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Ancients Legacy / Ancients Legacy -- Epilogue« on: July 20, 2015, 10:08:25 pm »
Sorry for the teaser here.I just wanted to let everyone know that we're working to write up the epilogue to the Ancients Legacy plot. As you might guess, there are a lot of little parts at work here, including reward items, RP and lore consequences/benefits/etc., and we want to make sure it all works out correctly. In addition, we allowed ourselves a little down-time, after having spent so long on the plot in general and on the preparation for the Finale.So anyway, it's coming. Thanks for your patience.
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Rumour Has It / Goblin Raids« on: July 16, 2015, 03:39:18 am »
A patrol from Fort Llast was ambushed while on a routine long range patrol near the borders of the Goblin Wastelands. The battle was short, but fierce. The raiding party was estimated at about 50 in strength and two soldiers were slain before the attack was beat back.Scouts from Hlint have also reported increased activity much closer to the town than is usually seen. One caravan has not made it to Hlint as scheduled and is presumed lost. Alicia Nefzen, Commander of the Hlint defense has put up a 500 True reward for information on the lost caravan, but has expressed the towns desire not to have any forces or troops based inside their walls. Large mercenary companies or other military units will be turned away at their gates. // This is a static quest and it has been placed in-game. Feel free to use this thread for RP/Forum posts. Significant posting will also be rewarded at the conclusion of the quest. Use caution, it can be a tough one if you are solo. This is geared for a strong party of mid-level PC’s 10-20th. The soul mother is active and a balanced group is advised. You have been warned. Rewards have been placed in game as well. Higher level PC groups may run through with no problems, so if you want a challenge and good XP, forgo the super epic characters... but accept the consequences.Good luck! PS - DO NOT sneak in invisibly and steal the quest rewards. You will be punished if you do so in a creative and not-so pleasant manner. At the conclusion of the quest, please send me a private message and let me know what loot you found to confirm fair play.-Rave
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Ancients Legacy / Tactical Assessments of Milara« on: July 11, 2015, 08:34:01 pm »
*Kurn sends copies of a letter to all those members involved in the final battle and previous installments*Well done and a hard fought battle! We sent that cowardly bugger running and thwarted his godhood in one fell swoop. We learned some very important things that day. One, that when we put our skills and abilities together, we can move mountains and shake the foundations of one of the most powerful men to walk the world of Layonara. Two, that he can bleed. And three, that he fears us. He fled and escaped despite his fine showing. But the battle is not over. While Milara still breathes, he will try his mad plans again. His Pet in ashes and his Triumph stolen from him, he is weaker than before. But he will rebuild.What now then? I say we prepare quickly and press forward. If he is ever to be stopped once and for all, we need to destroy him utterly and make for darned certain he finally breathes his last. And we should do so quickly before he musters enough forces to get his revenge; and believe me, for we thwarted his plans and he fears us, we are in more danger than ever before. Each of us is now marked by him and, unopposed, he WILL try to take us out before we take the fight to him. Death is certain, life is not.Having stood toe to toe with the bugger and landing a good volley of blows, I'd like to share with ye all what I have learned of his strengths and his weaknesses. Of course you know well his tactics and that of his dark elven henchmen... dispelling magic blasts quickly followed by death magics and swarms of undead using the same. Disjunction and greater dispelling appeared to be at work in the deaths sustained on our side leading up to the battle. Second most he appears to have a great love of the greatest evocation, Hellball. I noticed many of ye blasted with it, while I myself managed to evade most of its effects. This was in part to a combination of me quick feet and reflexes, evading the epicenter of the blasts to avoid the brunt of impact. That which was not dodged was warded by the constant effect of the resistanced placed on me amulet, rings and helm... greater resistances against each element on each piece of jewelry. What little remained of the hellballs he laid upon me were negligable. While not all of you are as quick to dodge such a blast, I highly be recommending investing in such protections on all of yer equipment, and boilstering the effects with means to help increase ye reflexes.In melee with him, though I hit him many many times, he withstood the brunt of the damage. He did not appear to have the skin of stone, so likely it was absorbed by some of his equipment or even perhaps supernatural abilities. As I glimpsed him up close, I witnessed me blades many times appearing to land as sure strikes only to pass through the image with a whoosh of air, indicating that he had some magic of the displacer beast at work, which could explain some of his purplish hue. Perhaps even a ghostly