AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

To be Fair, Disco -did- say there were going to be numerous exits to the surface over time. Currently, there is only one entrance and exit. It would be nice to have one entrance for each main (Brogdenstein, Forrstakkr, Frozenfar, Khem) but I'm not particularly fussed if we just keep one.

Perhaps we simply need one that pop's up as a one way portal to the dungeon under the keep at Wiltun lol, that'd instantly stop the Whinging Pom noises from the playerbase.....it seems Underdarkers -want- to be misunderstood surfacers anyway....

Whilst we're at it, maybe pop on up going to Cordor East?

The Underdark looks fun and I've already been around some of it, but the travel system is irritating to say the least.

You go to a cave entrance and have a list of options, you select one and on the other side you are instantly attacked by Trolls. You can't click the cave entrance while you are under attack since it is a dialogue, so if you're a curious low level you will die without having learned anything (since the names are all cryptic).

And on the other hand, if you are at Cave A, and you see links to Caves B, C and D from here.. you travel to one of them and suddenly clicking on the way back, links to A, Y and Z pop up. That's irritating and I can't believe how anyone could find his way around it. You need a diagram for that, and that is just not the way to go.

Also, it's way too easy to shake someone off your tail, and L'Obsul is very open on all sides. This combo just smells like trouble for me, especially with surfacers. Now they aren't Lolthites, but still.

I would suggest this to be made a little more traditional. Normal corridors and paths, normal transitions, a few quick-travel dialogues like rangers, guides, carts and rafts. I realize the advantage of this system now is that there is much less room needed for fillers, which keeps the UD smaller, but it's at the expense of player friendlyness if you ask me.

I agree with Xordae and everyone else who said something similar. But why did you guys start complaining only now? The UD-B's been around for months!

I never complained before because, honestly, I had no intentions to go back to Underdark RP once Rizzen had fallen and Auron was cured from the plague. Since I had no plans to go back to Underdark RP, I thought it was not my right to say what should/could or should not/could not be done there. Kind of.. why making an issue out of something I was hardly meaning to enjoy?

>.<

I wouldn't mind changing the area names at all. It's confusing as hell to me as well. I did it because I thought Drow players were big on those little things, though. I guess I was mistaken.

I don't really like to change the convo based thing. It's not really made to suggest great distances but to make non-UD folks utterly confused and a fairly basic design decision that's hard to turn back now.

The issues with the Troll caves I will fix, that's not as it should be. I never liked transitions putting you in the middle of a spawngroup.

ps. Equalizer, I can't remember you ever giving me any constructive comment before, and you are not improving in this thread. I have mentioned many times that I am open to accomodate the wishes and requirements of people moving in there. I have never seen you react to that. Just stop whining and if you have comments that will help me to improve the server you can post them in the Things to Change forum. Thank you very much.

Spoken like a true Mr. Amia... Though you're still a douche.

Personally, I find the UD-B great! It boggles my mind, and forces Meldrium to REALLY learn about the place. If he doesn't, he gets eated.

It also makes skirmishing the Underdark all that much harder.

It doesn't need to be changed, and I don't think other entrances need to be put in place - One is just fine... It makes it easier to camp out and wait for the dumb Drow newbies to escape the maze of Blunderdark and meet a nice warm Greater Ruin from Mel-Mel.

lathandier wrote:

It doesn't need to be changed, and I don't think other entrances need to be put in place - One is just fine... It makes it easier to camp out and wait for the dumb Drow newbies to escape the maze of Blunderdark and meet a nice warm Greater Ruin from Mel-Mel.

There are more than the one entrance, and I too love the system. It gives the impression of a gigantic labyrinthine cavern network

lathandier wrote:

Though you're still a douche.

Takes one to know one? Not that I have anything against enemas (as long as they are not German, of course).

