Shattered Kingdoms

[quote="Trosis"]

Things that I think should be explained in no particular order:
-... Trosis - thank you for this. I've put all of this in my current outline.

A reason as to why the game sort of feels like it's stagnant and why people don't play it anymore is, well... because it has. It offers nothing particularly new when it comes to players who've played it forever; the changes are more or less minor balance changes and that's that. At least that's it for me, anyway. I can't keep playing the same thing forever. The RP concepts are the same, the approach to the game is the same, the game is still mostly reliant on crazy amounts of gear to be effective, etc. etc. etc.

Additionally, the time investment to be good in this game and effective is still pretty high, and there's not much anyone can do about that. It's a relic of the past.

Finally, the community sort of cannibalized itself. People drove each other away and eventually had no one left to play with. Now we just sort of sit around and talk about it.

This one is daunting, and what needs to be worked on the most with the first couple of rooms, to have a formula/pattern to use on the rest. I think we should stay away from developing all the rooms until we have the balance right. This being said, it is also good to agree we have a solid outline/order/breakdown of things.

I am also debating the volume of HINTS (as they exist) vs OOC items a NPC says. Or perhaps, some scripted way of (especially after the first room) having small groups of says/rechos being repeatable having a player giving some sort of repeat type command. This may be a good logistics conversation to have with Yed/Thuban before getting too far into development as well; it may be good to come up with a couple versions of the first two rooms to present, so examples and feedback is clear. Then there's the same to be said for how it looks to the new player - readability/playability.

This all being said - I've done another iteration of the 2 first rooms today and have an outline together on the Google Drive at this point.

Some people grind to level to PK, and there is presently no major army/organization to be part of or to fight, so I concur there's a lack of interest to play by many vets.
Some people do know the PvE upsidedown and backwards, and find little new. I get that.
The community had its problems. (Understated)

But, some people do want to play a new game, and many of them remember playing these types of games years ago.
There are many aspects of SK that are still unique to text-based muds, and why this one should be favored over others, of a similar genre.

I talk about this game with people, and it has managed to drum up some interest. I'd rather take the time it would take to put in a fresh character or two, and help build something to encourage others to come play. And, I would probably share this game with more people if the intro was a lot easier/welcoming than some of us experienced players spending hours to maybe - how many times, to retain one new person.

If the introduction got easier, some of those new people may even invite other new people. That's the hope anyway.

From an operational perspective, you can accomplish this either by using an object of some kind - ie a book/scroll/other item that can be read/observed, or a talisman/tool/etc that is triggered by a keyword to access the hints - or you can do it by means of an interactive NPC - ie a wizi NPC who responds to certain commands and feeds back information or an interactive NPC with whom you can converse.

Some kind of mix of all the above can provide the necessary tools to disburse information while breaking up the experience to keep it more interesting.

Totally agree with you. I understand where your coming from and your pessimism is well-merited as I've seen the same.

With Pook, we're trying something different to mix it up. No point in digging up the past and us vets already know what happened. Right now, its either... can you contribute? .... yes? jump on board and help us out! .... no? probably best to keep your pessimism to a minimum as to not discourage these new players from having fun with this new-found experience

I think the most enjoyable parts of the game are nullified with such low numbers.

tl;dr
Roleplay and tactics are not colliding for me.

I don't really accept the idea that a driving force behind SKs decline was players being mean to other players. Obviously, some sort of decline was inevitable for a game like SK, but I feel it would still be chugging along if it were not for a series of IMM decisions. I realize it is easier for IMMs to blame "problem players," but I never saw players really drive each other away from the game. I saw people rage and say they were leaving because syn or someone ganked them, but they always came back.

Several misguided changes to the game disrupted game balance and negatively impacted gameplay. Several questionable punishments meted out to players, including banning of players who were a main draw for others to play the game, did not help. Taking away GD, where we could joke around (thus building a sense of community) was also a terrible decision. Whenever I would take a break from the game, I'd continue to read GD, which would often pull me back to the game. I honestly felt like I was part of an SK community, and it was GD, more than anything else, that made me feel that way.

At this point, it would be really hard to revitalize SK without apologizing to certain players who were mistreated, unbanning most of the banned players, and walking back a bunch of changes to the code from the last several years. This isn't a fun game to play when there are only a couple other people logged on, so you would need to somehow get a bunch of people to come back at once.

I [REDACTED] hated most of the players who were banned, but I'd unban them all in a heartbeat short of Adroan, maybe grep. I certainly wouldn't apologize to anyone about it though. I'd just sort of blank slate the thing and then have a big "Going forward, here's what the rules are..." and make it clear. I miss the fun of the other players who were movers and shakers. I've not spoken to a single player who was like "wow, I'm so glad ardith was banned so that now nobody can take us to the grand general infernal on weeknights" or whatever. I get why they were problematic. I GET IT. But this reality is just worse. I wish there was a fresh start for everyone.

whomst among us

Issues with this game starts with the IMM and ends with the player. Both sides have always acted in bad faith. Just that IMMs has a big stick to slam around. It an environment that breeds toxicity among vets and IMMs. You cant change people overnight and IMMs will IMM.

Do you really think players will come back if they are all unbanned? I still think Thran should be banned.

Personally I would play if more level-headed people played because I found SK very enjoyable.