A house divided against itself cannot stand

[Lusipher]

FI... Please look here:

http://www.alandfaraway.org/phpbbforum/ ... hp?t=40038

Id love if you and Jayde could attend. I know its morning for you, but its the best I can do trying to fill in timezone for all of us. We have a set agenda to talk about and Id really love for you guys to be there to lend input. We can get a lot done if people can make it.

[FanaticusIncendi]

But to the meat of the statement, it would be wise for the NWN1 DMs to put a schedule together for coverage or even an exhibition style game, maybe do a practive run on some members to work out the bugs, (Since we are being judged as we judge the applicants we want it to be a fantastic game...not a school room lecture on how much more we know about RP than them. ) Ideally thats what I would like to see, we build a rock solid exhibition game, then advertise the heck out of it...same for NWN2 OAS... having no DMs on the server ... is a BAD thing, I would rather not have the OAS up at all without DM coverage. My 2 cents, get the DMs first, get a good few DMed games to showcase what makes ALFA RP so awesome, THEN open the OAS and advertise. Advertising an empty application server hurts our PR efforts more than it helps.

Just FYI for Nalo and everyone else who maybe is not aware of this- I completely revamped the entire admissions process not long ago. OAS is a teaching and evaluation tool, with each session intended to have elements of RP101 integrated into it instead of having a seperate lecture-style RP101 "course". That's the very very basic version of one thing that was changed. This of course is highly dependent on having a fully-staffed server. Once the new OAS2 DMs are up to speed my hope is that with the new system in place new applicants get exactly what you are talking about here- a look into the dynamic RP world that makes ALFA so special as well as support/information that they will need for us to stamp them "approved" without forcing them to sit through a schoolroom lecture.

[FanaticusIncendi]

I think we've all got a bit off-topic here (myself included) and I would like to remind you all of paazin's original query:

But I grow concerned of the talk that our NWN1 group feels abandoned; both NWN1 and NWN2 are vital parts of our community. Schism and division are only a hindrance, drawing away time that could be better spent.

Those who feel maligned, what are your complaints? How do you feel we can improve, be more inclusive? What do you suggest be done?

Paazin's query was prompted by the dissatisfaction apparently felt amongst the NWN1 platform supporters.

So far we've heard input from 3 people who are active in the NWN1 platform regarding paazin's actual question. We've heard far more from people who are not active in NWN1 and that includes people who, to the best of my knowledge, haven't been active except on the forums in a very long time.

I'd like to ask those people (you know who you are) to please stand down and give the players to whom the original question was directed an opportunity to address it.

[wvincenti]

So far we've heard input from 3 people who are active in the NWN1 platform regarding paazin's actual question. We've heard far more from people who are not active in NWN1 and that includes people who, to the best of my knowledge, haven't been active except on the forums in a very long time.

I'd love to see the servers move back towards being Persistent World servers instead of Campaign Servers. Over the years the amount of content that we could tackle on our own without a DM has really dried up. Random unsupervised dungeon crawls or exploring for fun and in-game profit are few and far between for quite awhile.

I'm troubled that Admin has been discussing how ALFA's Player base isn't interested in static content when the busiest servers almost always had something to do when the DMs weren't around. Even when servers had 4-5 DMs (and those times were rare), there was always a great deal of time to wander about on any given server without a DM looking over your shoulder. I've gotten more character development out of my un-DM'd times than when a DM is around. I'm usually too busy problem solving or trying to survive when a DM is around.

I'm not even particularly concerned about issues of farming or hunting here. If someone abuses spawns put in place smite them, don't make a server sterile and boring for the rest of us. Wealth? I celebrate PCs with more wealth than mine. Twas fun to know some folks were flipping loaded over the years and the RP I got out of it was fabulous. (Glorfindel didn't know Mashan was a crime boss for well, lets just say a long time. All good fun.)

Right now I'm seeing a lovely Campaign World and I'd love to see ALFA in both NWN1 and NWN2 get away from that and closer to being a Persistent World again. I think it will give us more to do and draw in more Players & DMs, it always has before.

-Bill

[ayergo]

I'd love to see the servers move back towards being Persistent World servers instead of Campaign Servers. Over the years the amount of content that we could tackle on our own without a DM has really dried up. Random unsupervised dungeon crawls or exploring for fun and in-game profit are few and far between for quite awhile.

Well said Bill.

