AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

corypx wrote:

...mind you I think most are farming epic loot and grinding levels...

Yup, that's the real culprit imo.

Glim wrote:

corypx wrote:

...mind you I think most are farming epic loot and grinding levels...

Yup, that's the real culprit imo.

Interesting. But In my experience as a player, some of the drow factions (for example) would stay in their houses with 5-6 players for weeks without even going outside. I realize the drow is a microcosm of the whole, but I've always felt that the problem always exists elsewhere too.

I'm gonna go out on another limb here, and fill the Amian people with false hopes and aspirations. Without divulging any real details, I'll bring to mention a little project I've got in mind.
~~~~

I've noticed two really big requests from the Amian population:
1.) More Conflict
2.) Better RP Hubs

Now, to me, I think the RP hubs are coming into play a little more. We have larger groups of people meeting in cities and starting/continuing roleplay from there. HOWEVER, what I believe remains one of the larger inhibitors of the kind of conflict that we're looking for, is that the RP hubs are by and large centered around Alignment. You've got Kohlingen full of Paladins, Tarkuul full of necrophiliacs, and Cordor as a "Neutral" ground. Yet, Cordor remains devoid of PC on PC, cross-alignment conflict (Due to a number of reasons, but that's not what I'm after).

Put simply, by introducing the opposite alignment into the same RP hub as another alignment, we'll see a bit more of that tasty conflict. In the coming days/weeks, I'm hoping people won't see places like Cordor as a glorified lowbie hub.

Edit: With RP Hubs based around one alignment that excludes the other, you'll require DM assistance to have any kind of conflict in a "home field." The idea around a shared Rp Hub puts more initiative back into the player's hands. This of course requires a very special type of Evil catalyst, but we'll just have to see! Oh gawd, what is he up to!?

Cordor is considered a 'horrible' place to be for a few reasons, and I would have to agree that it is a poor choice for places to be (for any of my characters, anyways). I used to enjoy all the conflict that went on there, but no more Underground combined with the the whole wand fizzle just makes people avoid it for the most part. I've seen characters actively try to change how Cordor currently is, but they end up hitting a brick wall, or 'failing the attempt'.

This is why the portal rods should be re-directed to the NOMAD. Imagine how much fun Tavern RP it could generate if you could sit and wait in cordor for people to drop by via portal.
Not everybody will stay, of course, but why not have a small break and a beer before you continue? And you could easily set up groups from there

There ain't so many who wants to stay and have a talk on the dockside... That's just weird.

Edit - I have been promoting the switch of the cordor portal-entrance to the nomad for like two years. It's a good place to have it!

I can agree that on the face of it moving the location to the Nomad would make sense. There is already a node there, and the ability to 'drop in' to RP would be neat.

Naivatkal wrote:

I can agree that on the face of it moving the location to the Nomad would make sense. There is already a node there, and the ability to 'drop in' to RP would be neat.

And if it doesn't work - we can move it elsewhere. But fact stands that the current drop in location to cordor makes nobody happy.

I agree. It makes sense IC, but I would remark that adventurers stay at the Nomad anyway; it's not IC that you spawn in the docks when you log on as you're not actually portalling there. Portral traffic is probably less frequent than logging on there. I have the Nomad as my home location, but attracting more people is always nice.

But this goes deeper than just moving it. I think the whole city should be renovated to both make it more appealing and make it possible for it to be less appealing and still retain popularity. That is, force people to go there or inconvenience themselves a lot. Make it a real service hub. But I've posted about this at length in the previous topic.

I feel that everything IronAngel just said should be nice. Now get on it PCs! Start RPing for once instead of complaining that something's wrong or you lack something! Look at Tarkuul, we have some shiny stuff now.

We even RP'd for the change of our portal location! You can do it too!

I disagree with the notion that anyone should be "inconvenienced" for not wanting to go through or use a particular City, not without some very convincing story-writing as to why those services are not or cannot be duplicated elsewhere. I'm not afraid to admit that I have a pretty deep-seated dislike for Cordor. I don't even like that I go there to sell my loot. I travel through the area stealthed or invisible, not for any nefarious reasons, but simply because I don't want to get caught in RP with the average person that hangs there. Once I'm caught, I have a hard time being blatantly rude and walking away, but...

