Shattered Kingdoms

This is a brainstorming thread. The topic is: What changes could we make to the game that would excite you to play more (or play again)?

As per the rules of brainstorming almost anything goes, as long as it is seriously and respectfully submitted. It can be code changes, event or storyline suggestions, or even policy changes.

Keep your posts focused on your own ideas and not about reacting to other ideas on the thread. Brainstorming is the idea-generating phase without criticism.

Once activity on this thread has wound down, the staff will winnow it down to a list of action items. Your help is appreciated!

(Note this is not a griping thread. You can point out a shortfall in the game but only as part of a suggestion/idea that would improve the situation.)

I'll bring it up again. The wiseman.
PVE is such a large aspect of the game and with our declining Playerbase, a lot of the knowledge is lost.
I know some see this as asking for hand outs, but I feel like a group of new players should be able to party up, get a heading, and be able to begin an adventure.
This would respark the pve game and would benifit the game greatly.


In regards to PK, I feel like our policy of RP before PK is far too strict.
I'll use the Black Rose as an example. If an assassin is hired to kill someone, there has been Rp put in place. This same concept should hold true for those in tribs/cabals without being at war. Even if war is not official, if you've been asked to kill someone, you can do it. Same should hold true if you get word that people have been ordered to kill you. If you get word, kill them before they kill you.
Just let the people play. Everyone gets upset when they die. But they'll be fine. Getting ganked use to encourage me to get better at the game.

I'll leave it at this for now.

These are not so much ideas to excite play more ones to make play more accessible because I think the most significant barrier to players is their available time to spend playing.

Id like to see a "time waste" things removed or altered. These things include but are not limited to shops closing over night. A price penalty for "closed" times could replace it for RP reasons with out restricting access. Day night cycles with out a moon is just frustrating. These are "cool" features that make RP sense but really are frustrating time sinks with little gain.

Along similar lines of thinking something needs to be done regarding religion investment. Be that religion on creation, "allied" religions enabling friendly inductions, creating a white dark grey aura inductions cross religions.

An interesting idea Ive been pondering is place holder items. The item would have a flag on it that would make it cosmetic only and non usable perhaps a <broken> tag similar to sacred. The reason for it is to let players find the more unique and interesting items locations so they can recover them when they are accessible or even just to know what to look for later. These items could decay on log out or every 30 min or such to stop players trying to abuse their appearance or such.

An idea to help new PvEers locate spell could give an "area name" as well as random NPC/rooms to help point players in the right direction to start searches. This would then lead to an interesting choice. Either dont let it work on PC's for PK reasons or let it work on PCs off a save, better enabling players to find each other for more active PK.

Unlimited xp gain to be used for adding utility skills/spells, even if the cost is ridiculous. Let chars learn to pick locks, track, enchant anything, brew more things(obv adding skills/spells has to be limited to class somewhat). There is really no reason any char shouldn't be able to learn to do more things though. Make more time put in on your char mean your char is different from the one who just gm'ed in 40 hours. Extra XP could be spent in a lot of other ways too, in a similar way loyalty tokens are, except FOR THE CHAR WHO'S LOYAL.

Keep a version of the lounge portal stone dial open all the time and add more portal stones. This is also in the spirit of opening up the game to getting players to actually run into one another. Making transportation easier doesn't hurt anyone. It opens up PvE more to non-priests/mages as well.

I'm going to preface this with SK is a wonderful game, with many hours of fun times and adventures to be had...
and I don't really play anymore, so this may be moot.

Auto hours -- Shows/Hides the "You have played XXX hours so far." message with Score.

There's nothing worst than playing for hours and then thinking about what I could have done with the time I just spent on SK. I know many players love this feature as it's a feat to hit Master or GM in the fewest hours.

It's just one of those things I'd prefer not to know.

I know this one is asking a lot but I think there should be an IMM position that is an event coordinator. Sort of like the Dungeon Master of the game in terms of events. They would hold a large monthly event and also have spontaneous events through out the month that would encourage players to act. Many players want to do something, but either they dont know how, do not have the resources, or the necessary class type to complete it. The event coordinator could even fix issues like that that prevent action, by using the game resources to help a group of players find an area that is all but lost to the player base or hunt for a powerful item that hasnt been used in ages. The possibilities are really limitless in terms of giving players just a little umph, that little push in the right direction, to help them learn more about the game.

I like the idea of more story events even if they're small. More imm activity along the lines of taking control of NPCs in inns, etc even just to have a casual conversation with players, add some flavor, perhaps especially when numbers are low. Helping with directions, etc. More religion RP with followers. I realize this relies heavily on imms having the time and availability but it was an aspect of my last mud that always kept me coming back.

I have other ideas but that had a big impact on me as a player on my last mud.

Here are a few specific things I think would improve the fun factor for most players:

Expanded loyalty token redemption options

- Skillgain: triggers a skill improvement in a selected skill or spell (5 tokens).
- Reorient: removes spirit disorientation (10 tokens).
- Unfatigue: removes fatigue (10 tokens).
- Session: get a bonus attribute point (25 tokens) [usable once per character].
- Bonanzaxp: trigger bonus xp equivalent to a bonanza for 24 hours real time (30 tokens) [Hero only].

In addition, LTs should be redeemable by the character that earns them. I don't think the current restrictions are necessary.

New Tribunal Commands

- Tribunal Resurrect: 10 obsidian deducted from tribunal accounts to resurrect your character.
- Tribunal Outfit: 10 obsidian deducted from tribunal accounts to outfit your character with a suit of tanso steel, bronze, or silk armor that gives +1 to each save, along with a standard issue tanso steel shield and/or weapon(s), based on class. Meant as a way to hasten recovery time.
- Give all tribunal members the ability to pardon allies. Only leaders can pardon non-allies.

