Shattered Kingdoms

I've thought about this as well, and think the idea has merits.

I'm not ignoring any of the advice given; just a lot fo the advice given seems to indicate that newbies are not valued in SK and so I pointed that out.




Not true. I have personally had items stolen that I was NOT told by any shopkeeper they would be stolen, some that were NOT given to me by other players. So that is false in my experience, you don't always get warned, at least in the newbie shops I bought my stuff from.


And get many people either cant recall to them, cant travel to them using the seer without losing pets as the seer steals your pet when she moves you and forgets to move your pet, or you simply cant find these places without first walking across several states worth of land that are sure to make your PE go to 0 multiple times if you are a noobie. You never get told about these places, and you are never told where they are, yet the academy is right next to the most confusing and chaotic town in the game so all newbies are free to wonder over and get lost. its insane,its bad design and it kills new players (literally).



Given that I can type "help suede" or "help wood" or "help steel" and not get a single help file back how is this supposed to be helpful? There is no way I as a newbie can get this data, as its hidden in a way that only a vetran would know how to get to.



Yet the first thing we HAVE to do is get behind our pet to be able to advance, or so everybody in game tells me. So your saying that if your not a mage you MUST use a item that can be stolen simply to advance in the game? How is that fair to newbies? Simply put it s NOT.



Wrong again. Your saying that its not big deal to work on something for over a week and then lose it? To lose you only weapon in most cases and then have to trek through the hostile land without one, often from a place you cant just come back to safely? Thats BS and it shows EXACTLY how disconnected veteran players are from the newbies.



At what cost? Newbies don't have the money and asking for it just makes us feel worthless and makes us want to not play. Worse, there is often nobody on to ask since a simple 'who' can show that nobody is on pretty easily. So you can't just ask in most cases, unless you get lucky. Even then why do so? Its just going to get stolen again.


And yet this fully RP breaking and arbitrary rule isn't told to us in game, and nobody in the academy actually teaches this to us newbies.



You make the assumption that all of these issues are not what is making newbies nnt stick around. And here you are , you just ADMITTED that a player has no way of knowing and must first talk to somebody woth admin/GM/master status to know. That is FULLY BROKEN BECAUSE IT TAKES THE POWER TO PLAY AWAY FROM NEWBIES.


I clearly have listened to it, have you? I don't think so.



Thats not it; I have played Eve Online. Learning curves are not the issue. Its just that no care has been taken to help people help themselves here, and with muds in general dying off due to stiff competition from other game types, I can't help but feel its your ethical obligation to help fight that negative usage trend by doing everything you can to not give muds a bad name.



I'm a game software developer by trade. Give me the access to the code as you suggest and I will make improvments *today* that would allow new players to feel more attacked to the game and make it a better experience.



I listen just fine. Are you listening to me? I'm trying to help you. Most people would have just been gone.



They should help update the help files then and allow people to know as needed that information.



Yet when you look up these descriptors in game using the help command (Example: help wood) you get nothing.



And thats why all this feedback I'm giving is all the more important to consider.



This might have been true ten years ago, but it is a liability now. SK forces interaction with other players for brewing, consecrating, enchanting, fletching, scribing, identify, and adventuring in most of the high level areas in the game. When the who list could support those activities, it was fun. It is no longer fun when the who list hovers around ten players and you can't even form groups to explore new areas added to the game. In that regard, I agree with Duane.[/quote]

Thank you Pook. The fact is I could not even even finish the academy quest on one of my two characters due to the low numbers on the server making it impossible to find somebody to help me push a button, before I was told rudely with no warning he couldn't go back in to finish the quest. And this is s anew area! You would think the low numbers would have been taken into account, but clearly nope.



Thank you Dulrik. Can we expect more help files on the other items I have mentioned as well?

Don't be that guy that quotes and replies to a dozen or more individual sentences or snippets of another poster, which may or may not be out of context. Nobody likes that guy.

Again, dehoarding thieves don't care about the level of excess items; these are different systems, and Duane was not stripped of newbie items due to their level but their excess.

If something gets stolen from you before veteran, you didn't need it in the first place. That's why it's "not a big deal" to lose it. Obviously it stings to have items stolen, and no one has refuted that. I had mithril armor gifted to me when I was a new player too, it got stolen, and while it made me sad it didn't ruin the game for me at all, and I didn't need it to level up to the point where I could keep mithril armor.

If someone has told you that you can't level up to veteran without a reaching weapon, they're wrong. If someone has told you that you need to have anything that isn't iron, steel, cloth or leather to get to veteran, they're wrong. Any character of any class can level to veteran with nothing more than what's bought for very low amounts of coin in the newbie areas I've told you about.

Finally, the IMMs clearly pointed out that you had items stolen from you because of the hoarding code, not because of the item level thieves. Those are two totally different things, which are now clearly outlined in the help files. Are there things that could make the game better? Yes, definitely, but as has been abundantly demonstrated here, there is a very easily accessible forum for people who have questions about how the game works, and it really seems like you're blowing things way out of proportion.

Yes, but shouldn't the dehoarding code ignore all items under a certain level? I don't think anyone cares if someone carries 10,000 practices daggers. If it does work that way already (not clear, haven't checked the help file yet) then ignore my statement.

That's not currently how it works, no. That's an idea that may discussed and debated for it's merit, but refusing to accept the current reality of the mechanics isn't going to make the conversation any easier.

I don't necessarily have a problem with the idea of dehoarding starting at a specific level, for the record. I'm also down with shops identifying things, but I can imagine how much of a timesink this will be for Dulrik.

Cool I think the idea would definitely help.
Right now the only way to tell what an item is worth is to gather them and find a priest/sorc willing to spend his time to identify all of them.
It really makes equipment hunting painful for those who don't already know where everything is and the stats on said gear.

This actually becomes a big issue if you consider items that fall under the hording code. If said item is going to put you over the hording code limit? No priest/sorc on that you can bother to identify something? Drop before logging out else you may lose your current items.

Paying a shopkeeper to identify things - also nifty.

Dehoarding code and newbies:
Say a new character is given a set of non-newbie items to help them go training & they keep their original kit (in case of standard thieves). Now imagine, they're still new the game, and aren't putting in the same hours as some. Now they could lose everything. (double whammy). I'm not sure how hours are prorated for a dehoarding check if a character begins mid-month. How likely is a new character to get stripped for just showing up a bit late to the party, so to speak?

We do a decent job, I think, telling newer characters to keep their gear 'in case of thieves.' But are we also then inadvertently, potentially opening them up to being targeted by the dehoarding thieves, by the same actions?

-> Finding a solution where newbies know how to get/keep hands on the lower level gear is good.
-> idea for shopkeepers to identify for people is good
-> or tweaking value to give someone apprentice or lower an idea that the item they hold is attractive to thieves may be less complex than identification code may be good (previous post of mine in thread)
-> experienced characters helping new characters get lower level gear and avoiding the mess all together is good
--> is there decent gear in the 'I'm out of newbie school but not yet through apprentice-hood' gear out there for cloth/light/heavy armor in all kingdoms?
-> future tweaks to dehoarding system would be good to not affect under a certain level ; and give notification of some kind when threshold is crossed/pointer to the dehoarding help file at that point (esp in case forgotten).

Ah, now you see, this would be a helpful suggestion. If a person is inclined to type "help steel" or "help material", then that should be a help file to consider adding, or "linking" to an existing help file.