I've adopted an IC approach to it, in that I'm working on making Tarkuul as self-sufficient as possible, but I'm still pretty against any blatantly artificial means to make me go to a zone i have an aversion to, and then navigate through half a dozen no-portal areas simply to get out again. I probably sound a bit dickish, but it really just seems like an attempt to shoehorn people into an area unattractive to RP in, rather than fixing the reasons it's unattractive.

What about DM controlled factions? It'd facilitate the flexibility of a server story that may interest players to be part of somethng that they themselves may influence by their actions.

There are such factions...

NinjaClarinet wrote:

I've adopted an IC approach to it, in that I'm working on making Tarkuul as self-sufficient as possible, but I'm still pretty against any blatantly artificial means to make me go to a zone i have an aversion to, and then navigate through half a dozen no-portal areas simply to get out again. I probably sound a bit dickish, but it really just seems like an attempt to shoehorn people into an area unattractive to RP in, rather than fixing the reasons it's unattractive.

Yes, if a place like Tarkuul and maybe Kohl had places to sell loot for a decent price, it would make things better in my opinion. Cordor seems to me to be kind of a neutral place, but maybe more characters of neutral alignment should find themselves there more often. I think these three places need to be hubs that facilitate rp instead of just places for characters to run in and out of. I'm not sure what can be done to really help facilitate this, but I think it should be discussed.

Kohlingen has a good loot price.....

GreatPigeon wrote:

Kohlingen has a good loot price.....

I guess I wouldn't know. I assumed it didn't.

Murex wrote:

Yes, if a place like Tarkuul and maybe Kohl had places to sell loot for a decent price, it would make things better in my opinion. Cordor seems to me to be kind of a neutral place, but maybe more characters of neutral alignment should find themselves there more often. I think these three places need to be hubs that facilitate rp instead of just places for characters to run in and out of. I'm not sure what can be done to really help facilitate this, but I think it should be discussed.

This is being accomplished ICly, through player efforts, or not at all. Some of you may have noticed the note in the Updates announcement awhile back, that stated there was increased economic activity in Barak Runedar? That wasn't just said for the hell of it, player actions affected the state of affairs in the Citadel.

Dev Disco wrote:

Needled247 wrote:

With the new HAK content being framed/evaluated I'd like to offer that we add new head models into it, with the possibility of removing the need for the Headpack as well. There's alot of heads out there that would be a good addition.

Can't be done in a neat way. The heads need to be in override to be available in character creation. Why? Beats me...

About the good heads: we've been through about every single one of them two years ago, and teh result was a few extra heads for the non-humans, and humans and female elves (if memory serves me) being 100% full. We simply can't add any of those.

There's the option to allow people to choose their head if they're a new PC after getting in the game. This would solve both problems. The other being that alot of people choose the wrong head anyway since you can't rotate and many of the heads look alike anyways.

Also, I know for a fact that there's a metric ton of head models missing from the pack. The vault alone has packs for many missed ones.

Needled247 wrote:

Dev Disco wrote:

Needled247 wrote:

With the new HAK content being framed/evaluated I'd like to offer that we add new head models into it, with the possibility of removing the need for the Headpack as well. There's alot of heads out there that would be a good addition.

Can't be done in a neat way. The heads need to be in override to be available in character creation. Why? Beats me...

About the good heads: we've been through about every single one of them two years ago, and teh result was a few extra heads for the non-humans, and humans and female elves (if memory serves me) being 100% full. We simply can't add any of those.

There's the option to allow people to choose their head if they're a new PC after getting in the game. This would solve both problems. The other being that alot of people choose the wrong head anyway since you can't rotate and many of the heads look alike anyways.

