Shattered Kingdoms

Really? I GM'd a Hellion between 60-70 hours using the same tools any player could get and access to areas any player could reach. What happens later? Areas are nerfed and no longer usable. So where was the Bizarre cheat there? You can feel free to make any excuse you want with the issue, but watching leveling areas get owned and then a feature that pretty much kicks you out of an area after so many levels making you find somewhere near (Which for most new players isn't going to be that easy, and more than likelt get them killed repeatedly trying).

We aren't even talking about the same things. I'm talking about strange exploits that twinks like to use. For example, two twinks used to find an NPC that was really easy and gives a good amount of XP. The first one would beat it down on mode stun. The second one would constantly heal it back to full health. They would do this on just one NPC and the fighter would gain 10-15 levels.

What non-twink would think to do this? It isn't natural. It isn't good RP. It isn't even FUN. Behaving this way shouldn't be rewarded with levels, so I put in mechanisms to prevent it (no, not familiarity - this was WAY before that). Again, this is just one example. I've had to deal with stupid crap like this at least a dozen times over the years.

Is constantly fighting the same NPC for levels really less fun than killing it and waiting for it to respawn over and over?

If leveling is supposed to be fun, the repetitiveness needs to go.

I don't know if would be appropriate for this game, but a game I used to play that was highly dependent on repetition for learning every skill (with no skill cap) came up with this idea of "alternate XP." It was a flag you could choose that would allow you to gain a huge boost to XP-gained per repetition, but it came with a timer that would prevent you from gaining any xp for an hour or two after.

This meant you could go practice your juggling or flute playing skills for 10 minutes, gain an hour's worth of XP, then roleplay for 2 hours while your timer ticks down on your skills. Of course, grinding for 2 hours straight would still be faster, but without the free time to roleplay.

So you find the twinks and punish them, you don't punish *everyone* for the onesy-twosy twinks.

This is largely because you decided to turn this into a discussion about a few cheats busted up instead of what the conversation was actually about in the first place.

Actually anyone with half a brain cell could figure this one out the moment they find out XP is given for damage done and not the death of the NPC. You're the one that left the system open for abuse with this logic. Hell I did this with my Shaman since I had the heal spell available to me, but sadly I got cursed and chewed out for it cause I decided to think outside the box.

- It isn't natural? Lame point, in a world of magic how does one term something as natural? You can beat someone down and use magic to heal them back up for another round.

-It isn't good RP? [REDACTED], people do this in the real world for purposes of torture, hell some people get off on it, see no reason why an evil person would not do this.

-It isn't even fun? Wait killing countless NPCs, and waiting for a respawn is fun? Do you seriously play your own game?

If you're sick of dealing with this crap and supplying weak points against it cause "YOU" don't like it. Then why not change it to the more traditional way players game XP in in RPG based games. Hell I'm sure alot of casters would thank you for it. Now if you want to go the route and say, well what stops a GM from speed leveling a lowbie by doing al the killing for him? Well WoW even solved that problem making this action impossible, since all a 70 can do is run them through quests. The game takes into consideration the level gap between players in a group and penalizes the low level from getting even a fraction of the XP he should get from the NPC. The game will even flag a creature to the player attacking so the lower level can't sit out of group, and get the full XP for getting in the final blow, hell they even thought one step farther and made it so that even if the lower level tags the creature, and gets someone to dwindle it down for them, they will loss their tag on it and the other high level character gets it.

I mean really, there's other options to prevent what you don't like and keeps people from thinking outside the box when it comes to level in ways "YOU" don't approve of. It's human nature to look for a short cut in doing something, especially when it's time consuming and boring.

<3 Chem

Torture? Don't make me laugh. It wasn't about any such RP. The only torture going on is that people force themselves to take the most "time-efficient" (which is also the most BORING) path to level. And then they blame the game for their own choices.

I find this extremely sad, and it's something that I personally never do when playing MMOs, because I enjoy the build-up. However, there ARE always going to be people that, for some reason (masochism?), enjoy this. Grinding is true in pretty much every MMO, even the vaunted World of Warcraft. Hell, we have sad advertisements for guides to "level 70 in 70 hours" that sometimes pop up on this website.

Chemhound just admitted in his prior post that Warcraft has also architected their game to inhibit certain ways of power-levelling a character. Hey, they do the same things that I do, just that they've apparently done it better. There's no difference in philosophy.

The only two differences between SK and WoW in this regard is that:
1. Blizzard Entertainment has millions of dollars to spend on development.
2. On most WoW servers, high-level and low-level characters don't mix.

So as we've heard people say in this debate and elsewhere: SK players feel compelled to level in the most god-awful boring way possible, because they feel that they can't enjoy the game until GM. The levelling speed itself isn't the problem. Letting people level faster would actually make the problem worse. The solution is making the mid-level game more compelling. And there have been several good suggestions about that on this thread and I think that's what this debate should be about.

Oh please, now you want to discuss RP with leveling. So tell me Dulrik, what's the RP in the countless slaughter of NPCs? Lighties breaking into prison cells and slaughtering the inhabits? Darkies and Greys killing cities 100 times over of it's citizens, for the goal of becoming more powerful? So what's the difference in killing thousands, compared to just beating the snot out of one and letting him recover for the next round (Boxing anyone?). And when did time efficiency become the most boring route in anything?

That's great when it comes to what you like, but how about what the majority likes or you just rather think about yourself? I mean that's great you like the build up, some people do. Others like myself are sick of it since we've done this same buildup one too many times.



The same holds true on every game that has levels. How is SK any different? Gear most of the times makes a character, especially in the melee department, yet low-mid level characters can't keep the good stuff, and usually don't dare enchant their stuff in fear of losing it all. Where a GM has no such fear and comes out with the best resistances then one that can't enchant his armor. So unless you decide to do something about this, I'm afraid SK falls in the same boat, not to mention the extra perk of 5 stat points, meaning less mods needing to be worn for better pieces of EQ.

And there's nothing compelling about mid level of a game, when there are high levels to achieve/strive for.

You were the one who brought up the comparison to torture. I just applied as many criteria as I could, including RP, to the topic before stating that none of them applied.


That is not a fact - it's just your opinion. There is a certain type of player who feels that way and you are one of them. But SK doesn't cater exclusively to that style of play. SK tries to balance several different playstyles into it's own unique combination.

You can argue that this fact is what makes SK a smaller MUD. I've always said that the subset of people who enjoy both RP and Tactics is smaller than either group by itself. But it's also what makes SK the game that it is. If all you want to do is get to top-level and gank people, WoW is always going to be a better game for that. SK lets you tell a story with your character that can make an impact on the world. My view is that you should be able to make that impact earlier than GM.

Man...I sure am glad this thread isn't about obese strippers.