Shattered Kingdoms

This isn't entirely true. My character is still making inquiries about progress and ideas from allies, and doing whatever he can against this, but I mean...There's only so much I can do on my own.

I have seen zero logs posted to the Game Logs forums showing any action from players with regard to the zombies ever since OA posted the Crossroads Haven cleansing. So for people who want to see a change in the storyline, I would start by doing that.

Is there any world in which you wake up, realize you've made the game materially worse by this, and let some staff favorite quietly sort it out prior to New Years?

The option for a new grp to wipe them clean out sounds really nice. How can we begin prep for this? Zombies don't even bug me that much, but the lack of players from the zombies/Imm 'rp' (aka closing MC tunnels) does. I've had several players tell me f* sk just over this. And have no desire to play again till all this is over. Just because the mud is your baby doesn't mean you will always make the best decision for it. When most all the players are begging for a change because the mud is dwindling in this 2017 era of advanced gaming technology, some extra cushion for us players would be nice. Perhaps a overly aggressive nudge in the right direction to fixing this crap? I wasn't around for the Grp, had just missed it coming back from a 6yr break and have done nothing but deal with this icly and oocly. I'm not a player that's going to organize a group and take said random dagger and burn letters to iowa that costs so and so life in a dramatic fire. Cool Rp no doubt, I love stuff like that. Imm interaction use to get my bloomers all stiff and crap, but there is more casual players like me than there is of those hardcore Rpers. I'd just like the staff to take the time and nudge the community in the right direction to fix this like -all- of the community apparently wants. Sk was built for player satisfaction correct? Why should the staff/creator want anything else for Sk other then the community to be happy. It doesn't matter what you're -fine- with (as you said about not caring whether zombies stayed or left), I highly doubt you personally have much time to play between coding and implementing stuff. Which really puts you wearing a size 8 when the rest of the community has been walking in size 12's since early 2000's. We're tired old people who need a break, how many successful grps have we done since sk established itself? And here we are in 2017 forcefully making players (most who weren't even playing when the first grp took place) take the long route around to possibly fix the zombie problem (with a good chance of failing, like in the Haven). Give us the nudge we need and lets rock the socks off this new grp? Please, thank you? Signed a long long old player who would like to still play sk next year with somebody other then just Drale?

Quick note: Just to be clear the Crossroads Haven RP represented a complete success. To put it in 'Gauntlet' terms, the zombie 'generator' in Uxmal was destroyed. You just have residuals wandering in from other kingdoms where the mess hasn't been cleaned up.

Also this should have made it obvious that it was a victory: [RP] A victory against the zombie horde!

A possible list of areas in nearing kingdoms to inspect for a ritual like this to happen? I'm really at this point just looking for a icly quick rp solution to this specific problem. And so very ready to get onto the next big grp the staff can lay out for us to Rp through. Hopefully with a lot more successful player action/reaction to the event and continue with sks long and healthy career.

A victory yes, but there is apparently much more rp to follow up with to start repairing the kingdoms. I'm out of the circle compelety on what needs to be done. And icly there is no next step, or answer to what is even going on at this point. It's hard to catch some players on at the same time, so individuals should be able to take matters into their own hands and fix some of this mess. I've completed the Judge of Zhenshi quest to cleanse the Bastion several times. Just looking for something that each player can take into their agenda and attempt to do when they log on each time to fix this in each kingdom. A more clear picture is what I'm asking for I guess.

If you've completed that quest and then performed some RP with the quest giver asking if there is yet more assistance you can provide in sweeping away the zombies, that interaction would be a great thing to post to the log forum (and email to the KD for the Bastion).

I'm trying to reinforce that the Game Log forum gives players a new (and heavily recommended) route to communicating what they are attempting to do to everyone. If you only mail to the KD, then no one else (other staff or other players) knows what you have done and can't even attempt to build on it. If you share your activities on the log forum, they have a much better chance to snowball into action.

Any ideas players might want to try will need staff approval before going forward. We aren't looking for band-aids. We want the cure.

One way conversations don't really do much, or are you saying it does now? Can I post a log with that one question and just wait for someone to respond? How are we supposed to imagine up solutions without support? Can I imagine up a relic and ritual that will cleanse the zombies? What if I already have this relic and just changed the lore on the item? Otherwise how do I know about an item without any lore and doesn't actually exist? Can I still use this imaginary item?

Look at Taslamar. Characters aren't moonlighting as city sanitation workers. Street sweepers are actual NPCs and the streets are lined with gutters. Taslamar doesn't have a roof over the city and weather is a thing. It should have been cleaned up after the Halloween event without player intervention. Do I need to walk around every room and type emote cleans this room? Can I just tell the street sweeper to do his job? How do I go forward with this RP that should have resolved itself?

How were we supposed to know that the Haven was going to be closed? From a player perspective we lost that one. Spin it however you want but that's how it went down. One less area to visit. This game needs more areas and not less. Maybe give players outlines of something major like area closures and get feedback first. It's just poof gone and the game isn't lacking free space in the wilderness. Any new areas could have been just that. A whole new area. How many players would have supported the negative outcome if they'd had a general outline of what a failure would result in? Area closures wasn't on anyones radar. It's not so packed that we need to close areas to open new ones.

Only a handful of players were around and participated. Half of those characters aren't even playing anymore as a result of the outcome even though they supported it. Those characters should not be allowed to return to try and hinder any new RP trying to reverse the effects. Returning for the sole purpose of trying to keep the game in a state where they have no interest in playing doesn't seem fair.

So let's start a discussion on solutions. These are also just plot points. I have no filler so feel free to take the reigns. The important thing is getting approval for an idea by staff where everyone can see it.

1. A staff with the word "time" + a staff with the word "warp"+ two unused sorc NPCs for lore (saisua + paithan) + Achernar = Rewind time = Stop ritual or second chance at initial solution.

2. Journal of halfling apprentice to first necromancers. Silent rebellion created magic opposite to necromancy in secret. Life magic(?) was discovered and practiced by small group opposing necromancy. Lost knowledge with the collapse of the halfling kingdom. Uprising potential reason for collapse. Relic and ritual ending.

Might be dumb or not follow the theme but maybe it'll birth new ideas or encourage players to share their ideas to get approved where everyone can see. Players have nowhere to start and that's the main problem. I'm also aware of another idea that was proposed to staff but is pending approval. It wasn't mine to submit but it's floating somewhere out there.

Why are there no other quests at other Judges like this for areas like Seaside, Rose Tower, etc. And there also needs to be a task for just killing them out in the open in individual Kingdoms to rid them off. Plenty of us just sit around idling waiting on pcount to spike so we can actually interact. Could be doing plenty of slaying in our free time to end the Zombie plague if there was more like the Bastion quest. Or is it likely that by going and killing fifty-hundered (zombie count is low so that is quite a bit of searching for kills) zombies in a certain kingdom and submitting it, the staff will rid zombies completely if 6 logs are submitted of doing this in each Kingdom. Then we can take up the task of how many obsidian to rebuild *said object*, start getting player ideas mixed with the staffs on what areas to rebuild entirely. And then the game begins to just run so much more freaking smoothly and everybody is happy.

I like this idea, but it's hard to do stuff like this when the staff takes so long getting back to you(being doing a good job D, just a generalization). Just like you mentioning there was another idea just floating out there in Imm approval land. Why I keep mentioning reasonable but just honestly short routes to end this and get on with a new grp. Pcount was doing great when I first came back, but now people are really just washing their hands of this grp and playing fps or pornhub. Sk needs cpr, lets get this bad boy back on the road again.