Also, I know for a fact that there's a metric ton of head models missing from the pack. The vault alone has packs for many missed ones.

The Devs/DMs were nice enough to take care of that for me just the other day, when I went into character creation intending to make a Halruaan wizard and ended up with Mickey Rourke the barbarian. I wish we could zoom in further, but it's an ancient game. I'm glad the DMs recognize this and are happy to help when they have time.

Needled247 wrote:

The other being that alot of people choose the wrong head anyway since you can't rotate and many of the heads look alike anyways.

If you are talking about on the character generation process, you actually can! I found out one day by pressing the right/left arrow keys. Page Up/Down also tilt the view :3 You can't zoom, though, which would be even more useful.

For the UD Drow faction, I rarely see anyone at all. There are some that play together as a group, because they're a House and play together, and that's perfectly A-OK, but the UD is kind of dead lately. Don't know what can be done, or if anything should be done to fix that, but it is what it is.

Alakton wrote:

For the UD Drow faction, I rarely see anyone at all. There are some that play together as a group, because they're a House and play together, and that's perfectly A-OK, but the UD is kind of dead lately. Don't know what can be done, or if anything should be done to fix that, but it is what it is.

Yeah I noticed that, too. There have been only a few people online lately that I have seen, and a bunch of players seem to be missing or playing other characters when I do see them online

You should see the drow as an interfaction of Amia. And alike most factions, activity comes in waves, blossoms or even stops.The intrafactions of the drow hub, being houses/academies, remain "unchanged". They do not require constant activity to live on, whereas the city and culture (interfaction) is not at all vibrant.

Slowly working on an overhaul of half the outdoor areas on A.

http://www.amiaworld.net/cc/afrontier.png

I am also pimping the old outdoor tileset with new trees and textures. In a few weeks Amia will look pretty fresh indeed.

In Disco we trust!

With the changes of the daylight ratio and the overhaul of the southern amia a areas, I have to say that feel when playing has improved immensely. A huge thanks for the work! From 2005 to 2012 on amia a. Especially as an old player, it helped to get me more interrested again!

Xenos wrote:

In Disco we trust!

Mr. Hackums wrote:

Xenos wrote:

In Disco we trust!

Bini wrote:

Mr. Hackums wrote:

Xenos wrote:

In Disco we trust!

+1

Noob, don't break the quote pyramid. :cry:

You can trust me! I come as friends...

Gondor wrote:

You should see the drow as an interfaction of Amia. And alike most factions, activity comes in waves, blossoms or even stops.The intrafactions of the drow hub, being houses/academies, remain "unchanged".

Yup. And the reason most interaction takes place in houses is due to it being secret yes PLUS most PC's not wanting to be killed. We're attempting to promote getting power through negotiation (read: bribery, blackmail) instead of getting power through killing off the PC that doesn't agree with your PC.

I attempt to have meetings with my PC in places where a sneaky, back stabbing spy can get in if they are crafty about it. Which the local Vhaerunites have taken advantage of, with glee I assume. But thats just asking to get caught and getting caught is bad.

I think the port in point for L'Obsul should be at the top in the bar/merchant area for all the races instead of the tradehouse. And the port in for the Edoinl drow in Iniquity!

It's almost done...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v498/ ... Teaser.jpg

Well just to put in my 2 cents, I don't think I'd change much. The reason a lot of folks including me play on here exclusively to other nwn servers is the RP possibility. I'm realistic about things and if i see someone i want to mess with or rp with, i will. The people are generally nice folk here too. Only one real suggestion.

DMs need to F&%k with us more. Throw random crap at us. I was a DM long ago on a LOTR server. I did'nt login without screwin with folks. I did'nt givem more than they could handle, but I kept em on their toes with randomness. Solo travellers, or groups. It can be random encounters with whatever, or a improved quest.

Oh and don't level cap us at any lower level, or introduce perma death. I played on ALFA long ago as well, cause I like the idea of permadeath myself, but I left for one reason. Hardly any players

