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Look, I've only been playing for about 5 months, but I've seen some key things here.

Good rules the world, without a shadow of a doubt, and The Underdark, for all intents and purposes, is mostly abandoned by PC's

What most troubles me about this is the total monopoly on power that factions like The Order or the Druids hold. It makes evil characters afraid and unable to gain a real grip on the game; especially for newbies like me. Sure, there's still Tarkuul and the necromaster, but they hardly control a large section of Amia like the Order does. And for factions that are intended to be powerful counterbalances to this great force of good, like the entire Underdark and Drow race, this massive power and population monopoly breaks the back of that entire race.

It has been said to be entirely possible to get to level 30 without leaving the Underdark. Which says alot about what the developers intended. In order for them to justify programming an entire UD, they must have envisioned the Drow as being powerful and populous; the counterpart to the surface, and the equal weight on the scales of the game. The UD was intended to cause conflict on the surface, and to strike fear into their hearts with the occasional Drow raid or tales of torture and murder leaking up through the cracks in the earth. It was a beautiful IC way to give the game even more life and excitement.

Instead, I've often found myself forging on in peak hours in the UD, never once confronted by a Drow. Which begs the question;

WHERE DID THEY ALL GO?

Please, oh please, tell me what happened to that vast emptiness; the Underdark?

I have a lvl 3 UD character as well that I do not go on much anymore for two reasons:

1) Drawn to some RP with my main character
2) Don't see many people in the UD when I am on

I suppose I should look some more, though, because I really want to play my drowess ><

I'm on 9p-12p EST (GMT-0500), if that helps

coei21 wrote:

Good rules the world, without a shadow of a doubt

Answered your own question.

Amia's setting is not conducive to good-vs-evil conflict RP. I doubt that will ever change.

For social RP and DM led quests it's fine.

Amia is not unique in this way, by the way. Most people who play NwN want to see the good guys win, not even a majority of the time, but 100% of the time.

I've met players who recall the days when the UD played a major role in the politics of Amia; when there was almost a majority of UD players. It's happened before; and i see no reason why it shouldn't again. Things are vastly more interesting with conflict; that's why the DM's even bother to add events and storylines.

Last edited by 762 on Sat, Oct 30 2010, 4:33 AM, edited 1 time in total.

You don't have to convince me. I've run the Banite faction twice. My motivation both times was to bring high quality conflict RP to Amia.

It's a very simple cycle, and as I said it's not unique to Amia.

1) Majority of players want good guys to win all the time.
2) DM's go along with this, either because they don't want to hear whining (from a vocal minority or otherwise), or they just want the good guys to win as well.
3) Bad guys get rather annoyed at losing all the time and give up.
4) Conflict RP dies.

I stick to social RP these days.

I really think you're looking at Coei's problem in too large a scale, 762. Playing hours and area factor more into it than the assumptions you've listed.

5 months doesn't give you too great of an insight into Drow conflict or lack there of, Coei. I mean that in the most respectful way possible.

I'll admit, UD conflict may be in a doldrum, but what do you expect. The main hub for evil, UD drow in Amia was destroyed, flooded, and turned to ruins rather recently in the scope of other things happening on our server. Edonil, the supposed new hub, is still being built up last I checked, both physically and RPwise.

You can't expect much conflict from a group who's major city was just turned to rubble and the majority of it's population migrated a few hundred miles away.

Speaking of, what server have you mainly been playing on? If it's A, then no wonder. There's not really any place for UD drow on A except for Underport, and even their they have little sway over things and even less reason to stay there. Amia B is where you need to go looking for UD conflict.

Those are symptoms of the same issue, DI.

I'm saying the lack of conflict from UD Drow specifically is more a product of RP happenings.

You're talking about lack of conflict in general being a product of the players.

I'm not disagreeing with your reasons, I'm just saying there are other more pertinent ones in this case.

Actually I think it's more the DM's than the players, because the DM's do far more to make the setting what it is.

Eh. Its a case by case basis really. Sometimes you do not have the DM support so it falls apart and people leave... or when you do something server wide 40 Epics come to see what it is and you lose pretty much right off the bat >.<

I sympathize with you here.

For a few days, I played nothing but Sovereign, my evil tiefling. RP with him was always hostile, and he always ended up alone in the end because everyone hates the evil guy.