I promise that BG will deliver in this regards. It already has some of that, stop on by and have a look sometime!

edit: For the record, when i do play it is in NWN1. Usually i wander around by myself looking at static content (what little there is). I have decided i won't play in NWN2, only DM.

[FanaticusIncendi]

Please keep on-topic. [edited myself for unfair accusations of flogging wares]

[indio]

lol

Fair go. You admitted yourself 2 posts back you were off-topic yourself, so fair crack of the whip. Ayergo won't mind being told to stay on topic, but it's a bit rough to accuse him of flogging his wares in the opportunistic manner suggested.

[White Warlock]

Thank you for those who chimed in, it is appreciated. So many great points, not all of which are in direct response to Paazin's question, but nonetheless critical elements to these discussions.

I received 8 pms on this topic in the last two days, some of which i initiated, others volunteered. Many NWN1 participants have made it a policy not to participate in any more politics on the forums, and thus it is very hard to hear their voices. Forgive me if the following is a mishmash of ideas and opinions, quoted and paraphrased:

Player Concerns

• Due in part to servers going down (home bases to some PC-types), some players felt abandoned, 'structurally' while others felt abandoned 'ingame.' One NWN1 player indicated a a great dwindling of playerbase and DMs, resulting in a lack of adventuring companions, lack of stories and plots. But, the problems encountered in the sidelined and dwindling ALFA NWN1 population are not felt in ALFA NWN1 alone. TSM has given much of the same. No consistent DMing, thus no stories, no plots and no real "heart-racing" adventures.

DMing Recommendations

• Based on commonalities in the responses, i think it is important for TSM and NWN1 DMs to focus more on adventure-oriented DMing, and less on RP chat sessions. As stated by at least two other people, they get enough RP chatting when DMs are 'not around,' so it serves little purpose to give more of the same when a DM 'is' around.

Bureaucracy Concerns

• Quote by permission (bolding added for emphasis) --
  "Like you, I joined ALFA long before the release of NWN1. When the game was released I signed up to help build .... I built and scripted for 6 HDMs, each one scrapping most of what the prior one had had me build. We went live twice only to have the HDM quit and have the server pulled both times, then finally pushed to go live a third time with a longer term success.
  
  "During those years I built and scripted...had the standards changed so I built and scripted again...had the standards change so I built and scripted again, and on and on even to the last.
  
  "During that time I fought tooth and nail for every underdark specific item and tileset, and fought even harder to be given the ability to come close to building an underdark that even remotely resembled what it should.
  
  "Just as NWN1 is now ALFA's lost and wayward child, so was the underdark project through its entire existence. No one wanted to deal with us since we were the only server with our particular needs.
  
  "When NWN2 was in pre-planning, I signed up to build for the underdark again. Then I saw the new toolset and realized that I would have to start the fight all over again to get what would be needed to build an underdark server.
  
  "Only, we now had a DM Admin in place who thought that the underdark should not be supported. My only thought was, "Good God, if Mandos was a pain at the beginning, questioning endlessly the need for an underdark server, this guy would push me to murder for sure.
  
  "So I left."
  

Community Management Concerns

• Quoted by permission (bolding added for emphasis) ---
  "I've come by to read the boards from time to time, thinking that I might like to return, only to see the drama and infighting still going on, and on, and on, and... This has got to be one of the meanest, nastiest, and most negative forums on the net. Retuning to read after an absence is really telling as to why ALFA is dying. It has little to do with NWN1 vs NWN2. It has everything to do with a forum of rude and undisciplined members. Yes, I know it has always been this way.
  
  "I've found happier grounds ... where people are friendly, cooperative, and a joy to work with, and where my volunteer efforts are appreciated and rewarded."

There's plenty more, but these capture the gist of it.

Based on these statements, first and foremost we need to address community management. I.e., we need to gut the mentality and make this place hospitable, through forum restructuring, diligent moderating and a change in community mindset.

You want to concern yourself about public relations? Stop worrying about the little things, and focus on the 'reason' so many people walk when they eventually pass through all the other barriers. Applications, OAS, acceptance emails, half-arsed advertising campaigns... serve little to no purpose if all 'links' point to these drama-filled forums.

Prioritize. Script script script and build build build all you want, but to what goal? If nobody plays, nobody dms, and nobody cares to stay in a community full of trolls and asshats, then it's a futile exercise.

