What do people want from Layonara? Do you want the quests? Do you want the GM involvement? Do you want the enhancements to RP and mechanics that come from having a quirky and diverse Pantheon? Or do you just want us to let you do your thing, put whatever you want on, in and near your character without consequence or requirement and just beat things up all day long, however little sense it makes to do so? Do you want the living, breathing world or do you want a gladiatorial arena where you are the champion....Aeridin's slayer of the wicked...Az'atta's redemption by steel?
I am really and truly interested in your answers, and please do not insult me by just telling me what you think I want to hear.
*unsure if Dorg question was rhetorical*
Well I like all of it really (the quests, the involvement, the rp everything, the great development that has been made mechanically and a lot of the new lore that was not written before for the kingdoms and such.), but this is my thought.
A lot of the changes that is iring some people at the moment, where made in prevision of the mmo.
There should be a clear distinction of what is for the MMO and what is for NWN. And with that, what you have now for NWN should stay as you have it, and what you plan for the MMO should stay only for the MMO. This way you do not impact the gaming experience of the player base. And with this am I not talking about lore development, or mechanical development or even the plot line. I mean the changes that affect the basic of the game like the refining of the deities and what is no longer acceptable but was not even 6 months ago.
You can make the MMO tid bits publications public, which is great as you keep people interested, but without having them impact the now. People would know that when the MMO is coming out, there will be changes, and they will be ready. And from past reading, none of the chars we have now would be alive in the MMO, so that would not impact us at all at that time.
But that's me, that's how I would do it personally and I fully understand that this might not be how you (the team) want to proceed
Quote from: Dorganath
What do people want from Layonara?
Simply put, to be entertained...
To be more precise.. I want to be able to do something which keeps me entertained. Thankfully I have a character who can actually join in on most of the entertaining aspects of the server(At least seen from my perspective)..
I would say that choosing a diety in general will limit you no matter how you put it. However it wont stop you from creating a different character to have the kind of fun you want to have, so I wouldn't really put the diety system down as a bad thing, rather just one which adds flavor to your character and might put some restrictions on that character alone.
Quote:
Quote from: DorganathDo you want the quests?
Of course, we all want quests.. Again entertainment value and so forth...
What I could wish for though would be smaller in audience and bigger in character work for the individual character. Far too often the quest boils down to the same PC's taking the lead and the rest of the party just being there for the ride and the xp.
Sadly the amount of GM's and the time they can dedicate to nwn is too small for this and I believe that the situation we have now is a compromise between having quests open to a broader audience and having the quests themselves run by few characters.
Quote from: DorganathDo you want the GM involvement?Depends on which kind of GM involvement you are asking about.. I am choosing to view this from the deity discussion and the reply will not address my feelings about this subject in general.
I would actually like a lot more GM involvement in the deity system as we have it now. One of the biggest problem many faiths face are that their followers and especially their divinely inspired characters can't really do anything that their faith dictates them to do, there are some examples of faiths who can though;
1) Toranites, hey go out slay evil, sadly evil respawns but hey then you can just slay evil again another day
2) Doranites, craft-craft-craft, pretty easy
3) Lucindites, with the new inclusion of wild and no magic areas spawning around the world they can actually go out and help their lady. However some of the newer additions to the faith like the pit stalkers are clearly only intended for the MMO and have no real purpose unless a GM picks it up, same goes for dragonlinks really... However no one that I know of are part of those organizations save NPC's so I figure that is alright.
The faiths which has real problems with doing anything would be.
1) Az'attans, really it feels like beating a dead horse.. But what can these people to exactly besides RP? They can tell people not to kill and to try to redeem from now and till the world of Layonara is consumed by the dragon cult and still get nowhere because the only chance of doing an act of redeemption/pacifism are GM encounters. The can preach however I guess that counts...
2) Shindy people, protect the oceans? Uhh.. How, we can't even travel in the oceans so they are sort of limited to waging a neverending war on the Mist people, and besides the PC's they encounter that too is limited to GM interactions. I would judge this as sort of the situation the Lucindites faced before the wild/no magic area mechanics were introduced
3) Prunilla, again preaching sure just keep doing that... But farming? Since the farming system was dropped in favor of the MMO(Not complaining about this decision just stating the fact), they are pretty much limited to preaching as well.
While preaching priests aren't a bad thing, since that is part of being a priest in the first place, it certainly is a bad thing if it is what the priest is limited to do. Especially especially if they can't gain levels through normal means, and here I mean combat and purely combat the only reliable source of xp. There are those who will probably argue here that RP will mend all this and that levels doesn't matter.