Probably rehashing old ideas, but I'm very rapidly becoming of the opinion that there should be a limit to the number of characters allowed, and an outright ban on the stupid everyone has five different gamespys and forum accounts thing that seems rampant. I feel it would drastically, drastically improve the average quality of roleplay, even if it was unpopular. Yoss did a good post on the topic, but I think a firmer stance would help cut down on metagaming (both intentional and not) and everyone has a hand in every cookie jar syndrome. It's frankly getting exasperating and my current biggest turn-off for the server.

We're never going to enforce anything like that, but to those of you that do have a mass of alts heres a few good rules of thumb:

Don't have more than one character in any faction/city guards/councils.

Don't have characters in opposing factions/city guards/councils.

Don't enter a plot with two characters (I don't allow this anyway.)

The reason why I enjoy playing multiple characters is because it broadens my availability to Rp with people. With lower server populations, all I have to do is look who's on, and I can pick a character to interact with those people. Otherwise, I'm sitting alone in a Chapel all day, greeting the very rare random passerby's.

I've always personally been very cautious about playing both sides, and I make it known to those I'm with the circumstances, and what they should expect (Usually amounts to me only playing one character during the conflict event).

I certainly don't try to dip my fingers into multiple pots so I can glean information and have all-knowing characters. That removes the fun of actually gathering the information myself! I just feel incredibly lonely and bored only playing 1-2 characters, because the crowds are never consistent with the time that I have available to Rp. So with alts, I can broaden my horizons and really experience all of the neat Rp that Amia has to offer.

I'm telling you my own personal reasons so you can try to look at it from another perspective, and maybe see that the intent that most people with altitis have isn't simply a "Hey, I want to hop on the current bandwagon," and more of a "Hey, I want to Rp with a lot of people."

Mr. Hackums wrote:

The reason why I enjoy playing multiple characters is because it broadens my availability to Rp with people. With lower server populations, all I have to do is look who's on, and I can pick a character to interact with those people. Otherwise, I'm sitting alone in a Chapel all day, greeting the very rare random passerby's.

I've always personally been very cautious about playing both sides, and I make it known to those I'm with the circumstances, and what they should expect (Usually amounts to me only playing one character during the conflict event).

I certainly don't try to dip my fingers into multiple pots so I can glean information and have all-knowing characters. That removes the fun of actually gathering the information myself! I just feel incredibly lonely and bored only playing 1-2 characters, because the crowds are never consistent with the time that I have available to Rp. So with alts, I can broaden my horizons and really experience all of the neat Rp that Amia has to offer.

I'm telling you my own personal reasons so you can try to look at it from another perspective, and maybe see that the intent that most people with altitis have isn't simply a "Hey, I want to hop on the current bandwagon," and more of a "Hey, I want to Rp with a lot of people."

This.

>.> Whereas I check to see who's on so I know where to go when I log in with Zelly.

No but I can understand where people are coming from. I mean, I'm sure I have a ton more characters than some people who admit they're guilty of altitis. I had it too till I made Zelly. It's about RP'ing all the time, with as many people as you possibly can. It's not about getting a hand into everything that's going on. Not for most people.

Oh, absolutely. The real challenge is having a character that can interact with anyone and everyone! The sad reality is that some, if not most, of my characters are unfriendly.

Dev Disco wrote:

Well... I guess this is a good moment to give some details about what I am cooking atm.

I made a system that allows a dm to quickly make a battle scenario. It's made for Good vs Evil, but I'll try to make it generic enough for use in the UD, or for fights between War Knights and whatever they have a beef with this week.

The DM selects a string of areas, of which the first and last one automatically become starting points for both parties. In each area one to three objectives are placed. These can be pimped with placeables, or just be put next to some landmark that's already in the area. Just click in the area, pick an appearance and name it, and that's that.
Areas in a scenario
Adding an objective

Players start in one area, and conquer 'neutral' objectives in the direction of the opposite faction. They will meet somewhere in the middle and need to duke it out from there. You can only take objectives in 'contested areas', which basically means you can't just sneak along your opponent and start capturing objectives three areas away. Fighting is focussed in one or two areas, the rest are locked. I made a table showing this for just a few areas. Objectives are guarded by NPCs of the opposing faction (or the normal spawns in the area when an objective is still neutral).
