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Ive been playing on Amia for almost 5 years now, regardless of all the ups and downs it's had and all the other various video games that have come and gone since, i always come back to this lovely server one way or another...it's too bloody addictive

What has only recently dawned on me however is that while i still intend to continue playing and donating now and then, i do ever wonder how much longer this server will be around for....is the rule simply "Keep funding for server hosting to maintain and it won't go down anytime soon" or is it simply something like "The owner has intended it to go on for only so many more years and then it's done regardless of popularity"?

I'm only curious and not trying to discredit or insinuate that the server is reaching it's end, i just wanted to know how much more time i should keep investing into this before i finally have to say farewell and do without such a well made game and decent community.

It's a scary thought I've often had, myself. It's clear we can't go on forever. But I doubt Disco is going to drop it anytime soon, and in such a case the ownership would probably be moved to some other willing host.

What's the funding look like at the moment, Disco?

If Disco would take the server down, I would be glad to give you his telephone number and address for you all to harrass him. :wink:

Hah, well if they ever have a funding issue for keeping the dedicated servers going i'll be happy to personally fly there within the week and see to it myself if they give me some details.

I'd like to see an alternative platform to the aging NWN1. The game itself is getting low on lifetime as far as playing on modern hardware and operating systems goes.

There are currently no NWN2 servers that could rival Amia, but as a game it could be a replacement if the module was easy to port over, which it probably isn't. Is there even hype of anything that could match NWN1 as a platform for custom content? After all, the most important part here is the community, the second most important part is the large and detailed virtual world and the actual game and the RPG mechanics it implements (DnD is the Lada of PnP systems) are relatively insignificant.

Porting the module over is not an option. While there are tools for the non-hak areas, from what I have seen it is easier to remake it from scratch. Not sure how it looks with the scripting parts, but I doubt the majority is compatiable either.

While it is a thought I myself had, the main problem I see is that it requires an enormous effort of the staff. We do not want to stop working on nwn 1 amia, which means an already overburdened staff would need to be divided. The first attempt of amia 2.0 failed for a number of reasons, one of them being it was not Amia, but a new server by a part of Amia's staff. So basically you would need at least two dedicated and capable scripters, and a few area designers.

I worked with the nwn toolset for a while, and I have to admit I am far from fond of it. It was a few years ago, but then was buggy, crashy, and at times I had to revert to older versions of the areas because the files got corrupted. As I remember, there were also limitations to the DM client, but I can imagine that has long been improved upon.

NWN 1 has more support regarding custom content, and has more active players online overall (if judging from the server lists). So I am not sure if going to nwn 2 is actually a way to ensure that the server as a longer future.

It's not. Overall NWN2 has less players than NWN1. I think it's because of all the difference in feats, classes, spells etc.

And as far as I know, the only portable things from NWN1 are scripts. Areas wouldn't make it.

We tried Amia 2.0 for NWN2. A setting in Daggerdale with a not-so-very-kind Duke of Daggerford with the looming problem of a red dragon in the Desertmouth Mountains beyond, with one big problem that offset all the good that NWN2 had: NWN 2 is a bitch to develop on. The toolkit was made less sensibly and more rigorous than NWN1's platform, and not enough people were interested to learn the new toolkit to want to take part of that, as well, I think the intentions were to keep NWN1 Amia stable and active while NWN2 Amia was under construction, so there was no less lag time for people making Amia 1 requests and such. As far as system requirements and what have you as well, NWN2 is sort of a monster for a lot of the players here to run. Thanks to inclusions of CEPs and an innovative staff on this side, I would say NWN1 is a bit of a stronger platform overall. It may not have the lasers bells and whistles of upgraded systems, but at least we have great value. I think it was ultimately agreed upon to not divide resources into NWN2 and to continue improving and sharpening upon Amia A and B. Though NWN 2 Amia was an indy project from one of the original developers.

Mm, it does seem that there is a hole in the market for an NWN-like game what NWN2 is failing to fill. NWN2 is not exactly a modern game either. Best I have seen so far is an indie game in late development that seems to be exactly what we'd need with toolsets and everything... until the small print that mentions that multiplayer supports a maximum of 6 players. I'll keep an eye on it in case that changes.

This one: http://www.divinityoriginalsin.com/index.php

if that thing ends up being modded with PW support, it could be a potential NWN replacement.

Shut up shut up shut up! I do not want to think about Amia ever fading away. I literally see myself playing on here until life swallows me away from everything or I'm an old man ;p

It's pretty surreal to me, seeing Amia still going strong. I've been dipping my fingers in the waters for years with experimental characters before I finally decided to settle in properly recently. I'm not sure, but I think there must have been at least at least 4-5 years between me discovering the server and me signing up on the forums.