Then... I would like to reply with one of my strongests standpoints, levels -should- matter, and that is matter more than RP... Sure I can accept that a level 5 could do what a level 10 could through good RP or to drive a quest forward, fair enough. But when you start justifying the level 5 cleric being as influential as the level 40 cleric then there is something clearly wrong in the logic.
Levels are the only clear way of measuring the magnitude of a character short of very, with the emphasis on VERY, strict guidelines for how this works. The guidelines and reasonings should either be obvious, ex. person of neutral or below deity relation goes into temple of deity X and asks for help being refused said help, or explained very carefully and made available to all who would like to know why.
Usually this is the norm but of course it is very tedious to keep track of all this and even more when your average clergy as defined by LORE doesn't really have any ranks besides some very high ones being occupied by NPC's.
I know that I probably wasn't the most prominent speaker for the ranking system the lucindite church used the have, and we shouldn't really dwell in the past because we have the new deity write-ups which are wonderful in their own right..
But the advantage this system could have had was that there was a clear defined place in the church, there could be a feeling of progression where the PC would slowly move towards a move influential post in the hierarchy. However the problem was that the GM focus on this field was too little and it ended up pretty much like the situation is now, PC's at the bottom, rock bottom of all churches and nothing else except the rare epic.
The problem I feel there is really boils down to two decisions which I as a player think has been made:
1) Focus the GM's on running quests for everyone since the GMs are busy people and we would like as much focus on the player base as a whole as opposed to fragments of the player base
2) The consequence of this is that focus is largely removed from the churches and deities, making them too preachy for my taste.
I might start being redundant here but again, this focus makes it so that the churches and deities are less alive compared to what I would like. I must admit here that I am a huge fan of rather interventionist deities who actually matter to their followers.
Surely the priest is expected to have the deity matter to him, but there is no signs from either church or deity towards the individual PC save CDQ's and I believe that this is indeed a poor way to handle those relationships.
But again this is a choice from the GM team and they have their reasons for this and I will not argue that there might be things speaking against this approach, but I will still say that I would like if things were more like this and less like they are today.
Quote from: DorganathDo you want the enhancements to RP and mechanics that come from having a quirky and diverse Pantheon?Sure, as long as there are a measure of usefulness for the individual player and not just for the benefit of saying that there is flavor but the flavor is only there for what you want to preach and not what you are part of.
Quote from: DorganathOr do you just want us to let you do your thing, put whatever you want on, in and near your character without consequence or requirement and just beat things up all day long, however little sense it makes to do so?Uhmmm... May I point out that it is actually what is happening now, except that certain domain/equipment combos are unavailable due to deity restrictions? This is very bluntly put but it is part of the reality that I see on the servers on a day to day basis. I mean no offence in this, I believe that the most important thing is that the players feel content with the experience offered and given that no one seems to complain about this I guess that people are.
Quote from: DorganathDo you want the living, breathing world or do you want a gladiatorial arena where you are the champion....Aeridin's slayer of the wicked...Az'atta's redemption by steel?My argument should pretty well state that I don't believe that the world is living and breathing, rather it is an arena now outside GM quests. Surely there are some RP-isles out there but they are far in-between and rather closed. This of course doesn't include the RP that people do while wacking monsters which is thankfully not absent on layonara...
I know that the general picture this post reflects of layonara is rather bad. However I keep coming back because I like the world and the people who play. But I do believe that there are some illusions among some people of how the day to day experience of layonara is these days, and hopefully this post will inspire some thought about the way the world works and how you would like it to work to enhancing your experience here :)
Quote from: DorganathWhat do people want from Layonara? Do you want the quests? Do you want the GM involvement? Do you want the enhancements to RP and mechanics that come from having a quirky and diverse Pantheon? Or do you just want us to let you do your thing, put whatever you want on, in and near your character without consequence or requirement and just beat things up all day long, however little sense it makes to do so? Do you want the living, breathing world or do you want a gladiatorial arena where you are the champion....Aeridin's slayer of the wicked...Az'atta's redemption by steel?
I am really and truly interested in your answers, and please do not insult me by just telling me what you think I want to hear.
...
I want less loaded questions! ;)
Anyways ... is lore really so fragile that an idea or path such as Honora has evidently spent much time pondering prior to submission likely to do ... what's the word? .. 'damage' anything? Will lore explode if there is a Priest(ess) of Shindaleria who thinks the ebb and flow of Shindaleria is an OK fit for a martial artist? I'd have thought such a concept to be a nice fit for some of the softer impact and deflection based martial arts?