Right. I've read thought the topic, and what people basically say is

They want to change the names to "Middle", "east side" "west side", "South-West side"

(basically)

But that, (my opinion here), severely tweaks the Underdark population Roleplay 'Enviroment'. It will be a surface below ground. Yay...how fun?(Irony here)

And they want the Transitions to go away, to be "Normal"
But by doing so, it's just "Another" Area of the Underdark.
What im saying (Basically) Is that Amia has a lot of areas that fits some people, and not other. One just need to find 'his' area.

FIND Those areas. And stop the goddamned nonsense complaints about the other areas!

We're playing on a Free Server. Where people work for Free, To give US an enviroment that is OUTSTANDING. More gratitude. Much More gratitude should be shown the designers / DM's

I very much like the idea of building areas with "points of interest" you travel between, but I think the concept will become even better when it gets expanded with more wilderness areas around the various hubs of civilization, both in the UD and Khem.

I believe this is the plan.

I'm not really in the right to comment, because I haven't been and probabluy will not be much in the UD, but I think the names are great. Don't change them, plz!

Is there currently a way to get fro the UD on A to the UD on B and vice versa? If not, a boat to somewhere would be nice to be honest.

Haha, easy to say that the names are great when you don't have to navigate by them. Compromise: Leave the names, but add a generic descriptor to it, like.. X: Troll Caves, Y: Ogre Territory. Doesn't have to be monster names, either.

I believe the names were a friendly gesture from Disco, thinking that drow like drow names (I do to be honest). Adding a descriptor at the end would be the best of both worlds methinks.

C'mon, the names are quite easy.

Some say "Duergar", Some say "Svirf" in the beginning of the Areaname, After a few minutes you understand the concept.

Ive solved it by making a Map in Photoshop. Explored the Areas, And Screenied it(Much like i did in the Horseman/Red wizard forum), and have them nametagged.

That way i just glance at the map in Windowed mode, and say
"Oh, so that was (Insert random area name her), i see"

Yurell wrote:

Is there currently a way to get fro the UD on A to the UD on B and vice versa? If not, a boat to somewhere would be nice to be honest.

Ye. Like a Long-range boat going to a "drow colony". (Hence UD-Abroad)

Yurell wrote:

I believe the names were a friendly gesture from Disco, thinking that drow like drow names (I do to be honest).

Yeah. Cori and I put quite some time in thinking up nice names... but in the end it mainly confused the hell out of me and I also had to keep a map next to my Toolset. I guess I'll change the names to normal ones and put the drow translations in the bookstore at the bottom of L'Obsul. That way it's accessible for RP and doesn't freak out users. It's a bit weird anyway that all area names are in Drow as there are a lot of UD races that do not speak it any better than your average human.

I actually like the confusing pathways and areas in UD-B. I've had a great deal of fun going down there, exploring and making notes of what leads to where. Exploring it as a low level character should be very dangerous. The Underdark is supposed to be a vast network of tunnels and caverns full of vicious creatures. Don't change it too much!

TormakSaber wrote:

Several players have also told me the Drow language names are a barrier to being able to remember places as well.

No one finds this ironic? Really?

In any case, be happy with the gift. It was basicly wrapped with surfacerskin for you silly gits.

okay thank you guys. Actually i play duergar mostly :0 and the duergar home is totally confusing as well. as far as me playing on the surface i am looking for the higher level hunting grounds. Thats not to say i don't want to check out the stuff in ud and hang there i think its great but knowing how to move around duergar home when you're a duergar is kind of common sense. (going back to read the rest of the replies on page 2 now)

Well, I kinda did that on purpose. I thought it wouldn't be a good plan to put the Duergar right next the Smurphs and Drow.

Dev Disco wrote:

Yurell wrote:

I believe the names were a friendly gesture from Disco, thinking that drow like drow names (I do to be honest).

Yeah. Cori and I put quite some time in thinking up nice names... but in the end it mainly confused the hell out of me and I also had to keep a map next to my Toolset. I guess I'll change the names to normal ones and put the drow translations in the bookstore at the bottom of L'Obsul. That way it's accessible for RP and doesn't freak out users. It's a bit weird anyway that all area names are in Drow as there are a lot of UD races that do not speak it any better than your average human.

