guys.... seriously... this is not how people work. You cannot get people to RP more by making the world smaller.

Have you ever seen an advertisement that goes like this? :

"Small world to explore!"


The answer is no, you haven't because it's completely insane. If you want people to RP together, you are going to have to LET them, not crowd them together in a smaller space so they have no choice....


My 2 and 1/2 cents....

... What are you talking about?

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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

Joe, you often make posts in which you're making a valid point or giving suggestions, but I think that you need to work on your choice of wording and structure when you do. Your posts often rely on people already understanding what you're trying to say, when most of the time we don't because we haven't been privy to your thought process. If you explain what you're saying in the post itself, -then- provide your reasoning, your posts will be more effective.

Alternative perspective: Culling old, underutilized content frees up resources to add new lands to explore and new adventures.

I believe he is referring to the argument about server design direction that suggests Amia is now "too big" for the current playerbase and needs to have some areas cut out to increase the likelihood of players encountering one another and being able to roleplay. It is a view I have espoused at times, and I respect joe's dissent. There is something valid in the contrary: we have tools that allow people to arrange meetings OOC, so actually finding people you want to find does not have to be difficult.

New visitors are generally the ones who suffer with so large a server and so small a playerbase - they log on and encounter no one to rp with at times, and are unfamiliar with the tools we have available to wail for interaction.

But to defend joe's view, he is right. A smaller server feels somewhat counterproductive to the idea of growth.

That is why my design suggestion has been to say that we only cull places that need to be culled because they are not visited or used, but replace them with areas that are new and tasty and perhaps a little less expansive, but are immediate attention grabbers that, while enjoying early novelty will push people together by default. Fornadventuring or otherwise. I consider it a kind of compromise between "shrink the server!" and "expand the server!" It is simply to "rejuvenate" what we already have and make the most out of it.

(Though I still personally come down on the shrink the server side, hehe. Not dramatically, just certain areas that have become tired or are incongruent or boring!)

Is it really new visitors suffering? We've done a good job of making hubs, and giving newbies early access to those hubs. People still can and will move away from those hubs for those dreaded private chats, nothing that any amount of area culling will fix. The problem is that if we keep getting rid of unused areas, there is no room for players to grow their factions into. Tom/Torsten settled into Howness and though he didn't have a lot of luck with recruiting, got some good RP going and managed to bring in outside factions. I had a really nice thing going in Zanshibon and legit I would go back to continue that if I could. And then there's Underport, which has been notoriously difficult to get into - there's no good way for PCs to insinuate themselves into leaderly positions there, like there are in Howness or there were in Zanshibon. I'll be sad if those areas go, especially since I played and play with PCs who tend to get banned from all civilised active settlements, and will have nowhere else to go. Some replacements will probably be for the better, though to be honest I'm always going to miss the old Triumvir, Underport, this area and that.

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@Thanatopsis#6293

Yes. (how's that for word choice)



The problem is, there I no such thing as "new visitors." Perhaps there are some that have never paid attention to the forums, perhaps there are some that have never committed to one player account. Perhaps there are some that have given up on old accounts, and started fresh with a new account because they know how to play better now and feel like they need a fresh start.

...but...

There are no new players. Enjoy.



This should be all of our goals. Anything that is different than that, such as "Make the server smaller" or "Keep the server the same size" or "Maybe we can get rid of some of this stuff that no one uses anymore but occasionally an old player logs on to see if it's still there" is counterproductive.

You're making broad statements based on assumptions, not facts. And there's no need to get snide when provided with a suggestion.

I will add my own part, and suggest that there are few new players, and that the above isn't a 'broad stroke'. It is easily defined and discovered...and in my experience....largely true.

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I Am:
Derrin: 'Nothing to see here'
Beck: Hard working dwarf paladin.
Naela 'Widow': Wandering priestess.
Celinor Triellian: Paladin of Corellon.

I am making many assumptions, here are a few:

Readers of this post read English, care about role-play, play NWN, play NWN on Amia servers, enjoy Forgotten Realms, and care about the advancement of Amia as a server.

I am making no broad statements, however... unless you consider making a statement that encompasses the entirety of an extremely small social nook on the internet as "broad"...

Here are some facts for you, if you want some:

The player base is getting smaller
The map world of Amia is getting smaller


correlation? cause? I'll leave that up to you to decide.

