Ah, yes, the dreaded Silver Knights that appeared in Wharftown... I had forgotten those. I recall one time we had a conflict outside Wharftown and the DM there spawned literally what had to have been 65 silver knights to kill us outside Wharftown.



Dunno, to be honest, from what I recall, the DM's said it wasn't happening. Mind, the original castle blackmoor was actually an area that I believe Disco put in before our temple blew up for that exact purpose. And obviously, it became something else! The DM's back then had less transparency than they do now, so unfortunately I don't know who or why. In the end, I suspect they wanted us to feel the "sting" of losing our base and not so easily get another, but ultimately people quit because of it.

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Maze kind of pointed out a major problem evil PC's face in Amia, and it didn't used to nearly be half of this way, until the server direction vilified the villains with plot protection devices at every turn.

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a.k.a. Audrey Zinata

I think it's better to focus on a small area, the island of Amia and it's environs, than to have a server with bits and pieces of a handful of far flung places mashed together with little reason or rhyme. If the island of Amia is the server hub, than nothing one cannot get to on a boat should be included. Having those far flung locales literally takes away from what can be done with Amia, since there is a limit in size, and cannot be done justice on their own either. And beyond taking up module space that could be used in other ways, characters based way off in some far flung corner of the world have less reason to interact with anyone in the main focus of the module. The justification of 'there's a portal' is weak, at best. It just divides the server.

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There are actually quite a lot of areas which are neutral. Or neutral leaning towards evil.

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I'm actually way more intimidated by groups chattering than a stranger on the road! Often it's an already established clique talking about some business or other and I feel no place butting in

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So much this. So much.

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@Thanatopsis#6293

I cannot talk for all groups or factions of course. But for the Grove at least, if you see us standing in a publically accessible area chatting in a group, you can safely assume we are open to be approached for RP and questions, "butting in" and general shenanigans. If sensitive, internal matters are spoken of, we wouldn't really do so standing in the middle of the Grove/Forest/wherever to begin with!

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A big problem as I see it of late is that all of the major cities (Cordor, Tarkuul, Kohlingen) are entirely self-sufficient. There is no reason for them to come into conflict with each other, because they would invariably lose more than they gain. And if none of them ever come into conflict with each other, what happens is we create havens of in-fighting. Factions of the same alignment arguing amongst themselves for the direction of their city. And while that can be fun sometimes, when it's the -only- way conflict ever happens... it gets stale very quick.

One thing the Arcanum war was extremely good at was giving the major settlements not only a dire need to interact (either to help each other or try to blow each other up) but a need to bring in outside, less trustworthy sources. Desperation begets desperation, and that's where you start to see real large scale inclusion of various alignments.

As a DM I'm trying to bring in the philosophy of "big risk big reward," because I think that's another thing that's been lacking the last few years. PCs -definitely- get big consequences for fucking up, but it seems like even then they take huge risks and succeed, they get very little out of it because we're afraid of rewarding players in big ways in case favoritism is cried.

These are the problems I've been muling over, and I welcome anyone's suggestions as to how to fix them and I'll see what I can incorporate.

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When we first started talking about the tri-hub system, Alanna, the "self-sufficiency" of each setting is exactly what I was trying to offer suggestions to help with. Core issues that are exploitable or problematic that necessitate not only the presence of adventurers but also potential causes for conflict between them. But it turned out that was a DM thing more than a designer thing. (I can still offer suggestions, mind!)

I think it was Illithid technology keeping us stable.

I think it's more about them being accessible by "neutral leaning towards evil" people.

Lot's of neutral areas, wilderness, whatnot, are guarded by one single entrance area, which is guarded by a city, typically with god-like NPCs: Khem has Nesek. Brog has the dorfs (though the barbs help). Endir's point. Ostland, an awesome area, guarded by a village. Caraigh. Forstakkr. See a pattern?