I love the Drow names, my only real suggestion is to perhaps move the book of translations to closer to the Crystal node on L'Obsul, Jas.

I don't want anything changed but I guess, people want insta pasta results and don't want to be made to think.

I'm happy with the Underdark the way it is, people who -never- go the Blunderdark, are the one's whinging about it. My question to the whiners is, did you ever give it a proper chance? Spent time there and such to get to know your little world? Or are you just so (censored) surface minded that the first thing you try and do is find Wiltun??? *rant ends*

My only Big wish (other than a house/temple for slimers) is to have areas that cater for epic people.

Perhaps a "Deep Dark" area right down in the depths full of poisonous gases, freaky abominations of pwnage, scary aboleths, beholders, powerful undead, illithid, slimes and oozes of great powah and acid traps...underwater zones full of horrid critters and fishies with death ray eyes...HIPSing/sneak attack, wail of the banshee casting timestop spamming, bigby throwing spiders...you know...real horrors!

We want some freaky stuff down tharr!

i'll tell you if i had stuff like that down there i would rarely leave the ud save to find things that are unatainable in the ud. okay i'm going to head down to duergar land and see if i can get around any better i'll spend some time there so as to give it a go on my own.

I like the names being in drow and I really appreciated the gesture, Disco. I've been playing drow for years and I still don't know what half the areas translate over to, I just went out and did it the hard way and got myself thoroughly lost, while paying attention to the area's layout until I figured it all out. I think that most people's gripe is that they can't instantly come into the area and know exactly where they are. The layout isn't really all that confusing once you play down there a bit.

Anyway, I am neutral here. I don't mind English area names because it's easier for me in the end. On the other hand it did cost us quite a bit of effort to come up with the names and keeping things as it is is obviously less work.

So it is poll time.

I'd say leave them as drow names and have a book of English translations. ICly I suppose you could justify it by saying the places are officially named in drow, and everyone is used to those names, and the book is just a translation service offered by some bright rip-off artists who saw it as an easy way to extort gold from people.

The drow-only names confuse the hell outta me as well, even the areas I made and named that way.

But I do like the atmosphere they provide this way.

I would be happy if just a modifier was added, like "Underfalls", "Crystal Caverns", something like that. And keep at least *part* of the drowish name in there, for flavour?

Also, for navigation: I like the convo-driven travel when it comes to leaving the hubs, but when leaving the "destinations", perhaps, it should be returned to a single-destination normal transition? So leaving L'Obsul would give you the option of trolls, ogres, crypt, etc (whatever it gives right now), but leaving the trolls or ogres (etc) would be a normal transition to the entrance in a hub which is closest, even if it's not the transit point you left from. But still somehow leave in the "surfacers are lost" aspect?

When I went to UD-B, it was just that these Drow names sounded too much alike to make a strong impression on me. I very much like the thoughtfulness behind it and think it should be kept after all, but some distinctive features should be added to the area names.

Dev Disco wrote:

Equalizer, I can't remember you ever giving me any constructive comment before, and you are not improving in this thread. I have mentioned many times that I am open to accommodate the wishes and requirements of people moving in there. I have never seen you react to that. Just stop whining and if you have comments that will help me to improve the server you can post them in the Things to Change forum. Thank you very much.

I believe I did use the Things to Change forum at one point regarding the Epic shadow lord, your single response to which was an unclear cow pun directed at Uce. So do forgive me if I am not instilled with confidence as to your own ability to be constructive. *

*In addition to which I have brought things up to DMs (or other players to report) in game as I somewhat dislike using the forums.

Related to the subject at hand: English names and/or some sort of "map" that said which tunnels lead to which other tunnels would probably be helpful as well.

it aslo uses the same place for gobos kobos and orrogs who may not be true underdarkers (like Dill)

but then that can be taken two ways
immersion: not being a underdarker dill gets lost easy
rubbish: why the hell is she down there in the first place?