Actually, Amia isn't shrinking. While some areas have been relocated, removing them from one place and putting them into another (with additions on top of what was already existing), there are new areas going in as well. Some are simply being altered in their structure. Some are being "repurposed". A few are being outright removed, yes - (trust me, I know which ones, because most of them were my favorite places to go be a sneak at) - but that is actually a very small amount, and the ones being outright removed were almost entirely tiny areas that almost no one knew about anyway.

Meanwhile, although my favorite little hiding hole off Caras Ravanya was removed, there are are three or four huge new maps off of Guldorand that are gorgeous, and don't see much traffic as they deserve. The world is changing, and while it is being condensed in some aspects, it is growing in others. There are a lot of "seeds" that have gone undiscovered or unquestioned, a lot of beautiful areas that aren't used or appreciated and yet become fodder for broad statements of a shrinking world - when we can actually check the amount of visits an area has received, and tell if it was well used or not.

There is a movement to centralize RP hubs, yes. I personally have mixed feelings about this, and can understand why others would also. However, aside of removing some entirely superfluous and nonsensical things, there is nothing particular special that has been culled.

Also, don't forget the dungeonmaps. Throughout all my years here, new dungeons have surfaced. Looking forward to the next Labyrinth level, the first one was so rich with lore that we had to call in Lore-experts IC to examine the objects. No ETA of course on the new map... but still, looking forward to it!

If you didn't want or appreciate brief, polite advice on how to make your discussion topic flow better, say so next time instead of being passive aggressive.

I try to offer people I see standing around doing nothing some friendly pokes ooc- though recently I've been rejected as they said they wanted 'organic' rp. Yet again I know these same people have specifically ooc asked to play with others.

These same folks I've seen state on the forums they were looking to rp with others. I guess I'm really bad at understanding a certain few.

I've also had problems with folks who said they wanted to open up rp with new folks only to attempt to oblige and be shut out.

I try to be really friendly with new players and I encourage people to send me some ooc tells or make my self approach able because standing around doing nothing on a bridge is pretty darn boring. I don't see why asking for some means of meeting up or having the characters bump in to each other is such a sin if there really is absolutely nothing going on. I prefer to look at things from a writer's perspective and want to work collaboratively with others.


In my honest opinion I feel like too many folks aren't really wanting to open up and try anything new or out of thier comfort zone for once.

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Honestly at times I find myself miminizing NWN going off to do something else, then 10 minutes later, still finding nothing to do. It could be the time of the week..perhaps it's not. Who knows? But I used to remember back a few months ago the server was bustling with people. Oddly now all of a sudden the populace died down.

Hrm.... I guess I haven't actually taken a look at all the maps and seen how big the game is now compared to last year... So MAYBE I'm wrong about amia shrinking... or maybe I'm just foretelling what will happen next year if we keep editing things out.



An area that has no one entering it with a character in-game could still be being used in the minds of the players. Here's some personal examples:

-I am trying to come up with a concept for an elven character that fits in to Amia and relates to the world. In order to do that, I need to imagine where/when/how/what they would do in Winya. Now that Winya may be removed, my project there is on hold because I don't know if Winya is going to be there for my new character or not.

-I was trying to come up with some desert role-play for one of my other characters when I found out Khem was being removed, now that idea has been tossed in the garbage.



le sigh....

People love this old game. See that rock that looks completely boring and "appears to be nothing particularly special"? I guarantee you that SOMEONE has a fond memory associated with that dumb looking rock. I'm not saying "don't change anything," just.... don't you guys know people love this game? When you take something out, you are actually hurting people's feelings, and not just mine.

That's a position I hadn't considered, probably due to my lack of any significant presence IG. I'm just a backend schmuck now. Focusing on hubs has been the year's project for sure, and that involves a whole lot more work on the DMs than on the design team, since they have to maintain and initiate where we just provide the tools and reactions. From your perspective, is it preferable to try to establish a faction outside of a major hub (Cordor, Kohl, Tarkuul) for some reason, rather than inside of it? I think people should more or less be able to establish a faction where they want to within reason (and even a little outside of reason for fun!), but as a player I personally always hope to be able to find a lot of rich factions locked tightly together in a populated area rather than spread out across the landscape, so remote from one another that they don't have any realistic influence over one another.

