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Lutra
 
PostPosted: Wed, Jun 13 2018, 9:34 AM 



Player

Joined: 12 Feb 2008

Dark Immolation wrote:
Lutra wrote:
@DI: Sorry about the chat thing. We were all preparing for for that chat on that day and we weren't aware that it is happening when it was happening. The DM in question shared the logs and we weren't sure what was left to be discussed unless any further question appears.


The point is, Lutra, it's not a discussion if you've already made up your mind. I'll repeat that. It's not a discussion if you've already made up your mind. And the team has a pretty bad habit of absolutely refusing to change their mind, even in the face of overwhelming player response. That's the issue, and I'm not sure how else to explain it if it's not obvious why that's a problem. That's our problem in so many ways. I'm not upset that the "discussion" didn't happen, I'm upset that there never seems to be a point of trying to sway the DM team with facts/precedent/logic because so rarely does the team differ. And half the time, its the DM team waiting for one or two DMs to yay or say something first, then the rest coming in to back them up. I don't know if it's that those sort of satellite DMs are afraid of stepping on toes, or they don't have enough confidence to make their own opinions, but the fact of the matter is it really doesn't seem like there's any real discussion happening on that end either.

Additionally, teams post-2013 I guess have had somewhat of a fetish for controlling stories that they never had control of, rather than building on them. The melodramatic parts of PS's rant aside, some of those are frustrations I've been voicing for years about consistency. How older players are run off by feeling like everything is up to be retconned or retooled under new teams. Removing areas doesn't make the remaining areas any more popular, interesting, or approachable. Why would it be any different for lore and requests? I'm reminded of a few years back when the team essentially wanted players to "re-request" their PrC approvals. The explanation was because it was hard to keep up with approvals from past teams and new DMs didn't know who was what; fair enough. But what it came across as was "let us yay-and-nay what previous teams already approved."

Retcons and removals should only be happening when the thing that would happen if they weren't removed is more detrimental. The fact that what I'm talking about was perfectly fine in lore for years, until the DM who started it left. That's all it took. He's not here to defend his plot, no one else not even the players involved can stop us from saying it happened different. We don't care for this idea, so poof, it goes away. 1) Even if that was a thing you should do, you tell the players involved, rather than quietly waiting for them to discover it years later OoCly 2) even if a retcon was done under a previous team, the current team could and should just as easily say "yeah, no, let's keep with the original story, it's not up to us to change that stuff to suit our preferences. It's their story and server as much as ours." 3) "Sorry." Does not. Cut it.

Listen. If I walk into my weekly P&P session and my GM goes "Hey, I know I took over this year-long campaign from your friend 2 months ago, but I decided that your PC is actually a demon worshiper. Yeah, that priest of Kossuth in your backstory was actually a demon." I say "Well, while that's a neat story Scott, that's not really what I intended on playing, nor what the previous GM ran. At all. I mean, I'm willing to talk about it and see what works for us both? But that's kind of shitty to unilaterally decide." If Scott then goes "No, screw you, discuss all you want, but you're in MY campaign now, and you're a demon worshiper," you know what happens? I pick up my dice, I say cool beans, and I'll see the rest of you later for drinks.

Make the wrong things right and just learn to leave well enough alone. I appreciate you guys for sticking in there. I appreciate you for showing up at all. But I hate this narrative that your hands are tied and like you have no power here. Yes some issues are the ones you've inherited from past teams, but mine and I'm sure others can easily be solved by the team saying "Hey, our bad. We or a previous team made a mistake. Yes. Let's do the thing that makes sense for you here, see you in game." That simple.


Well indeed Grave was broadcasting the team's opinion on the matter but I have read the chatlog myself and I think Grave made a really great effort in understanding your point of view or why the matter is so important.

I get the part about the whole "retcon" fear because that is the reason why I left repeatedly between 2012-14. There were times when it was impossible to make a point a DM even if I gave page numbers from FRCS, PGF or from Waterdeep sourcebook or to explain that an NPC's behavior is not actually consistent or not even remotely similar to how it was done before. I am not going to get into the area removal parts because I might as well say something in public that I would regret later. Being someone who was a victim of those retcons with more than one character, other DMs suffered similar fate in the recent past, so I think it is rather unfair to say that we didn't even bother to at least see the weight of the situation

In this case the story was isolated and not just because it wasn't marked but it wasn't mentioned to other DMs. Furthermore it did clash with the lore of parallel events at the time and events that followed after that. Grave also indicated that this will not influence your character's abilities in any form and just like in the case of the examples your character is welcome to worship such and just like in the case of the heresy examples you mentioned that chat, divine support would come. You are in the Dev chat still so feel free to add me on Skype or I will or send me a PM with the actual issue on that front. I really want to understand it despite the claims to the contrary

_________________
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Budly
 
PostPosted: Wed, Jun 13 2018, 9:49 AM 

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I think a big problem is "This is our opinion as the team.

It makes you sound like machines or a CEO and their suits around a big table. What is your own personal opinions as DMs?

In my opinion over the last days, what Amia really need to do is clean out the past. There is no easy ways of doing this. Either by a full reboot of the server, making Amia 2 or really digging into old festering wounds. Neither is fun. It do not help to see Tormak drop by and act crude towards players who think they been wronged, have they? Have they not? I do not know. But Tormak is associated with the old days. No matter DM or Admin title removed, old players will see him as an Amian associate. Not saying PassionateShadow was right either, both did a move that shows of a shattered group of people bickering.

I also think we need to all get on equally footing, less anger from players but also less "corperate" talk from DMs as I mentioned up there.

Maybe a "Gameplan" for the future, a milestone post. I see more and more game companies post about this, "We will in 2019 release Shadows of Luskan, A pack of new beards and The anticipated Dungeon Lurkers Cave, etc etc".

I also think energy need to be channeled into what is needed on the server. In my personal opinion, adding to the server right now might be bit suicidal. A too big server with a bit to little amount of players are a bad allocation of time. It is bit boring for devs who like to build.

I do not want to come off as rude but beside some other servers,Amia seems to have built for big areas with simplified outlook to not drag down the server and keep things simple for just dungeon run areas. Let the devs if they build new, do more to give areas character. Some servers are extremely beautiful out there and to be frank, Amia is not on that level. It still looks good but it do not combine assets like I seen on other servers which I presume is old rules set to not drain the server (because of size) and not really the devs.

For Amia to grow numbers, we will very active and talkin DMs who help players kick start things. With growing interest from DMs in peopels eyes, the interest of players will also grow. Last night had an kidnapped NPC from an event. This is players showing a growing interest. You need something to start a fire with, a spark from other sources.

DMs and Devs have a higher say so than players, but only together can we make this place prosper. A mutual respect need to be shaped.

I would also love to see easier access to what year it is, a Amian history page and an official standpoint on lore on the main page if there is non and on the forums.

_________________
Plays:
Sylveera : Sun Elven fury packed in an Arcane Archer, not a Drow, promise.
Tetrik : Greed incarnate in a Duergar.
Budly : Has gone to a better place.
Barrililath : Shadowy Drow, probably less Drow than Sylv ever be.


 
      
Lutra
 
PostPosted: Wed, Jun 13 2018, 11:48 AM 



Player

Joined: 12 Feb 2008

Budly wrote:
I think a big problem is "This is our opinion as the team.

It makes you sound like machines or a CEO and their suits around a big table. What is your own personal opinions as DMs?


Well we do share our personal opinions. If you look at our answers here and there then you will find differing opinions in our answers. However, when it comes to standardizing the lore is something we debate among eachother before we decide something especially in the case of sensitive matters like the one that DI made. Or let's say in the recent past Ruathym was something where I spent days shortly after I joined the team to at least make an attempt to make that place lore appropriate because initially it wasn't...not even remotely. Then later an attempt was made to standardize things but that drifted away towards unreasonable homebrew direction while adopting stuff from the 4th edition which wasn't a good idea.

In this case though my personal opinion is pretty much the same. A change in the lore would change the core lore of the Faerun sourcebooks which might as well not be wise for players/DMs of the future. Among the DM team I am probably more the "by the books" person and the reason why I am aiming for that because that is how we can more easily point out references for players and DMs alike. That is also my biggest flaw too. Seeing a wrongly played elf, tiefling, aasimar pains me physically, especially when the basic characteristics can't be noticed on them that are listed in Races of Faerun. Furthermore other things like: avariel with a bow, elves with crossbows, paladin with a whip etc etc etc. You asked for my personal opinion, you have it :P

As for the rest, I do agree with most part you are saying. The gameplan is something that might be a good idea. Now that we are slowly setting up the Dev team once more with Hrothmus' aid we might be able to present something.