These last two quotes: "I don't know why you returned" and "i hope you find what you're looking for" pretty much sum up how so many other longtime members feel about my continued participation in ALFA. They don't understand it, and frankly neither do i. I mean, if what i report means nothing, if it will be repeatedly dismissed, then what purpose do i serve in this community?

Plainly stated, I'm older than most of you, a damn good journalist (AP international leadership award, ethics award, etc), an ex-programmer and small business consultant, and yet when i present information here, quoted paraphrased or directly expressed, it is arbitrarily dismissed.

A community that asks why, and then doesn't listen when it's not the answer they wanted to hear (ergo, the closing of this thread --- http://www.alandfaraway.org/phpbbforum/ ... hp?t=40041 )

Good luck in your endeavors, I'll stick to my DMing in TSM, for the benefit of the players, because they deserve something after all these years of crap.

Respectfully,
Roy

[JaydeMoon]

I believe JaydeMoon suggested a plan to ask all OAS2 DMs to maintain OAS1 weekly time slots as well, though I don't believe that has been followed up on lately.

This was a misunderstanding. OAS1 is by apppointment. No one interested in DMing on the OAS1 is required to maintain a weekly time slot.

Only our standard OAS2 DMs are asked to try to maintain one.

Once we have a steady crew, the 'asking' will be changed to 'requiring', but still only for OAS2.



I don't know about a schism in terms of support. People who are into the new platform should build for that one. I don't think anyone working NWN2 has tried to hamstring efforts to continue work on NWN1 specifically. Misty brings up the firing of a hard working tech staffer, but I'd like to point out that even if we don't know what they were, I'm sure TA had his reasons. They may or may not have been good reasons with merit, but I'm absolutely certain the reasons did not include anything to do with NWN1 vs NWN2.

What I will say is that there is a general sense that with the focus on NWN2 servers, some NWN1 folks are getting tired of dealing with certain issues in the community as a whole. some of those issues with individual-centric and may be fixed soon. Others may not be. What the result of this feeling will be, I cannot say.

Finally, on persistant world vs campaign world for NWN1 servers...

That would indeed be ideal. And if it were feasible, I'm sure it would be. However, it's just not going to happen if we don't have folks (both DMs and players) who have BOTH the time and inclination to work towards persistant style play.

Pining for the one isn't going to bring it about. I applaud Zelk for stepping up to DM, her joining the SD team is a step in the direction of persistant style, IMO.

That's all for now.

[yavanion]

I was asked to give a little input to this topic... Reading it through, trying to get a idea of whats going on these days as i havent been around much of late in alfa for several reasons...

First of the NwN1 vs NwN2, We ALFA is a comunity, keeping people should be top priority, its the people that make ALFA what it is, regardless of they playing NwN1 or NwN2, it the people that come with new freash ideas, wich benefits both platforms, keeping or suporting or how to split resoures between these platforms isent the issue, i think ALFA should ask herself the question why do it lack people that are willing to build, to pour alot of work hours into ALFA for the benefit of both NwN1 and NwN2, the brutal truth is some left couse they simple wished, but we ALFA, lost alot of talent couse many of the "workers" were driven away from ALFA by the "talkers", ALFA needs to get more people willing to work, or try get old ones back, it would help the few remaining that actually work and keep ALFA going

In any case thats my input keep the dream going !

[Zelknolf]

Many NWN1 participants have made it a policy not to participate in any more politics on the forums, and thus it is very hard to hear their voices. Forgive me if the following is a mishmash of ideas and opinions, quoted and paraphrased:

The PM you had initiated was responded to with a statement of noninvolvment not because of a duty to be faithful to my work on 1.69.

Fortunately, my machine is whirring miserably under the weight of compiling now, so I may write.


If I may begin by suggestion that the two quotations provided are not valid on the topic of the schism between our two platforms, as neither plays in ALFA, and their departures had essentially happened before we even began work on NWN2. To assume that the problems they presented are still valid is to assume that either our community is unchanged over the past 2-3 years or that someone outside of the community is capable of maintaining a sound opinion of our community from an uninvolved position. I believe that, barring some greater insight, those opinions are best left untended to for the time being.




To the question that started this thread, I would echo the sentiments of a lack of support being extremely disheartening to a player of Neverwinter 1, just as I would say that those who are close to the Neverwinter 1 community knew that the "anonymous" contributor in 3.04 was me, or that the one attempting a rally of OAS1 was me. I would not wave about any banners or pretend to be accomplishing any kind of heroics for the Neverwinter 1 community, but I am well aware that those who still play made note and listened for what was happening. It's hard to see a community that does not seem to care, and it's hard to see someone who genuinely wishes to champion one's cause get rebuked - repeatedly.

