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Flayeriv
 
PostPosted: Sun, May 12 2019, 13:41 PM 



Player

Joined: 12 May 2019

Hey hey!

So! I'll keep the pre-amble brief but suffice to say Amia was my favourite server back in the day and I figured I'd collate a number of reasons why I loved Amia and/or suggestions that may help in future.

Starting Spawn Point: When I first joined everyone spawned in the temple in the centre of Cordor. SO MUCH roleplay came out of that it was fantastic. Later, the spawn point was shifted to the dock, which was very far from any major points of community (especially for new players) and Arelith did the same thing. When population is under 60 players, it's important that players spawn in near to where the roleplay is, and that's something I loved back in the day. I understood why the move happened, but I honestly think spawning in a crowded temple was better. It made the server feel ALIVE!

DMs knowing Lore and being decent people: In my opinion, Arelith has shite DMs. Amia always had great DMs. I peg this down to two things, firstly that Amian DMs honestly did not think of themselves as better than the players, and also Amian DMs actually knew and understood Forgotten Realms Lore. Now there could be any number of other factors, Arelith DMs are not tasked with specific duties (like 'underdark' or 'faction') and I think Amia did? But the two points I highlighted are very clear to the players, if the DMs seem to dismiss player concerns, or seem to not know basic matters of lore (like do elves sleep? Does negative energy damage undead? Etc), then that becomes apparent very quickly. I never felt that way about Amia and seeing how it plays on Arelith has massively shifted my personal experience going forward.

Forums for RP: Some things are better done on forums, like say an In-Character Census. Organising, plot development, posting of stories of events, these things are fantastic elements I loved about the forums. Again, not having this accessible on Arelith forums (and being almost banned for trying to organise a drow raid via the forums) has highlighted that for me also.

Player Actions being Meaningful: This is a tough one. In Amia I always felt like as a player my actions could change things about the world, whether or not that's true. On Arelith I watched several player-run initiatives being dashed seemingly because DMs didn't want to lose their monopoly of power (specifically the players were organising an election for an adventurer's guild to have go-betweens betwixt the adventurers and the local DM controlled government, but the DMs decided "No" and didn't even bother to do it with roleplay). These days this might be more difficult to achieve, since as I've grown older I know that when I say impact I sometimes mean things like "I want to arrange furniture" "I want to develop this house map" "I want to claim this area and set up a campsite" or something that may or may not require DMs and people who know how to use the toolset. However, the basic thing of feeling allowed to roleplay my character and to reach positions based on roleplayed merit, that is something I missed and loved aspiring to, particularly back in my male drow days.

Events announced in advance: I hate the idea that just because I live in the wrong timezone I miss out on all the cool events. Also, I hate the idea that just because my character was in a house at the time of the "big announcement", I miss out on participating. There's a certain realism to the above - if you're not present you're not present - but we're playing this game for enjoyment, and constantly finding out that all the enjoyable stuff happened but you missed it because nothing was announced and you couldn't plan your sleep cycle to attend the event because they didn't announce when it was happening... that sort of thing is annoying as hell. Again, Amia never did this to my knowledge, but I experienced that a LOT on Arelith, so like the above my expectations have been shifted.

Level Based Parties: This one's a negative. I hate being restricted on who I can party/gain experience with because my level is low. Why can't my level 5 character tag along with a level 30 while they clear some forest or other? Sure I'll take a massive experience penalty, but simply the experience of SEEING these creatures, LEARNING about these creatures or STUDYING what my level 30 friend is doing should be worth something? Also when it came to drow raids and such back in the day it was nice to have massive drow parties of varying level wandering around just doing stuff together. Experience lockout really culled a lot of that because suddenly people had to choose between roleplay or gaining experience, and that was never a pleasant choice.

Class and Race Restrictions: TO be honest, I didn't mind that these restrictions existed. I love LA, I didn't mind roleplay to unlock, but I do mind non-sensical locks. For example, being a blackguard and making a pact with a demon could need RP of the summoning and pact making for it, but if being a Pale Master required a whole lot of roleplay and access to a book that could only be acquired at level 15, that is annoying as hell. Worst case (Arelith) is where I can freely access Blackguard without roleplay, but Pale Master was a no go zone and required DMs to monitor your RP directly which is a pain in the arse when you live outside their timezone.

DMs of Multiple Timezones: I used to live in Australia, I now live in Malta. DMs of a variety of timezones were a godsend on Amia. Thank you!

That's all I can think of on the top of my head. Hopefully this post is actually useful and not just some old-time-ranting? :p Regardless, if I think of anything else actually useful I'll post it here.

Thank you so much for putting the effort in to bring this back!


 
      
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