And joe, you have a point that we don't have a huge amount of new players, and I'm often easily fooled into believing a returning player with a new handle is actually a new player. But my position has always been to plan for the server's playerbase growing, and I personally feel that the size of the server should only grow or shrink to accomodate the playerbase in a reactionary way, rather than "let us expand the server in order to expand our playerbase". Always acknowledging I may be shortsighted, of course. And thanks for taking the time to express your feelings about the direction of the server. It is nice when players take an active part in thinking and discussing it, and I am sorry for any hurt feelings you have for anything that may have been removed.

I agree with Joe. My main problem with the changes is that we're losing some of the most exotic areas of the server, and in return we get yet more forests, mountains and forested mountains. I never got to see the tropical island while it was around, but after hearing about it in that other thread, I realized just how much I want an area like that.

Part of why I like Amia so much is that there is room for almost any kind of character here, but lately it seems like the server has been undergoing a process of homogenization. Of course, that may just be because of the lower number of players, but still.

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Currently playing:
Aven Brinyflask
Safaya Dalai
Riyit
Chsera Hile

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

What kind of places would you like to see, Larsaan? And what about our recent content feels homogenized to you? I get the "forests, mountains, and forested mountains" part, sure. That's just a sampling of what has been released to date.

I would probably feel a little more excited about the changes if I knew there were some new desert areas and some new Amia A underdark areas in the works.

I am certain I would be excited about changes to Winya if I got some introductory lore for the new areas.

Well... I mean, I'm not all that imaginative when it comes to world building. Personally, I'm drawn towards coastal and/or temperate areas (and underwater areas, love those), but really, more variety in general is good. A new tropical area for sure, and I'd rather see Khem and Zanshibon redesigned like L'Obsul, rather than removed.

And I'm a bit miffed about the Triumvir getting nixed just a week after I'd discovered it for the first time, but hey.

Also, the rat cultist lair (and related to that, the sewer crypts with the trap gauntlet) was probably my favourite dungeon in the game.

Edit: As for the homogenization thing... it's not necessarily something to do with the new areas, so much as with what they're replacing, even if more effort was put into the new stuff. Sometimes I'll happily eat mediocre chinese food, just because it's so different to what I usually eat, y'know?

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Currently playing:
Aven Brinyflask
Safaya Dalai
Riyit
Chsera Hile

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

I will let those more knowledgable about the underdark explain whether or not there is anything like an underdark on Amia A. Last I checked, there is no underdark beneath Amia for a reason - it is an island, wholly isolated from all of that (though there is precedent for "upperdark" like areas below the island, because they did used to exist).

Winya lore would be more in the realm of what DMs what help with, though I may be able to assist with such a project if asked to by them. Elves are not my strong suit, however, and I would be afraid of irritating our players who are very familiar with FR elven lore and would poke little holes in any lore I might dream up.

Larsaan, you will be happy to know that some of our designers are also into underwater areas. At least one of them has been mapped out and I think now is waiting on creature/scripting work. But coastal/temperate areas should be a norm for the area, especially if we establish anything a little south of Amia.

Khem and Zanshibon had some significant problems with them overall. Zanshibon did not do an abyssal realm any justice, and PCs tromping around there and running amok seemed weirdly offensive. Now that I have nearly finished running paizo's Wrath of the Righteous, which deals a lot with the Abyss and even sends players to a major city there, I'd have a better idea of how to make such an area work unoffensively. I think it got removed for a similar reason to the illithids.

Khem troubled me a bit a long time ago. The "desert area" used to be on Amia itself, just eastish I think of the Skull Crags, and reached through a cave from Guldorand. But when it occurred to us that we were being kindegartners about geography, we decided we would just create the canon area of Khem and sorta reuse the areas and call it that and have it accessed via portal. But the problem with that was one of isolation. We already had problems with the surface and the underdark being totally isolated from one another and splitting the playerbase. Khem we feared was doing the same thing, but also, from a story perspective, it could never be well integrated into a server named Amia. At least with Ruathym and Ostland and Brog and Forrstakkr, they are within the same part of the ocean and a ship's ride away. Khem, though...incredibly remote, in more ways than just logistics. But there are plenty of players who used that and loved it in spite of all of that, so...always a really tough call.