Cori wrote:

I would be happy if just a modifier was added, like "Underfalls", "Crystal Caverns", something like that. And keep at least *part* of the drowish name in there, for flavour?

This, if possible and it is not too much of a hassle.

Please.

It helps memorizing names.

Irony here, but i basiclly dont go in the underdark because i rarely find anyone to rp with down there.

Um, isn't it the point of the Underdark that it's difficult to navigate? Aren't you supposed to get lost easy? I'll never get this area name thing; you don't see that in real caves or towns either, yet you still can learn where you are. All it takes is some effort.

The Great Equalizer wrote:

I believe I did use the Things to Change forum at one point regarding the Epic shadow lord, your single response to which was an unclear cow pun directed at Uce. So do forgive me if I am not instilled with confidence as to your own ability to be constructive. *

*In addition to which I have brought things up to DMs (or other players to report) in game as I somewhat dislike using the forums.

Related to the subject at hand: English names and/or some sort of "map" that said which tunnels lead to which other tunnels would probably be helpful as well.

Keeping up to date with the forums would also be helpful. It may come as a surprise to you but Uce happens to a developer on this server for over a year now (might even be closer to two years), and that he is dealing with critters and summons. I guess you took my "Uce, take a look at this?" comment as inconstructive because you missed this bit of information.

However, assuming you don't look much further than your own nose I can understand that navigating the UD is going to be a real challenge for you. Unfortunately I won't cater for the lowest denominator so you'll have to make your own map.

All this talk about a vast and complicated and interesting Underdark almost makes me create a drow just to see some of it although I've no intention of ever playing one, a normal one I mean.

If the drow don't like their vast Underdark, you should replace it with an Evermeet, I'm sure no elven players will have anything to object there!

And yes, I am only joking, I can imagine the amount of work put into this, and making an Evermeet...would be impossible, it's un-realizable with the resources at hand even if the will and effort would be put into it.

I think the drow players just need to get accustomed with this new area, nothing new is immediatelly accepted by everyone. Given time, perhaps it will grow on them like Ultrinnan did, and I say keep the names for variation's sake, it's not like all other cities and towns have english names, everything was difficult to remember at the beginning. Maybe not as difficult as drow may seem, but still.

after getting lost 3 times between two characters, I've decided I love the new UD.

Thank you disco! <3!

Wyjyn: Loving all of you (and above all Disco) since 11 Jan 2007.

It is not the randomizer that annoyed me, what was a minor annoyance was that it felt like it was empty and lacking in any culture. A few little cultural landmarks can go a long away to creating an interesting environment. I would extent that complaint to a lot of amia, though. Magic runes and the like go a long way to creating an interesting environment, especially if they can be ICly solved with a puzzle or whatever.

However, the major annoyance for me as my surfacer was that I got killed by some crane orc. Not hurt, not tossed out, but insta-killed. I felt there was no reasonable way I could have predicted it, I didnt even know what was meant by 'crane' as I couldnt see the aparatus as I might be able to in an FPS. I found the whole incident confusing really, felt like I was god gamed by an NPC. I checked over the chat logs and still wasnt sure how or what happened. I know that some drow are going to be reading this saying "yeah but you were in the UD as a surfacer" but it is akin to a drow taking the raft to winya and being killed on the way by an elven suprise. Sure, ICly it could and perhaps would happen, but you need to give players a chance to react and not just insta die.

Dev Disco wrote:

However, assuming you don't look much further than your own nose I can understand that navigating the UD is going to be a real challenge for you. Unfortunately I won't cater for the lowest denominator so you'll have to make your own map.

Ah how mature of you, I ah sure that your snide and rather unhelpful comments are appreciated by all, thank you very much.

How inspiring it is to see that we have people running the place who are above petty personal attacks. :roll:

You tend to get what you order.

To the contrary it was disco who instigated this, he was the first to bring up anything personal. Until that point I was only expressing my opinion on a general level.

