Shattered Kingdoms

I was thinking about this new and I had a few thoughts. I wonder if anyone else has had these...

1. Do these mechanisms help old players more than new ones? By definition to acquire these points you have to have played a character before and been actively involved. These players should know how to regain life and retrieve their armor more than new players who will not have any tokens.

2. Do these mechanisms encourage people to create new characters so that they can use the tokens instead of sticking long term with a character and developing a story line? This happens anyway when someone gets frustrated with their character but if I am frustrated with a character for a moment and have some loyalty points, I might be more inclined to create another just to use those points in game for resurrections and to retrieve armor.

3. Do these mechanisms discourage PK and therefore, the validation and requirement of enmity and dark vs light rp? If there is no PK, then there is no followup to some RP. If, say, you are a member of the darkest cabal in the game and you PK someone that is of the light and he or she can be resurrected right away and get their armor back...then what is the point in the pk? An annoyance? And also, Paladins give up some areas of rp for this privilege - why does everyone else get to do this?

4. Does the resurrect mechanism reduce the reliance on Priests which in turn reduces some of priests' rp? Great rp often can take place when a priest resurrects someone or when someone asks for life. It is also a great mechanism for spreading the word of different religions. If priests do less resurrecting...maybe they should get something else - like scribe. I think this also reduces the role of immortals in game and in RP.

Just my thoughts.

1. No. New characters get an automatic 10 so they don't require being an older player.

2. Probably no more than any other rewards of either creating new or sticking with one character. Pros and cons with and without loyalty tokens.

3. I don't think this is affecting pk as much as low counts are. Also if they use earned tokens to resurrect, it's still costing them something.


4. I don't think so. I'd rather use a more plentiful and cheaper resource and rp than a finite one that I have to regain whenever possible.

1. Yes. Vets can res/retrieve indefinitely. Some people have hundreds. PK poses no risk to these players until the reserve is exhausted. Res/retrieval costs 3. Even if you only have 30 tokens that is 10 chances to kill or be killed without any risk.

2. You use the top end of your tokens, so yes. If you have 5 usable tokens on your current character, create a new one and xp boost, you lose those 5 usable tokens. I reported this and asked if it was working as intended. No response. Either way, you want those tokens to completely remove all risk from the game. You can use it in PvP and PvE.

3. It discourages PK because there is no reason to kill someone who can res/retrieve before combat ends. The same way there is no reason for cabals to wage war with the removal of CRS. There is no sense of victory or defeat. It has nothing to do with the lack of enforcement on established lore and rules. Low counts mean nothing. Unless you meant to say you don't mind sacrificing quality for convenience. Hoarding is still an issue and we probably have less than 20 players.

4. Agreed. People probably aren't going to use their tokens if there is a priest online. No effect.

What? Is roleplay too antiquated of an idea to encourage conflict or resolution? I remember taking part in MANY wars between cabals, before the introduction of CRS, and in most cases, the reason for the war was thorough and well thought-out, the sense of victory was solid, and the defeat was played out. In fact, in most cases, I would argue that the roleplay of these things was BETTER in most cases than the same after the introduction of CRS.
So is there really no "reason" to wage war just because CRS is not currently active?
Is there really no sense of victory without claiming another cabal's relic?
Is there really no sense of defeat without an entire cabal going inactive because they can't retrieve a relic?
Have we just used CRS as a crutch to encourage PK without sufficient RP behind it the past 15 years?

CRS needn't be seen as completely done & over. Any suggestions for how it might be re-applied, tweaked & adjusted, improved, and/or re-introduced in a constructive & compelling way should definitely still be shared. Though it endured years of complaints from the playerbase, CRS definitely brought some positive qualities to the game, and could still be utilized in the future to provide constructive framing for parts of the PvP world.


Is it really an issue? I'm curious how you're qualifying that statement. When I've looked around, I've seen ALL KINDS of good quality kit spread around the world. I see much of this as being challenging to retrieve, but I haven't seen evidence of hoarding as a specific problem recently.

A couple of thoughts:



Do you get to use these tokens with that new character?



I agree that the low counts are a factor in why PK is not happening. From what I have gathered from several characters icly is that PKing or even enmity RP does not even cross their minds. When the numbers do go up though and PK starts happening again, I think these mechanisms should be removed.

Sure - if that kind of roleplay happens. Right now it is all sunshine and rainbows between traditional enemies which is all fine and great if a few are rping that way, but when most of the mud (I get there are not a lot of players right now so most of the mud is not a large number..) is rping this way, that is when it is a problem.



Yes, it is. Did you try looking for staves?

I am going to say one more thing on this point that has nothing to do with the topic I started. And I am quoting myself. I really am not this egotistical.

Anyway, I think closing down the North has contributed to not having really evil rp (in the nice way - meaning not rude).

We have Taslamar which is all light. We have the Empire which is mostly dark but can also be in the middle. We have Zhenshi which can be both. And then we have Uxmaln that can be both.

Where is the pure evil kingdom? Where can a new student learn to be truly evil?

There is no balance.

I can understand that. Closing the North and Ayamao as starting zones wasn't an easy decision. But still think it was necessary.


The general design balance is in good (Taslamar) vs evil (Empire) and in chaos (Uxmal) vs order (Zhenshi). This doesn't really reflect the extreme "truly evil" end of the spectrum in terms of starting city + tribunal, but still allows it in providing 2 places that the "truly evil" can create and thrive in, in addition to the cabal associations available to the same. Until we have the players to support expanding the starting city selections, the current balance of 4 still provides a "place" for anybody than if we had selected a different 4.

I didn't. Are there specific high-level staves that you're wanting, or is it staves in general?

Just look for staves in general and wands. I don't want them but I believe there may be people hoarding them.