Challenge: Try to walk from Tarkuul's exit to Uhm without walking past a good-aligned guard NPC. It's quite a long trip, if it is possible at all. (You might argue that the road wardens in Amia Forest are neutral in the alignment system ... they're still opposed to a lot of the evil people.)

And it hurts to be shut out as evil from so many "neutral or leaning towards evil" areas (which do you even mean that are not hunting grounds? The merc camp and Wil-arbitrary-rules-Tun?) simply due to unnecessary choke points occupied by settlements with god-like guards and player-unfriendly rules.

There are some tricks to still get to some of those places. (Can you even get to Khem without going through Nesek? Not quite sure right now.) But many are hard to find at all and much harder to find IC with new characters.

This would be much easier if there were more obvious back-entrances to areas. The boats could stop at the backside of an island for a bit of extra coin, for example. And not some lame "yet another port with uber guards" backside. More leylines could also be in neutral areas and not in goodly places.

Regarding the original topic, though: Everyone has areas they love. In my opinion, reusing seldom used areas to save server resources and replace them with new content is definitely valid because I like new content. Just make sure that those new and cool places are reasonable accessible from different sides. Otherwise you end up with awesome areas as in the UD B that noone goes to ... And please, make use of the many tilesets and send us to exotic places and planes.

Regards
Ts

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Ralghok & Hazamir "The Weasel"

NPC in Caraigh, Wiltun, Frozenfar, Ostland and the cities on them do not stop evil from entering though? I wasn't just speaking of wilderness.

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Okay, let's make this precise. I think of people that are deep down the evil end in the commoner's view: Palemasters, BGs, Banites, Drow. If you are almost neutral and have no supernatural evil features, you can go to lots of places with a good conscience.

But it would be quite metagaming-the-guards in my understanding of the rules if a palemaster walked into Wiltun, Nesek, Ostland or Caraigh. It doesn't matter if you're fully covered or have illusions or invisibility or whatnot. We must always assume that all guards used an Epic Orb of Bioware True Seeing + 100 before breakfast.

Or an neutral epic mage in Wiltun. With the clarifications on magic in Ruathym, who in their right mind would want to enter Wiltun if they can be arbitrarily taken prisoner there by godlike NPC guards? The Wiltun law system explicitly doesn't seem to care about being accessible for PLAYERS to decide what they can and cannot do there without metagaming. Otherwise it would have been added to the sign at the gate 4 years ago.

I'd love for my epic caster to just ignore some backwater plebs like in Ostland, but I've always understood that this is not the intended way. If there are NPC guards in an area where the local law is opposed to you, simply don't go there, even if you think you're well-disguised.

Regards
Ts

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Ralghok & Hazamir "The Weasel"

Amarice, it is interesting you should mention Ruathym, after this post Magic in Ruathym. For Caraigh, I'm not saying you can't just portal to the middle of the island and move about freely from there, but my characters find it metagamey to walk past the outpost that has a fence you can't walk outside of, once you get across the boat. Of course, this may not seem like a big deal to you, but by in large 6 people I play with fall into the criteria of having done at least one "universal sin", and oddly enough I'm not 100% sure, but it looks like there's only one way in.

Is there another way in? I only ask because I rather dislike portals myself, and some of the best RP I have is random encounters.

As far as Wiltun? well, fair enough, I don't think as long as you don't require to go in the gates, that it's too big a deal, same with Ostland, though the plot discourages me more than any goodly NPC's possible could there.

Frozenfar might have some untapped potential, though in my experience, every time I've gone there, I've found nobody else. Furthermore, from a lore perspective, I was told that Howness is wary of outsiders, which doesn't really sit that well to start out.

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_Ts has some very good substance in their posts, and I share and sympathize with a lot of it.