On the flip, I tried playing a good character, my little kobold druid Yowl. Amazing RP and parties all over the place. Even though he was a kobold, his warm personality would show through and people liked him.

Threads like this frustrate me because I know there's far more to all of the kvetchings, and no one will ever believe me.

762 wrote:

Actually I think it's more the DM's than the players, because the DM's do far more to make the setting what it is.

True to the extent that when I try to give a damn about the UD, I'm inevitably told to GTFO by the UD players, and since this has happened twice now, I don't do anything for the UD.

And thus, it has one less DM doing something to poke the embers. I put my energies elsewhere, instead.

While this may sound like whiny bitching, it isn't, I'm resigned to the situation, I'm just explaining where and why things break down as 762 suggests.

My Sovereign wrote:

I sympathize with you here.

For a few days, I played nothing but Sovereign, my evil tiefling. RP with him was always hostile, and he always ended up alone in the end because everyone hates the evil guy.

On the flip, I tried playing a good character, my little kobold druid Yowl. Amazing RP and parties all over the place. Even though he was a kobold, his warm personality would show through and people liked him.

Hehe. I know what you mean.

I am pretty much an -all- evil character kind of guy. I've been on this server for ages and I only made my first good character a few days ago >_< So I do know the hardships of being evil but it is doable. I will always be a evil character guy no matter what. For that social aspect good is alot easier to get into, but Evil has that feeling of freedom to go tear someones arm off if you wanted to that I will always favor over being a Cordor East social butterfly.

The UD is only one aspect of evil, Yoss. And you are only one DM.

What about all the other evil?

I don't like being able to walk out of the safety of town and -not- get mugged.

There is this aura of ever-safe in Amia. I never feel threatened, or have to look over my shoulder....-unless- I am evil, then I have to worry about half the server hunting me down because it has nothing better to do.

Get better at being evil?

n.b. what is "The Order"? There's no faction names that on Amia, idk whta you're talking about. The Grove's been dead for forever so idk what you're tlaking about there, either.

Drow are their own story entirely and pretty much altogether unrelated. In short, it is as Yossarin said. I am tired of my hands being burned.

Quote:

It has been said to be entirely possible to get to level 30 without leaving the Underdark. Which says alot about what the developers intended.

It does? i'm pretty sure it was done becayuse the Drow players specifically requested that they no longer need to go to the surface to hunt, so Disco and the designers put a ton of man hours into a full Underdark. That was the "intention", veiled words aside here.

TormakSaber wrote:

Get better at being evil?

There is a limit to how good you can be. When you are outnumbered 5-1 by Good, there is little you can do to make any impact that won't be viciously crushed by an army of shiny armor wearing lawful stupids.

Then... get smarter at being evil? I have seen it done, folks, but if force isn't winning the day, then why do you keep using force and complaining when it doesn't work?

Statistically speaking, when you are trying to outsmart five people working against you, and they have basic or higher intelligence, you will lose every time.

There is only so much smart you can be.

You cannot expect us to fool everyone all the time, someone always ends up metagaming something or some failure.

You don't need to fool everyone all the time though. You just need to fool a few people once and let it go from there. Intelligence has nothing to do with it and metagaming doesn't count because it's something you should be bringing to the DMs so we can handle it if it require shandling in the evtn t t is actually metagaming.

So, the tradeoff is this, as I see it;

You can be the fun kind of super evil that is very evil openly and everyone hates?

Or you can be the quiet, off in the darkness kind of evil that nobody knows is actually evil?

Last edited by 762 on Sat, Oct 30 2010, 5:25 AM, edited 1 time in total.

Get better? Like, what, get our own undead dragon demigod?

I'm sure that would have come in handy at a few different evil faction areas when they fell.

My Sovereign wrote:

So, the tradeoff is this, as I see it;

You can be the fun kind of super evil that is very evil openly and everyone hates?

Or you can be the quiet, off in the darkness kind of evil that nobody knows is actually evil?

Or just be smart about it? Be the quiet type in the sense you commit your crimes and other things when it is just your victim and you... not when there are 4 Epics in yelling distance.

Also make it quick... so if there is "meta" involved you will be gone by the time they get there.

Knock it off, Gurth.

...what exactly do you want me to stop? Illustrating the disparity?