Sorry about the Triumvir. Between the original design of the area being overloaded with PLCs and the incredibly troubled lore regarding the area, it needed either to be drastically changed or removed. I would much have preferred a simple place on the material plane somewhere, and even suggested a method to redesign it that way, but the original design to have it as some kind of off-plane, cobbled together pocket dimension was unpalatable and created massive continuity issues.

I loved the rat cultist area myself. I always liked its simple design.

I believe the areas of Underport and Udos Dro'xun are considered to be Upperdark areas so they are the only UD maps on A, sadly. Technically there is UD areas below A since the UD runs under all of the planet (far as I know) but just depends on what is available to the server.

Khem... yeah that one will always make me sad Removing it makes Mulhorandi characters even less likely to end up on Amia, given they really don't need to leave Mulhorand. And I do love my sand people

And yus, the old rat cultist quest was always neat, heh.

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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

I would not mind making the world a bit smaller, my main issue is the current DM/Dev aim to make the server Cordor centric which is something that I find disturbing. I for one heavily dislike the place since I started playing here and it is possibly only my opinion but I always hated that the main plots were focused around that place, making other places literally irrelevant.

I raised that issue to msheller not too long ago IG and we had a rather nice conversation about that development. Reducing the Triumvir's ability to provide lore to a reasonable level was one thing and the Vodak plot was quite reasonable for that, but removing that place was far from being reasonable, considering that the place and the design was perfect, especially for a pre-HAK and 1.69 design.



Now it is gone, but players started their own initiative with DM supervision to replace it on the Prime with a bardic version of the three steps academy, with the involvement of at least 10 PCs. That project is on halt due to OOC reasons, but I didn't think that the staff would find it a problem. However, recently I read that NPCs are making their own bardic things in Cordor North, even Harold has survived the Tirumvir's fall (umm...wait he didn't, but he suddenly did!) and thus every bardic stuff will be placed there. That sort of approach literally disables every possible PC initiative which kinda sucks.

When I asked people from the staff I received answers saying that it is a general aim to make the server Cordor focused and they want to place. Basic bardic stuff would be placed in Cordor and I can make whatever PC initiative I want to. The truth is that this is not how it will look like. Cordor will literally have everything and there will be a now, functionally reduced PC initiative somewhere on the other end of the map, and thus the bard PCs won't even have to explore anything (which would be the general point of the bard rp) to learn something.

Or there is Uhm. It was the last remaining independent settlement on Amia without any faction or city influence. Yes, people didn't go there but maybe that was the point of the place? It was a perfect place for DM mini events as it was a typical village. The place was removed, at least it had a good IC reason behind that, but as we can see, it was mainly an OOC aim to change the already existing server. The area is still there but in ruins, so what was the point removing it?

My question is: what is the point of making a PW server if your PC is not even motivated to go out and explore from the "central hub"? Also, the fact that NPC initiatives can override the PC initiatives starting to give an MMORPG feeling, which is definitely not the best direction for the server. Alaria has mentioned the new dungeons, but the priority of this server is the RP and the DM plots, not the pre-set dungeons.

Yossarin mentioned the issue of new players. Do we really have a significant number of new players? What are the chances that a 13 years old game will have new players? Most of the new players I can see are old players in a new account. This game came out in 2002, there is little chance that new players in 2015 will become significant in number.

My question is: Why focusing on attracting new players when there is little chance for such? Why not focusing on keeping the already existing playerbase and make them motivated to stay??? Or give a reason to the currently inactive players to return??

This is not yet fully decided. I am still fighting

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You're not the only one.



People did go there, the Banites tried/failed to build a power base there, and just like everything else that has had a reputable evil influence, it was removed from the module.



Yep... very true.

