Shattered Kingdoms

Hello!

While I've only played Shattered Kingdom for ~10 hours, I figured now was a good time to talk about what my starting experience has been like. I'm sure I'll post replies to this thread as I hit milestones. As for my background, I've played a lot of MUDs (most of them RP enforced) and I'm pretty familiar with the new player grind.

The website was helpful and had more info than most other sites. I felt confident in choosing a priest class and even had a rough idea of what Gods/Goddesses my character would find alignment with. I also enjoyed the good rp/bad rp information as it varies from MUD to MUD and gave me an idea of the 'flavor' of RP I could find in SK. Looking back, I think the website could do with a new player guide that is more focused on what happens once you leave the Academy. If that's too granular I think that a 'Day in the Life of an Adventurer' type post could be useful as well. The basics are explained at the Academy - go out, rp, train, level, find your place in the world. But the mechanics of doing that aren't really clear unless you find a player willing to help you. I could see this page being populated with bullet points like 'Short on food? Go to your Kingdom's main city and look for an inn' (with brief directions like 'the inn is in the southwest of the xyz district). 'Want to fight more fiercesome foes? Save your coin and buy a pet to aid you in battle'. While these are just two bullet points, I think it would really help with that feeling of being lost once outside the Academy and give players a short list of goals to accomplish so they aren't simply trying to make their own roadmap.

Overall, my experience has been positive. I'm patient and more than willing to look for answers on my own (and still not find them). When I left the Academy, I was in a field and wandered around trying to find a city. I chose a few directions (all of them wrong) and ended up dying to a tundra yeti. Whoops. Thankfully, the IMMs brought me back. I ended up not taking my coins and waterskins from my corpse which was totally my mistake. After I made it to the main city, I was rather hungry and tired so I decided to be stubborn. That's what my character would do IC. I managed to get out to the fields but I had no energy or mana. I just wanted to kill one or two critters to get enough coins to recall to the inn to buy myself a bowl of soup. I'm not proud to admit that this endeavor took me an hour and yielded exactly 0 coppers. Turns out that chipmunks do not carry secret stashes of coins. Damn you, realism.

Anyways, from that point on, I met another player and the game got considerably better. They helped me get to another city via a gate, showed me how to fight with a pet, and dropped me off in a village where I could hone my skills. Well, I still didn't bring food because I assumed that I could leave the village and go back to the city to buy food. Turns out that I couldn't because it was super dangerous. Thankfully I was able to get another gate back to the city in my home Kingdom, but I was left with no idea where I should train or what I should do. I wandered the roads and forests for a few hours until my barghest got double teamed by an alligator and some other monstrosity. I'm not sure how to purchase another one in Menegroth - I saw a pet shop once, but without a map, it'll be lots of wandering and checking doors for me. In case anyone asks - I tried to request a mentor twice. The first time, none were available. The second time I didn't ever have anyone reach out.

If my tale above sounds gloomy, I want to reiterate that I'm having fun. However I do think players from MUDs that have a slightly less freeform starting experience would be bewildered and frustrated at certain aspects of the game. Either way, I look forward to playing more and posting my thoughts if y'all care to hear them.

Great post. Your thoughts and suggestions are more than welcome! Your perspective, as a new player, it vital to the growth and development of the MUD. I anticipate our admins will agree.

I enjoyed reading this. Nice to hear new opinions. Keep going!

Great feedback - it's definitely appreciated.
The admins have generally been playing for 15+ years, so it really can get hard to remember what it's like to be a new player here. Plus, the perspective and expectations of a new player today are likely to be significantly different than what ours were in 1997 or 2002.

I think giving a world map to people when they leave the academy would help. Along with something saying “head to exile and find the sewer grate I. The center of town. Climb down there and clear the sewers of rats and maggots.”

That would allow them to get into a city and possibly run across some PC’s to spark the “where do I train next” concept.

I also think that everyone who has gm’d a character or two knows the general training route, based on level. But is it possible to somehow implement a guide book that suggests where to train at each level?
Give them a map and a guide book when they are kicked out of the academy.

I'd take world maps, city maps, anything. You could even have a quest chain starting at a library or in the center of town to 'earn' a rough map. I think that the map on the website helps, but once you get out past the city gates, the scale just absolutely loses you. I know that a lot of MUDs are hesitant to provide such information, but having recently played a game that had a literal Excel sheet of directions to major questing areas, I have to say, I'm a fan. IC, your character should know where <Menegroth> and other major areas are located. Even if they've only heard vague rumors of <xyz forest>, they should know that it's NW of <area>. It really highlights the difference between old and new players when you have to ask someone for directions to help you get to an area multiple times each play session. IC, I try to be as little of a bother as possible and ask if I can get a rough idea of how to get home, but even that gets tiring. I really want to play a priest who gives sermons across the land and invites conversations about differing tenets, but I can barely make it beyond my city.

I know that players who have put in 10+ years are likely proud of all the time that they spent mentally mapping the game, so I don't think all areas should be given maps/directions. Secret areas, or end-game PvP areas might still need to be discovered. Either way, having maps or directions would really open the game and give power to new players to find RP and new experiences.

So I know that maps are available in Teron and in The Empire.
I haven’t looked at one in ages though.
Try checking *list* at whatever NPC says “hey, are you new to this fine city?” He might be the one that sells them. I think Uxmal maps are sold on the streets in Teron.
I don’t know about an IC world map though.
I always just “emote pulls out a large map” and then I look at the main site’s world map. Mainly for islands at this point though.
There are also resources elsewhere online, but I think mentioning them in the forums is forbidden. Lol

But honestly, we all went through it man. It’s tough but learning things out is half the fun.
It’s been said for a long one that Esskay has a steep learning curve.” But steps have been taken to ease the curve.

I'm not here to change SK or go on a tirade about how 'some other MUD with a completely different playerbase and ethos did it this way so you should too!'. This goes doubly so as I've experienced maybe 3% of what the game has to offer.

However... brushing confusing systems under the rug that alienate players and leave them to either explore for 30+ minutes or hope another player is on to help them (and that the other player isn't busy with their own pursuits or otherwise occupied). That 30 minute estimate is just that - I've spent longer trying to find shops with no success.

I'm all for organic discovery and that feeling that comes when you can cross a continent by memory alone, but at the end of the day, I play MUDs to rp and playing trial and error with a map I can't comprehend the scale of isn't that. I'm sure many new players would agree.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to say that your view is wrong or anything like that.
Honestly, we don’t get enough input from first-time esskayers. We all really do value your detailed breakdown of your experiance. Hence my suggestion for a world map and a leveling guide book.
That being said, to have a travel guide for the entire game isn’t quite plausible. So I think we need to find a balance between offering guidance and allowing someone to free roam.

Maybe city maps can be sold in an inn so that they’re accessible upon recalls?

So a world map and a leveling guide upon training to novice status. And city maps sold in inns.
I think that would solve a majority of the troubles expressed here.

Anything with a map and a legend would be massive to helping true new skers. That and maybe a way to ask an innkeeper where should I go. With a tip to use area as a function. But back in my day I went to here. and they give a coord to the location