Octa wrote:

It's pretty surreal to me, seeing Amia still going strong. I've been dipping my fingers in the waters for years with experimental characters before I finally decided to settle in properly recently. I'm not sure, but I think there must have been at least at least 4-5 years between me discovering the server and me signing up on the forums.

This. Blows my mind I've been registered on the forums for four years now and been playing for some time before that.

Amia won't die!! I will donate £50-£100 a month if that threat ever should become real!

This server is what I have been looking for a LONG time and I'll be damned to see it go!

In the meantime happy thoughts!!

Just like you can't really quit Amia, Amia will never die.

NWN on the other hand is not immortal.

As community development is something I do in real life, if you want Amia to stick around for years to come, probably the most important thing with regards to achieving that aim is always injecting new blood into the DM team and DM's being aware when their time is up and they no longer have anything real and tangible to contribute. You need to move people on, it's that simple and it keeps communities healthy because fresh ideas and perspectives are constantly rotating through the upper echelons.

I'm not too terribly nervous. The community extends beyond NWN.

Yes it does.

I mean, I love you all and have some closer friends from Amia, but I don't play here for the people. I play here for the fun of roleplaying! I have taken extended breaks due to people's behavior, actually, and I would not have come back if those people were still around/active/influential/continuing their behavior. However, I do think the community cares enough about role playing and each other that a new common ground could be found somewhere if Disco ever let us go and we couldn't keep going. I just wanted to point out I wouldn't be following this community to some chat room or Skype-- that isn't why I'm here.

and it is something good to think about!

BhaalsFavoured07 wrote:

Amia won't die!! I will donate £50-£100 a month if that threat ever should become real!

This server is what I have been looking for a LONG time and I'll be damned to see it go!

In the meantime happy thoughts!!

This pretty much sums up my thoughts too. Got NWN on release day, beat the single-player and started messing around online. Over the years, I've server hopped and hopped and hopped looking for the _exact_ perfect blend of atmosphere and playstyle on NWN I wanted. FRC was too limited. Ravenloft too ridiculously grim-dark. Arelith had too much goosestepping and corruption. And so on and so forth.

Finally I came to Amia. Cautious at first, the server _seemed_ exactly like _everything_ I wanted in a server. Roleplaying is not just encouraged, but rewarded, but nobody is going to care if you want to mindlessly pick up your sword and lay waste to the countryside for an hour or two. Items don't suck and you don't have to pretend to be excited to find a +2 longsword. Staff bends over backwards to facilitate requests and roleplaying. Etc, etc. My only regret was taking so long to find it. So much wasted time.

Well, Amia isn't perfect either. I get the best kicks out of role play when my actions interact with and influence the world for better or worse, and Amia is reeeeally big on maintaining Status Quo and avoiding consequences for anything. That used to frustrate me a lot, especially while leading a goal-oriented and conflict-driven faction.

Now I can live with it. I got to EVE Online now for when I need to be immersed in a world that is truly alive. Amia on the other hand is an awesome place for laying back and hanging out with my old friends. Used to whine about how the whole RP style of giggling and huggling in a social hub all day until an event falls in your lap is not my thing, until I gave up and resigned to the fact that I'm in the minority here.

Quote:

Used to whine about how the whole RP style of giggling and huggling in a social hub all day until an event falls in your lap is not my thing

Plenty of sods out there working to actually not do that :p :lol:

Spotting this topic and noting the talk of Amia 2, I thought I would mention something I hadn't planned to mention until I had it into a position where I wanted people to see it. Basically... my confession is that I actually quite enjoy the NWN 2 toolset (Because apparently I am a masochist) and mostly as a personal project I have started work on an Amia 2 Module, which is actually an Amia Module.

To get around the fact that there is already an Amia Module running.... I was going to take cue's from both the Chronomancy/Blood magic plotline and the J J Abrahams Star Trek Films, and have it set in an alternate timeline/Prime Matierial plane, where the events of the plot took a significantly different turn and left the isle somewhat different. This lets me offer something new rather than a carbon copy for people to explore and shape.

Work is slow, yet steady, so I have no idea when I will be able to go to a playtesting stage, and I had meant to mention it only when I had got to that stage. However.. this seems to be a good enough place/time to mention the project. As I said, it is mostly a personal project, as I enjoy it, but I will be learning the rudiments of scripting and practicing as there are quite a lot of ideas I want to implement into the whole thing.

Are you planning to use any custom content? Because I've got to say that Kaedrin's stuff is pretty damned awesome by either NWN or NWN2 standards. Also NWN2 is nice in that it has this which is a great tool.

Without intending to belittle anybody's skills or initiative... in the context of a discussion about Amia's longevity, how would an Amia in NWN2 be an improvement over current Amia? NWN2 is eight years old already, isn't it kind of just as much a dead game as NWN?