It appears, especially of late, that lore integrity and uber-strict adherence to such is of paramount importance over and above a flexibility that used to exist to facilitate player's fun.
Maybe I am missing something but I can't see the incredible 'drama' a more lenient approach to submissions like Honoras might have - even if they differ from Ed's own existing ideas. I thought that was the decision not long ago when there was the decision made to ease up on the rules and increase the fun factor? Is this really so very different? Sure, some things will always be plain ridiculous and not make sense ... but if someone's idea is justifiable, debatable, reasoned, even if only remotely possible at the edges of established parameters ... then *shrugs* there will always be outliers that don't need to substantially affect the integrity of the 'norm'.
My thoughts for early Saturday morning. :)
If this post belongs in another thread, feel free to move.
Oooo, this thead has gotten interesting! So, it's time for me to weigh in.
Quote from: DorganathI am really and truly interested in your answers, and please do not insult me by just telling me what you think I want to hear.OK, I'll will be 100% frank. But I also must say that this is the first time in literally 25 years where I've been put in the position of being a player, rather than being asked to be the GM, and I really can't thank you enough for that experience.
Quote from: DorganathAt the same time, the perennial complaint is that we have "too many rules."Yes. You have far too many rules. The solution is not, however, to make them undocumented, enforced subjectively, constantly in flux, and nebulous. I have noticed that the first way many rules get articulated in Layonara, is when the GM team decides that a PC is subject to some form of sanction (or disallow a long-planned progression), and the player ends up posting here on the forums asking what the heck this new unwritten rule, that just blindsided their PC, is.
That's what kicked off this thread, for instance. A new rule about Shindaleria that completely threw the player for a loop. And it's not good.
I must also point out that the GM team's response is also a tad diappointing. Rather than admit having changed a rule, or perhaps work it into the history of the world as an in-game change, there is this strong tendency to pretend that the just-made-up-rule was always that way, even though it clearly wasn't. And this is usually justified by a strained appeal to "common sense", even though it isn't. (And as if "common sense" is a classic hallmark of religions, which it's not.)
I find this behavior especially confusing, because I believe it is your right to change things arbirarily as you see fit. So I don't see why rule changes, and continued world definition is so embarassing, that you feel emotionally compelled not to just acknowledge it.
NOTE: I purposefully snipped out a bit here, as it belongs as part of the prior discussion more than this one, and it bears comment, to which I am refraining in this thread. Apologies for any confusion this may cause. -- Dorganath
What I think needs to happen is for you to acknowledge when you make changes, give some serious compensation to PCs who are affected (offering complete rebuilds, or special-case exceptions, for starters), and take a humble approach to issues surrounding different interpretations of what is written down. Here is a basic rule of thumb: when one person misreads something in lore, that might be their mistake - when two, three, or more people do, it's clearly yours.
I would also like for Layonaran GMs to be given their own little areas inside the world that they can play with, rather than constantly having to ask permission to do anything. Part of the reason why there is so much focus on the bashy, rather than the RP, even in the quests, is that RP requires world definition that GMs presently do not have permission to do. If every little question has to be funneled through Ed, and/or Leanthar, for an answer, you don't get much world definition. If your GMs live in fear of a PM from Ed, you don't get much exploration of tangential plot lines.
11/ I want to see characters holding ranks, titles, positions of honour etc throughout the world. It used to be like that but over time this has flopped and thats perhaps a symptom of GM's fearing to give anyone anything for fear of upsetting Lore but its not impossible to do and GM's need to realise that.
1/ Significantly Less Xp for epic level characters from creature kills, imo this has detracted from WL's since every other person has an epic level char these days without too much effort.
2/ The XP jump at level 20-21 doubled and the current XP jump at level 20 placed at level 30-31.
@Dezza, Are these two items just to deal with the handfull of grinders we have? Cause if it were any harder to level, 90% of us would have no upward movment at all. Doubling the XP jump during the 20 to 21 "green mile" would just securly doom all non-WLs to perma-death.
I want the rules, submission standards and allowable character/dogma/deity/weapons mandates trimmed back to where they were about 4 and a half years ago. Since then the red tape that started as a single string has snowballed up into one big tangled ball of frustration and character refusals. Fantasy realms depend and rely on imagination not only of the creators, but the players. Please relent in the 3rd degree inspections of every little thing in a character's bio, advancement path and belief system and let the players play the game with a minimum of restrictions. Dogmas should be a guiding light, not a bell jar. There should be ample room for various sects of the same faith to coexist.
