9. Forsooth is correct,, most people would NOT stick around to post. And that is why i felt compelled to do so; I'm probably the best/most valuable feedback you guys will ever get on being more noob friendly.. Most wont care to take the effort.
10. The Shrink and Enlarge spells never work when I try them. I know them, barely, but then never work. What EXACTLY do they do?
11. My character is already speced fro a merchant and multiple attribute points have been used to to add DEX and STR; Are you saying there is no way to undo this? It seems unfair to me that I did this with no warning ti was bad, no help files sayign thsi anti-hoard code was in place, no updates, and now I can't even use my characters abilities due to it. What is the point of having the str or dex to hold things if you cant actually hold the items without losing them?

All in all, I'm also offended by the fact that this was done so sloppy. You are treating every noob like they are a criminal even when they may have the best of intentions.

As far as the stuff goes, I have no idea what I lost because I could not identify it; I'm not against having the items replaced but at the same time, I had no idea what they were so I have no way to know what I should ask for to replace them. And then wouldn't they just be stolen again?

So your telling me I CANT know how to protect myself as a noob? That you do not want new players to be able top protect themselves from this? Are you anti-new player because that is what it looks like to me. Even when I was working in the gamedev space for MMO's we treated noobs - especially noobs that read the rules - like precious gems; I'm not getting that feeling.

I started playing SK less than a year ago myself (EDIT: Okay, a year ago actually!) and I believe have been one of the few true newbies to this game that stuck around for a while in recent history. Even though I just lurk on the forums these days, I sympathize with you as a new player. My experience was and has always been if purchasing an item that is too high level the vendor says something to the effect of, "Are you sure? This item may be stolen by thieves. Repeat your last command to continue with the purchase." (It's been a while but it's something to that effect). It always grabbed my attention, and yeah, I got some stuff anyway and often lost it. I remember complaining in character to other characters that thieves stole something, and was generally offered help finding a suitable replacement.

It sounds like this was not your experience, which is unfortunate. Maybe people gave you the items so they didn't come with a warning. It sounds like there may be bugs with the vendor in the newbie zone which, as other people pointed out, is a new area and bugs like these won't be found until someone experiences them. It sounds like the staff have taken note and are working to edit help files and possibly fix the vendor if he's broken. So it isn't that your complaint is going unnoticed or being discredited. I think people are just trying to give you honest advice and are doing the best with the information they have.

Patience and adaptability go a long way in this game. A lot of people, myself included, have made characters with concepts we thought would be great and they failed. There's a learning curve like with many games and things will never go perfectly. I'd encourage you to continue asking for help in game, make sure people know you are new and ask a lot of questions and try to keep an open mind.

Regarding identifying items before use, I'm going to go out on a limb though and suggest you may have gotten poor information regarding items being unsafe. If it was IC, perhaps they were trying to be funny and it was misconstrued, I certainly don't know. But with the exception of a couple cursed weapons I've come across, anything should be safe to wear and be identified at a later time. Even the cursed weapons, the worst thing that will happen (from my experience) is you won't be able to unequip it until you've been uncursed (which can be done by a healer NPC in game or certain played character classes). Even if you're a priest for example trying to wear plate armor... you can put it on, it just isn't going to benefit you and will work against your concentration, etc. Does that make sense?

I didn't see someone say RP is bad, but it's possible I missed something. What I did read was someone saying to take losing the items and RP it out in character, and I think that's good advice. Use it as a learning experience. If you've only played for a couple days, I don't think what was lost will make any difference in the long run. I had plenty of similar experiences as a new player, and I found if you choose to take away something from every negative experience, you will be a lot more successful and able to enjoy things in the long run.

Certainly wish you all the luck.

Shattered Kingdoms has a very steep learning curve and it is not particularly newbie friendly.

If losing equipment that you purchased in the newbie zone provokes this sort of response, you will definitely not like the PK aspect of the game which often involves everything you have being looted or stolen by other characters. As other posters have attempted to point out, your character concept will make you a target. While it is unfortunate that the help files were not more clear about hoarding, it is probably fortunate this happened when you had relatively little time invested into both the game and your character.

You can now determine whether the steep learning curve on Shattered Kingdoms is the right fit for you. Good luck with whatever you decide!

Please don't leave, Duane. We believe in you. In fact, you may just be...

The Future of SK.

Settle down, Mr. Anderson.

Anyway. Its understandable to get off some steam. Now that we've heard your arguments and you've let it out, get back into the game. Smoochy wandered the forums for a whole year before even setting foot into the Mud itself, so there was some item to digest. To see whats possible. In fact, if you look at Smoochy's FIRST posts within the forums you'll see Smoochy was a tweeny-bit upset because Centaurs were a race that could not be a Sorcerer/Sorceress at the time. Love'meh some taurs, you know.

We all come to MMO's with expectations. Not everything goes according to plan.

Smoochy is still here though~♫

As for your characters state? You are free to re-create at low-levels. There are very helpful Mentors out there, mind.

I have played Eve Online for number of years; PK doesn't bother me. The secret is to make yourself too valuable/powerful to offend casually. And then, simply deal with the offenders when it happen sin such a way they never do it again.

I was trying to get away from Eve Style Learning curves, however.

One thing I am running into now is that due to my early RP choices to add STR and DEX I am now too weak to level in the sewers, the sewers themselves full of PK and mobss that seem to casually kill me unless I flee. So these RP breaking hoarding rules are actively getting in the way of my expedience/fun.

I don't think this guy is a real newb; he was barely able to string a sentence together when I was helping him in game and had clearly never mudded before. You trolls are nerds.

I have logged over 32 hours in game over the last 3 days. I learn fast. That said, I'm still for too ignorant of game mechanics for me to be fully comfortable in my current situation.

I still remember my first character ever.

Giant Barbarian from the Empire, felt like a baddas until...
was murdered by a Hellion at about Initiate for cannibalism....
at about Apprentice got into a Duel with another Hellion....
oh GOD did Poison and Plague last forever back then,
I think I spent over 2 hours real time perma stunned in the after duel area
so deleted and made the same character in Taslamar, btw he Hated the Empire.

Quickly forgot about the bad start.
I still to this day love dumb Giant RP.

On a side note...
A fuzzy male god gives a earth elemental the wedgie of death.
You hear a earth elemental's death cry.
A earth elemental's body dissolves into a shower of sparks.
One of your party members has fallen!
A fuzzy male god says 'MINE!'
Yopparai summons a great stein, dives in, and is "spiriTed" away.

Ahh, the good ol days

Sorcerers are at least not very loot dependent, but they are a difficult starter class.

The hoarding changes went in because ALL of the good loot was being held by a handful of individuals and this code caused many of them to delete once they got the big H.

I understand where you are coming from, but hey, it is a game!