As for the lore part I actually made a post somewhere that I would be happy to take any ideas how to fill out the gap years from 1372 (aside from the local events so we get a global picture). That would make certain subrace, PnP class and PRC, or special background requests a bit easier. I am sitting on it on my free time but if others chip in with ideas then it is a pant.

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Budly
 
PostPosted: Wed, Jun 13 2018, 12:09 PM 

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Joined: 04 Jan 2006
Location: Hin Town

Lutra wrote:
Budly wrote:
I think a big problem is "This is our opinion as the team.

It makes you sound like machines or a CEO and their suits around a big table. What is your own personal opinions as DMs?


Well we do share our personal opinions. If you look at our answers here and there then you find differences. However, when it comes to standardizing the lore is something that we debate among eachother before we decide something especially in the case of sensitive matters like the one that DI made. Or let's say in the recent past Ruathym was something where I spent days shortly after I joined the team to at least make an attempt to make that place lore appropriate because initially it wasn't...not even remotely. Then later an attempt was made to standardize things but that drifted away towards unreasonable homebrew direction while adopting stuff from the 4th edition which wasn't a good idea.

In this case though my personal opinion is pretty much the same. A change in the lore would change the core lore of the Faerun sourcebooks which might as well not be wise for players/DMs of the future. Among the DM team I am probably more the "by the books" person and the reason why I am aiming for that because that is how we can more easily point out references for players and DMs alike. That is also my biggest flaw too. Seeing a wrongly played elf, tiefling, aasimar pains me physically, especially when the basic characteristics can't be noticed on them that are listed in Races of Faerun. Furthermore other things like: avariel with a bow, elves with crossbows, paladin with a whip etc etc etc. You asked for my personal opinion, you have it :P

As for the rest, I do agree with most part you are saying. The gameplan is something that might be a good idea. Now that we are slowly setting up the Dev team once more with Hrothmus' aid we might be able to present something.

As for the lore part I actually made a post somewhere that I would be happy to take any ideas how to fill out the gap years from 1372 (aside from the local events so we get a global picture). That would make certain subrace, PnP class and PRC, or special background requests a bit easier. I am sitting on it on my free time but if others chip in with ideas then it is a pant.


Your post makes me happy, this is more of what we need. A common respect and dialogue ahead of the out right war. I do not want to say Passionate Shadow or Tormak is wrong, but we do not need this, we do not need me either going bonkers.

Im happy to read what you write! If I can help I help but my talents are limited.

_________________
Plays:
Sylveera : Sun Elven fury packed in an Arcane Archer, not a Drow, promise.
Tetrik : Greed incarnate in a Duergar.
Budly : Has gone to a better place.
Barrililath : Shadowy Drow, probably less Drow than Sylv ever be.


 
      
Revak
 
PostPosted: Wed, Jun 13 2018, 14:08 PM 

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Joined: 20 Nov 2010
Location: Inside a Magic Bag full of True Strike Potions

I'd back up an outline of what the team plans to do for the next project also. Improving visibility between players and the "staff" side of things would help to diffuse some arguements that have popped up in the past. If I wasn't busy with RL i'd even throw up my experience with area design to be used. :)

I'd also like to say this to any folk who have left the server, but still lurk on the forums be it through guest viewing or hiding their online status (like now for instance): The past presence of toxicity and name-calling have changed drastically in the last year, largely thanks to a core player base, the DMs improving with communication where they can and the Amian Discord channel that we all use. Getting to joke around/chat with each other on a personal level really goes a long way in avoiding the name-calling that was prevalent a few years ago. I see people return to the point of "But there's x amount of people on, there's no point hopping on", I wholly recommend you help solve that problem.

This won't appeal to everyone naturally as a few people have had bad experiences with Amia on IC and OOC levels, along with disagreements and hostility. I'm not even immune to that. After one certain story line I was on hiatus for a year because the whole thing just made me salty, until I returned and tried to kick up my activity. I'm just saying give it another shot. Right now there's faction areas that can be rented, the potential of turning a rather morally ambiguous island town and it's surrounding wilderness into somewhere where evil characters can try to establish themselves and we have a good pair of hands messing around with the DM client. Not only that, Mavrixio and RaveN are doing what they can in regards to helping us with the NWN:EE issues.

There's always going to be disagreements, as the above posts have shown. Amia isn't perfect, but it's damn well better than it was from a year ago. I'd love to see a return to the days where there were more than twenty people on at any time, but if you guys want to see that change then you're more than welcome to hop on and join in again. There's more than enough of the server for all of us to work with.

-Rev

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Gravemaskin
 
PostPosted: Wed, Jun 13 2018, 15:13 PM 

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Joined: 29 Jul 2007
Location: Norway: Home of the Trolls

Where we are now
The situation we currently find ourselves in has been one in the making for the past several years.
It's symptomatic of a greater problem that lies behind our current situation and it needs to be addressed properly or this downward spiral is going to persist.
Currently, there's been several complaints of low DM activity on the server, aside from a few. This isn't a wrong observation, but the reasons behind this haven't been fully stated.

RL fluctuates, as has been discussed before, and I've tried to explain but I'll go into greater detail. When I first became a DM, I tried to do a lot of spontaneous events & RP for people. However, I found myself at a roadblock, low player numbers with people instead opting to hover on the forums or discord until an event started. I know a lot of people want spontaneous events and stuff, but for them to even be a thing, we need players to actually be logged in within the timezones any individual DM has.

I eventually stopped doing spontaneous events, simply because I found myself all set up and prepared (which was anywhere between 15 minutes to 60 minutes of work) only to have no one show up or be around, or simply out hunting. Which is fine. Players are supposed to do what they most enjoy.
But when it occurred enough times where I spent hours doing nothing, I cut back and eventually stopped doing spontaneous events. I concluded that while people say they want it, they don't actually want to do the stuff that needs to be in place for it to be a thing. I don't know if it's a right or wrong conclusion, but it's the one I drew.

I then tried to shift my focus more towards announced events but noticed a trend of people only logging in for them and then disappearing again. That's not really helping the servers longevity at all, it's hurting it because it cuts out the "middle man" of the RP, the interaction between players only. When I became the Kohl DM, I tried to fix the issues the faction currently had and lay down the framework for increased player autonomy and evolvement so that they can influence the direction and diplomacy of the city itself,
to help facilitate it being a more living and breathing thing. However here I also ran into the problem of people losing interest or being otherwise engaged.
Which is fine, as I've mentioned in earlier posts, RL should always come first and how much free time you have will always be a fluid thing, but it's also the reason why it enraged me when my own get thrown in my face. I certainly didn't do the same to the playerbase when people had RL matters or decided to do other things instead, because it doesn't help anyone. If I had, it would probably have enraged people & caused others to quit because they felt unfairly treated.

What I'm saying is that there is a lot more to any one situation than people might realize, and taking a step back from it and assessing it from a level headded view might help you see a clearer picture. There is plenty of blame to go around when the current situation is concerned. Pointing fingers at people and assigning it doesn't help anyone. We're all to blame to some degree, so instead of focusing on what others should be doing, I would urge people to focus on what THEY should be doing to improve the situation. I'll take my part of the blame for being demotivated by the player trends I mentioned above and not spending as much time in-game as I could have between my exam periods, and use it for something positive when I'm able to come back and run events.

Bureaucracy
As Budly criticised the bureaucratic nature of the structure we have in place on Amia at the moment, i'd like to say a few things in defense of it since I've written 2 papers on the subject this semester.
A bureaucratic structure isn't perfect, it can take longer than people would like to have something done and it may seem impersonal. However, these are the sacrifices that have to be made in order to have a well-structured system that's as impartial as possible. We are a group of people from different parts of the world, which means timezone problems, add that on top of different RL schedules and you have the answer on why things can take a long time to sort out sometimes. If any of you have tried to organize a get-together IG or a meeting you know how long it can take to get 5 people in the same room for 2-3 hours. That's why sometimes we have discussions last for days on the DM side, it's not something that can be fixed, it comes with the territory of being a server with people from all corners of the world, both player & DM side. The bureaucratic system is why we have GSTs, the request system, guidelines for DM conduct & norms on how to do things that ensure consistency and avoids the pitfalls of when the system wasn't like it is now. It's something that's evolved over time, out of necessity, not desire. And it helps ensure that expectations people might have of how a DM should behave or what they should do remains consistent and not something that varies greatly depending on which DM you got. I personally think a system like this is far more preferable to individual DMs doing things on an ad-hoc basis, which would result in more unfair treatment of individual players based on how much the DM likes them or not, or judgment on requests varying far more than they do now.

It's not a perfect system, but it helps future proof things for when people rotate in and out of the team. And it's far better than almost any other alternative out there.

