Across Faerûn, the name “Waterdeep” evokes feelings of wonder, awe, and envy. Although it is not the largest city in the Realms, the City of Splendors is undoubtedly the most famous and most cosmopolitan metropolis on the continent of Faerûn. Having grown rich on a steady diet of trade and industry, this crossroads city combines the best aspects of many cultures into a marvelous shining jewel. Waterdeep’s cultural patrimony is all of Faerûn, and its inhabitants are much richer for it.
The City of Splendors lies in the shadow of Mount Waterdeep on the shore of the best natural harbor along the Sword Coast. Undermountain, the greatest dungeon in all Faerûn, lies beneath the city’s streets and sewers, and the untamed hinterlands of the Sword Coast beckon to those daring enough to seek their fortune.
I would like to make this wonderful location of intrigue, politics and guild conflict as well as exciting adventure available for all the players of ALFA. This server would act as a counterweight to the other servers which has large rural areas, wheras Waterdeep would only streach so far as the outer city walls. The Waterdeep I propose would be a strick urban setting, focusing of adventure therein.
The Team
Aside from myself as the coordinator and HDM for this project, I have recruited talented people to help build this server. In charge of the surface exteriors is mr_duncan and he is doing a great job with it so far. I have recruited outside talent to help implement all the wierd new ideas we have for the city as a lead scripter for the team. When it comes to building interiors, I have recieved several PM's from members of the community who have expressed a real desire to build interiors and I have started to allocate different areas between then. Aside from that, I plan on being very open with the construction of the server and keep a good dialogue with those who has experience with building before.
I also already have a respectable number of people who has shown a strong interest in being a DM on Waterdeep and i've made sure that they are covering as many of the time zones as possible.
Focus
As I mentioned above, Waterdeep will be an urban setting. The focus here is to create a place for those players who enjoy creating characters who enjoy staying in the cities, while at the same time offer a great way for adventures. Running under the streets of Waterdeep will be the sewers, which will offer up the occasional challenge for the young plumber. The server borders will be the outer walls of the city. There will however, to a lesser extent, exist a travel map to give the illusion of a world outside the walls and the DM's the ability to introduce small areas outside the walls for single quests.
I will also try to get a hold of Faeryl since she has been given the oppertunity to create Skullport, which I feel should be a part of the Waterdeep server. I dont know if this is a part of the Skullport server or not, but I would also like to include Undermountain as a great place for exploration and adventuring. It is a very iconic location that has a lot of connections to Waterdeep.
The DMs of Waterdeep will be those that focus on intrigue. I don't believe Waterdeep to be a server where you spend your time walking around killing kobolds and raiding Orc encampments. It is more in the lines of uncovering assassination plots or arresting the noble who is dabbling with dark arts and striking deals demons. Perhaps it is coordinating a new thieves guild or outmaneuver the rivaling guild. Regardless, the server has a lot of potential and my own personal focus for when I will DM will be to create stories where the PC's grow and develop their characters.
Areas
Waterdeep consists of eight Wards, each with the possibility for great gameplay in itself depending on personal taste. The six recognized wards of Waterdeep are Castle Ward, Dock Ward, North Ward, Sea Ward, Southern Ward, and Trades Ward. The City of the Dead is nearly a seventh ward unto itself, and Deepwater Harbor and the surrounding islands form an informal eighth ward. This, together with the sewers and Undermountain will give anyone more than they could want.
Castle Ward:
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The vision here is to create a city bursting with life where you could almost hear the pulse of the city if you stopped and listened. We want to present to the players, a unique and exciting experience, regardless of where you go. We want them to feel that they really are in one fo the greatest cities of Faerûn. We have recognized a problem with keeping players active within ALFA and that is that they become bored. We live in a MMO era where instant gratification is the goal. The idea here is to keep players entertained enough to be online long enough to actually meet eachother and do something, even if that is just sit around at the Dripping Dagger talking. The city will be burstling with static quests for players to be entertained by all day long and we will create them in a way so that they become varied and fun to do, over and over again. Almost every locale needs either something done, or is involved in something someone else needs done. The static quests will include all of ALFAs ACR-supported quests, such as exploration & scouting, errands, escorts, bounties and patrol/reconnaissance as well as several new ideas that will need some discussions before being implemented.
Faction/Reputation system
When we have such a vast amount of statics it is important not to upset the balance of ALFA when it comes to at what rate players have their characters advance in levels and wealth. That is why we've come up with a great system to deal with the fact that players will be free to "farm" statics without putting them ahead of the rest of the class.