I recall establishing the first of my series of NWN1 hak updates last year, and the most common feedback I recieved was that my work would "ease the transition" -- essentially, others who believed the platform was doomed, that it was right to be doomed, and that someone who just put 100 hours of work into patching its haks (per patch, mind you, with the exception of 3.01 -- that one took 200 hours of work, was objected to on the grounds of a five minute fix, and its content was left rolled back for months.) couldn't possibly be hurt or offended by the notion that the product was a temporary comfort while everyone shuffles to the new platform. Our builders likely heard much of the same, as though we were all bailing on a sinking ship, and statements from our DMA and TA at the time seemed to support such a notion.

This seems to be made only worse with the difficulty we are having attracting new players, and something that I think isn't being helped by the community's strong focus on NWN2. No one boasted or praised on main forums after Shadowdale's face lift or its plots -- nevermind that we had PCs on the crusade to reclaim Myth Drannor -- or heard as Cormyr started to collect static content, however belated after its rebuild, or heard as its PCs went on quests to uncover long-buried Netherese secrets; so little is said about Sembia and Moonshaes that I haven't a clue what we should be bragging about from those teams, and I would even care if someone told me.

The OAS then went to "by appointment only" sessions, and no one even heard that such was the case. I was still telling players who had logged into the OAS to check the forums for time slots to show up during; I had thought that someone would have mentioned to the community when such a change came about, and the fact that no one did speaks of the same sense of a belief that the platform is doomed that NWN1 is discontent about in the first place. Frankly, I wouldn't have found out if Jayde hadn't said so on SD's chat after the OAS lost its persistent host, as our front page still reads "If the NWN1 ALFA Open Application Server does not display on Gamespy under PW Story, you can access it via GameSpy Arcade or directly at 76.7.2.133:5121." // edit: that is NC's IP address, for clarification.

Add finally that we have 1 vote-enabled NWN1 staff position -- the NWN1 DM liason -- out of 15 positions, and I still hear gripes about the "NWN1 Cabal" and how it is ruining NWN2 ALFA by 'rigging' elections. From this angle, it all looks like abuse and neglect; those who have stayed are those capable of ignoring it, or those accustomed to such discomforts.

[danielmn]

New players for NWN1?

And what exactly will they be doing, getting killed with a cloudkill spell while trying to rp and participate??

If you want new blood in, be damned sure you got what it takes to support them SERVER side...nevermind OAS1...cause from where I'm sitting, I have been sorely dissappointed, many times over. THat's not a slight or a flame or a blame, that's just my own personal experience. You've got great coverage for the eldar players that are playing, and shite coverage from any low level players...as a matter of fact, the new blood that came in during my tenure as Admissions Head for NWN1 through the OAS1 (which I and FI also Dmed due to lack of interest from others) left shortly after due to lack of..well...yeah, pretty much everything. The campaigns you noted above were high level campaigns where a low level would be killed instantly...not something a low level beginning player would really NEED to hear about...cause they really wouldn't be involved in them at all except for maybe on the outside fringes as a sidenote. I suppose they are pretty cool to mention as a "here's the kind of thing you can expect a year from starting ALFA". I'll probably get railed on now, but so it is with the truth.

As for OAS1 being by appointment only....
http://www.alandfaraway.org/phpbbforum/ ... hp?t=37986

I suppose I should have made the statement in italics and bolded it, but the statement was made to the community at large.

DAniel

[Lusipher]

To be quiet Honest this isnt helping with the PR Ive been TRYING to do to bring in new players here for both NWN1 and 2. Coming to this thread and seeing this is going to make them walk right back out the door.

Btw, Zelk, I have mad respect for you for what you said.

[danielmn]

Probably right Dan, I know my own post doesn't help all that much, I'll be a grown up and shut my trap about it.

[psycho_leo]

To be quiet Honest this isnt helping with the PR Ive been TRYING to do to bring in new players here for both NWN1 and 2. Coming to this thread and seeing this is going to make them walk right back out the door.

No thread made specically to talk about problems is going to be good for PR. However the problem was perceived and it's best we talk about it now and try to fix it than just sweep it under the rug and wait for the next backlash.