Messages

Thank you Fire Wraith for helping with all the shenanigans required with a relevel and odd Dragon Disciple type.  

Hope you feel better soon.  

Will miss you Melody.  Enjoy your break! *hugs*

Jul 31, 2022 12:44:44 GMT -5 DubiousScroll said:

"If I know a character is a member of Category 4/5/6, can I talk about it publicly?

The short answer is "it depends." If the character themselves is making no attempt to conceal their nature publicly, or discussing it themselves, then yes. Their nature is considered public knowledge at that point. However, if a character is attempting to abide by these rules but is still discovered or revealed, we ask that you do not casually announce/discuss the matter publicly. This negates the entire purpose behind them attempting to maintain a degree of public secrecy, and forces other players to react as though the character were openly walking about with their race revealed."


I think if it's out in the field that you stumble across them that's different from walking around in a town uncovered...so I don't think they've outted themselves in this case.

The question becomes though what do you /do/ with that info?  What productive RP do you as a good character have with an evil character who if they were an NPC you'd just cut down and go about your day?  There's a certain suspension of disbelief required for good RP that doesn't devolve into stupid conflict, but I think the initial question is valid.  

I've struggled with this for a while.  I came from an environment where PvP was commonplace and accepted, for even the smallest slights.  Something like this would be a no brainer.  You both fight, somebody dies, and that means they yield the space.

This isn't good or fun though.  I've tried a few different things here.  I've tried engaging with it from an RP discussion perspective, but all that's done has gotten my character labeled a zealous bully by some.  I've tried encouraging people to stick their openly evil RP characters in openly evil spaces, but again that gets people angry because those spaces are underpopulated.  I've tried ignoring it ICly and giving the benefit of the doubt, but that's gotten my character taken advantage of and looking foolish as a good character.

So now I'm just kinda at the stage of not engaging as much as I can.  It seems to be the only way to deal with it.  You wanna play Joe Evilguy in the square to get your ticks, fine.  I'm not gonna talk to you.  We run into each other in the field, I'm gonna walk away.  I honestly can't find a more productive choice that's conducive to good RP, and maybe that's on me as a player.  I think it's the best choice, and a sacrifice made to keep a healthy RP environment that doesn't devolve into a pointless conflict spiral.

Thanks to the Admins for all the lag fixing measures over the last few months.  I know the server has grown, and the AI changes, new server, automated resets, splitting of servers into event and base...all of it is just great and seems to be helping a ton.  

Thanks to Wolfgar for everything involved with the Samia plotline, the scheduling nightmares, the crazy effort they put in to making their environments (even if we blow by some of the easter eggs), helping me with releveling and generally being a cool Hugbear.

Mar 27, 2022 20:11:10 GMT -5 Eidolon said:

Really want to thank Whisper, Meridian, Alastriona, Rowna and Aravilar for making my first extended plot just fantastic. You all were invested and had some great RP moments. I hope you all had as much fun as I did running for you all.

Thank you very much for running it.  I'm really glad I was fortunate enough to be able to get in on it, and had a great time.  

Mar 10, 2022 20:59:44 GMT -5 snorriht said:

Thank you Ladybug! Maybe a Miner concern, but Major fun! ;-)

Echoing this.  It was a great quest and makes for a great story

As a newer player I will say the time seems pretty extreme.  I mean assuming no DM XP, you're looking at 634 days, or roughly 1585 hours of RP XP ticks needed to go from 15-30 with no quests to really help you (assuming you did all your quests pre-15 to get there).  There is no way to get around this with current systems.  I'm not sure how much DM XP is handed out generally, since in the few weeks I've been here I've managed to make one DM event as a participant and got 400 XP, and another as an observer and got 40.  If that's the standard, it seems like DM XP won't really make much of a dent in the time to get 30 besides knocking off a few days over the nearly two years it takes to get there.

To compare to other games on the market people coming here might play(I know, don't throw rotten fruit) WoW takes about 120 hours of playtime to get max level on the high end.  FFXIV is somewhere around 60 I think.  A typical RPG you can beat in 40-80 hours.  A game that's so long people typically burn out on it like Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is about 140-160 hours.  

If the goal is to get people hovering between 15-20 and have them make alts, then I think this system accomplishes that goal.  If the goal is to get people to develop a character over a longer time rather than having character churn, I think it fails.  I think it will create a pain point and cause burnout for people who are interested in seeing character advancement.  It's not as big of a deal because of the lack of PvP on here, but it can still feel frustrating, especially with gear being level locked acting as a such a big power gap between people of similar levels.  People like seeing numbers go up.  It's pushing against existing paradigms created by the hobby.  

I'm not sure how to propose a solution here that doesn't make me sound like I'm being negative or whining without knowing why this system is here.  What is the problem it's solving?  

Feb 1, 2022 12:02:53 GMT -5 Edge said:

1, 2, and 3 are not doable in NWN's mechanics due to blackbox.

Yeesh.  I've seen such things done, but I assume they required a total rebuild of the class rather than a change to the existing class then?

Paladin throughout all of 3.x was a dip class, because it's features are very frontloaded and don't scale based on level.  It has the Multiple Attribute Dependency (MAD) issue common in a lot of hybrid classes made even worse by alignment and RP restrictions for very little benefit.  It's also my favorite class from an RP perspective. I've pondered a lot about ways to change paladin and make it more viable while still maintaining the theme of the class and not putting them above a dedicated warrior/WM/whatever.  These suggestions are made with ease of implementation in mind based on the current mechanics in game.  

1) Dump wisdom, give them Charisma casting.  Paladin is a front-line fighting class, which means it needs Str/Dex AND probably at least 13 Int and enough Con to not explode.  This basically means they need to dump either Cha or Wis, and most are going to dump Wis anyways because they need Cha for Divine Might/Shield.  Giving Charisma casting reduces MAD strain and helps the class synergize better with existing PRC options.

2) Give paladins access to a single deity appropriate Cleric domain to expand on their spell list.  Obviously this is going to step on the toes of clerics a little bit, but since they're only getting up to level 4 casting anyways it won't replace them.

3) Let paladins pick from a small list of thematic "Favored Enemies" like the Ranger at certain levels.  Obviously not as many as the ranger, but this would let them specialize as undead hunters, or devil hunters, or whatever.  Maybe just let them pick from one but have it scale similarly to the ranger and give them access to Bane of Enemies.

4) Give paladins free Focus/Epic Focus in their deity's weapon of choice.  They are a bit feat tight and this feels like just a tax.  

Hey Ladybug.  Thanks for the tasks.  Was fun to be creative and show a bit of my character's personality!