armor. I could have sword I had me truesight spell active, but it is possible that it had faded or been dispelled in the heat of battle. For those blows which hit him solidly, I noted the following. Despite many attempts to knock him over, he resisted them without fail, and despite his having much natural strength of his own. Though me blade easily swatted aside his meager and flimsy arms many times as he cast spells, the strikes to his legs did not fell him over. I can assume therefore that this ability is not through training or opposed strength, but rather some form of persistant immunity against attempts to take the feet from under him. Some magical items such as the dragonslayer sword or turtle shield have such effects, so I suspect something he wore has a similar ability.Also to note was that many blows which should have been cheap shots or devastating in nature, such as me patented gut-twister and cross the neck gashing combo, were dealt with only the basic severity of a regular blow. In this manner twas much like battling one of his many undead minions. Not many magical items that I have seen can do something of this nature, so the nature of Milara himself have been weighing heavily upon me mind. I be thinkin that he is not entirely mortal, or has at least enhanced his body and abilities into some supernatural form. Tis possible he be of undead necromantic material, or even a Pale Master, though I did not get a close enough look at his arms to determine if one of them had been grafted bone or not. More likely is that he either holds some magical items we do not typically have access to, or that he may have enhanced his form beyond the mortal coil of dark elves and into something of stronger ilk. Thus I consider his nature to be not that of standard dark elven, but of an abberational quality. His vital organs did not appear vulnerable, nor did well placed blows across the neck. I doubt that he breathes or feels pain as most mortal men. he also did not burn from the bite of me blades' magics.In any case, we have therefore learned tactics that will not win a battle with him. Backstabbing, knocking him over and anything but the heaviest and surest sighted blows will deflect right off him. He is however not that difficult to hit when compared to many heavily armored foes, and relies on his magical and supernatural resistances to sustaining damage itself. The question then, past nullifying the effects of his offense, is how to get past his defense. I'm thinking that any future battle with him should begin with a barrage of dispelling magics of the highest power to breach his defenses. While the disjunction and standard dispels might be problematic fer the frontline, perhaps the greater spell breaches designed to combat mages might be most useful. Beyond that, blade enhancements might need more power to them to break his skin more reliably. While Daniel's is formidable, I have felt some priests and mages cast even stronger ones, such as Sala Stonehill's blade blessings. Rather than attempt to knock him over, frontline fighters should utilize the strongest possible blows they can. I think had Grogmegor not been busy with Milara's Pet and Triumph and put his back into it, some devastating blows indeed could have breached the skin. And perhaps we should look outside the conventional elements, such as the thundering blast of a barbarian's strike, spells which mimic thunder or perhaps even acids. And of course, the smite of divine wrath might make the most powerful dent in his dark hide.This is all well and good to say how to strike at him from educated preparation, but also to prepare for his hoardes and tactics. He uses masses of undead as fodder reinforced by mages who tactfully dispell our wards and weaken us. For the final push, divine magics and displays of faith might be best served. Turning those bodaks to ash quickly and arching the mages with zinging shots to make them fumble their spellcasting. Breaching mages and routing the fodder to strike at them quickly with cheap shots and quick, brutal strikes. The fodder is nothing but a distraction with our wards intact. And with spells such as Stygian's massive undead slayer and Foresta and Daniel's massive healing circles they be dust in the breeze.I hope this letter serves to better prepare us when we face Milara in the future. And we WILL face him soon. Whether we take the battle to him while he is weakened, or allow him to sit back and lick his wound, grow in power and exact his revenge. Either we finish the job, or he will. There is no avoiding the battle to come.-Kurn Blackwater, stabber of would-be gods P.S.- I be also sending a copy of this to our gnomish friends who have dismantled the conduit. It is possible that his supernatural abilities stemmed from whatever rituals he performed to drain those poor sods in the cages appended to that machine. Perhaps in understanding the nature of what he was doing, we can unravel some mysteries as to how he was empowering himself in preparation for godhood.
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Ancients Legacy / Apologies« on: July 11, 2015, 12:04:33 pm »
I will be unable to make the quest this morning. I'm sorry for the short notice and the unanswered PMs in my inbox, and hope to return soon. Good luck!
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Introduce Yourself / Hello!« on: June 27, 2015, 06:16:47 pm »
Hi everyone!