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From my perspective, if you combine these things, with the ramping expectation that people should be open to more consequences... think about this: Disposable Evil... now think about this: Disposable Hero. In what situation does a hero try, fail, and permadeath? At the very least, if they are to die, they always must die a hero, and win in the process. That being said, it's been quite a long time since I've actually seen a hero fail to a villain and accept the ultimate punishment. (if ever) But a villain? No. You're expected to die if you fail, because otherwise, it's just "stupid." (and I've seen several people guilt tripped into permadeathing through those means, or by means of bringing them to a plot protected place like Kohlingen)

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In my opinion, evil needs more plot protected bases that are invincible, just like Kohlingen. Lets not talk about Tarkuul either, because well, Tarkuul was declawed long ago, when it threw its own necromancers into the wind, for the sake of rescuing a paladin that tried to invade it.

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Alanna, I appreciate that you're going through the motions of trying to revitalize something that's been long lost on Amia. But I think I may not be alone in that while I appreciate the opportunity to RP, I'm some what hesitant to launch my character into a "serious mode" type of situation, and I know others are as well. I rather struggle with that already as it is, and it's always been a bit obtuse to me some people can be involved in the same exact plot you are but at a lower risk, just because of their disposition. So in that sense, for what it is that I'm searching for: conflict, I don't know if that will change much. When someone is permadead, the conflict dies with them. Oddly enough, in these types of events I've never seen the villain prevail; so whether or not I care about the fact I will most likely lose, adding permadeath to the list of things that happen makes it an unattractive offer. Sad, because otherwise I'd love to participate and get a chance to RP with you.

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Anyways, to sum it up, the direction of amia seems to have gone from a player-born conflict server to a DM adventure server, where interlopers are discouraged. Thus, I feel lost, at times.

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a.k.a. Audrey Zinata

So I've been thinking about the "splitting the server" argument for removing areas... and really, while the reasoning is sound, I'm not sure the end result would be of any benefit. If people play in a separated area, then they do so because there is something compelling about that place that isn't found in other areas. Removing that isn't going to make the game more fun for those players, you'll just be forcing them into a lesser experience. They may well decide to move on to a different server or game, rather than create new characters for environments that don't appeal to them as much.

Besides, portals may seem like a "weak" justification to some, but they're an established part of the setting, and have been for a long time. Our characters use them every day, no one would get in or out of Tarkuul without them. It may be geographically closer to Amia than Khem, but in practice they're equally (in)accessible. Similiar with Shadowscape which, despite being in a different dimension, still sees a reasonable amount of RP and is far from separated in terms of plot.

As for the evil thing, as Serbiris brought up, a chaotic settlement is sorely needed. Evil folks go where they can get away with stuff and acquire power, no sane villain would look at, say, Wiltun and think "Man, those guys are being ruled with a soul-crushing iron fist, I wanna live among them!"

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Currently playing:
Aven Brinyflask
Safaya Dalai
Riyit
Chsera Hile

(Credits to Raua for the sprite, sauce -here-.)

I have such a plan to do this in character, but it's difficult to get things moving. Especially with Ostland being the way it is! But I have faith.

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a.k.a. Audrey Zinata

There's no permadeath in my plots - never advertised them as such. All of my hooks are designed to give PCs motivation to interact with each other, not with me as a DM. Just to clarify.

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Aaaand unfortunately I tried that with my character and was told to leave, no RP around it just leave cause you know... drow must be evil. It doesn't matter that this particular drow was polite, didn't cause trouble. Most the... ah.. neutral places assume you're guilty before it's proven.

What was great about Necperya for a time was the fact that spies could get in. And that conflict was allowed. Not so much anymore I don't think.

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2015 Mr. AMIA with the Fabulous Estara ~ 2015 Best Developed SOB Character: Rith'tar

On a related note, why is it that evil characters can't bind to the Salandran temple grounds?

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Currently playing:
Aven Brinyflask
Safaya Dalai
Riyit
Chsera Hile

(Credits to Raua for the sprite, sauce -here-.)

Well... the problem before was that anyone could get in, not just spies. Skilled spies can get in. Someone role-playing a commoner or a slave that gains citizenship in Nec'perya can walk around like any of the nobles can. Or, the cheep way is just make a drow spy... lol.