Gameplay outline

The DM can change a lot of gameplay settings for a scenario, such as blocking Raise scrolls, porting options, team names, spawn numbers, etc. For the RP stuff there are options for making descriptions and convo's for NPC's. I want to make this system work on 6 level ranges as well (2-5,5-10, 10-15, etc).

We haven't decide much on rewards and stuff, but I think it would be nice to link PC's to the loot bins, so they drop a cigar when they die, but not one out of their own box. You will get bragging items, though. On the forum you will be able to follow the proceedings, and if you do well you'll find a nice medal in your inventory. We will have nasty respawn penalties, but they will be limited to the battle (ie: no gold and xp penalties, but expect your stats to suffer badly for the duration of the scenario).
Score list

When a battle is fought and one side has won, the areas will be oriented to that side for a few days. Think about corpses of the opposition littering the place, different spawns, victorious banners, etc. Perhaps even some nice shop that can be used only by characters who fought on the winning side. No promises for the latter, though, that's a bit of a challenge to program.

Anyway, the idea is to get maximum mileage in game with minimum effort for the DMs. It also should be fun for everybody. You can PvP, fight against NPCs, heal your comrades, muster fresh troops... make it your own game.

Perhaps Amarice can add some more info, she's been testing this a lot with me and was quite sceptical about it when we started a few weeks ago.

I messed up. I needed the hak update to finish this, but got so carried away with adding new stuff that I forgot to do a proper testing round with this system. It's thoroughly buggered now, and I'll have to shelve it till the next update (prolly around Januari). Sorry!

Hey everyone. Nobody may remember me, but I still lurk. When I turned 15 and opened up my birthday wrapper to NWN, I never realized how huge a gift I was given. Due to Amia by a huge degree, I had a medium to develop my creative writing and imagination. I've made good friends and have had experiences I will probably always cherish. So I just want to thank Disco and Nekh and Yossarin and Tormak and everyone who has been part of the development and DMing teams who has unknowingly given me so much. While the player count dwindling is sad news and it is something to concern ourselves with and combat, part of that is also the increasing age of NWN.. I don't want anyone to lose their heads over it trying to rebuild the server into something completely new. What we've had over the years is a good thing, and a lot of it should remain similar, the same, or at least recognizable.
Nostalgia is an important factor to play on with players. If people return to something foreign to what they remember, it may be a bit distancing.

That said, something I have always pressed for is smaller, more personal DM events. I think Silent has done a great job in this, although I don't think they necessarily need to be campaigns. Short, small events to stir in conflict for people to develop their characters and their relationships to other characters.. I've never been a huge fan of the large, public events that highlight one or two key characters and leave the rest to stand about like an awkward audience.. Which they do simply for the DC.

Anywho, forever lurking,

Rosencrantz

I KNOW YOU ROSY! <3

Needled247 wrote:

E) Trade gold for them, or start an organization to rip people off to obtain them.

No one trades epic loot for gold, silly beans. That's what I hate the most about seeing auctions, everything is traded away for other epic items. If you're not grinding bosses (OOCly, come on now, it's so OOC it's laughable

) to get that phat lootz, you're not getting epic items.

As for the whole "thousands upon thousands of kobolds/giants/monsters in general issue," I've always found it hard to justify IC, so now, when I play evil characters, I call it genocide and have fun with it. When I play goodguys, I promptly ignore to make any IC observations on the matter unless I'm forced to. So just like with the epic loot, it's just one of those things you might as well ignore the illogical, OOC nature of.

WTF is this necro crap

Oh fudge, I had two topics open at the same time.

CARRY ON, PEOPLE! NOTHING TO SEE HERE!

:oops:

Holy crap. This was necro'd so hard, I don't even remember what the quote you took that from said.

Yeah, bit out of date.

Amia... what happens next? (cleaned)

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