3/ Double or even triple hourly XP for WL's who attend quests. Give them the importance they have earn't and the incentive to be out there amongst the player populations.
4) I want characters to be defined by the person as opposed to the class. Make the class requirements (not the mechanical ones) more bendy, and allow the player a chance to fit his/her character's personality into the class.
The NWN Layo is very restrictive in character creation. What we seem to reward and encourage are basic classes played by the "big four"; human, elf, dwarf, halfling. Read through the character submissions and that's clear. And my point in another thread stands: in part because of this, we grow very slowly and have become rather alt-dependent to keep things fresh. And those alts are often much more challenging concepts, to keep the game interesting for people who have been here for years.
3) I want to embrace the new players. New blood will keep the server fresh and alive. I hate to see a new player be stuck in character approval for 3 weeks and then give up and leave us, never even having seen the server. (Sorry CA team, a ton of respect for your amazing work, not so much for the current strict process). When I started here I was such a noob, both with nwn and Layo lore. I learned from playing and RP'ing with others, and still do :)
I really want to like Layonara, but the hurdle of getting started is HUGE. I can go to Arelith or FRC Cormyr with a new character concept and be up and running with a good group of quality RPers that afternoon. Not here, you have to wait for someone who obviously has other things to do to notice your submission, and then invariably there will be some minor changes requested that will delay you for days longer. I can absolutely guarantee you than many a great RPer has walked on by because of the bureaucracy.
5) I want it to be easier to meet other characters. A looking for group list? It's a big world today, and often with few players. 4 years ago the world center was Hlint and the max level was 20 (except for a rare few). This led to a much higher concentration of like-level characters in the same areas. Lifting of the level split rule was a big step in the right direction!
The counter-argument being it might encourage those otherwise condemned to perma-death during the Green Mile to do something of significance during levels 1-19 such that they would feel comfortable applying for World Leader when they hit 20?
As Dorg stated, I know this is not a debate thread - but that thought occurred to me as I was pondering jrizz's post.
Acacea says good things.
I do not plan to comment on anything said in this thread until it has run its course, and then only maybe. The primary reason is time, but also to give you all a chance to speak without my influence.
Allow Epic CDQs again - meaning CDQs whose intent is to change the world, but do not necessarily have WL status attached to them. Allow any PC to attempt such a quest before level 20. Otherwise, the incentive is power leveling.
For the love of all creation, please change CNR to be plausible. My sense of disbelief is entirely destroyed reading advertisements for boxes of chicken eggs listed in the thousands of gold pieces. How about cockatrice eggs instead? Instead of Yew, how about Magewood? (etc.)
In a similar light, understand that some players simply enjoy taking on combat challenges, and they are not at fault that NwN (through implementing DnD) gives disproportionate rewards for doing so. But rather than get mad at the players, simply tilt things in the opposite direction (*).
(*) In my own PnP game, of a game system of my own design, XP for "work experience" in a particular skill is limited, but you can use money to "buy training" (i.e. go to school, which also gives you XP). There is absolutely nothing that would prevent Layonara from cutting combat XP down, but having "schools" that let players trade Gold for XP.
[post=982282]First[/post], just for a different perspective. Second, the economy is completely broken. There is no mint anywhere; instead, money grows on monsters. It's insane.
I'm a little confused. If bashing gives less XP, and if school gives a new source of XP, and if school costs True, and if True grows on monsters, what changes? Wouldn't the bashers just take their gathered True and buy from the school the XP they "lost," coming out the same at the end?
I doubt people who can buy XP are going to lower egg prices, heh.
Shindaleria is Mother Ocean. While capable of violence when necessary, she hates random destruction, such as the way the demon's hurricanes wreak devistation upon her beautiful coral gardens. Thus, study of combat for its own sake is generally seen as a path to debasement. It is the way she has lost too many of her people to the demon goddess, Mist. She has no Sacred Fists.
Not yet.
Genna is hereby approved to take Fighter levels. She should also sign up for at least two CDQs, for her to develop her own unarmed Water Style combat techniques (which must be unarmed), complete with her own katas based upon the nature of water. This will culminate (if she survives), in a WLDQ to persuade the High priestess to present her case to Shindaleria herself. After this she will be rebuilt.