The way forward
So what is the DM team doing to resolve this current situation from our end?
We've upped our recruitment of DMs, adding 2 new ones this week alone. There is no upper limit on the number of DMs on the team, never has been. I'd like to remind everyone that we're not just recruiting DMs now, but always and to send in applications if you want to give it a try. We can't add new DMs if we don't get applications or the people we ask explicitly say no.
We've been working on implementing something the playerbase has expressed a desire for, something new and more dynamic. This involves one big event that will change some things, but it is something that takes time to get off the ground because it has to be coordinated by multiple DMs and is going to be an extended thing.
We're going to be setting up better lines of communication between DMs & GST's to better facilitate matters. We've once again increased transparency by voicing our concerns and opinions rather than withholding them. In the past, this wasn't done often and when concerns about the team were raised, they largely went unanswered or when specific situations/gripes people had with the DM team the player voiced their version of events and the team didn't.

This was to uphold confidentiality on those matters, sometimes for very good reasons, such as a player being banned and then having their friends bring it up as an injustice rather than having it discussed in private. This clearly hasn't worked well and damaged people's trust in the DM team and it's a stance that should be changed on our part.

We've been reviewing a ton of GST requests that got sent in this last week, I'll say the same as I said above on the DM application part, this is something that's always open and you can at any time submit one. Once those of us who can't run events ATM for various RL reasons have stuff sorted so that we can, we'll be returning to running them, this would be done regardless of people pointing out the increased DM absence, but I will point out that the antagonistic approach that was taken by some people here and the repeated nature of such things nearly cost us a few DMs, myself included. I'd recommend people re-read and check how they're phrasing themselves and see if it's actually constructive and can cause some good.

That is the main pointers of what we've done to try and help the situation, and it's what we're doing to help relieve the situation we currently find ourselves in. However, it's not going to matter in the end, unless players also do what they can to help fix things.

Log in more, try and create some RP on your own by dragging people onto the server from discord or whatever, be proactive. Not all of us will have all the time we wish we had to play on Amia, and that's completely okay. The important part is that we all stay active in some form or another, and try to encourage people to log on more rather than hover. It's what I was doing before I became a DM. Yeah, it's boring and exhausting but it can yield results and create some fun RP for everyone, regardless if a DM is online or not. Resorting to the same tribalism mentality that's been prevalent in the past will only serve to slay people's motivation for playing and result in the server finally dying.

I think that if we all do some changes as individuals and do what we can to be more active and cooperate more with other players or DMs, we should recover just fine. However if only some change and the others don't, then this downward spiral is going to continue.
I would again urge everyone to focus more on what you can do as individuals to help the situation, rather than pushing all of the burden or blame on others, because people who keep to the "put blame elsewhere" mentality tend to become pariahs and avoided by people, both players & DMs, because they are exhausting to interact with and it's not rewarding for anyone.

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Budly
 
PostPosted: Wed, Jun 13 2018, 16:27 PM 

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It is all good and dandy but when "off duty". I am sure you can step out of the office suit and just talk to us all without the Bureaucracy mindset.

I think is what often ticks me up in threads like this that it sounds like im calling the customer support or some government office who speaks in the same "standardized" language they all speak in with the same terms. I am not saying you should remove this, but some kind of "cookies and coffee" talks can be good to have. To show we are all Humans behind the curtains of the screen. May I suggest for those who enjoy this? A Discord voice chat or just extra room added to just talk Amia and our memories to show that we are all passionate Amian Humans behind the screen. Just a chat about the server, about Amia,about RP. Voice or typed. I think It is good to do a bounding in the community.

I been trying to organize big Paradox playthroughs taking months (a session a week) and I have DM:Ed myself online with people all over the country. I know it can take time and sometimes not even time and plans will work out the way one want it to.

And to gaze into the Abyss, I sadly think the lack of US DMs been a big killer for Amia. Or atleast I read people complain about this. I really hate other servers focus on American timezones since it alienates all else. I do not really think Amia cannot have DMs on those times but maybe an DM or two on American timezones will render some less "complains" on the American Timezones lack of events. I honestly do not know the nationality of most DMs on Amia.

_________________
Plays:
Sylveera : Sun Elven fury packed in an Arcane Archer, not a Drow, promise.
Tetrik : Greed incarnate in a Duergar.
Budly : Has gone to a better place.
Barrililath : Shadowy Drow, probably less Drow than Sylv ever be.


 
      
LeathanKayne
 
PostPosted: Wed, Jun 13 2018, 20:09 PM 

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Joined: 03 Apr 2005
Location: Ontario, Canada

I'm in the EST/US/Canada timezone myself, but I've had health, stress, and other RL factors holding me up a lot lately. When I can I try to run small events or enhance some hunts I see people on.
I will say, I am currently working on a longer term project right now with new areas and a wide variety of events that can be done there. I've basically only just begun it at the moment. Hopefully I'll have more to say about it in the near future.

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Magiros
 
PostPosted: Wed, Jun 13 2018, 20:24 PM 

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Joined: 28 Nov 2006

Thumps up at the event that is coming and changing things. Gets me excited to know that soon there is something happening with a longer-term haul instead of one off event. Nothing bad in the latter, but usually don't impact the character in question so much. I just hope that the communication is set up in a way that doesn't make player having four different stories about it from different DM's and then trying to figure out what is what.. Or that the event takes a sudden turn when something is intertwined into it.

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Budly
 
PostPosted: Wed, Jun 13 2018, 20:33 PM 

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LeathanKayne wrote:
I'm in the EST/US/Canada timezone myself, but I've had health, stress, and other RL factors holding me up a lot lately. When I can I try to run small events or enhance some hunts I see people on.
I will say, I am currently working on a longer term project right now with new areas and a wide variety of events that can be done there. I've basically only just begun it at the moment. Hopefully I'll have more to say about it in the near future.


I had my own health and stress related issues and I thank you for the honesty. You should always focus on feeling healthy before anything else :)

_________________
Plays:
Sylveera : Sun Elven fury packed in an Arcane Archer, not a Drow, promise.
Tetrik : Greed incarnate in a Duergar.
Budly : Has gone to a better place.
Barrililath : Shadowy Drow, probably less Drow than Sylv ever be.


 
      
Lutra
 
PostPosted: Thu, Jun 14 2018, 12:04 PM 



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Joined: 12 Feb 2008

Budly wrote:
It is all good and dandy but when "off duty". I am sure you can step out of the office suit and just talk to us all without the Bureaucracy mindset.

I think is what often ticks me up in threads like this that it sounds like im calling the customer support or some government office who speaks in the same "standardized" language they all speak in with the same terms. I am not saying you should remove this, but some kind of "cookies and coffee" talks can be good to have. To show we are all Humans behind the curtains of the screen. May I suggest for those who enjoy this? A Discord voice chat or just extra room added to just talk Amia and our memories to show that we are all passionate Amian Humans behind the screen. Just a chat about the server, about Amia,about RP. Voice or typed. I think It is good to do a bounding in the community.


Well we do respond like that or I like to think we do, especially when we are on playerside or while we are on discord. We try at least. It is really hard to find the balance but I am going to explain why.

The gap you and others have mentioned earlier is indeed there and sometimes unintentional or defensive from our part. Sometimes people just assume that there is a gap or they assume that the gap is bigger than it is. I don't think that we are different than other servers when it comes to that tbh.

Let me just give an example on my behalf. When I became a DM I've made a "mistake" letting my skype account linking me to other platforms where people could get additional information from my person. A few days after I became a DM more people added me on skype and then out of nowhere I received comments on my appearance from people I haven't talked with before on a personal level and def not those whom I can consider as my friends in the Amia community. Seeing that I never posted anything to the "People behind their characters" thread I immediately gave a WTF look to the screen after reading a comment like that. A few days later I received notification on someone meddling with my email account which was the trigger (even if it happened too late) to change all my contact information in that regard. After that you obviously like to keep a certain distance from people especially those that you don't know well enough.
Other things that you notice in cases like this that people want to become too friendly. In most cases that is out of good faith but there are other cases when people indeed have hidden intent. That's also something that a DM should consider because these are also the channels where if you say no, then you can expect an immediate flip in attitude or rather vindictive attitude as a worst case scenario. These are things that do happen and happened before. I have seen and heard of at least 2 DMs before my time who had been bullied out by players while other DMs couldn't do or refused to do anything about it. Same thing happened with DM(s) vs other DM(s) int the past or DMs vs player(s)

So these are things that exist. I think every community has that and the Amian community was quite toxic until recently, despite the fact that toxicity was usually tied to a rather small but very loud minority. It is hard to find the balance there especially if some or many of us do have bitter memories about that but I am confident that it is possible especially if the constructive posters in this and other threads mean what they say.

