I pretty sure I'll get flamed..

[PensivesWetness]

During my first three years in ALFA I saw only a handful of mages survive the first few levels. The crowds I hung with were perenially short-handed when it came to arcane spellcasters. It's different now, but then classes come and go.

*chuckles*
You can even find elven clerics who follow the Seldarine nowadays. Those were a rare thing five years ago.

-Bill

Oh shoosh, Bill . you know how many times i was told Millia was grossly UNDER the wealth cap? If it wasn't for Muggles buying/stealing stuff for me (just to get in her shorts i guess ) i'd be applying for Magic food Stamps...

A typical day at the Cormyr Dept of Magic and Food subsities (1305 PM Local 30Jun08)

"NEXT! Calling Miss.... Me-lee-ahm... Quick-en... Stout. Folk. Damn... not another halfling... can i help you, Miss?"

'Yes! Uh... me ask.. this where me gets Magic Stamps? Yes? Me was tolds "ME IS MAGIC POOR!" and me was told "You goes here! There!" so me is here. There. Can me gets more magics now?'

"................Torm save the king and the ACLU, why the hells do i get all the halflings..."

[HATEFACE]

For roughly three years til today I've seen a sharp decline in l00ts along with peeps. What does that mean? In three years I've only seen two +1 weapons. In three years I've seen one magical item. Now unlike PW I don't feel a need to ask for magic weapon food stamps while using a funny accent (lol inherent bigotry.) The system is FUBAR and needs fixin' quickly, imho. I think the wealth standards are broke. All agree, say aye and nothing more. All opposed, say nay and nothing more. - Because honestly I couldn't give a fuck about the different little concepts & ideas people have when nothing gets done.

- Sincerely sick and tired player of ALFA.

[wvincenti]

Sounds like the standards are just fine, the handing out of rewards or the ability to earn them without a DM are what is broken. (Finding a DM has always been a challenge for some folks.) That being said I never particularly cared if I found out OOC or IC that another person's PC was far richer than mine *chuckles* and I've known a few of the richer ones over the years.

I just wouldn't throw the barn door open to the +4 magic items that I heard about over the years.

-Bill

PS. Last I heard my lad Beleg still had a lot of room under the cap according to his accountant.

[Burt]

This will make my wisard even more uber.

I approve.

[ThinkTank]

ThinkTank is a magic item.

I have the returning special ability, just not the throwing.

On average haveing a junkheap full of magical tat hanging around wont suddenly make PCs unstopable murder factorys. Any active DM could mediate such power with better spawns or....

OH WAIT NO ACTIVE DMS HA HA DISGREGARD THAT, EPIC FAIL.

[HATEFACE]

Sounds like the standards are just fine, the handing out of rewards or the ability to earn them without a DM are what is broken. (Finding a DM has always been a challenge for some folks.) That being said I never particularly cared if I found out OOC or IC that another person's PC was far richer than mine *chuckles* and I've known a few of the richer ones over the years.

I just wouldn't throw the barn door open to the +4 magic items that I heard about over the years.

-Bill

PS. Last I heard my lad Beleg still had a lot of room under the cap according to his accountant.

Ain't it a bitch. That brings up a whole new set of shit. If the standards are not being enforced then there is no DM accountability but some say we should just trust DMs to give out loot. Yet it seems nothing works whether there is accountability or not. It's like this fucking rut we're just stuck in. Everyone thinks they have an answer yet no one does. It's downright pathetic. I have time to play yet I cannot play when my group isn't with me. There is no interest to explore because I know there is no reward. There are no players to roleplay with because everyone who is smart decided to get with a group and w/ it DM time. There was a time in ALFA when I didn't need a DM for shit. I could go out and risk my ass for some cheap monster l00t and hopefully scrape enough together to buy a potion of CLW and that kept me busy enough for the next time I saw a DM to waste all those hard earned CLWs and walk away(or not) near death. Even when there wasn't a quest, it was always pleasent when one came on and possessed a NPC to chat it up from time to time. Now it feels like I'm confined to my Inn until the next scheduled play date. For what its worth I go out and look around but there is no feeling of fun any more. It's just sickening.

[wvincenti]

I hear you Helios.
I miss places like the sewers & the crypts in Waterdeep. Great places for low level dungeon crawling and low level mischief of all sorts.

Shadowdale still has some places one can explore (or get killed), without a DM. Drop on in us sometime. When are you usually in game?

-Bill

[HATEFACE]

I've been playing on the NWN2 server TSM. I haven't touched NWN1 Shadowdale in a long time

My play time has been pretty free recently. Evenings 4:00-7:00CST on TSM.

[ayergo]

I hear you Helios.
I miss places like the sewers & the crypts in Waterdeep. Great places for low level dungeon crawling and low level mischief of all sorts.

Shadowdale still has some places one can explore (or get killed), without a DM. Drop on in us sometime. When are you usually in game?

-Bill

BG? Oh yeah, we got dungeons. I like my servers with dungeons AND dragons.

Only catch is most require a high cha character or one with social skills to gain access, otherwise its the wilderness for you!

BG - Because we remember what it was like to have fun in ALFA.

Stop by and lose a toon today!

[White Warlock]

Right, ALFA's NWN1 had plenty of time to iron out many of the issues, but still suffered from lack of statics for those times when DMs weren't around. Still, at least all the NPCs would talk to you, even without a DM. Unfortunately, as long as ALFA's NWN1 is being overshadowed by ALFA's NWN2, it will continue to be a shadow of its potential.