Understand that Genna is by no means guaranteed success, even if she lives to see the WLDQ. In fact, there are at least four possible outcomes of this decade long quest. She could: 1] Fail to convince the High Priestess to offer her sponsorship, in which case Genna would be rebuilt into a 100% fighter, 2] Convince the High Priestess to continue the relationship, even when the Goddess herself has doubts, in which case Genna will be allowed a rebuild with all her current Cleric levels removed and her Fighter levels replaced with Monk levels (and become a special associate of the temple), 3] Convince the Goddess and be allowed a full rebuild as a Sacred Fist, or 4] Be taken in by a spiritual bond with Shindaleria, and rebuild as a full Cleric (perhaps with more of a martial focus than normal Shindaleria Clerics engage in). The most likely outcome is 1], but if she succeeded in 2] or 3], she would become Grandmaster, and founder of, the Water Monastery.
I already have in mind some of the things Shindaleria, and her high priestess, will, and will not, accept as katas (in game represented as skills and feats) deserving of sponsorship. It will be up to Genna to find these on her own, but I will instruct the GMs to give broad hints. And I will start with one hint here: at least one aspect of a water style kata that Shindaleria would accept, is not actually combat effective in Layonara for other reasons.
- Rather than having overall max gold limits for pawners, pawners should simply have a maximum transaction value for anything they buy. Say: 50 gold for small market shops, 100 gold for large city shops. Not only would this eliminate the problem of some people crafting enchanted gems to make 10,000 gold in one quick sale (and rendering the shop uselessn for everyone else), it is actually realistic in the way pawn shops really work.
@Lonn: That's what I am expecting the crafting in the MMO to be like, but with NWN, how do you make that work? THAT'S the problem...
And reinventing a crafting system at this late stage isn't going to happen unless someone decides to do it ALL by themselves
EDIT: WHOOPS! Forgot which thread this was! >.< Just ignore me...
I'd like to see a little more in the game for Rogues. Now I may be wrong in this, so feel free to correct me, but it seems to me that rogues have the odds decidedly against them here, and most folks seem to look on them as little more than underpowered fighters (not saying thats how it is necessarily, just the feeling I got). From my limited playing of a character who is a rogue, I thought of a few things that might be nice to see for our light fingered friends.
1. Small XP awards for picking locks and disabling traps (I've found that traps can sometimes give xp awards, but it didn't seem consistent for all). Also perhaps XP awards for setting traps as well, though that might be very problematic and open to abuse, so maybe only give it out if the trap is triggered.
2. As fighters now have named weapons which can give an XP bonus on a kill, could we have something similar for rogues where they get a little extra xp hit if they take someone / something down with a sneak attack?
3. More "stuff" for us to steal/lift/purloin/pilfer or otherwise lay our greasy little paws on. That said I'm 100% behind the do not steal from other PCs idea as having played on a server where this was allowed, saw it used to grief other folks far too often, and I'm sure the DM team has a lot better things to do with their time rather than play the PP police.
4. Somewhere for rogues to gather, perhaps in Vehl, which might not be accessible to other pc classes. Maybe give them a pawn shop there and some shops catering to rogue related items (but nothing above what's offered in the other stores - so like +1 lockpicks, and lesser traps, which I've never seen anyone sell as crafted goods yet). The pawn shop makes sense to me, as professional thieves would almost certainly have better access to places to dispose of their loot than other classes.
Anyways, just my 2 pennies for you.
~Lareth~
@Steve sorry to be so blunt-headed but, is there a request in there? Are you asking for more unique ways to build up unique PCs? I like the idea of taking some base class levels and then rebuilding later on a successful CDQ.
What I would like to see is (and purely my own views):
I have a sorcerer who finds it tough to kill monsters hand to hand. I see fighters destroying these same creatures with their weapons. Okay, accepted. I see monsters who are immune to magic (or as near as it gets) so a sorcerer is useless. Again, accepted. What I am desperate to see are areas or monsters where WEAPONS are ineffective and magic works. Now that would be a change.
Evil too is special and with the heavier requirements. Lawful Evil and Neutral Evil require an active character for at least nine (9) months. There is no minimum level requirement for this active character. As with Chaotic Neutral, on the character submission the player is required to state in their own words that they accept the rules of the server. As well they must state that they accept that the alignment of Evil may put them at odds with the majority of the player community as well as the NPCs they interact with, and that they accept the consequences to their actions.
Acacea says good things.
Quote from: Dezza
11/ I want to see characters holding ranks, titles, positions of honour etc throughout the world. It used to be like that but over time this has flopped and thats perhaps a symptom of GM's fearing to give anyone anything for fear of upsetting Lore but its not impossible to do and GM's need to realise that.