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Magiros
 
PostPosted: Thu, Jun 14 2018, 12:12 PM 

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The exqct reason why I used for game only slype that was not linked to anything and all my email accounts are trash accounta not linked to anything real. Skype I dont use anymore as the experience was enough about that.

Discord or here are the only places to catch me now.

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Budly
 
PostPosted: Thu, Jun 14 2018, 13:36 PM 

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Joined: 04 Jan 2006
Location: Hin Town

Lutra wrote:
Budly wrote:
It is all good and dandy but when "off duty". I am sure you can step out of the office suit and just talk to us all without the Bureaucracy mindset.

I think is what often ticks me up in threads like this that it sounds like im calling the customer support or some government office who speaks in the same "standardized" language they all speak in with the same terms. I am not saying you should remove this, but some kind of "cookies and coffee" talks can be good to have. To show we are all Humans behind the curtains of the screen. May I suggest for those who enjoy this? A Discord voice chat or just extra room added to just talk Amia and our memories to show that we are all passionate Amian Humans behind the screen. Just a chat about the server, about Amia,about RP. Voice or typed. I think It is good to do a bounding in the community.


Well we do respond like that or I like to think we do, especially when we are on playerside or while we are on discord. We try at least. It is really hard to find the balance but I am going to explain why.

The gap you and others have mentioned earlier is indeed there and sometimes unintentional or defensive from our part. Sometimes people just assume that there is a gap or they assume that the gap is bigger than it is. I don't think that we are different than other servers when it comes to that tbh.

Let me just give an example on my behalf. When I became a DM I've made a "mistake" letting my skype account linking me to other platforms where people could get additional information from my person. A few days after I became a DM more people added me on skype and then out of nowhere I received comments on my appearance from people I haven't talked with before on a personal level and def not those whom I can consider as my friends in the Amia community. Seeing that I never posted anything to the "People behind their characters" thread I immediately gave a WTF look to the screen after reading a comment like that. A few days later I received notification on someone meddling with my email account which was the trigger (even if it happened too late) to change all my contact information in that regard. After that you obviously like to keep a certain distance from people especially those that you don't know well enough.
Other things that you notice in cases like this that people want to become too friendly. In most cases that is out of good faith but there are other cases when people indeed have hidden intent. That's also something that a DM should consider because these are also the channels where if you say no, then you can expect an immediate flip in attitude or rather vindictive attitude as a worst case scenario. These are things that do happen and happened before. I have seen and heard of at least 2 DMs before my time who had been bullied out by players while other DMs couldn't do or refused to do anything about it. Same thing happened with DM(s) vs other DM(s) int the past or DMs vs player(s)

So these are things that exist. I think every community has that and the Amian community was quite toxic until recently, despite the fact that toxicity was usually tied to a rather small but very loud minority. It is hard to find the balance there especially if some or many of us do have bitter memories about that but I am confident that it is possible especially if the constructive posters in this and other threads mean what they say.



I hear what you say, but with "Bridge the gap" I do not mean in that sort of manner.

I really hate the use of toxicity when Humans cannot act properly. They are crude, poorly raised, offensive and such but a Human is simply not toxic, lets not mix up toxic waste with Human waste! :D But this is a side note non the less.

There need to be punishments for these kinds of people and I understand the problem with being more "official" when one become DM and the dangers that posts. And I really did not mean to spread details and such about ourselves. I stopped posting pictures of myself years ago. I prefer the calm and especially in these days when people can be creepily detective good at finding information.

_________________
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Sylveera : Sun Elven fury packed in an Arcane Archer, not a Drow, promise.
Tetrik : Greed incarnate in a Duergar.
Budly : Has gone to a better place.
Barrililath : Shadowy Drow, probably less Drow than Sylv ever be.


 
      
The Little Dragon
 
PostPosted: Sun, Jun 17 2018, 14:46 PM 



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Joined: 08 Nov 2016

After a long time of thought and understanding of the situation on Amia I believe I have a few things that would help progress the matters on their end. Amia is unstable, the previous dev teams have created a lot of inconsistencies that are currently being addressed. Currently, our server is in a time of reconstruction, the affirmation of our identity, history, and our way forward. I understand now the team cannot have anyone on that they fear they cannot trust, for they feel the need for stability and order to ensure the long term survival of the server.
With this said, I am unsure how another big event would help the server, especially to separate the settlements and make them their own entities. Wouldn't it be perhaps better to instead work on an initiative to culture the settlements to make players more inclined to work with the flow of things rather than push boundaries that are already on shaky ground?

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"A master role player is one who is willing and able to bend their character concept to make the game more enjoyable for all involved. To assist the DM in making the game fun, and not to show discord."


 
      
Yimmi
 
PostPosted: Mon, Jun 18 2018, 1:52 AM 

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Joined: 27 Dec 2014
Location: Santiago, Chile

I'd like to say a few words about what I consider the current health and state of the server.
First of all I think that most of the problems or situations that most of us had conflict with had already been said, so there's no point in addressing those matters. But something that must be said when we talk about the health and state of anything it's not only the negative stuff, but also the positive things that are present.
So basically this is what my post is all about.
Some of you, as I only know a few of the people that play here, may have noticed that I came back after a few months of absence, in those months I left because I thought there was nothing here for me to do, so I wouldn't log because nothing was handed to me... all of this was at the same time that people started to leave this server, I remember the last year when one night I was RPing with Raua and we noticed that there were like 40 people online! I mean I haven't seen those numbers in years... but after that the numbers started to come down and we are with the current numbers we have, the reasons as to why that happened where already mentioned, but what I'd like to say is what we can do... or at least what I'm trying to do.
During the months I was away, many times I looked to the forum, see what was happening and I kinda' wanted to log in and be part of it... but then the same bad attitude that I guess everyone has had atleast in one point... looking at the number of people online.
Everytime I wanted to join I told myself "why bother, there's only 5-6 people online... what can I do?" and that attitude is the one that got me away from the server, I mean I used to thought "Well I only have my weekends free, why should I log in?"... but then I realized that even if I log in only on the weekends, and only to RP with those 5-6 people, it still was a great thing!
And I think that this is the main theme of this post, to try to tell everyone that still lurks on the forum but doesn't want to give it a try, do it! :D I can tell you, the last few weekends have been incredibly awesome, I mean look at my character, he's really kind of a dick but still he has had more interaction that I've had with plenty of others previous one, and it's because everyone that still plays has this attitude to try to include everyone, we can be only a few but there's always someone who wants to RP.

So you're not sure about coming back because when you can log in there's no one you know? Join our discord! We are always talking there, trying to get some RP done, even coordinating hunting parties.
Yeah, maybe all isn't 100% but nowhere it is. And I can assure you that the ones who still remains here are doing their best to bring the best!
The DMs are doing their part, the devs are working too and now it's time for us, the player base, to also do it, and what can we do? What we have been doing for the last years, logging in and having a great time.

I wanted to talk about this because I think this is somewhat a reflection of the current health and state of the server, at least from my point of view... Do we have low numbers? Yes, we do. But the ones that are here are trying their very best to keep this world alive and I think that slowly we are once again gaining some numbers. Is the server dying? If you had asked me this question 1 or 2 months ago I'd have said yes, but only because I wasn't playing and I wasn't experiencing how it was IG... because when we lurk on the forums, and only see the random numbers of people online, we kind of miss all the amazing stuff that may be happening on the server itself. But now, if you ask me this very question my answer is quite clear... the server is alive, and I think that it's more alive than it has been from a long time.
I think that this was a bit too long, but I just wanted to express what I'm feeling about the server right now... and I think it all goes to one "Thanks Amians, for still being here"!

-Silly Yimmi

_________________
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-Bjalfi Bolverkson: Blood, beer and thunder!
-Aedan Turghaer: Life of a mercenary... it ain't easy.

We are southamerican rockers, nou sommes rockers sudamericaines...


And DM side: DM Clangeddin


 
      
Gwondier
 
PostPosted: Mon, Jun 18 2018, 5:32 AM 

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yimmi wrote:
So you're not sure about coming back because when you can log in there's no one you know? Join our discord! We are always talking there, trying to get some RP done, even coordinating hunting parties.
Yeah, maybe all isn't 100% but nowhere it is. And I can assure you that the ones who still remains here are doing their best to bring the best!
The DMs are doing their part, the devs are working too and now it's time for us, the player base, to also do it, and what can we do? What we have been doing for the last years, logging in and having a great time.

I wanted to talk about this because I think this is somewhat a reflection of the current health and state of the server, at least from my point of view... Do we have low numbers? Yes, we do. But the ones that are here are trying their very best to keep this world alive and I think that slowly we are once again gaining some numbers. Is the server dying? If you had asked me this question 1 or 2 months ago I'd have said yes, but only because I wasn't playing and I wasn't experiencing how it was IG... because when we lurk on the forums, and only see the random numbers of people online, we kind of miss all the amazing stuff that may be happening on the server itself. But now, if you ask me this very question my answer is quite clear... the server is alive, and I think that it's more alive than it has been from a long time.
I think that this was a bit too long, but I just wanted to express what I'm feeling about the server right now... and I think it all goes to one "Thanks Amians, for still being here"!