Returning to NWN2 -- To be quite blunt, TSM isn't ready for primetime. In the short time i had running about in there, i felt like i was beta-testing the module, rather than playing on a live server. This isn't a smackdown on the developers/scripters, but more on the community's rush to push something out before it's ready. And i can understand the motivation, but it reminds me of Microsoft's approach.

Considering this, and to defuse future issues, I was thinking of a new status, defined as something like, "Live - Gamma," in which the server has passed the balanced check, but is not quite ready for primetime. With this, DMs can DM ventures, players can 'play' on the server and keep their characters (as opposed to the beta status servers of throwaway characters), but both would easily recognize, by title alone, the server still needs work. As it is, people who jump in immediately complain about the feeling it's 'not done.' Well it's not, and labels help 'non-programmers' to accept incompleteness.

Thanks for reading

[wvincenti]

Tempting oh Penguin Lord, very tempting.
I've got this new video card to break in too.
I'll get there eventually.



-Bill

I hear you Helios.
I miss places like the sewers & the crypts in Waterdeep. Great places for low level dungeon crawling and low level mischief of all sorts.

Shadowdale still has some places one can explore (or get killed), without a DM. Drop on in us sometime. When are you usually in game?

-Bill

BG? Oh yeah, we got dungeons. I like my servers with dungeons AND dragons.

Only catch is most require a high cha character or one with social skills to gain access, otherwise its the wilderness for you!

BG - Because we remember what it was like to have fun in ALFA.

Stop by and lose a toon today!

[HATEFACE]

Right, ALFA's NWN1 had plenty of time to iron out many of the issues, but still suffered from lack of statics for those times when DMs weren't around. Still, at least all the NPCs would talk to you, even without a DM. Unfortunately, as long as ALFA's NWN1 is being overshadowed by ALFA's NWN2, it will continue to be a shadow of its potential.

Returning to NWN2 -- To be quite blunt, TSM isn't ready for primetime. In the short time i had running about in there, i felt like i was beta-testing the module, rather than playing on a live server. This isn't a smackdown on the developers/scripters, but more on the community's rush to push something out before it's ready. And i can understand the motivation, but it reminds me of Microsoft's approach.

Considering this, and to defuse future issues, I was thinking of a new status, defined as something like, "Live - Gamma," in which the server has passed the balanced check, but is not quite ready for primetime. With this, DMs can DM ventures, players can 'play' on the server and keep their characters (as opposed to the beta status servers of throwaway characters), but both would easily recognize, by title alone, the server still needs work. As it is, people who jump in immediately complain about the feeling it's 'not done.' Well it's not, and labels help 'non-programmers' to accept incompleteness.

Thanks for reading

Uh, TSM had a beta phase. Hardly anyone was on. ;f So uhm. . ? Testing stuff is hard to do when no one is there to test it.

[White Warlock]

Uh, TSM had a beta phase. Hardly anyone was on. ;f So uhm. . ? Testing stuff is hard to do when no one is there to test it.

Hehe, that was my point actually. A lot of people didn't go there because they couldn't hold onto any PC they made and essentially have a good time playing. But, by putting the server as Live when it's not really all that primetime, players enter and complain about its incompleteness. My recommendation was to create a Live status that is still a testing status (Live - Gamma), thus people can play, but will keep in their mind the server is still undergoing debugging and fleshing.

[HATEFACE]

Uh, TSM had a beta phase. Hardly anyone was on. ;f So uhm. . ? Testing stuff is hard to do when no one is there to test it.

Hehe, that was my point actually. A lot of people didn't go there because they couldn't hold onto any PC they made and essentially have a good time playing. But, by putting the server as Live when it's not really all that primetime, players enter and complain about its incompleteness. My recommendation was to create a Live status that is still a testing status (Live - Gamma), thus people can play, but will keep in their mind the server is still undergoing debugging and fleshing.

What you're recommending is a name. Gamma. - Which is essentially the same thing as beta('cept using live characters.) When a server goes live it should be brought out of beta when all testing is complete by us, the players of ALFA. - They just put it live despite its incompleteness thus destroying the purpose of beta testing. While the short time I ran about beta TSM I had full knowlege that my character would be deleted and is essentially throw away. It wouldn't make sense to bring a live character into conditions where "debugging" could potentially kill them and break RP immersed sessions due to tech reasons. It would be a pain in the ass. If anything you should recommend a longer beta time untill all potential bugs are flushed out and maybe call out to the community for more people to participate in the debugging & testing process.

[Lusipher]

Personally, Ive never been a big fan of us just having beta servers open and allowing folks to just roam around and squash bugs. I prefer a more focused testing. If I were HDM of a server and my server was going through the beta stages I would build accordingly:

1 Build so many areas firstly
2 Have a focus group/beta group test those areas on given nights with myself and my DM team present.
3 fix the bugs we find then repeat for new areas.

It doesnt hurt anything doing things the way they are done now, but im kinda a hands on person. I like to do things in a controlled way first and take that data and apply what I learn.

During the controlled group the DM can be there alongside the players and worry less about RP and more about giving Players levels, keys, items, etc that make certain quests work and can test every aspect of those quests and areas.

Anyway, thats how Id do it if I were an HDM and will do so if I ever become one.