This can be player initiated - we can make this happen through our guilds and common-goal/deity sub-communities but it really doesn't come alive until it is recognized and supported by GMs. I asked (here (http://forums.layonara.com/vault-tier-one/166332-gm-invitation-thread.html) and here (http://forums.layonara.com/vault-tier-two/166272-gm-invitation-thread.html)) GMs to please feel free to incorporate the Guild that Ark began into any plots or quest arcs they had brewing on 27th Feb 2008. In the 20 months since that request .... nada. Not a single PM.
More support and encouragement and reward and recognition for player initiatives.
Edit: Dezza - please note this (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/diety)!! Ggggrrrrrrr.
A problem with this however is also in my opinion the way this involvement has been handled for almost as long as I remember. Most of the time the positive player involvement comes from the player writing pm after pm to the DM's in hope of striking something which may be a walkable road for your character.
In my opinion this removes focus from actually playing the game, as there are months where I have been playing where I thought that I could have spent my time better writing pm's to various dm's instead of actually being IG.
Honestly I didn't know how important it was to pm gm's with things your character wanted to do until just recently.
And now you understand one of the big reasons why you see WL's and high level characters less and less IG, or only on quests. World-changing projects take massive amounts of OOC and IC planning, which ultimately boils down to spending lots of time in conversation (either via PM or IRC) with GMs before you can even do anything IG.
So why even log in to play the game?
First and foremost, this is not a debate thread. It's not a place to argue and disagree with the points one person or other makes. If you have an opposing viewpoint, then state it, but do so as a stand-alone thing. Any debates will invariably spiral out of control and derail a thread that derailed another. I'd rather not have that.[
I would like it for one of my PC's to be able to become a god. I do believe at that point the character becomes a NPC. The whole idea that you created a god and made that god into what he/she is today is simply awesome!
"As you might have noticed I haven't been much online lately. The reason is simply that Layonara has lost its magic for me. I have tried in various ways to get the magic back, but, for the moment at least, it's gone. I shall therefore be taking a break from Layonara. I don't know if it will be a long break or a short break, but I will be back if I get the magic back. And I do hope I get it back.
As it is now I am completely demoralised. I don't feel I have anything to look forward to with Galathea apart from becoming an even greater buff monkey. IF she survives, which I seriously doubt, I could likely keep her alive by playing her purely as a buff-monkey and behind-the-line "she-is-cheaper-than-a-potion" healer, but to me that would be living death. The new potions, heal kits and ever present raise dead scrolls have taken what little there was truly special about clerics away so she isn't needed anyway.
I wish to thank you all for the time in Angels. I haven't always agreed with everything, but then who has! It shaped Galathea more than anything else in Layonara, and for that I am very grateful. Also if it hadn't been for the Angels guild I think this would come a lot sooner.
I expect to log on to tie up a few loose ends and also to finish G'orks WLCDQ, so hopefully I shall see you then.
See you all when the spark of magic is back!"
It's an interesting challenge from Dorg, "what would you like from Layonara?". I think it's easiest to answer by "why do I play here" and "why I don't play here". I play here to unwind, have fun and be with friends. I don't have hours upon hours of free time and all three are aspects are vital to me.
I am currently on break from Layonara and I summed up why in a post in the Angels guild forum:
So why do(did) I play on a NWN persistent world?
To me D&D (ultimately Layo) is about roleplaying, action, camaraderie and heroics. I don't play Second Unlife, WoW or an ordinary person likely to die the first times she sees a goblin. I don't play any of those because it's the combination that's important to me. Neither do I agree with the distinction, I sometimes come across, between "roleplaying" (i.e. sitting on a bench and talking or moping around) and "action" (i.e. the disreputable act of grinding or hack&slash). I grew up with AD&D and "dungeoneering"; and more than anything I still love the banter you get in a group characters when they work their way through a dungeon (where trees only come in their three basic forms: 10 feet pole, torch or weapon handle). In other words, I want and love roleplaying, especially in "dungeons".
When it comes to online gaming some people are "committed" while others are "casual". I loathe those terms. As mentioned earlier I don't have hours upon hours of spare time now, but when I am in game I hardly consider myself a causal player; rather I consider myself a "time constrained" player. I feel Layonara is geared towards the players who are able to spend far more time online (both total and in a single setting) than I (and I venture the majority of players). The most exciting and challenging dungeons (areas) all take ages to get to and hours upon hours to complete. A 7 hour trek through the deep is simply out of the question for me on most nights. The net result for me was: even though Layonara is huge, I actually only went a few places.