-Silly Yimmi

Thanks Yimmi! Being new to the server I want to say that I just have enjoyed my time here in the last few months. I joined initially a few years ago, but it was at the behest of someone else and I had two PCs that were basically run around following them..."go here, do this" and really didn't get anything out of it. When the current server that I played on prior to here had issues, I came back to give Amia another try. I've brought some others over with me. Not many, but some. The feedback I've gotten from those friends I brought over about the server have been very positive.

Speaking of positive (as Yimmi mentions), as a new player...I like the interaction between the players. While I can't keep up most times on my PCs, I love that everyone is very RP-oriented...at least those that I've interacted with. I love the staff. They are quick to answer questions and help solve problems. The DMs throw in tiny things even if it's just two players talking together on skype and not even RPing, until they show up (yeah...Elyon...you!). They have events going on non-stop! This is something that not a lot of servers have (or at least the ones I've been with). Most importantly, it seems that everyone here...players and staff alike...seem to have a vested interest in keeping the world alive.

I like where I am, I like playing here, I like what everyone is contributing. For those active, I say keep doing what you're doing. For those inactive, I say come back and meet new players/new characters. Maybe you'll find what you loved about NWN again.

_________________
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bobofwestoregonusa
 
PostPosted: Fri, Jun 29 2018, 11:07 AM 

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Joined: 09 Jun 2012
Location: Eastern Washington

Since we're discussing reasons people aren't coming back I'll go ahead and get mine off my chest.

I occasionally try to come back and feel like the server has lost the dynamism that made me want to play there in the first place. I also dislike the community's attitude toward conflict and pvp. It feels as though when people play an antagonist type here there's a sort of OOC dislike of them, but it also feels as though the ones who do play that sort of character are wildly unfocused and spend time harassing people in bendir dale instead of pushing toward a goal that's going to bring the non-evils into conflict with them.

Some of that is honestly stemming from a lack of stuff to do. But there was one incident that rubbed me wrong. An event where Tarkuul and Kohlingen were honestly gearing up for conflict with each other, and the Kohlingen team for the most part kind of just refused to participate in any event that might involve in pvp. It sort of felt like they wanted to stop us without actually having to deal with us.

But honestly I've also just been working like crazy for the past since-I-last-ran-tarkuul. That contributes to it somewhat but I've ended up gravitating toward servers with more of a faction-conflict play style and more interesting pve content as well. I've had time to play since, though not as much as I like, and have since more or less been on servers that cater to the sort of play I enjoy. I've thought repeatedly about trying to bring in another evil comeback and see if I can bring players back by virtue of trying to revitalize the evil plots but it honestly takes a lot of work and time that I don't have with a job where I work night shifts.

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T0mc4t89
 
PostPosted: Fri, Jun 29 2018, 14:01 PM 



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Joined: 17 Oct 2012
Location: A hut in Howness. (GMT+2)

Good vs evil conflict never works out cause its always onesided to one side or the other, along with how playtimes affect that heavily.

Like suddenly an evil faction will get very active and have like 5+ people or even 10+, but from good you only see 2-3 at most perhaps on at the same time.

Good vs evil conflict would have to be coordinated oocly a lot too in order to be fun for both sides, otherwise it is just one side roflstomping everything with their powerbuilds and numbers through plots/pvp battles/shit.

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Zafriah
 
PostPosted: Sat, Jun 30 2018, 1:58 AM 

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T0mc4t89 wrote:
Good vs evil conflict would have to be coordinated oocly a lot too in order to be fun for both sides, otherwise it is just one side roflstomping everything with their powerbuilds and numbers through plots/pvp battles/shit.


I'm openly in favour of pvp when it comes to actually RPing a situation....and I've always said any of my characters are open to being hunted down. And my experiences have been fun, despite my characters dying in the process. :shock: So, yes, getting the OOC okay is important, but I don't think it takes much effort.

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Angelis96
 
PostPosted: Sat, Jun 30 2018, 3:47 AM 

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On that notion I will say that in my experience the key to Evil RP and plots isn't so much in direct conflict with good aligned players it is through indirect conflict through enacting cause and effect scenarios with the DMs.

For a random example I referred to Kamina at one point playing a druid:

Say for some random reason I wanted to start conflict with Bendir Dale. Instead of trying to PvP one another I would start events for them to solve through RP such as rousting the wildlife to attack farmland.

Or if I was playing a necromancer instead of directly fighting them as a player I would do RP of the summoning and binding of an undead army and then let the DMs control the army and go attack the town. Things of that nature.

It is more fun for everyone involved and it doesn't take a lot of OOC coordination because it is event based and is not prone to roflstomping each others PCs because once again it is RP based not PvP based.

you still get the oppurtunity to play evil intentive characters do your bad deed and the good aligned toons get their fun to come and save the day without anyone being sourly hurt IC or OOC on the matter.

In a gist instead of 1 big event Good vs Bad PCs it would be 2 events. One with Evil toons causing a prooblem and then one with good aligned toons to fix the problem.

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Gravemaskin
 
PostPosted: Sat, Jun 30 2018, 12:54 PM 

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^ That

One big problem when playing overt evil is that doors close very quickly for you if you start PvPing people, and very soon people will gang up on you regardless of their alignment, simply because you're viewed as disruptive or a danger by their characters. A good way to avoid that is doing the man-in-the-middle type attacks listed above, either by using NPCs or other PCs. If you want to do something like this, I'd suggest contacting a DM directly, either when one is on or someone you know is around in your timezone. Most of us are more than happy to run small events like that when we get the chance.

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Angelis96
 
PostPosted: Sat, Jun 30 2018, 13:40 PM 

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I just think most make the mistake with evil toons of going into it with PVP in mind. And people that do that only end in dissapointment

Either being permakilled, isolated without RP or somewhere inbetween. And i think the mindset of I am evil I should PvP everyone is what has made the evil playerbase nonexistant. Because at the end of the day it IS an RP server not a PvP server. And should be treated as such.

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Khristina - Bounty Hunter, Blessed of Hoar


 
      
bobofwestoregonusa
 
PostPosted: Sat, Jun 30 2018, 18:24 PM 

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I was actually referring to an event that was more or less outright naval and possibly ground warfare with kohlingen. The players refused to fight us and instead settled for killing some NPC that was just a means to our real objective anyway.


Honestly if you have an active faction like I did you don't find yourself isolated because at almost all hours you have guys to play with and the settlements you aren't at war with aren't a concern. All you're deprived of is _maybe_ going to bendir dale. And I don't think people hang out there when there's better stuff to do on evil characters anyway

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T0mc4t89
 
PostPosted: Sat, Jun 30 2018, 23:13 PM 



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Joined: 17 Oct 2012
Location: A hut in Howness. (GMT+2)

as a clarification, it was mostly that some people in the GOOD GUY GROUP were willing to have a pvp event while some others were not and the DMs didn't want to force anything on the group if there was a split about it. I was mostly meh about the idea (was simply going with the flow and how people wanted) but honestly there wasn't much incentive to go if it would just be me and few others.

so it wasnt the "everyone on the good side refused because they were afraid of pvp" sort.

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"He’d only shown the best of intentions. Firm but not unreasonable. Eager to protect what was his but not eager to overextend his reach, to push himself on to others."


 
      
Lutra
 
PostPosted: Sun, Jul 01 2018, 13:21 PM 



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Joined: 12 Feb 2008

T0mc4t89 wrote:
Good vs evil conflict never works out cause its always onesided to one side or the other, along with how playtimes affect that heavily.


I think it is a really radical point of view and it is not true. Conflict is good only if it remains a healthy conflict and not constant drama. The latter kills it and also puts constant strain on the players because of the said playtime issue. Constant strain is something that we call RL and we tend to come here to escape from that shit.

I think everyone should be mindful about what is the point when they put a strain on people and their RP begins to place a deficit on another. There needs to be a cooldown in each conflict in order to make things interesting and less predictable. Constant attention seeking though is something that people shouldn't do in general and this appeared on multiple occasions in the game and not just in the case of conflicts but this applies to every aspect of the game.


bobofwestoregonusa wrote:
I was actually referring to an event that was more or less outright naval and possibly ground warfare with kohlingen. The players refused to fight us and instead settled for killing some NPC that was just a means to our real objective anyway.


Welp I was the faction leader at the time and I presented them the situation. The majority chose to opt out the said thing which I had to accept and forward that decision to the DM who ran the event who was kind enough to present an alternative.