Not to put you particularly on the spot, but that is exactly how a character that displays evil *should* be treated, considering any sort of reasonable IC thoughts. It doesn't, and shouldnt, matter if that drow, or palemaster, or tiefling, or fiery demon from the pits of Baator is acting politely, their entire race is known to be evil incarnate. Exceptions, even with how wildly over-represented those exceptions are, should have to prove themselves. At least a third party to vouch for them (getting that third party voucher is the problem then... but at least the good drow have a whole faction and deity backing to help with that).

Of course, that doesn't really work if you're stuck in a poorly populated time zone, or just happen to be on without anyone you know. If, after the situation where you were ICly shunned (with good IC reason I will reiterate), you were ALSO shunned OOCly as a player trying to figure out how to include your good drow in the fun during a lull in server population... Then there's a problem, but it's not the one you pointed out.

I can't tell you how often I've gotten annoyed because people on this server ignore/accept blithely the most blatant or ridiculous thing without even batting an eye. I get a bit encouraged on those few times people actually react with the IC suspicion they should be.

Like I said, I don't know the situation you're talking about or what all you did or happened. But I think in general, and I am very guilty of this myself, people are overly loathe to even briefly set up RP through OOC tells, especially with people they don't know well. We really shouldn't be. The party chat can get way overboard fast, but for the most part a few tells can set up things between characters that *never* could have been through IC actions alone. We are all limited by the game engine itself, and our RL distractions, or experience roleplaying, or with this medium. A lot of subtlety gets lost. I personally try to capture a little of it in the IC bio, to leave something obviously unstated in hopes of drawing attention to what's not there (and get IC or OOC responses in relation to it). I've met with rather limited success, but I think that's also because a lot of people ignore the bio entirely. Anyways, point here is that I certainly enjoy when someone takes an interest in some piece of my character, even if it's OOCly, and I'm sure everyone else is the same way, and that more people exchanging a few more notes in tells would help everyone find more RP.

But I'm still gonna shun those evil drow. They tried to break the world yanno.
/offtopic

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Good! That's the point of playing a monstrous race. Drow should be feared and hated on sight until proved otherwise. They are the boogeymen of DnD, the stuff scary stories are made of, and that they are soooo easily accepted is just gross.

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Whomst've'll'd'mn't I play:
Salema Nefahri :: A penny for your thots
Zrae'a'stra'fryn :: That which nightmares are made of
Khasir :: From the East a storm is coming

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Abernathy Hearthart, Salandran Healer (similar to my avatar picture of the lovely Jordan Madley )
Azorgl da Mercenary, Cigar toting Ogre...hero?

In fairness, you'd think living in close proximity to the Shrine of Eilistrae for years would make the Grove more open to the idea of non-evil drow, if only just a bit.

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Currently playing:
Aven Brinyflask
Safaya Dalai
Riyit
Chsera Hile

(Credits to Raua for the sprite, sauce -here-.)

But the shrine is just a haven for evil drow, didn't you know! But, seriously, they did have a Grove member that was whoredancer Eillistreean whoredancer drow. She kinda did some violent things from what I have heard IC. So maybe extra-tainted perceptions now? Plus drow have attacked the forest a number of times in the past.

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Whomst've'll'd'mn't I play:
Salema Nefahri :: A penny for your thots
Zrae'a'stra'fryn :: That which nightmares are made of
Khasir :: From the East a storm is coming

My druid had her reasons in this particular case. But I do not feel this is something that needs to be discussed here unless you explicitly wish so. And yes she did ask him to move on for those reasons.

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Not sure how this topic got hijacked into a drow PR agency, but I agree that drow really should be attacked on-sight by most societies, including evil ones... I thought that somewhere it said in an old forum post by a dm somewhere that if you are playing a drow, then you give everyone permission to attack you at all times.... but w/e...

I personally think these problems have been happening quite a bit before the Arcanum plot, as that was ever only a means to an end. Nobody ever really thought that plot was going to go any way other than it did, really.

