Shattered Kingdoms

There will always be a way to cheat and make things easier. If vendors told you about their items without selling them, you'd just have a new thread in that OOC forum named "Vendor lists," and you'd have freshly rolled characters asking high level PCs to gate them to Nerina to buy a yellow rock because it makes them more intelligent.

Holding membership in a certain OOC site because I wanted to help people with their syntax errors in quests they had figured out but couldn't get the command for, or to shoot around possible character builds with people who enjoy that aspect of the game isn't even remotely related to the situation at hand, yet you just can't seem to stay on topic.


There's still an established way for you to fix this "problem", and in a much more speedy and easy way. Go to each vendor and identify that crap yourself, then make astral board posts. It'll take just as much time, if not less, than it would for a set of IMMs or Dulrik to do it, and no one's stopping you. Since you keep hinting that you think you could do a better job than the staff, then you go right on ahead and prove it.

If your answer is "That isn't worth the time," then you see where I'm coming from.

As long as there are rules, rules can always be broken. I agree. Whether that is profitable or not, though, is a function of those rules and the resources available. The "open book test" analogy works well here. Sure you could bring your own notes to an open book test, but the opportunity costs have changed.

You can make excuses all you want, but you still post in the threads that mean you read content that has nothing to do with your purported benevolent intent. You cheat. It is there for anyone to see. You trade OOC information with the same dirty little hands that tell people to buy and identify things themselves.

There might be an established way to distribute information, but that doesn't mean there can't be better ways. You are an incompetent Luddite if you can't see that.

I mean, really. Why can't you understand? Why are you so intent on staying in your tiny little box?

What did innovation ever do to you?!

I'm sure that things look wonderful from that high horse, but the vast majority of information on that particular site is either useless, incorrect, or outdated, and the people who utilize it are very easy to spot. I do not utilize it in the giving or taking of information.

I don't consider neutering the universe of SK to make a handful of shops easier to identify worth the price, or even close to it. I'm also not opposed to progress or innovation, I just think that it's a step backwards to make every item identifiable before its purchased.

You want innovation and results combined? Identify them all and post it on the astral boards yourself. You should know as well as I that an update like this is going to be low priority.

oh my god

your head is where thoughts go to die

Because I possess the ability to separate my characters' experiences from my OOC knowledge?

no

that's not even something to brag about

because its impossible

because your characters' experiences are your ooc knowledge









I should have noticed this kind of stupid a lot sooner.

Might I suggest that the reason for the argument is different goals?

I'm generally with Edoras, in that exploring the game world was part of my initial attraction to SK. So while I can see value in general guides (How do newbies know to order pets to bash?), I want to try things for myself. In most stores, for Journeyman characters, the amount of gold to try something out is trivial. The exceptions are largely exceptions for a reason, IMO.

But if you're interested in success rather than the journey, using past-life information is a HUGE help. It's easy to create cover stories that explain how your character knows X, even though a newbie playing that character wouldn't have a clue. Given the time required for trial-and-errot, it's more a question of how much you "cheat", as opposed to whether or not you do it.

So how do you balance this? IMO, it's unrealistic to expect a newbie to be a great player in the PK game. So let new people do the exploration/RP stuff that they can have fun with, instead of trying to jump-start PK success. This comes later, for those who care.

Veterans should be constrained in using OOC knowledge by the roleplay standards of their cabals; this is something I think we may have lost in emphasizing CTF success.

There are reasons for having herbs/potions/scrolls/staves/containers/stat mods/etc that don't involve PVP.

I'm not surprised that you can only think of a single reason to want these things, though.

For the most part, merchants should tell you the quality of the item, at the very least, properties of the item would certainly be a nice bonus. This should only apply to items that are sold naturally by the shop keeper. Which means a flag for items that would further enable builders to be more specific on which items can be identified by the shop keeper and which shouldn't be.

Appraise 1
Vendortype says, "That item is made of bejeweled elephant ear, which is of poor quality and has been known to help moderately enhance strength."

Or, to make it a simpler output, just show as it would when identify is cast on the item.

Appraise 2
Vendortype says, "I am sorry, I do not really know much about that item. It was just recently added to my store from a trade."

Sure there are applications besides PvP. But then the question is, are these items still so important that you have to know about them? For most adventuring situations, it doesn't really matter whether you have the amulet of +4 dexterity, or even a healing potion. Items that truly are useful, like flight staves, are not hard to find.

Granted, there are some areas that do call for every advantage you can muster. But these are not zones where new players are going to thrive without help anyway.

I'm sympathetic that more modern games have automatic features like this. And if this is done as adding appropriate RP to shopkeepers, as opposed to a 100% true and stat-centric identify, great. But keep in mind this game is directed at a different audience than WoW is. What's an ease-of-use feature in an Achiever-oriented game can be a content-drainer in a game catering more to Explorers and Roleplayers.