The current campaign feels as a placeholder. It's something that's there while we wait for the MMO. Too often it has felt as if the end has already been given (by this I mean the background etc for the MMO is already being prepared; and everything we do have to fit inside it). This marks the difference between an actor and a puppet to me. I know this might upset some, but it's simply a reflection of how I have felt; nothing more and nothing less.
I would much prefer it if this campaign was considered freestanding/non-cannon/alternative history and then allowed to run free and wild. Let the MMO be a clean slate and let loose this campaign to be used and abused. So much as already changed from when Layo started in 2004 that a clean slate is a good thing anyway.
So how does this come together with my three reasons for playing?
Unwind: My current job is often stressful, sometimes absurd (ever seen Futurama where Hermes prints a stack of papers, stamps them, then shreds them before recycling? Well apart from recycling them I have done that) and often filled with internal politics and people whose egos are bigger than their offices. Yes, I am indeed a civil servant. So basically, in order to unwind I do not want any pointless tasks, needless nitpicking & bureaucracy or bickering egos. What I do want to hear is: "Relax man" (preferably with a Caribbean accent and a cool drink, though I am willing to forego the tiny umbrella).
Have fun: I play here to have fun. It's so obvious I sometimes forget it and I doubt I am the only one. I don't mind a tough challenge, I don't mind a mind-bendingly frustrating challenge, but I do mind a mind-numbingly boring task or endless runs to get anywhere. Because I don't have hours upon hours of free time I also want to have fun fairly fast.
Be with friends: At the end of the day I can unwind and have fun elsewhere, but there are some really nice people here I enjoy playing with. I want to be with friends, love old school dungeoneering and don't have endless amounts of time: hence it follows I do not want to spend half the time waiting for the group to gather and then the second half getting somewhere. This is one of the biggest issues I have with Layonara: it takes forever to get from A to B or gather a party (of spread out characters). I do know some of this can be avoided by using the calendar, but not all of us are able to plan all evenings ahead and I rather like the spontaneous parties.
So what do I want?
Dungeon exits: One thing that would make a big difference to me -- and should be fairly simple to implement -- are exits at the bottom of dungeons. A portal/gateway to the surface with a text message along the following lines "After killing/mining/skinning the vampires/golems/dark elves (in that order) you slowly make your way back to surface". This would often make the difference for me and allow me to do "dungeons" far more often. It would also avoid the idiot deaths when an invisible and hastened player runs ahead (because the player should have logged an hour ago) and some poor sod gets killed when a spawn triggers on top of him. I know the last part is player responsibility, but I have seen far more deaths running out of dungeons than fighting our way down and its usually due to someone having real life reasons and we need to return ASAP (i.e. player not character reasons).
Portals and more boats: Anything that cuts down the travelling time getting "there" would be a big plus. Having more ferry services and "chartered boats" would do that.
Lots of small dungeons: I would much prefer 3 smaller dungeons to one big. I know the big ones look fantastic the first time you play them, but how often do you play them again? More and smaller dungeons would give more variety, more options when you have 2-3 hours. If you do have a night to spend you can always do several of them. Too often when I had the time for a big trek, my group didn't. Too often when I logged on my friends were one or two hours into a big trek. Cutting the big ones into smaller ones would solve both problems. You could go for one or two or three and if you didn't make it for the first one, you could join up later in the second or third one. One of the biggest OOC advantages of wizards are they are able to catch up, but how many fighters have you heard go: "Oh you are in the deep, that's ok I will haste, invis and catch you up"?
NO DT's at all: NWN is a fantastic game, but lag, bugs crashes etc do exist and happen. Most of my deaths and DT's have been due to these factors and often a combo. I know it's the same for all and I do not want to enter a discussion on known bugs etc. I think it was Ionnarin who stated "dying due to lag was the online equivalent of the GM spilling his drink over your character sheet and declaring the character dead". I couldn't agree more, and at the end of the day -- three gracious pleas or not (think of those as spare character sheets) -- when Galathea perms I will remember those bugs, moments of lag and crashes. I think we should draw the following conclusion: a permanent death based on a bugged system is a bugged system of permanent death. Three gracious pleas do not change it, they only postpone it.