Since then we had repeated contact IG but non of you bothered to ask me at this point what the issue was but ran with your own self-made perspective which was "they don't want to interact with us". Had any of you chose to contact me at this point and talk on the matter then we could have discussed it prolly.

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Richard_Edmund
 
PostPosted: Sun, Jul 01 2018, 14:09 PM 

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I was under the impression it was play time organisation that was the cause for our groups to not meet IC. :(

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Lutra
 
PostPosted: Sun, Jul 01 2018, 16:05 PM 



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Joined: 12 Feb 2008

That was the major reason, yeah.

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bobofwestoregonusa
 
PostPosted: Sun, Jul 01 2018, 17:10 PM 

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In all honesty the way it was conveyed to me by the dm overseeing at the time that they just didn't want to fight us and that was that. I would have honestly been far more understanding in that case all things considered, especially since playtime and availability are what took me out of the picture back at that point.

I was even given an impression that you had been "raring to go" but that the faction were just lie "nah that's pvp". This could probably just be a mishandling of information from the previous staff member of that's the case and if so it was one that left me confused and annoyed for a while.

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Yimmi
 
PostPosted: Sun, Jul 22 2018, 22:16 PM 

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Location: Santiago, Chile

Just wanted to say that lately the server has been quite alive! I mean just today, earlier I saw like 15+ people online! And many where usernames I did not recognize :P! I think it's awesome, to see the server having a some higher numbers!

_________________
-Jacob Hel'Tharan: Knowledge through sacrifice.
-Bjalfi Bolverkson: Blood, beer and thunder!
-Aedan Turghaer: Life of a mercenary... it ain't easy.

We are southamerican rockers, nou sommes rockers sudamericaines...


And DM side: DM Clangeddin


 
      
Kamina
 
PostPosted: Mon, Jul 23 2018, 5:23 AM 

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Joined: 05 Jul 2007
Location: Kent, England.

We've been hitting consistent higher numbers lately. It really helps with two factors that 1. Most people in the northern hemisphere in full time education are reaching their summer break and 2. we legitimately have some new players on our server. There's been an overwhelmingly noticeable lack of toxicity from OOC angles as well.

Overall, we're happy the server is gaining some ground again. I'm not sure when we get the NWN:EE port up and running if it'll cause a big spike, but we will see once we've sorted that out.

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are nimble artists of deception. They are mysterious and
unknown, never completely trusted but always inducing wonder
when met"


 
      
Alkor
 
PostPosted: Sat, Aug 11 2018, 8:36 AM 

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Joined: 25 Feb 2010
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As a very old player and former faction leader I'll preface this by saying I'm going to be harsh, but cold straight to truth as it was seen. Ignoring it doesn't fix it. Although at the same time I wouldn't bother writing it if I didn't think you didn't have a chance to turn it around.

Positive feels isn't going to fix the fundamentals unfortunately. Nor is a "scheduling conflict or personal health concern" the reason 50+ people aren't logging in.

This is rooted in game design. -if you'd like to know why it'd be easy to find out, Mr Mago and myself talked at length years ago and told you point blank, but it was ignored by the DMs of the time. Fortunately we don't have to go that far back to find it as the OP just outlined, perhaps unknowingly, some core concepts for what makes a game a game.

Quote:
"The Server & What can be done

I'm making this post out of a genuine concern for the health of the server, and I just wanted to make my post of everything so this can be discussed in a constructive manner amongst everyone on what we feel could be done. I want you all to know that this isn't some blame game, but rather something we should try to work as a community about and try to improve it however we can.

Amia is a game for everyone. The beauty of it to me has always been the interactions you can develop with the world and players around you. The life of the players is what keeps this place rolling, and the brains of the DM's is what allows the world to seem alive. Players and DM's are equal peers in the aspect that without the players the dungeon masters wouldn't have anyone to weave a story for, and the players wouldn't have anyone to help change the world and do what they wanted to do."

Amia is supposed to be a game for everyone (*If they can be IC/RP and PG13), but this was not the case in the past.

The interactions, the life of the characters played by players, that indeed do keep a game rolling, had no power to affect the game world in any meaningful way without DM permission and aid.

Even the Cordor Citizenship exam wasn't actually In Game, but had to be obtained direct from a DM or from someone who got it from a DM, or someone who knew someone one who...you get the idea. You could not move the world without a DM holding your hand, and the DM's ran the Harper faction and every major civilization via NPC's with total 100% control and veto control. If you played evil characters specifically, and I know, I ran at least three factions, you got no support. -actually on an invasion of Kohligen after three hellballs and lots of effort we took down an army of NPC's only to have the DM re-spawn them instantly in the farmlands like it never happened at all. (So there was no point even trying)

Players and DM's were not in the past, equal peers, DM's would destroy entire factions and their bases. "Black Caravan'd" became a term, this is how the Banites lost their base without player RP, the castle they built later on was 'with some brief rp' later also destroyed within weeks of opening its doors. The 'Goodly-horde' maintained total peace and total good on the surface, even Tarkuul threw out 'troublemakers' if they infringed on the perceived 'neutrality' of the place presumably out of fear of retribution from the same 'good-horde'. This meant there was absolutely no place for open evil to go. Meanwhile the good-aligned cities were completely impenetrable on threat of dm-spawned massive army of elite npcs. Paladins would secure their peaceful tea parties in impenetrable fortresses with overpowered builds and gear. (Rather boring for everyone...)

If you were in the DM Cliques of the past, it worked for you, until the other players who were not in this clique left the game, then I imagine it got rather boring for them too. There was always a 'grand epic multi-year storyline' they (past DMs) proclaimed as a justification for eternal power and protection of this plotline, one that hardly went anywhere, required DM's to move, and all information related to it was from DM's only.

Now for the good news, most everyone who did that, is gone. This can be somewhat reversed although you'll need EE for the new player access.

Arelith is now repeating some of these exact same past former Amia-style mistakes, with DM Powers crushing player-driven story and driving players off their server as a result. The sister server, if you can manage to move to EE, is now driving players your way and the way of other servers as long as they continue this same proven failed policy with formation of DM Cliques who are destroying entire player factions with DM powers. (of course it's always done with a nice-sounding excuse)

At no time, should DM's consider they drive the entire server's plot. That is for players to do in an interactive environment that they can actually affect and change.

At no time, should it be considered that the only way to move anything of meaning on the server is with a DM's hand holding. -this system sets up the scene that -requires- DM pull and thus favoritism to move anything. It's incredibly toxic.

At no time should a DM favor one faction over another in what is supposed to be an IC, IG, player-run conflict. Especially don't use DM powers to tilt the battle/war political or otherwise including sudden new rule changes to tilt it in the favor of a dm-favorite group so that their dm-buddies dominate the (formerly 'IC', now OOC) game.

Pvp on this server was also formerly a crying contest at first instance of 'lost pvp' and it got so bad you couldn't even pvp at all without expecting an hour+ dm-session afterwards due to the poor sports on the other side. Even when all rules were followed. This takes the fun right out of it and breaks immersion on a constant basis. Simply have them screenshot and send in a report for review if they want, but not waste everyone's time and break their enjoyment.
(this is also a symptom of hand-holding en mass, the expectation was using their dm influence to punish the other side and 'win' oocly since they lost IC)

Note:
If it remains constant that the vast majority of players wish to be the hero, or good aligned, that simply outlines how much support evil-toons (or Chaos aligned toons) would need to pose any sort of interesting challenge to the other side. They are usually vastly outnumbered, slain near immediately, and given no support because 'it's bad to support evil' mentality spills over into the game world. -but they actually are players, and actually do need faction bases just like everyone else. -if one gets blown up, and they take a serious loss, secretly build them something elsewhere...don't leave players in a situation where the only option left is to 'log out'. They should be able to rebuild something at a minimum.

p.s. If you want your existing players to not be toxic, and the environment itself to not be toxic, then you have to admit and make a public dedication that this is going to be a fair game again. 100% fair, power to the players, more transparency, more player say in how things are run from now on, player plot > dm plot.

You have to win back the trust of the players that you'll operate in good faith. (this faith was betrayed by past teams). DM's are to merely sprinkle events ontop; like the toppings on a good cake, you(DMs) are not the cake, but you can make it more delicious with entertaining events. Why is this the case? See p.s. #2.

p.s. #2 Also keep in mind running events 24/7 as a DM isn't realistically, physically, feasible. The playerbase absolutely gets dependent on you and you get bitter when they want even more and you also have a life and now they seem inconsiderate and unappreciative of your efforts. That is why PLAYERS need to be the ones to drive the story plot because no matter how many dms you hire, it won't ever be enough to entertain everyone 24/7.

Perhaps you will learn from other sources as well...