--------

I'll just add a few areas that I think shouldn't have been removed:

On A alone:

- Illithid Lair: Undoubtably the most popular post 23 dungeon in Amia existence.
- Actand (barring plot remake, not removal) A solid place to spend time fighting mobs with high stats
- Loviatar temple was removed to make "room" for the server, as my faction was RP'ing there, and I was told too bad. Sadly enough, there aren't too many places left underground on A, as Yossarin guessed, and Laktavian said.
- There's only a stub of the Underdark -- it might as well not be there at this rate, since it leads nowhere basically.
- What people haven't seen yet is that Underport has moved to L'Obsul IC already. It has not yet been reflected ingame, but that's what I've been told. So I expect that area to be culled or otherwise changed.
- The beholders, and yuan-ti were suspected next to be marked for deletion, but I think that got cancelled (thankfully)
- Cordor Underground: Dunno why that was removed.
- The old Red Wizard/HoA hovel apparently was snapped from the module as well.
- The Triumvir, a place where all people went, of any alignments, that added a unique feel and eventually a plotline to the server.
- Uhm - a city with influence of the Banites / evil was removed after an attack, convenient. (If you look at Kampo's, or Guld, they didn't suffer, the same fate)
- Guldurand, a city in which evil tried to spread their influence several times in inception, Banites, the most recent, spending 7-8 months to gain their trust, and eventually Cordor swept in and turned it into a "don't metagame the guards" area.

Basically, the direction of devs/DM's driving these changes to me, looks very suspiciously towards removing all grinding/bosses from A and turning it into a fairy land where there's basically no "evil" places at all. Of course, that might sound harsh, but if you look at the general direction of these changes, it's interesting to say the least.

Personally, I've always felt that it's very poor judgement to remove an area from the server, without offering a replacement, and I know other DM's and I don't want to speak for Disco, but when the Banite temple blew up and they culled what I felt was one of the best areas on the server, he offered to place it somewhere else for us, of course the DM's said no.

This isn't really a new thing, or really the DM team of this era's doing, but rather a playerbase/community/DM/Dev direction that has been going on for a while.

Anyways, I think these changes are part of the reason why people don't log in, Joe. But I think more importantly, for evil players especially, having an area has become such a commodity, that you are allergic to conflict, because as soon as you lose, bam, you lose 2 years of work, and they replace it with a forest, meanwhile, the people who attacked you came from a city that spans like 18 areas in the Amia map and has several plot protection devices.

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a.k.a. Audrey Zinata

I planned for the Yuan-ti to be moved onto a nice small jungle-ish island and re-balance them slightly (currently the boss is in horrid imbalance to the rest of the dungeon). They were never planned to be removed though.

_________________

Fair enough. Is that planned for A or B, though? If it's B, then that's another boss lost for A

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a.k.a. Audrey Zinata

:>

And regarding the spread on A, I mentioned in Dev Chat that we really need more high level areas on A. It sucks to always have to go to B to fight high level stuff. I'm thinking that's the Yuan-Ti plan, which would be neat, but I dunno. I could easily see Yuan-Ti remaining on A because it'd be another island and it's nice to not have A just be Amia. Our server shouldn't have one module dedicated solely to one island.

_________________
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

Doesn't really matter. Seeing it is a small independant isle it likely fits thematically more to B, but since it is supposed to be further away (just a bit shy of the shores of chult) and hence will likely be connected to the Nexus, it can go anywhere it is wanted really.

If I would opt for B then only because of the crash happiness for A, not because of Boss hunting. Alas, if we hopefully can fix this, it matters little!

Plus, the current area would of course not remain empty. So this will all take a bit still. We need to wrap up the stuff that has already been started first.

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I hate to give my usual answer to yes/no questions but here it is; "it depends". Starting inside makes it easy to get DM attention - they're already looking, they just need to glance your way. But then you reach your obstacle in the form of other players - existing factions/city leadership almost universally (from my experience being a part of several guard factions) reacts with at least some level of hostility. And that makes sense - you came in and you started a faction because you want to run things your way. They want things to go their way, and it's a liability for them to give you the benefit of the doubt. Even in the most benign cases you're competing for resources - either literally, or in the form of members, or DM attention. So newcomers either have to compromise and risk basically becoming an arm of the old guard (even allowing your group to be absorbed) or go for open conflict, and the younger factions rarely come out on top. We have a lot of bored epics looking for excuses from their mates to kick out a small group of not-established strangers, either violently or via socio-political pressure. Conflict is good when it generates RP, but when you're trying to build a faction you're almost literally lighting your house on fire for warmth. Just too much collateral damage. Bottom line is, the volatility of conflict on Amia just makes it too difficult all around to have cases of factions tightly packed in a hub. Leadership in all three of the cities you mention are effectively unilateral - players play along, or go home, with the lone exception of West Cordor (who also want you to play along or go home to their set of rules, and have recently been criticised for their mere presence forcing elven and dwarven factions away). That's how we've decided to run things, and y'know that's brought a lot of positives, but it's why the situation you envision is so difficult to enact. If the leadership somewhere did become less unified, or god forbid we had more of a lawless "wild west" type area like Wiltun used to be before we all woke up and realised it didn't make sense... y'know, why did it take me this long to notice that none of the major hubs are Chaotic-aligned? They're all pretty Lawful now. Was this by design, pure result of player preference, or it just turned out this way? You could argue that West Cordor fulfills this role but we all remember how deep Tarkuul had its claws in there, and the power is still pretty centralised. It's not impossible to make a Chaotic settlement, just trickier. Or was. I doubt it would happen now, it would take a lot of work and I don't think the DMs/Devs would be really invested in vomiting out a fresh hub from scratch. Especially not one with the careful and involved design necessary to facilitate the growth of several factions which are not even guaranteed to form. Oh well. On the plus side, I pinpointed why I miss Zanshibon aside from sunk cost fallacy.