I kind of thought that was what the OP was getting at.

You've gone from being slightly helpful and slightly inflammatory, to being completely inflammatory. It reflects badly on you, and your opinion on this subject. Instead of staying constructive to a player with a genuine question, you got personal. So for that reason, I'm locking this thread. Apologies to the OP, but this is done.

My Sovereign wrote:

So, the tradeoff is this, as I see it;

You can be the fun kind of super evil that is very evil openly and everyone hates?

Or you can be the quiet, off in the darkness kind of evil that nobody knows is actually evil?

There is middle ground, but these are the two extremes that people usually go for, yeah. The 'fun kiund of super evil' (you words, just quoting you so you know what I'm talking about) is naturally going to do their evil... things... and get attention. Attention means good guys want to kill you. If you can't fight the good guys adequately, they'll beat you. Adequately. I don't see what's wrong with that? If you can beat the good guys then you ge tto stay around and hold your gorund... as long as you make sure the good guys don't become able to defeat you. I'm not really sure what else to say here?

762 wrote:

Get better? Like, what, get our own undead dragon demigod?

I'm sure that would have come in handy at a few different evil faction areas when they fell.

Also would have helped to listen to repeated emotes I gave that the wooden supports of your castle were burning down and weakening your structure instead of standing there doing nothing. Just saying I went over on your guys side that event. Trying to make sure you all heard and we able to identify problems while 8 other factions beat on your walls from ground, sky, and sea. As well as all your efforts of fighting back hit the good guys.

We've always been on pretty good terms Gurth, I really hate seeing this constant stuff about how the DMs suck and ruin the game, blah blah. It makes it hard for me to continue to try and do anything nice for anything you a part of.

Is this mostly about evil not yet seeing a day that it brought a city or faction base to the ground? If it is, I will say now that it is possible to do it. Evil brunt down Amia Forest. Those people also were not causing us to get constant complaints of PVP and having to sit and watch every PVP incident or whatever. The brute force style has got nothing. No one cares if you can PVP. Zero. I personally laugh when I see the dudes with powerbuilds and Epic loot die. Just shows it means nothing to have those things.

Evil can do more if they came off less like middle school bullies. Or a gang. The PVP to spread the influence is not the way to go about it, as we all seen. And trust me that I get sick and tired of all the new goofy goody fad faction sprouting up as well. I'd love to see more serious Good RP as well. There has been successful attacks on Cordor and Kohligen before. Besides take your destruction as a sign you successfully pissed off enough factions ICly to have them all join together and pound your home. Can't say many others did that.

That's another reason good on Amia kinda has an advantage, they all work together and freaking form Team Amia. The evil dudes kill each other half the time, or greedily keep to themselves the other. If Amia had the a Good = Blue and Evil = Red Map. Like all of the Island would be blue except some scattered red blobs. Who do you really think is going to win when you piss off all that blue? <_<

Work with you fellow evil bastards. Go to the Tiamat followers and get Dragon ridding Banites for all I care. Fly to the other evil dudes across the island and begin working on common goals. Picking off the small towns just for the sake of getting new land. Sell it off to some other evil dudes or something. I can't write out an entire plan for you here. Just that things can happen.

And lets not even respond here. You can PM me and we'll talk about some ideas or what the issues are. I think it will do good.

Evil factions do well with good leadership.

Thusfar, even in participating in one, I haven't seen it from the majority.

Quote:

True to the extent that when I try to give a damn about the UD, I'm inevitably told to GTFO by the UD players, and since this has happened twice now, I don't do anything for the UD.

And thus, it has one less DM doing something to poke the embers. I put my energies elsewhere, instead.

While this may sound like whiny bitching, it isn't, I'm resigned to the situation, I'm just explaining where and why things break down as 762 suggests.

Same thing happened to me. I made a single post and was reamed up one side and down the other then spent about twenty hours playing referee to a whole lot of ooc.

I would LOVE to support a really great evil faction. Evil is my thing. I adore it. I love it when it's done well, but until I see leadership that doesn't consist of ooc whining and fingerpointing when very obvious suggestions are given to improve the situation by both faction members and DMs who are trying desperately to aid the evil factions, nothing will really come of it. You'll just sort of flounder around.

An Inconvienient Truth

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