I welcome you to study any movie, any play, any tv show, any successful anything in the entertainment field and identify the key elements of what makes it entertaining.

There is a challenge to overcome, a progression of the story, a development of the characters, an effect on the world around them, and a general vision or goal that drives them to overcome adversity. (*extra points if it's a really difficult challenge with a chance of failure, then it 'means more' as it was harder to obtain, thus making victory sweeter)

Learn it well, use it well, adopt it. The fall of this server proves, no server is immune to ignoring game and entertainment design. If it's a rigged game for DM's and their buddies, players won't want to play it. Level the playing field, and you might see the server come back as a result. This time, back in alignment with game design.

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freaxxshow1338
 
PostPosted: Sat, Aug 11 2018, 16:46 PM 

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idk we're already picking up new Players and old people return.

I'm playing evil for the first time in my life and manage pretty good.

thanks for the bashing of people who aren't here anymore tho.

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Alkor
 
PostPosted: Sat, Aug 11 2018, 23:05 PM 

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freaxxshow1338 wrote:
idk we're already picking up new Players and old people return.

I'm playing evil for the first time in my life and manage pretty good.

thanks for the bashing of people who aren't here anymore tho.


Most of your player potential, **until you go to EE**, are probably old ones who still check in once in awhile on the forums to see if anything's changed. *but left for a reason

Great for you trying out the hard-mode that is playing evil. You want to imply it works now, and great if you are getting support for that. We didn't have it in the past.

You're welcome, it's the sort of constructive criticism that no one wants to hear because it's uncomfortable. I'd rather help open dialogue to fix the fundamental issues at risk of making people uncomfortable. Sweeping it under the rug does not help the server, that was the policy for years and it didn't work, still doesn't work, won't ever work.

If all you got out of my post was annoyance "and bashing" then you haven't learned the lesson and you're in for more pain sadly. I tried to spare you though, again, in detail, when I didn't have to.

Oh well. Enjoy. ~

Game Design will leave you in the dust if you don't adhere to it.

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Angelis96
 
PostPosted: Sat, Aug 11 2018, 23:11 PM 

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I also feel the need to point out that there is indeed a place solely designed for evil toons to go at the moment and several amongst the DM staff have taken a fascination with the area. Both IC and OOC(as DMs)

That would be Demonreach. I myself along with several others, actively run an evil aligned faction/base within the woods of Demonreach and it has been given a vast amount of TLC by the DM staff and supported to grow by many a player within the community as a place for people like that to go.

Also on the notion on the server being dead there was over 15-20 people on Amia_A last night alone for a good 3-4 hours straight. So not quite sure how the server is overtly dead due to people that have indeed left and given up on the community.

My personal feelings on such matters, and this is no condescending statement to you mind, is the moment you decide to give up on the community/server and move on to other places and not look back is the exact same moment you generally lose the right, privilege or ability to adamantly give an educated and serious stance on how you should consider the server to potentially be ran. If you -wish- to actually have things changed for the better you could do your part and actively make a presence In-game and on the server and MAKE things happen on an IC level.

I myself have done much of the same thing, and it has worked wonders. I am managing one of THE potentially active Evil groups at the present moment along with a handful of other people. As well as continuously poke and prod at DMs during events to particularly cause evil actions and alter events that DMs do to a more darker outcome than they may have originally planned due to it. The DM-staff has been nothing but 100% supportive of my initiative to -actually- involve an Evil toon in things directly in an Evil fashion.

So not -quite- sure where literally any of that is coming from. But at this point in time I can adamantly say it does not hold water.

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PuresoulX2
 
PostPosted: Sun, Aug 12 2018, 2:38 AM 

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I like to compare this server to domestic violence. You think it will get better but all you get is a black eye.

I stopped counting how many times I leave and return. The last time I was here we had a nice evil faction going when demonreach was first released and then everyone left because we no longer had a DM after a long time of silence.

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The Little Dragon
 
PostPosted: Sun, Aug 12 2018, 5:57 AM 



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If the server cannot cater to what you want as a player, then seek elsewhere. Right now the server is currently working for the current player base. Perhaps one day the server will be able to have less dm involvement, though until then, your pretty much beating a dead horse.

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Pinkhaml86
 
PostPosted: Sun, Aug 12 2018, 13:06 PM 



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The Little Dragon wrote:
If the server cannot cater to what you want as a player, then seek elsewhere. Right now the server is currently working for the current player base. Perhaps one day the server will be able to have less dm involvement, though until then, your pretty much beating a dead horse.


dragon that makes absolutely no sense. why would anyone want less dm involvement? ever?

and soul, there is still a pretty hefty evil faction in the works in demon reach. it's not the first one no, but its growing in size and presence on the server.

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Angelis96
 
PostPosted: Sun, Aug 12 2018, 19:51 PM 

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It's also one of those things where if you do not hear from a DM actively poke them in the discord and/or forums. You need to take the initiative as a player to get things done not just idle and give up when a DM isn't doing things with you day in and day out as they do generally have other things to focus on.

As I have said before I actively poke DMs about starting up potential event ideas or plots. Or even just general RP things around my faction in general. and I generally have 0 problems getting anything accomplished as long as things I want to do are within reason.

You -have- to be proactive as a player to actually get things accomplished just as much as a DM can be proactive in making sure it can get done at all.

Also @TLD I agree with Pinkham. Pretty sure we -want- as much DM involvement as we can get literally ever. Not quite sure why you would -want- little to no DM involvement at all...

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freaxxshow1338
 
PostPosted: Sun, Aug 12 2018, 20:33 PM 

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I feel like it should be pointed out that our Demonreach Cliffside thing is more of a .. neutral thing. Sure we do evil stuff to have it up and running and got bad shit hidden in our sleeves but... It's it's not Evil per se.

I like that very much. Because all the goodies can't do shit.

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PuresoulX2
 
PostPosted: Sun, Aug 12 2018, 20:36 PM 

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freaxxshow1338 wrote:
I feel like it should be pointed out that our Demonreach Cliffside thing is more of a .. neutral thing. Sure we do evil stuff to have it up and running and got bad shit hidden in our sleeves but... It's it's not Evil per se.

I like that very much. Because all the goodies can't do shit.


So Tarkuul 2.0.

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Angelis96
 
PostPosted: Sun, Aug 12 2018, 20:39 PM 

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PuresoulX2 wrote:
freaxxshow1338 wrote:
I feel like it should be pointed out that our Demonreach Cliffside thing is more of a .. neutral thing. Sure we do evil stuff to have it up and running and got bad shit hidden in our sleeves but... It's it's not Evil per se.

I like that very much. Because all the goodies can't do shit.


So Tarkuul 2.0.


Not really no. We totally have plans to do things in the future that will be in direct conflict with what other people want to do. As well as are not solely focused on necromantic things.

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LibrisMortis_666
 
PostPosted: Sun, Aug 12 2018, 21:07 PM 

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Angelis96 wrote:
PuresoulX2 wrote:
freaxxshow1338 wrote:
I feel like it should be pointed out that our Demonreach Cliffside thing is more of a .. neutral thing. Sure we do evil stuff to have it up and running and got bad shit hidden in our sleeves but... It's it's not Evil per se.

I like that very much. Because all the goodies can't do shit.


So Tarkuul 2.0.


Not really no. We totally have plans to do things in the future that will be in direct conflict with what other people want to do. As well as are not solely focused on necromantic things.



Just to be a troll.

So many things are wrong with all of this.

Tarkuul wasn't a "Neutral" area, never was. I think any DM whos over sighted what I've done over the years can agree to that and your silly if you think so.

Also Tarkuul wasn't primarily focused or "solely" focused on Necromancy. Not by any means.

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Revak
 
PostPosted: Mon, Aug 13 2018, 7:50 AM 

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I must say in props to Angelis, freaxx and the Demonreach Deviants™ that it's been fun having those stand offs and (recently) stare offs with each other's characters. Always leaves my character guessing what they're up to. That and how well hidden they've kept themselves also adds to the "yo wtf they up to" factor.

As for the comparison with Tarkuul (and what Libris said) Tarkuul branched out into a lot of different areas and did a lot of meddling behind the scenes. That and Tarkuul is (for the good guys) stands as a symbol of well established evil on the island, and is akin to a brick wall to duke out justice with (vice versa with evil folk and Kohlingen for example). Demonreach is more chaotic in the fact it is a pirate haven with big busty succubi and stabby people, doesn't have massive concerns with maintaining the status quo and the worries of risking a full blown war on the island and has a lot more freedom to play with and build up.

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Kamina
 
PostPosted: Mon, Aug 13 2018, 9:21 AM 

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I could go on for a long while about how outdated a lot of your examples are Alkor, though with respect everything you said did ultimately see people leave, players and DMs alike. Right now, the DM team works proactively at making sure everyone is being treated fairly and without bias. There's a lot of player-lead objectives that have been getting no more than DM nudges which have been causing the rise of two notable evil factions being formed.