Bards are a little cooler in NWN than in NWN2, where the bardic songs are split up as they are. You might say they are more balanced, but I dunno about that, I'm not up enough on the mechanics to say with any certainty. I just know I am sad about that fact (and that I can't be as black as I want to be in NWN2.)

Well if your simply basing it off if a game is "dead" as in not a massive userbase then I doubt your EVER going to see a real improvement regardless of the system you are using. By its very nature online RPGs fall basically into two categories one being small scale things like NWN/NWN2 that because of their more niche appeal and the requirement that they are small enough to actually be able to DM means that they are never something that retains millions of players and really is for the majority of its life span a "dying" game.

The other option in terms of Online RPGs is basically MMOs which... Are hardly RPGs in the RP sense of the name. Basically what would be ideal in a more long term sense is a VERY open source game that allows for a lot of easy modding and easy to use tools. But I haven't seen anything like that really in the works since it isn't the massive money maker that most developers want (well at least that the financial backers of developers want).

So in the mean time you are stuck playing what are more or less already "dead" games and so you have to decide on which one is a better corpse. Really NWN can still do some pretty cool stuff thanks to the work done on the NWNX side of things but if we are talking continued development and support then at this point NWN2 has NWN pretty well beaten in that it still has people doing some pretty awesome stuff. NWN has some work going on on servers themselves but it is NOTHING compared to what it once was and it basically means that if you want to keep things improving you need a fairly large dedicated team on the Dev side of things on your server, which frankly Amia has been lacking for a while now since we've slowly lost people on the team.

Also as I said before Kaedrin's stuff alone is an insanely impressive amount of work. Comparable to NWN PRC but with better balancing work and implementation.

There is also the Swiss tabletop commune idea. We all move in together, Mosh brings his freezers, Pony taps us good Austrian beer, the womenfolk can become gatherers and put radishes and beets and watermelon on our plates and we just sit around rolling dice and making dramatic speeches and hailing the fearless leaders and wandering off on bar-hopping excursion that we call "party chat".

The Great Equalizer wrote:

Are you planning to use any custom content? Because I've got to say that Kaedrin's stuff is pretty damned awesome by either NWN or NWN2 standards. Also NWN2 is nice in that it has this which is a great tool.

I do intend on incorporating Custom content, and I have some ideas about what I want to include. Thank you for the suggestion and I will put it on my list of things to research. I will probably contact Disco about the possibility of hosting it when it gets to the playtest stage, as I doubt the isle of Amia will be "Complete" for some time.

Yossarin wrote:

There is also the Swiss tabletop commune idea. We all move in together, Mosh brings his freezers, Pony taps us good Austrian beer, the womenfolk can become gatherers and put radishes and beets and watermelon on our plates and we just sit around rolling dice and making dramatic speeches and hailing the fearless leaders and wandering off on bar-hopping excursion that we call "party chat".

I'd prefer somewhere warmer and cheaper than Switzerland. Vietnam perhaps?

@NWN2 - much pretty, very sexy :p

Yossarin wrote:

There is also the Swiss tabletop commune idea. We all move in together, Mosh brings his freezers, Pony taps us good Austrian beer, the womenfolk can become gatherers and put radishes and beets and watermelon on our plates and we just sit around rolling dice and making dramatic speeches and hailing the fearless leaders and wandering off on bar-hopping excursion that we call "party chat".

Ok, scratch the game idea lets just go with this... As long as I can speak English, my French and German are both a bit rusty.

Party chat is notorious for the prevalence of foreign languages, mind.

Honestly, don't worry about the server. Unless it moves to Camp Hercules and is powered by a fusion reactor that catches fire when it goes online, it should be alright.

Before I played NWN, I did roleplaying by e-mail. It took ages for the plot to move forward. Nowadays real-time RP is very easy to set up.

So sure, how you play on Amia might change, but as long as you're willing to try new ways of playing in the future it'll be around for a long time.

Good lord I recall playing D&D via the IRC channels 15 or 20 damn years ago, you'd hop about servers looking for #AD&D channels to find a game. I played on a Sorcery.net channel #TDS, The Diamond Spider, a tavern set in Calimport. The channel kept a team of DMs going much like Amia does, they'd run quests and random events. You had to keep your characters sheet updated and approved event by event, level by level. I played for years like that before NWN finally came along, was the first non-tabletop version of a BloodAxe dwarf in that IRC channel after playing him at the table in a campaign. Those were pretty damn fun times. Play by post or email just doesn't move along fast enough for me. I've played on numerous MMO's, IRC channels, OpenRPG, Maptools, Roll20, and the short lived D&D Virtual Gametable. Yes if you are willing to change with the times, you will always find a game out there.

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