Shattered Kingdoms

An hour or so. I did it with a priest just a few days ago. And why wouldn't my character "magically" know the location of areas listed under the area command. It's my philosophy that anything that's in helpfiles, area commands and whatnot is common knowledge. My character didn't spend his entire childhood in a bubble void of knowledge.

Playing a completely ignorant character when you aren't is a terrible burden on the rest of the community and potentially takes helpful attention away from where it is needed -- real newbies.

I have an issue when considering the "area" command as common knowledge, because its not until after you have been there that the location on a sextant is known. If this information was made available as soon as you were of the minimum level, I don't think there would be any problem, however as you have to "discover" the area to have the coordinates listed, that suggests that the location is IC knowledge that needs to be gained.

Under your statement, going up to a gm and saying "where is the blasted chancel?" would be acceptable. Just randomly wandering into the deep south, unclaimed territories, and finding it would be use of OOC information IMHO. I never understood why the sextant coordinates were obscured, however. That being said, I am just as guilty as yourself for "finding" areas on most characters... However Feldon required everything shown to him.

That's to encourage you to explore more at lower levels and thereby break up some of the monotony of combat grinding. The inverse is also important - make it harder for people to save all their quests until the end and then score lots of quest XP at a point where leveling is finally becoming more difficult. There's probably still an overabundance of high level quests available.

I understand this sentiment, but there are some areas that are pretty darned hard for a lowbie to reach, such as the ice fortress I believe it's called. It's like a low apprentice or jmanish area I believe if memory serves correctly out in the snow. Anyone who's traveled the wastes know that, for a lowbie, in which PE is already consumed enough by normal traveling, areas like that are nearly impossible to traverse without a mount. That and the dangers with exploring of course at low levels. (Tigers, giant locusts though I've not seen them in a while now..etc.)

Why would you traverse as a lowbie without a mount is beyond me.

The ice fortress quest (lightie option) is also damn near impossible for the level range that is supposed to be there.

Why an experienced player lowbie would? Yes. Why a MUD/SK newbie lowbie would? Well, I hope it's not too far beyond you. Sometimes that needs consideration.

I was responding to kin, not everyone.

However, that does give me an idea of having all newbie areas house a NPC that strongly suggests you purchase a mount for travel, or even give you a simple quest which rewards you with a paper of animal ownership or something of the sort that gives you a free pet of your choice in the local pet shop.

This is a win idea.