Shattered Kingdoms

Now I remember what happened to my first character on SK: I struggled through upper Veteran, barely made it through Expert because of a bonanza, and hit a wall at Mentor. I was at the point that I couldn't really gain enough exp to train my Mentor level spells. Now I'm not new to ranking on MUDs, having put probably thousands of hours into other MUDs. I recognize that some classes are better at solo leveling (what I tend/need to do) than others in general. I was left in a place where I really needed to find a good area to rank, but my explorations carried such a risk of death and XP loss that I didn't wish to venture out. I did ask IC a bit and got mixed results.

After spending 2-3 hours on my current gaining one-half of a Veteran level, I got bored and tried a new area that "should" have been within my abilities. I killed a NPC that left me at 60%, thought, "OK, this might be doable," and then rested back to full health. Fought another of the same NPC, had to flee at 40%, and was essentially one-shotted by an aggro. Great.

Now I imagine that maybe after much perseverance I might make it to Grand Master. It is basically a requirement that one has priestly friends to do any risky exploring? I can't imagine how frustrating it would be to try a new area, die to a dangerous NPC (or death trap), then be forced to grind for hours and hours to get my exp (and perhaps my eq) back. And considering it's fairly common that there are only 6-10 players on including myself, often no priests...

Finally, what happens if/when after many deaths and many hours of grinding all the GM areas turn to "red" familiarity?

Not sure why you're losing xps to dying. Are you too impatient to wait for someone to resurrect you?

In my experience...limited as it is, I find that after around 4 levels its time to move on. Now depending on alignment, your access to the vast amounts of training areas for master and up area depends on who you have to support you.

I know that this doesnt answer your question, but once you hit yellow ask around and see where you can go.

PS I've never hit red in an area. And have had 3 gms so far.

PSS. I play mostly during the day and night. There is usually a priest on all the time. (Should you have the correct alignment). And I'm sure there can be pity rezs should there not be any of your alignment

As Ardith said.... most areas shouldn't kill you. Unless you are over extending your abilities. And if you are a caster of sorts pay attention to pet health and don't spam.

If impatient means "I don't see anyone with priestly-looking titles and I want to get my equipment back before someone loots it because it was very expensive to buy and hard to earn"...



I'll give you a recent example. I started exploring the caves in the forest of Morea for the first time. I was cautiously poking around while invisible, considering various NPCs, when I ran into this blue Fytrysk thing. The first page of combat spam left me at 45%, I fled and was followed and dropped to 15%. I managed to teleport out; I consider myself very lucky. Then I went to the forums and searched to find that this seems to be a common experience.

So... I think it's more like, "Most areas shouldn't kill you, if you have good area knowledge." In my recent experience of dying from 40% flee --> aggro I was trying to improve my area knowledge because I was very tired of fighting the same NPCs over and over again for the last 10-15 hours of my character's life.

How long does it take most of you to recover a lost level in the GM range? Or do you just flat out always wait for a res? What about losing equipment?

I tend to just cut lost equipment losses. Of course when I die, it's virtually guaranteed that it was in PK and that I'm going to get looted and not see anything back.

Reincarnation is just a horrible, horrible choice. I'd rather get new equipment then be stuck grinding through getting a lost level back.

If it's any consolation about 99/100 newbies (and not so newbies) die there. Congratulations on surviving your first blue fytrysk encounter; you're in the top 1%. Someone get this guy a T-shirt.


Most of us would wait for a resurrection or answer the oracle until the point that it starts draining our XP if there is no priest available. As a newbie you are very unlikely to get looted. You probably have mediocre gear, at best, and most people don't loot low level characters anyway. One thing you could do to help with all of this would be to ask IC for tips on where to go to level. There are a few areas in each level range that everyone knows are the best, and anyone you ask would be able to give you pointers.

OK, I'll have to readjust my perspective if exp loss at high levels is so damaging that it's better to lose gear. In past MUDs I've played it can take many, many hours to get high-level, limited gear back. Also so I understand it a well-enchanted set takes many hours to produce (though maybe better now what enchant changes?) For my current Veteran character, I spent something like 2+ obsidian on gear from shops which took me a very long time to earn.

Fleeing seems next-to-useless on SK. My new strategy is 'c teleport'. There's just no way I can seem to outrun NPCs -- for example, I posted in the "first kills" thread that my first NPC death was vs. a tiger. I must have run at least 20-30 rooms from that cat before I petered out.

You will learn which NPCs chase you don't and which don't. It's always fine to flee against the latter. I think you are setting up a false dichotomy regarding XP loss vs. EQ loss. If you die, especially as a low level character (ie, under GM), it's very unlikely that anyone is going to go loot you. You almost certainly have nothing of value to them and I'm assuming you aren't anyone's enemy, so they'll have no cause to do so. Thus, it is usually fine to wait for a resurrection then go get your gear. If you have a very specific reason to believe that someone is going to come for your loot then you may want to reincarnate to get it back, but that's going to be rare.

Poltergeist command......nuff said. But if you do not know what this is.

[Command help] poltergeist

Syntax: poltergeist [object] to [direction]

Although no longer having a material body, the spirits of the dead can
interact with the material world in a limited way if they expend enough effort.
The poltergeist command allows a ghost to rattle, levitate and hurl unclaimed
objects that are nearby in the physical world.

The act of poltergeisting drains the ghost of both magical and meta-physical
energy. The heavier the object, the more energy will be expended. Items
may only be poltergeisted when the area is in a peaceful state. Spirits do
not have to manifest to poltergeist and doing so makes it clear which
spirit is causing the paranormal activity.

See also: manifest death exorcism seance


Use this to get your corpse to a safer location.