PvP-wise, a lot of it, according to the PvP logs, have been taking place on Demonreach. This is good as Demonreach has next to no PvP rules, which is showing its living up to its purpose.

As Freaxx said, we've been seeing an increase in new players as well as returning. Numbers have been steadily going up and to compensate, we've started a new wind of Dev projects to help enhance the server. I do urge Alkor, to try and hop on and interact with the current players, because I ensure you the environment is a lot more different than when you previously played.

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Shadowfiend
 
PostPosted: Mon, Aug 13 2018, 10:39 AM 

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Quote:
PvP-wise, a lot of it, according to the PvP logs, have been taking place on Demonreach. This is good as Demonreach has next to no PvP rules, which is showing its living up to its purpose.


Are you sure this is PvP, and not just friendly spars?

I also want to point out that I agree with Alkor on at least one thing, and that is there is a lack of player agency in events. It's almost a meme at this point that no matter what the players try to come up with, it always ends in a fight.

I am not trying to target you in particular Elyion, or saying you are the worst offender in this, but Bobinas kidnapping of whatever his name was serves as a good example. We spent an hour (at least) thinking of what to do, but no matter how much arguing or thinking we did, we ended up realizing we'll just have to confront her and fight her.

It's what almost all events boil down to, fighting some evil person because they did something evil and we have to stop them. Or going somewhere for X person because they need Y for Z, and somewhere is usually filled with monsters we have to fight our way through.

This may sound very harsh, but sometimes I feel like the only choice, or agency, you have in an event is if you decide to take a part in it or not, because more often than not you don't have any affect on the event's arc beyond that. And because of this I sometimes find events as engaging as the combat, which as a str character boils down to left click red glowing guy.

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Elyon
 
PostPosted: Mon, Aug 13 2018, 13:21 PM 



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No offense taken ShadowFiend, I'm good to take constructive criticism. However, I do have to say that if you stayed through the whole way event after the meeting, you'll find it was a lot different to the way described. Though this relates to something I have felt for a long time, regarding plots from a DM's perspective. To me, there's a trend lately of players feeling that in order to solve an event "there needs to be something to kill". This isn't done on purpose from my end. I don't try to make it so that everything is solved by killing bad guy 101. It generally leads to this because of the assumptions made, events treated as more 'bash-in' styled than it should be.

Regarding the plot with Bobina, there were building blocks that could have gone any directions. Though what happened was due to more PC thinking, they opted out of going through a trap in Sandy Beach, one PC saved the kidnapped through covert mission styled RP and PnP abilities rather than bashing their way in. Only after the kidnapped was saved, they encountered Bobina. The option was there to kill her and the option was there to also negotiate in some form or another, as far as even dealing with her throughout the scope of the plot. Overall, the goods things that came out of it was communication between PCs, conflict of interests and varied motivations. Nothing was fixed here.

There's a lot of factors that could take the direction of an event into account. If you've got the majority of PCs deciding that "we need to bash our way in!", then my take would be to respond to that. Alternatively, if the decision made is to take a less than an aggressive route, you'll get the interaction of NPCs and other methods to solving something which I often lay out throughout my events. Either options are fine, because it goes without saying actions come with consequences. If a character ICly would act some way, fair enough.

Something I've noticed is frustrations if there's no 'obvious lead', stemming from the former. PCs end up running around aimlessly looking for something to kill, without even considering the fundamentals of PnP and roleplay to even get to a lead- Skills (Hide, MS, Search etc), PnP-abilities, spells, environment, location and more. Often I would give hints, but I wouldn't babysit players the whole way through as that would be game-breaking and boring. Sometimes we need to slow down, use the DM-chat for anything, stick together, communicate with other PCs who have found clues and not run around aimlessly. Help a DM make an event less chaotic and more responsive by doing these things, especially if there's 10+ players and only one DM.

So this has been my recent thoughts on events from a DMs-perspective. Perhaps some of us are cynical with them. I can only say nothing is ever set in stone, trust in us to be flexible with you. Remember that an event is only as hack-and-slash and confrontational as the PCs involvement and actions make it out to be, otherwise you could certainly solve something without killing anything. Sometimes there is no 'bash badguy' route towards the heart of a plot. If there isn't, consider the fundamentals of PnP and roleplay to help you. DMs would often want you to use your mind rather than mechanics.

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freaxxshow1338
 
PostPosted: Mon, Aug 13 2018, 13:39 PM 

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I think the fighting always happens because there are like a billion people logged in for the event. And only the event. I most of the time just walk off because there is like 10 people talking at the same time at every given moment.

Seriously, theres so many characters who I have only ever seen at Events. Never even once out side of one.

And with that many people, it is - I imagine - near impossible for the DM to keep up in any way shape or form, and with that many different opinions it usually ends with "let's fuck up the evil guy" *[Epic Guitar solo playing in the background]*

EDIT: And it is like Elyon says: People literally just walk past you and bash stuff while you are still typing on that perfect RP-Flavoured text or looking through your dice bag
The latest example of this was Wilfire (No personal attack of course, just you're perfectly fitting right now - Of course it was what Wilfire would've done) who - while I was having a nice talk with those Succubi and Incubi as Valora - simply dashed past me and started bashing away.
That shit happens so much to me, not just with people simply bashing stuff, but I always feel like I'm getting drowned out between all those people around me, that I keep away from all those billion-people events. They're just absolutely no fun to me; And that has nothing to do with the DM's nor with Bad RP or something. It's the fucking amount of people.

I understand when theres 30 People for a big Raid on hell or something.

But 30 people to investigate a kidnapping? Bruh. I always find it hilarious. Theres a fucking army of murder-hobos who could probably kill a god with their combined power helping a farmer with a bee problem.


I did really like that ... uh... What was it called... What Elyon and BnB did. I'm still a bit drunk, can't remember the name of that place but THAT was a fucking cool event for that many people.

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Shadowfiend
 
PostPosted: Mon, Aug 13 2018, 13:59 PM 

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Quote:
No offense taken ShadowFiend, I'm good to take constructive criticism. However, I do have to say that if you stayed through the whole way event after the meeting, you'll find it was a lot different to the way described.


Ok, it was a horrible example, and a wrong assumption on my part! As I said, you're not the worst offender and I've enjoyed your recent events quite a lot.

But I still rest my case, many events don't offer a lot of agency to players.

Quote:
Help a DM make an event less chaotic and more responsive by doing these things, especially if there's 10+ players and only one DM.


This is true, it's hard to react to everything when 100 things happens at once and players need to learn to take that into account.

Quote:
Something I've noticed is frustrations if there's no 'obvious lead', stemming from the former.


Tbf no obvious lead, or vague leads gives the impression that you're trying to wrap the event up for today, so you can push it further another time.

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Magiros
 
PostPosted: Mon, Aug 13 2018, 17:05 PM 

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Quote:
PCs end up running around aimlessly looking for something to kill, without even considering the fundamentals of PnP and roleplay to even get to a lead- Skills (Hide, MS, Search etc), PnP-abilities, spells, environment, location and more.


While I've seen an increase in allowing search for information skills. Also seen improvement in enabling divinations to do what they are supposed to do. I do consider focusing on divination and gather information skills a wasted effort in comparison to more PvP/PvE oriented competences. I play a diviner, but I can't ever act like a diviner because the information is not there or can't be obtained in timely fashion. This is my experience in the current day, still a great deal better than in the past most cases. But still I wish at times I had other orientation with skills and focuses. A diviner in Amia does not feel like a diviner that has been described in the D&D books and that is partly making me, personally, play less, I don't bother to try so much anymore to bring out the character.

I know this is very specific scenarios, but I only play one character at the moment.

EDIT: Just to point out, this is just my perspective on how useful some other competences are. Mechanical competences are better than RP competences in most cases. At least what I've seen happening.

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Kamina
 
PostPosted: Tue, Aug 14 2018, 7:27 AM 

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There have been a number of PCs in my plot that have attempted to resolve issues without resorting to violence or gone about stuff tactically, others on the other hand have gone about it in a confrontational manner. As DMs, we should never try and railroad a plot to having one definite solution that players can not change, however at the same time if our plot was meant to be done about in more covert manner or perhaps one involving more research and careful treading yet people turn it in to NWN Whackamole, it will go to just that. I have a solution of sorts based on that feedback though Shadowfiend, at least in regards to finishing my plot currently. I do echo Elyon though in regards to juggling lots of players at once. You could be busy trying to respond to lots of people's actions during a scenario and while doing so one player could just attack the thing people are assessing, as a neutral example.

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