In terms of areas and big risk vs big reward; What would be your general focus of the three cities? Who would be doing what, and how would the players get involved in this? Further: Are we trying to move away from city-borne factions and conflict? Lastly -- are we talking player versus player tension, or a DM plot?

if you think about the Persistent part of PW status of Amia in general, what made it successful in the past was not when area's blew up, or whatever-- that part made people quit. The part that kept people interested was having inter-faction plots in which intermediary ground could be lost or gained politically or combat otherwise, without the constant need for DM's. For example, Guldurand was claimed by the Banites, and several meaningful exchanges happened in the Skull Crags and outside of it. Same goes with Caraigh and the cult of Orcus vs the Defenders of Caraigh. The Feud between War Knights and Banites, etc, etc. Even Banites vs Velsharan at one point. Enemies were had, good had an actual purpose into existing, other than DM plots, alliances were formed, the setting had a general tension which facilitated much RP that never even required a DM. Faction vs. Faction was the lifeblood for a long time.

Of course, I don't want to take your newer thread about OOC conflict out of context, so I'll just say that it's important to point out the PotM (Ravenloft) has a conflict nature with mechanical consequences by default. So that ruling makes double sense, because when you lose there, you lose your gold, XP, and your primary weapon slot, which is a pretty big penalty enough, and people are naturally entitled to be at least upset over that. On Amia, you lose nothing, basically, (unless you're me!) so the fact that people get so OOC towards another player the time of the incident is a bit discouraging, and at that point alone, the entire meaning of the conflict is lost because both players cannot fully appreciate it.

But does people not being mature mean we should continue down the path we are right now? I know a couple DM's are anti-PvP as hard as it gets, but without any conflict, the server grows stale, and turns into what I said before... DM adventure time. Most players are sitting at a neutral alignment; whether or not their character displays this on their stat sheet is irrelevant, because that's simply how most people are RP'ing these days. As much as you loathe the OOC bullshit that comes with some PvP, and as much as some people dislike losing, or being involved in a mechanics war; in the past it has had the server buzzing with meaningful conflict and had people logging on to have more. Without this embedded into Amia itself, you better anticipate running DM plots to account for most of the RP, and that leaves the only RP for factions/players to be playing house with each other, or building their next addition to their base.

If you want my suggestion: I firmly believe that faction bases should be immune to destruction, because for the most part it discourages any sort of lasting unquenchable conflict whatsoever. People spend 2 years making something; ex. Nec'perya, and will never raid the surface under any circumstances no matter what. Ever. Why? Because one Eillistraeen opens a portal and bam half of amia is perfectly squared in the hardest place to get to in Faerun, and lays waste to all of it. And so what if they die? Do you expect the heroes to play dead? What then? Will those solve the problem? Maybe. Maybe not, but as it is right now, there's no incentive to stick your neck out as evil.

We need to shift the culture of conflict away from buildings being more important than the people who own them. No other story I've ever read has this weird idea, and it's certainly non-conducive of conflict, as it strips the confidence out of people who don't live in Kohlingen or Tarkuul. People decide "oh, so since I can't kill the player, I'm going to just blow up their fort instead." And well, that would be cool, if it was an even playing field, and I didn't spend over 40 million gold on blown up cities/temples, but it's most certainly not. If this type of thing is to continue, faction bases should cost little RP and almost zero gold. Otherwise, stalemate.

If no to the above, are the DM's ready to plot protect a true city of chaos / evil?

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a.k.a. Audrey Zinata

Ultimately from what I've read, it boils down to that there is too many Cliques, that all want to be their own demi gods, and seem to have the personal attention of the DM's at all times. I've seen groups raise, and dwindle away, because they try to create something, but don't receive any support for it. Do some areas need to be removed yes, you log onto a server of 35+ people, and can't bump into a single person, well shit, you're wasting how many hours of your day for nothing?

Good vs Evil=good wins, this personality, and idea needs to be dropped by staff and players alike. I for one, normally play evil characters, for good characters are so cliche, and boring. Even in events of good vs evil since I've been here, the evil always has the harder time, while good can power game through it, put less effort, and reap better rewards.