Thought I would introduce myself. I'm Edd and I've been a long time fan of Neverwinter Nights. I've played it on and off over the years and just came across Layonara online. I'm fairly new to roleplaying and hope you guys would be patient with me as I'm learning the ropes. I'm trying to get a few of my mates interested in playing Layonara online so we can play together. It's a shame it's not more of a popular server! The impression I get here is a high quality and fun server, the crafting system sounds fun too! I'm going to have a think about my character and what sort of story and background s/he should have. Plus, I'll do some reading around the lore and look at some of the maps to try and get them to fit in somehow. So, Hi everyone! It's nice to meet you all! Edd The following users thanked this post: mixafix
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Introduce Yourself / Returning after 10+ years« on: April 19, 2015, 06:14:06 pm »
Hello everyone. I played Layonara probably at least 10 years ago. Went through some rough times and am looking forward to getting back into Layonara. I've sometimes thought of the game over the years and wondered how it has progressed. I'm really excited to experience the world again (probably with a lot of additions and changes!) and RP with y'all. If my understanding is correct, I'll just need to wait until someone approves me using one of the pre-made characters from the Stable, then I'll be given the password to direct connect to the server IP? I sure hope so, I'm ready!(Edit: It seems that the GOG version of NWN Diamond all use the same CD Key during installation and you must personally contact them for a unique key. Is this going to cause a problem when I try to play Layonara? I no longer have the game boxes which had my original keys. I hope it won't be a problem. Nothing else ever came close to the experiences I had in Layonara and I'm very eager to get back in the game!)
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Layonara Server / Version 3.56 is online!« on: April 11, 2015, 03:36:06 pm »Version 3.56 is online!Another small update which includes the new Map enhancements.Fixes:
Additions:
New Map Enhancements System, type =c map and read this.[/li][li] Add =c refresharea command to portal you to a void area and back to faciliate reloading areas[/li][/list] Other updates:
-orth The following users thanked this post: mixafix
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Layonara Server / Version 3.53 is online!« on: March 08, 2015, 03:08:11 pm »Version 3.53 is online!Just a few tweaks and additions here and there.Fixes:
Additions:
Added a new furniture item Easel. The Easel can be written upon for signs for shops or notifications to players entering your home or perhaps innkeepers with notices. Deeds available at the furniture merchants. They're around 200 gold.[/li][/list] Other updates:
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Layonara Server / Version 3.52 is online!« on: March 05, 2015, 10:33:03 am »Version 3.52 is online!Was going to do this tonight but the server was empty and despite not being able to get in game until later I've faith in my changes! (Read: everything's going to be broken) Couple of tweaks and bug fixes as the dust settles on the big update.Fixes:
Additions:
If an RNQ NPC is awaiting a yes/no answer and the player says neither (or she doesn't understand) then re ask the question[/li][/list]
Cleaned up a bit of the verbiage used for languages. [/li][li] Make sure GMs always see translated versions of language usage[/li][/list] Other updates:
-orth The following users thanked this post: mixafix
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Leringard Arms Inn and Tavern / Storytellers Night at the Arms« on: February 13, 2015, 06:11:12 pm »A belled and marked halfling with a belt of many keys cajoles and sings to passersby in the cities she passes through, beginning with Spellgard in the New Year. She playfully spins magic in melody with minor illusions for her stories, and summons all who would tell or listen to stories to travel to Leringard for Midwinter. The wind told me a lie to give from me to you A few notices appear here and there once she is gone, words shining faintly on parchment. The Leringard Arms Hosts Storytelling on the Longest Night The following users thanked this post: mixafix
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Layonara Server / The NWN server is going to be moved again« on: February 26, 2015, 09:12:38 am »
Hello all,As you know we've been running our server for the past 2 months on a new host and while for the most part it has been acceptable there have been issues with random "blue screen of deaths" killing the entire server as well as intermittent lag spikes. While trying to debug these I started considering another server where I could get an equally good deal and came across one that was Linux though. I wondered to myself how difficult and how capable our current world would be to run on Linux especially with our NWNX plugins. So I tested it locally and fixed a few bugs here and there and things seemed okay. At that point I wondered if there were any new NWNX plugins for Linux that I could tap into to help the world. This is when I really got excited and started greatly considering we'd move from Windows to Linux. There are many plugins that are now available that can enhance our world.This is how and why I was able to introduce the Dynamic Names system. Some of the other plugins give us functionality for many other ideas we've always been limited by the capabilities of what Bioware gave us. Not only that, there are performance improvements that these plugins provide to help the world run smoother and faster with less lag.I hope you understand that this move shouldn't be much of a blip on the radar and should hopefully lead to a smoother world with some exciting new features coming as well.Here's a taste of some of these new features:
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The Silver Buckle / The Silver Buckle Presents: PIE!« on: February 14, 2015, 11:43:41 am »
This is cancelled.