The Great Equalizer wrote:

Yurell wrote:

What about players being unable to adapt and work to better their surroundings and then complaining about having an area built for them?

It is "a lazy and cheap way to solve things"!

I believe calling months of hard work that hardly endeared you.

Yurell wrote:

The Great Equalizer wrote:

Yurell wrote:

What about players being unable to adapt and work to better their surroundings and then complaining about having an area built for them?

It is "a lazy and cheap way to solve things"!

I believe calling months of hard work that hardly endeared you.

True, although to be fair that wasn't about the actual work itself but rather the premise of doing it for the earlier specified reasons.

The Great Equalizer wrote:

To the contrary it was disco who instigated this, he was the first to bring up anything personal. Until that point I was only expressing my opinion on a general level.

Sorry, you were flaming more than a year's worth of work of several people in most nonconstructive ways, unlike several other people in this topic who gave very constructive criticism and suggestions for improvements. They even gave quite harsh critique, but they didn't start with a "I hope these areas burn down!". I read this topic and thought "What an ass this dude is" and that rarely happens.

Edit: @TGE

And that is what every post you made was on. You didn't make suggestions for improving the UD, or even saying what you liked about it, you just criticised its very existence, and then when Disco pointed out that you weren't being constructive about the UD (such as on the Things to Change Thread) in his recollection, you accused him of not being constructive in general.

Yurell wrote:

Disco pointed out that you weren't being constructive about the UD

Technically he said EVER, I was just returning his ludicrous statement with one of my on.

Also for the record I find the area's quite nice, but several factors (including the odd names, the multiple transition choices at each exit and the fact that most people don't actually have any visual sort of idea as to the cavern and transition layout) make it a rather annoying city area.

Honestly If any one of those three things were changed it would make it a far better area. And regarding the third point if you CANNOT make a visual representation of the cave transitions from one to another then it is likely needlessly complex.

Last edited by Yurell on Wed, Nov 04 2009, 0:17 AM, edited 1 time in total.

The Great Equalizer wrote:

Yurell wrote:

Disco pointed out that you weren't being constructive about the UD

Technically he said EVER, I was just returning his ludicrous statement with one of my on.

Technically I (and he) said "in his recollection"

Nekhy wrote:

Sorry, you were flaming more than a year's worth of work of several people

Well I am sorry if anyone who put time and effort into its creation way or is offended but regardless of that I am still not convinced that its creation was a valuable use of time and resources.

Yurell wrote:

The Great Equalizer wrote:

Yurell wrote:

Disco pointed out that you weren't being constructive about the UD

Technically he said EVER, I was just returning his ludicrous statement with one of my on.

Technically I (and he) said "in his recollection"

And to that I said that I was "not convinced of his ability to be constructive".

Which is more or less the same thing, so I would prefer not to argue the semantics of it.

The Great Equalizer wrote:

BlackDahlya wrote:

There was no space to expand the Underdark on A.

There was plenty of space

No more areas can/could be added to Amia Island.

A bigger UD = Added to Amia Abroad.

And drow players have been bitching about the "need" to go to the surface, when they are drow, for years. It hasn't just been a minority of grumpy drow players.

I should make a drow char and check out the new UD on Amia Abroad, to see if it's really that difficult to navigate.

Mr Mago wrote:

I should make a drow char and check out the new UD on Amia Abroad, to see if it's really that difficult to navigate.

I'll save you the time. It's not. At least not if you think about it. As far as I've seen, it's just not all in a straight line , so people get a little upset when trying to run north for 3 screens doesn't get them to somewhere they figure it should.

That said, I've had the pleasure of having the whole UD B to myself one night for exploring. I enjoyed it.

I'd consider it a good thing if it actually takes time (more than 2 hours) to get a full understanding of how a huge area is layed out. A huge area, that is RPly intended to be hard to navigate, for several reasons.

All you need is to get a hang of what the places are called and roughly what connects to where, although most places are so heavily interconnected that you'll eventually end up where you want anyway.

uh how?

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