Character approval: The character approvers do a lot of work, and it's likely underappreciated. However, they also impose very strict standards with regards to characters. I can't help wonder if they create most of the work themselves and whether many potential players take a look at the process and go elsewhere. Rather than having a character stable of simple characters and an approval process for the rest, I would suggest a fast track approval for all and a guided approval process for those who want help to flesh out their characters on paper.
I love Layonara, but it also frustrates me no ends. I drew the conclusion that as long as it kept frustrating me I shouldn't play, but I truly hope those frustrations (I doubt I am the only one with them) could be alleviated. I do so want to play!
:)
Xiaobeibi/Galathea
So what do I want?
Dungeon exits: One thing that would make a big difference to me -- and should be fairly simple to implement -- are exits at the bottom of dungeons. A portal/gateway to the surface with a text message along the following lines "After killing/mining/skinning the vampires/golems/dark elves (in that order) you slowly make your way back to surface". This would often make the difference for me and allow me to do "dungeons" far more often. It would also avoid the idiot deaths when an invisible and hastened player runs ahead (because the player should have logged an hour ago) and some poor sod gets killed when a spawn triggers on top of him. I know the last part is player responsibility, but I have seen far more deaths running out of dungeons than fighting our way down and its usually due to someone having real life reasons and we need to return ASAP (i.e. player not character reasons).
Portals and more boats: Anything that cuts down the travelling time getting "there" would be a big plus. Having more ferry services and "chartered boats" would do that.
Lots of small dungeons: I would much prefer 3 smaller dungeons to one big. I know the big ones look fantastic the first time you play them, but how often do you play them again? More and smaller dungeons would give more variety, more options when you have 2-3 hours. If you do have a night to spend you can always do several of them. Too often when I had the time for a big trek, my group didn't. Too often when I logged on my friends were one or two hours into a big trek. Cutting the big ones into smaller ones would solve both problems. You could go for one or two or three and if you didn't make it for the first one, you could join up later in the second or third one. One of the biggest OOC advantages of wizards are they are able to catch up, but how many fighters have you heard go: "Oh you are in the deep, that's ok I will haste, invis and catch you up"?
NO DT's at all: NWN is a fantastic game, but lag, bugs crashes etc do exist and happen. Most of my deaths and DT's have been due to these factors and often a combo. I know it's the same for all and I do not want to enter a discussion on known bugs etc. I think it was Ionnarin who stated "dying due to lag was the online equivalent of the GM spilling his drink over your character sheet and declaring the character dead". I couldn't agree more, and at the end of the day -- three gracious pleas or not (think of those as spare character sheets) -- when Galathea perms I will remember those bugs, moments of lag and crashes. I think we should draw the following conclusion: a permanent death based on a bugged system is a bugged system of permanent death. Three gracious pleas do not change it, they only postpone it.
Character approval: The character approvers do a lot of work, and it's likely underappreciated. However, they also impose very strict standards with regards to characters. I can't help wonder if they create most of the work themselves and whether many potential players take a look at the process and go elsewhere. Rather than having a character stable of simple characters and an approval process for the rest, I would suggest a fast track approval for all and a guided approval process for those who want help to flesh out their characters on paper.
After reading chowbaby's post, I have to agree strongly with one thing: Layo discourages soloing, very much so. And while I understand the mentality (I did play a lot of EQ, after all), I can't agree with it anymore. Back in the day the prevailing wisdom was: groups form friendships, and friendships sell subscriptions. It became the model for most of the MMOs and games of the time, everything balanced for groups with soloing done at reduced benefit and great mortality.
I think we have to take a step back from that. Without pasting on player labels, a lot of us have reduced playtime due to families, jobs, other obligations of adulthood or school. And sometimes, you just want to log in and kill something. Or be able to complete a quest without having to send tells begging for help.
So, adding to the quest request (har!) I would add that soloable content would be a good addition to any future Layos, whether it be NWN or the MMO. It doesn't have to be everything, but there is nothing wrong with being able to pick off a few (insert mob of choice here) out of the pack for food/resources/the h-e-doublehockysticks of it.
I think that kind of thing would be great for your MMORPG. Solo quests, I mean.
Instead of just having CNR areas that can be cleared over and over you could have once-a-day repeatable quests that could function as "day jobs" (getting hired to clear monsters out of mines or forests for mining or logging companies, for example, or escorting caravans and dealing with random bandit attacks on the way) that function as short solo quests and give enough XP and gold to be worthwhile, but not so much that it's preferable to finding a group. Having a reason to repeat them would be great for the RP as well, and they'd be good ways to meet up with people of your level for other adventures.