Now on the other hand, if you start on the outside - it's a lot harder to get DM attention. They tend not to invest their time until you have a few dedicated players, and players don't want to invest until they see the DMs are taking you seriously. Much like the case of a small group looking to build an inn/faction base out in the wilderness (near Wyrmhold I think), the dev/DMs have become jaded with all the fly-by-night groups that they're rarely willing to invest for fear that the result will be wasted work. That's why Belenoth languished in development hell until the interested membership dwindled near to non-existence or got swallowed by RL. I'm not saying the devs or the DMs or the players have dropped the ball here - I'm saying we all need to figure out a way to handle the situation better than, say to try to make everyone get along in Cordor.

Focusing on rarely-used existing settlements is a good way around this problem though, playerside - it's not too difficult, with persistence, to coax a DM into running a few NPCs for you, during which time you can become established. People will follow, DMs get more invested, and it starts to take off. There's stuff to do because no one else is doing it, there's no one to pop out of their hidey-hole to tell you to piss off and then duck back down into stagnant hibernation. It's not perfect, it still requires a lot of dedication and active recruitment and the nature of the game means that your membership will bleed out and your DM may burn out... you still have to play by someone else's rules, but it's easier to work with one DM than a faction of players (wherein it only takes one to initiate a destructive conflict). Back when The Slavers were a thing, they had a good thing going with Underport - until, I believe, opposition became great enough to pressure Underport (or maybe they went out of vogue for other reasons, wouldn't be the first time a PvP-heavy faction petered out). The first faction I tried to run brought in a great amount of initial interest... but IC conflict made it difficult to push it forward and we bled membership like crazy without being able to gain the DM attention we desperately needed. Our inexperience didn't help. Guldorand would have a lot of potential if it wasn't so firmly and obviously (or at least apparently) under Cordor's yoke, meaning that anyone who wants to get involved there might as well just get involved with Cordor instead.

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@Thanatopsis#6293

I know I phrased that as a close-ended question, but I was hoping for and appreciate the open-ended answer! Thanks, serbiris.

Well, that's because it was never part of the Abyss to begin with. It was always supposed to look like this odd mosh of Prime and Abyss, because Zanshibon was on the prime material. Also why Windreaper is down there to begin with.

I can't really comment on much of the rest since I wasnt there for it, and have been gone so long I hardly know the circumstances of removal... tho I am trying to rack my brain over Faded Wing's Banite comment, since there were a lot of blown up temples, and I am trying to remember if/when I was obstinate over one being rebuilt.

I do think Khem would be a great loss for the server, though, and do hope it's not removed.

Uhm was always Wharftown's weird little brother, to be totally honest. What it did have was that neat little pirate quest associated with it though. I have a feeling not too many people did it?

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

I did the crap out of it. But, I get why Uhm would have been removed. It never really amounted to anything as an area. The staff seems to react to module changes based on player action, from my experience. You might have pleasant thoughts about an area, and even make plans to do something with it. But, if you never actually do anything, or voice those plans, it's just assumed the area isn't interesting and should be culled.

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Plus, Wharftown had the Selunite temple. But again, that goes back to the good vs evil thing.