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Layonara Server / Update on Number of Characters Per Person« on: March 05, 2015, 07:56:38 pm »
Greetings Everyone!
I'm writing to share with you all that the number of character spots will be extended to eight ( from it's previous limit of six (6). This topic has come up a number of times but the large concerns were always to the matters of character development and strain on the CA team. With regards to the latter, there clearly hasn't been as much so we are going to give this a try.It is very important to note that we wish character development and roleplay to be at the forefront of play here. Empty characters will net little regardless of their accumulated levels. However, the last few extensions of trust have worked fairly well and we are looking forward to seeing what new ideas the community will come up with. Some important notes: 1) if we decide this isn't working out well we will restore the previous limit. If we do that however, we will not force deletions. You will only have to clear spots if you wish to start a new character at a later date.2) If the CA team gets pretty slammed with apps, please remember that we are running at a reduced capacity with a number of shared duties besides the duties of our RL. If people start bumping posts because their apps are in queue, we will move them to the bottom of the stack (which is what happens as we work from the bottom up as much as possible).3) Please respect the rules of the exotic/monstrous races. Submit only during the open time period(s).Thank you in advance for your patience and consideration. We hope everyone has a good time with this! ~row (and the CA team) The following users thanked this post: mixafix
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General Discussion / Ancients Legacy Performance« on: January 24, 2015, 02:39:40 pm »
Hey Gang,Sorry I had to bail on the quest today. The lag was just so bad on my end, it was unworkable. I suspect it has something todo with my terrible network connection. I am unable to get anything decent in my particular subburb of Prague. It was great to see all the familar faces, and the passion still there. Keep it up. Hopefully one day I can rejoin you again.
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Layonara Server / Version 3.40.2 is online!« on: January 24, 2015, 12:25:34 pm »Version 3.40.2 is online!No new downloads required for this one. Just a few tweaks and nice to haves added here and there but a significant set of new areas added by Dorganath as well!Fixes:
Additions:
Unused undroppable items can be removed by the player with =c noneed . For example =c noneed emotewand. Type =c noneed on its own to get a list of items you can have removed[/li][li] Added some brewer's yeast and empty bottles to the Great Spikes outpost. [/li][/list]
More bosses now give XP[/li][li] Over 35 new areas added. Explore to discover. [/li][/list] Other updates:
-orth The following users thanked this post: mixafix
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Ancients Legacy / Report from the Wolfswood Ranger Corps« on: January 03, 2015, 12:42:53 am »*Rangers from the Wolfswood posts informational notices near other informational bulletins in various towns and gathering spots. Also, to anyone that inquire about events occurring in the forest, this same information is passed on verbally as every ranger has been briefed and watching for it.*Reports from the Field Rangers:1) Rangers have found several strange "corpses" within the forest. The “corpses” are described as “…all the clothing from the individual seems to be intact and arranged on the forest floor as if a person had simply fallen there.” Closer examination has even revealed that there is not even a single bone remaining. These “corpses”, especially the most recent ones, radiate a foul odor.2) One report details about a Ranger who followed a person, believed to be human male, who was passing through the forest “oddly”. The individual was apparently moving heedlessly of any trails, paths or roads, but instead, did his best to continue in a specific direction and at a near constant pace.Report continues that even would-be predators seemed to show no interest in stalking the lone individual despite having sniffed his trail. A couple days after first observing this strange traveler and tailing him at a discrete distance, the Ranger reported that the individual suddenly collapsed and didn't move further. The Ranger lost sight of the traveler and set out to find him again. Mirroring other reports, what the Ranger found was a somewhat neat collection of wet clothing, arranged as a fallen man, and a horrible smell unlike the scent of any scene of death yet witnessed. The rangers of the Wolfswood Ranger Corps are being briefed daily on recent events, remain on vigilent watches, and fully support the efforts to solve this mystery. The following users thanked this post: mixafix
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Ancients Legacy / Posted at the Stormcrest Shack« on: January 14, 2015, 03:40:15 pm »
For a time, a mess of different parchments and map scraps were seen inside the Shack where notices or requests used to be hung. The handwriting was so messy as to be indecipherable, with sentences at times seeming to be in pieces on different pages, and terms that could be nonsense or some sort of slang or technical jargon used profusely throughout. Nicknames that might be descriptive to someone offer little hint of what person or places they reference, and at times the writing is not even oriented to the page but rather upside down or in an imaginary margin. After a few days, they are replaced with a smaller number of neater pages, carefully printed in a small block script. CONSTELLATIONS SHIFT
LEADS THAT COULD BE FOLLOWED - TIME IS VERY RELEVANT SO THE MORE HANDS DIVVYING UP SMALL TASKS THE BETTERKNOWLEDGEABLE PERSONS SUGGESTED -
((This information, however presented, is IC, and so may or may not suffer from unreliable narrator. Corrections and further information should be given IC as well. The names given are those that have been talking plot lately and not representative of all of those involved. This information is now public and especially intended specifically for those not mentioned here for catchup. )) The following users thanked this post: mixafix
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General Discussion / Merry Christmas!« on: December 24, 2014, 06:04:10 am »
Hope everyone is well and happy! God bless and Merry Christmas! Happy birthday Jesus Christ our Savior!