Religion Updates

- Let all priests who aren't blemished cast the holy symbol spell.
- Give priests, paladins, and hellions the option to choose a religion at creation.
- Bug fixes and improvements to a few religious spells that see almost no use due to being underpowered.

Race Updates

- Quadruped bonus for griffons and centaurs to save against going prone. Will apply to NPC quadruped races as well.
- Dwarf bonus to save against going prone due to innate hardiness and stability.
- Elf bonus to bows similar to dwarf axe bonus.
- Deep-elf bonus to crossbows similar to dwarf axe bonus.
- Minotaurs immune to willpower impairment.
- Halfling innate racial bonus to fortitude, reflex, and willpower.
- Gnome +1 bonus to maximum art for all classes.

Class Updates

- Cut skill lag on tame in half.
- Dancing Lights spell for sorcerers, sprites, and warlocks to allow a caster to light up an adjacent room. Requires concentration to maintain, and the globe of light created in the next room can be junked or dispelled. Range is one room. Not usable in the wilderness. Cannot pierce through certain types of supernatural darkness.
- Parry and berserk damage bonus for barbarians using 2-handed, non-reaching weapons.
- Lore to show maximum charges on devices (but not current charges).

Game Balance Updates

- Retool the armor system to make heavy and light armor more resistant to armor penetration. No change for cloth armor.

Many games excite people to play by having a scheduled wipe weekend. It isn't something you have done before, but it may be worth considering. I do not think it leads to a death spiral, but I understand the concerns.

As far as small changes, I suggest making enchant/consecrate far more accessible. Maybe by giving it to necro and shaman. Maybe by giving it to everyone through a not-too-expensive NPC that can give you one enchant per 1 platinum or something. I think it would really open up PVE options, because a big limiting factor right now is the enchanting process. Even though it's easier, you still need a permanent priest or sorcerer around.

I recently started a character again after about 7 years of an attempt at playing. I used to seriously play about 12 years ago, so you can say I am new but with some old experiences.
I had some pleasant surprises with changes implemented over the last few years. But certain things are also quite troubling, and if I was a completely new player I am unsure if I would be compelled to stay for long.

I guess it is understandable that the first problem to be addressed is the low count of playerbase. So for me, the priority should be things that would help to get "new" blood in, and I count people like myself as new as well, but also get old people back that lack the time they had in their hands 10 years ago.

How to do that?

1) Leveling and time in this day and age.
Times have changed, not much time for mundane tasks such as lenghty leveling. Everybody will do it, because everybody wants to get strong before they go out into the world. If I can play 2 hours per day and I can get 2 levels in those 2 hours around Veteran-Expert, it is not possible for me to do RP'ing too, which I dearly miss. I would have to spend 2 hours waiting around in Inns to find people anyway.
So what if leveling became a little bit easier? It's the times we live in that require it. Working with games I see all MMO's going "easier" on leveling every day. Players would have more time to RP, handle expeditions, do a little more RP or even PK.

2) Areas and area command.
How it was for me: I couldn't remember most of the areas and how to get there, so I used the "area" command. That list is comprised of places along the lines of leveling for "Initiate to Grandmaster" or "Amateur to Champion", and I was trying to figure out if I remembered any of those places, so I could check IF my amazing new sextant could show me where they were. Perhaps it would be a nice thing to be more specific.

3) Quests and quest chains to direct.
What if there were a few more quests in each leveling "area", their difficulty depending on that level range, and quests became a bit more rewarding (even if they were harder), so you would get the sense of RP'ing and not just sitting on your [REDACTED] and spamming the same command for hours and hours, time that you can't really spare any more and feels that it goes wasted?

Perhaps a competition for people to write quests would be of help (in exchange of loyalty tokens?). There are people here that know the world like the back of their hands and could give amazing insights and write great chain quests appropriate to each level range.
Maybe the last quest in one area/range could be something like: "if you are done in this place, how about you go help my sister in that other cave of monsters?". And that would guide you to the next leveling range area.

4) Other timezones taken into account.
From my perspective, and a couple of friends that I have trying to play again: European times seem to be a bit neglected, as the most people I've seen online were on the "Happy hour" which is in the middle of the night for me, when I have deadlines to work on and I am also dead tired to play. I saw someone saying on the Facebook page, how about a "happy hour" every 12 hours instead of a 24 hour one? I think that this would fall under the "grow the playerbase" tag, as we would be looking forward to 3pm and not 3am, for example.

5) Time wasting things
On the subject of time, Cordance above said something that I liked:



I like it RP wise too, the NPC's are there standing behind their counters replying to me that they'll be open in a bit, twiddling their thumbs. How about doing it like night-shift garages do? They are overpriced but open 24/7.

6) Religion investing
Also several people said that Religion should be given as an option at creation. Back in the old days, I would SO hate this suggestion. But loving the priest class, I would say it might be needed for now. First of all, as I started moving around I died twice to a "fleshy skeleton" that had roamed off a bit (or I roamed off a bit perhaps). The second time the damned thing followed me to the end of the world as I ran to escape, and both times I did the Death Quest cause it was me and two other people around. If somebody does not support the religion they chose, they can be blemished and made to atone sure. Give them warnings on creation on the matter. Playing a character as I'd wish is difficult at the time, but creating a priest now, with the little amount of time I have to play, seems out of the question for me. 10 years ago I was a Mentor before I got invested, and went through interviews again and again, weeks after creation.


Generally, several suggestions that I read above about how to make things more efficient (especially time-efficient) sound good to me. Other things that people have suggested sound lovely, but I would focus on getting people to come and stay instead of/before changing details.