Also, Kohl is firmly entrenched in Wharftown which further makes it look like a bastion of goodiness.

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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

Kohl is in my Wharftown? How awful. Get it out, please!

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

That was my reaction when I first logged back on again back in March. I logged right into Wharftown on an old, nefarious PC. And bam. Kohlingen guards everywhere. I was all...

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Khem had some of the prettiest areas, but ICly, it simply doesn't make much sense to keep. The large, overarching Mulhorandi plot left the island almost literally unable to support life. The current small "pod" of Mulhorani characters would almost certainly rather get the chance to explore and settle a new desert-ish island or carve a niche in existing territory. Simply going "oh Khem recovers yaaay" would really make me feel like the consequences of a pretty large plot are just being handwaved away.

I agree with Faded Wings post. Especially where the evil folks are concerned.

The tunnels and caverns on A need to stay, please, so drow can get around. And there's no reason why we can't have some type of little outpost of... duergar... svirfs.. orog, yeah OROG on A. Couple stores, a bath house... maybe where Ultrinnan was. We need something now that Underport is gone. Think of it this way. Humans get cities all over on A and B -- to relegate the UD races strictly to B is really limiting to the PC's.

My drow could run around underground and hassle all the surfacers in the gobin, orc, troll, trogs caverns. And get decent xp without the headache of figuring out UD-B. Beautiful area but for someone directionally challenged.... ug. I'm seeing those ways to get around being taken out and it's sad.

Also, due to the spreading of the goodly factions getting to the neutral places is impossible. Need to get to the Salandran Temple for some TLC? Well if you're a drow you end up metagaming the Kohlingen Silver Knights. Want to learn lumberjacking? Nope, Cordors guards keep you out of Guld and the quests within.

You can have Uhm (all my characters did that pirate quest until it was broken, btw) but leave the abandoned lair for the rogues to get some xp during those levels that getting xp is challenging.

I'm not saying that every settlement should welcome drow, chromatic dragons, tiefling, pale masters etc. It would just be nice to be able to get to the places that do welcome them.

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

I'd be down for "begrudgingly allow" rather than accept. You're all evil freaks who are scourges and sin personified, bit you still have gold (and probably a lot as an evil bastard.)

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"The world takes and takes, even things that aren't offered. Finally, it gave us something back; I wish he was here to share it with me."

Unfortunately Maze, I can count those places on less than one hand of fingers. And even those places seem to have stringent rules that seem to implicate that if you do anything at all you will be vilified. I admit I feel lost at times, playing nowadays

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a.k.a. Audrey Zinata

Serbiris really eloquently posted my own thoughts/concerns.

I've been a long-time proponent of centralizing hubs, of trying to encourage people together. But I also recognized that our current conflict norms make this very challenging. If a conflict faction wants to spread its wings in a hub, it either has to dull down its ability to provide conflict so that it plays patiently and by the rules-- or it will get its characters banned from the city, killed, or have its headquarters destroyed.

And Serbiris also explained how the alternative to putting factions in cities is also very difficult. If a faction doesn't want to risk setting up in hubs, they have to build outside of them. And that building process is extremely difficult-- because they then have to argue and sell their concept to the team as one being extremely long-lasting and beneficial to the server, when in reality they only control one end of the conflict. If other people wanted to rally and destroy the headquarters before it became a serious threat, more often than not there are no NPC safeguards on the side of the chaotic or evil guys to deter that.

I support the aim to help centralize and encourage people together-- but it has to be done in a way that allows conflict to still co-exist without eliminating one or the other so easily. The West Cordorian criminal roleplay by Kobra and the associated players is perhaps the single best example I can think of.

I also admittedly think we missed a cool window of opportunity after the Amnish War. I know there was such a huge OOC push to conclude it and move on, and allow the players their peace. For a long time, the DM's (myself included at the time) were incredibly cautious and acted with a great deal of fragility because we sincerely didn't want to overwhelm or upset players.

But then Cordor was restored. There are still scars, mind. But we missed the opportunity for Cordor West to really turn into a complete Wild-Wild-West. I know at one point there was an idea to have a large refugee camp that turned into a kind of chaotic hub.