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Layonara Server / Upcoming update. Complete HAK reorganization. Merging both modules together.« on: December 20, 2014, 05:12:15 pm »
Hello everyone,I am preparing a big update to clean a bunch of cruft up, make things speedier and merging both modules into one. There are a lot of advantages to merging the two modules into one from both the development side and for your enjoyment. Previous limitations to such a large module have new work arounds plus the limited community size and new hardware it is hopefully not a concern for overlagging the server. At the same time of doing this I've decided to reorganize the hak packs. There was over 11,000 (10%) resources in the haks that were duplicated either because the higher up one was a fix/update or just plain duplication error. Reorganizing them eliminates this duplication.This is going to mean everyone is going to have to download an entire new set of hak packs. I apologize for this but it's a rare occasion and hopefully you can handle a 950MB or so download these days. I know this is a bit of a frustration but I've also made a couple of fixes to things at the same time. The minimaps now work in the forest areas (Dapplegreen, Great Spikes - Ice areas, Blackford Outskirts etc) and I also fixed the minimaps in The Deep. The forest tileset has been updated to the final release as well. I've also added a couple other things from the vault.If you want to get a head start on downloading the new hak packs you can do so and place the haks in your hak/ folder while waiting for the updated release.They can be downloaded here: http://e5bf79fd7133583b11df-dabb80c66fac67c5c4cbee545d8dd728.r44.cf1.rackcdn.com/haks/layo_allhaks.rarIt is possible that I may end up having to update 1 or 2 of these haks before the release of the module but it won't be as big a download. It may be discovered that the server just can't handle the modules being one and we realize the stress is too high with 1200 areas in one module and we'll have to revert to the old way and run two servers but the new hak structure will still be in place either way.I've no timetable on when we'll be moving over to this. First I need to get some guinea pigs to download the haks and help me test some things but it will probably be fairly soon.All the best over the holidays,orth
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Layonara Server / The NWN Servers are going to be moved« on: December 04, 2014, 06:55:48 pm »
Hello everyone,I hope you and your loved ones are all well.I've recently been able to secure a great deal for the NWN Server on a much faster machine on a Black Friday special so we're going to be moving it over there some time in the near future.I'd like to get the server up and tested this month so we can confirm that everything is okay to go and I can cancel our previous account before the end of the month. I haven't yet set an exact date and time but I'm thinking maybe late Friday or Saturday night this week.Players shouldn't notice any difference, you will still connect to xora.layonara.com (5121 or 5122). The IP address will change if you use that but I'll inform you of the new one when the time comes.This may also mean we can revert to automatic cross-server portals without crashes which might be nice but we'll have to test that.The new server will only cost $40 a month in donations so we can hopefully extend NWN Layonara at a fairly inexpensive price for as long as folks still enjoy coming here.For those curious and in the tech know:Existing server is a 4GB RAM, Dual 2.53GHz CPU, 250GB SATA HD running Windows 2k3 Server dedicated system.New server is a 10GB RAM, 10 2.3GHz CPU, 100GB Turbo SSD HD running Windows 2k8 Server cloud server.My initial tests have the servers starting up in half the time the old ones did. I'm not sure how much this will help lag and larger groups but we'll hopefully be able to test that.All the best,-orth
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