As for these cities that can't be entered by evil races, monster races, etc. I believe alternate means should be added. Tumble checks to scale a wall, search checks to find an old sewer crate that leads into the cities. These small things, would make it easier, and funner to play.

To help find others for rp, simply add a player locator tool, that gives a population number in locations. Oh my god, yes I suggested something that could be metad. Well it happens every day, you know when you roll a new character, and all the pals of your other character are this character's now best friend? Or you all roll those new ones together etc. That's metaing.

In the end, the server is very unfriendly to new players, and the player tool for toggling if you want to adventure helps do nothing for I'd say 5% of the time, there's three people in it, two that are low, one that's 23+. (Also perhaps add tailoring at the starting to you can have your character at least show up in non drab, terrible grey outfits when you first come in. Put those awesome robes that you have implemented to good use.)

On a side note, how high do you think your chances of the population increasing are? Not very, since the game is dead, no longer supported, and no one really wants to play them anymore. As someone said, you lose two people, to one that leaves. I'd say 3 of every five that do join, is because of word of mouth from one old player, to another, that comes here to try this, or goes there to try that, and ends up leaving because of this, or that. In the end ultimately, if there is no interaction, your numbers won't go up, but just start to plummet down. Prime example, Kymlun, used to be 30+ now there elitests, demi god players play by themselves, with a population of 5.

I know it might be immersion-breaking, and metagame, and OOC blah blah but I think we have too much shyness/archaic thoughts around the "golden age of nwn roleplay" to NOT try something

But just to help people meet up with who we want to meet up with until we get a RP advertiser IG, would people be interested in starting a "looking for roleplay" thread? What about some separate 'rolecall' threads for classes or races, like one for drow, elves, monks, druids? "I play Dark Darkie, lolth drow checking in."

Mostly this would just serve as an OOC census that'd hopefully help people see who they even COULD interact with and if there's other characters like theirs out there. They don't even have to "get along" necessarily, but just by communicating that you -exist- and you're out there (and you want people to know you exist) is a great beacon.

For example I might get really discouraged if I want to roll or play an evil druid but I haven't seen/heard of any others in the month that I've started mine, and I'd have to comb the forums for hours to look for the name of another one, meanwhile two other evil druids have just been playing their alts and didn't even know I was looking. Cue every evil druid unhappy and friendless. Sure I could post a nice italicized emote on the IC boards that I've been scratching up trees, but that gets burried QUICK and sometimes I read those and can't even tell what the poster wanted- was it meant for the public or a DM or someone specific?

Repeat the idea with anyone who wants to fight each other/drama together/frollick together. Drow, lycans, etc. Don't freak out, all I'm saying is make a thread titled "Drow census" and you say if you have one and give as much or as little info as you want.

Lol should I just make my own thread for all these ideas?

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This wouldn't be immersion breaking or metagame at all to me, personally. I think something like this is exactly what this server needs. I think this server needed it for a while now, in fact.

That is really unfortunate, given how long I was involved in it years ago, and how I had literally no idea where it was going to end - be that in my horrific awful death, the turning of cordor into a netherese city, or actually managing to do something good. That last one seemed much less likely than the one two, much of the time.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

This sounds like one thing the concept sub-forum was made for.

It might be useful to make a curated thread for this, like davis did the build thread. People can post on their own something about their characters, with direct links to their personal story board thread or whatever, or concepts for groups of characters they would like to be involved in. Then it can all be linked back to one post with an index of active characters and currently recruiting proto-groups, so it's easier to look over without losing things in masses of posts. The wiki had something like this, with some old characters listed, but it seems easier to use the forums for it.

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So.. I'm going to be honest here. I didn't read the entire thread. Too many words. Not enough time. But I'm pretty sure I know of something that would definitely help the 'spread' problems in the short term without having to come up with excuses to destroy half the settlements on the server.