The difficult thing for DM's and Devs is that while it could be really fun and awesome to have an accessible chaotic hub up and running, there needs to be a firm reason for its existence. Good and Lawful players/characters rightfully get frustrated when brand new threats pop up out of nowhere that never before existed, and thus could never be prevented. It disallows them good, progressive storytelling and usually results in weak closure. I would love to see a Chaotic hub. Love, love, love to. But I wouldn't want it to be done at the expensive of other player's enjoyment. So I'll be patient, and hope that another cool opportunity crops up sometime soon!

I'd rather not make my part of this discussion all about the UD, even though that's the part I play around in the most, but the UD definitely runs under all of the planet. The argument that there can't be large underdark areas under an island is pretty null and void. I know we aren't all geophysicists here, but seriously, islands do not float on water. Beneath the ground of an island, there is more earth, then more earth, then more earth, then more earth..... and on and on... and under the ocean there is???? more earth.... and more earth.... and on and on....




And this statement, to me, discredits the idea that places need to be removed because "people don't go there." We need places that people don't go to, so we can talk about why we don't go there, have our characters think about going there one day, try taking it over, try defending it from being taken over.... a place that is not used may seem like useless space to the DM team, but to a player, that means more possibilities for creative RP.

and I cried.

The knowledge of your bitter rage-tears added tremendously to the conversation. I'm sure they'll build the module specifically so you don't cry anymore.

In other news, the "need" was very straightforward. Modules have a cap on filesize before they start seeing instability. They can circumvent a lot of it now with dynamic resources, but the fact was that a great many areas were culled because the module was physically too big to run properly. While we're playing a fantasy game, the game doesn't run on fantasy hardware.

It actually has more to do with the coding rather than the hardware, just FYI.

Though the ironic thing is we crash more now at a smaller size than we used to. Maybe we removed a load-bearing area!

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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

Funny you should mention that, because every single area I listed was on the module at the exact same time and we had no instability. It was only after we deviated (late 2012-2013) that the server started crashing.

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a.k.a. Audrey Zinata

Hi there. I know my boardname joined years ago, but I'd still call myself a new player. I'm new to FR, and I play on Amia sporadically... spending like 2 months straight then disappearing again for school. There's a LOT I still don't know or understand, as evidenced by my frequent appearance in General Questions... but I have played NWN for years and seen some servers gut themselves and revamp entire tilesets.

Playerbase issues have nothing to do with area changes unless you're removing heavy traffic areas and havens for niche characters. Destroying an avenue for travel or roleplay for even the smallest clique could affect the numbers you see in the server listing. It might be safe to say that for every 1 character that stops logging in, so does one more, because their main ally/partner/enemy is gone.

Amia used to operate on no haks/low haks correct? A lot of areas seem lackluster, that's why I'm all for removing SUPER stale places, in exchange for using that precious space to add details to important ones or create new detailed, more interactive areas.The neutral travel areas are a necessity for niche roleplay though, and when you start to rip out TOO many areas, you start to have continuity errors. Players and characters have to keep track of things that may or may not still technically exist IC.

A network may be as important as your character concept for determining how successful you are, how often you LOG IN, and how much you enjoy your character. Networks/guilds/families help you set goals, gain responsiblities, practice roleplay, form interpersonal relationships for your character.
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TL;DR How could we make things better? The only suggestion I can think of is to definitely get that Roleplay Advertiser widget working. In the mean time would it be too OOC to start a "Looking for Roleplay" thread?

Maybe we all need to be less shy and just more upfront asking each other straight up: "Hey there's only 3 people on the server this time of day. I know you're an evil drow and I'm a goblin of lathander- but do you want to roleplay?"

I also encourage taking the long way to foot travel, and when you do foot travel, stop (REALLY stop) to say hello, or bare your fangs or whatever it is you do. Is whatever you were walking to (selling loot/a dungeon) more important than making a new roleplay recipe? This could make us both more social and more appreciative of the new server the builders are working hard to give us.

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This. I watch people walk right past others all the time. I watch people come up on a group and stand apart. Then leave a while later saying nothing the entire time. I don't get it. Say hello! We don't bite.. well, there's a few that do, but, hey, it's roleplay and interaction, right?

If you see Tristen ingame, talk to him. He's moody, grumpy, silly, sarcastic, and if you're female, he might look at you a little harder than you'd like, but.... don't worry, he's taken. But, the point is, I'll play with you.