There should be an option in game to show your location to other players via the Rest menu. We already have a feature that lists the players online, which is helpful, but it would be vastly more helpful if it showed us where those players are too.

You could give the players who don't like the meta aspect of it the option to hide their location and leave the rest to come up with excuses for their characters to stumble into each other more often.

Wont work for new players who have no idea where anything is.

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Elwyn Sabel - Laura Jarshall - Mordoc Ebonhand

Discord: Bhaalorian#5715

As long as we're already letting a bit of OOC in, it's not too much of a stretch to imagine those helpless noobs sending /tells to us seasoned vets. "I see you're looking for RP in a place called Kohlingen! Can you tell me how to find you?"

There might even be a note to that effect in the widget's bio. "Please feel free to send a brief and polite /tell to anyone whose name is included here, if you need help finding their location."

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Winner of Amia's "Most Ethical Time Traveler" award 2026

Character Portraits!

Normally I'd agree but this doesn't stand up to a Roleplay Advertiser aka the party advertiser, which serves the same function (telling people you're looking for roleplay) without broadcasting location.

When you broadcast your location, it would let anyone, even people who really don't want to "roleplay" but want to kill you or be evil/good at you, come find you. And you can't filter it to specific people. It'd also be extra terrible if it compulsory defaulted to show everyone's location even if you give them an option to disable it... I can just see so much potential risk that nobody would end up using the function.

At least with a roleplay advertiser, people know you want RP, both parties are known. No one can randomly show up to your location. You send tells and find out a bit about each other before sending invites to connect. I imagine tells with the RP Advertiser to be "Race/class/concept? Looking for specific RP?" instead of "ECL?" After the party invite you find out their location seconds after, they can ask where Kohlingen is etc.

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Just start using the party ball for this. Ignore anyone that gets mad that you aren't looking for an OOC hunting group (if this mythical person even actually exists). This IS an RP server after all, I'm sure people can handle hearing that you are looking for RP over OOC hunting.

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I've always found the party ball thing to be a a little...odd. Aren't we all looking for some sort of role play when we log in? Something about sending people a tell asking what kind of RP they're looking for feels forced and awkward to me, but my own role-play preferences tend to be very fluid so.. I dunno.

You would need to trust other players not to abuse the tool, but I don't really have a problem trusting other players. I think we should all trust each other more OOC. What does it matter OOC if a character is IC trying to kill/assassinate/kidnap another character anyway? It's all part of the fun.

If you wanted to protect your character from assassination attempts or whatever, you could simply turn the thing off. If you were okay with other people using it to find your character for nefarious reasons, as I am, you could leave it on and Roll with the Punches as they came along.

Either way, I think the end result is that people will have a less awkward way to bump their characters into each other and that can only lead to more RP and less aimless wandering.

All in good time people, things are being developed.

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a.k.a. Audrey Zinata

I agree with this post. It's understandable to want diversity, to want new zones and areas to explore, but at the same time it feels like Amia is trying to be its own universe in microcosm by catering to every different locale rather than just being Amia. It's a bit late to turn around on that one, though.

I'm not a huge fan of pre-arranging RP and dashing through the module to meet up with folks. The size of the module, the dwindling playerbase and the overwhelming ease with which we can zip around all combine to strike a sad blow to spontaneous roleplay in the 'travelling' zones. I made an effort with Walsen Drine to walk everywhere to see if I was just waxing nostalgic, but the main thoroughfares of the Amian Isle - paths between Cordor, Khol, Wharftown, Uhm, the forest, the Temple - are often dead, with the odd hasted mage or hunting party impatient to be bopping monsters.

A LFRP tool would be useful, but in my opinion it'd just be a band-aid on a wound that needs some stronger medecine.

This is why I'm firmly in the 'shrink it down' camp, although the size of the module is only one facet of that problem. My reasoning is that if you give people incentives to walk around a smaller world they will inevitably bump into each other. But as with many other multiplayer games I've seen, once such conveniences have been put in place you'll never be able to remove them for fear of the backlash.