All statics are divided into two categories. The first is the basic "I do you a favor, you pay me" which yields an instant reward upon delivery. A typical such static quest would be the classical FedEx-quests. The character doesn't invest very much in those type of tasks other than time and legwork. The second though, is of another nature. They are statics that build faction/reputation rather than reward. This opens up several new oppertunities, both for the player and for the DMs.
Let's use the City Watch as an example of this. The PC has spent a vast amount of time doing statics for the City Watch as he sees himself as a person who sympathizes with them and tries to help out. He doesn't get any money for the work done, seeing as they normally don't hire "mercenaries" to do their job for them. But they do appreciate a good citizen helping out now and then.
After some time, the PC has built up quite the reputation and might be introduced to new dialogue options or even the oppertunity to become an honorary Watchman and be given Faction Armor which will make NPC's react accordingly when worn. Along with this, the PC has racked up quite a bit of Faction/Reputation "points" and this works like a currency of sorts which you can use to influence events with a DM (or in certain scripted situations).
Let's say that during a DM event, one of PC's friends has been taken into custody and will be put on trial for murder. Now, the other PC might or might not be innocent, but regardless, the PC wants to free his friend and goes to talk to the captain in charge. The DM inspects the PC's current faction/reputation value and decides that the PC is trusted enough to have his friend placed in his custody and/or set free due to "lacking evidence" or some other reason that seems appropriate for the situation. The DM then proceeds to decrease an arbitrary value from the PC's pool
Another example is something I believe will be of great value is doing the same thing for a certain temple. Let's say that the PC has been working tirelessly for the temple of the deity he worships. He has become one of the temples most valued associate/servant and the NPC's often mentions him to eachother when other PC's pass by. He has the unfortunate luck of rolling a bad fort save or two and dies to a static monster spawn. He wasn't rich in life but he had a few friends. The sad part though, is that they can't really afford to raise him from the dead either. Instead of just looting his poor corpse and dragging it to the temple he worships, they bring him to the priests who (scripted) immediately recognize who it is and asks the PC's friends if they want him brought back from the dead. This will then of course also mean that the faction/reputation pool will decrease.
Now, the idea behind this is to give the players who seek the instant gratification something to work for, while at the same time keep them invested for the long run. The players get rewarded for their work, they keep staying online and the chance of a meeting between players increase. This also keeps players entertained while at the same time not giving them a way to quickly earn a lot of experience points and/or gold.
One could say that it gives the PC a sort of "currency" only usable within the faction that he got it from. This is a system I personally, and those who I've spoken to about this, feel would be a great addition to ALFA in general and a fitting system in a guild-based city such as Waterdeep.
"Global" events DMCT
Another idea i'm toying around with is the "Dungeon Master Control Tower" or DMCT for short, which is a place where the DMs can initiate server-wide events at the literal push of a button. You want a war between rival gangs in the Dock wards? Head on over to the Gang-War Button (trademark pending) and choose your factions. You want the North Ward sealed off due to a demon infestation from a botched portal opening? Why not pull that lever over there? Now, let's say you dont want to unleash hell on earth and you just want to celebrate one of the many festivals available, then that should also be possible at the click of a button.
This idea is just in the concept stages at this point, but it is a tool to give the DMs the ability to add to the feeling the players get that this is not just a Persistant World server, but a living, changing Persistant World server.
Living history
One thing that I want to see is that players who play characters with roots in Waterdeep can send in their history and at the next update have their own family as NPC's in Waterdeep. This invests the player in his character and it gives the DM's something to toy around with. It is a lot more fun to have the PC's younger brother or sister dangling in a rope above a vat of molten iron, rather than to have some random NPC hostage. This is all about developing the characters and giving them a great memory.
PC housing
Aren't you tired of always being homeless or having to stay at an Inn? Well, now you can get yourself your own apartment in the City of Splendor. Just be careful not to forget to pay the rent as the landlords are pretty quick with changing the locks and you might lose all your belongings as he sells them to cover the rent you owe him. I want to give PC's a "home". Somewhere that they can bring other PC's and have meetings or whatever else that they feel they want to do.
Character progression oppertunities
I believe that Waterdeep would be a great place for a number of available Prestige Classes as well. Among them, from the top of my head, I can see the following having a natural place in Waterdeep.
Arcane Trickster, Assassin, Divine Champion, Duelist, Harper Agent, Invisible Blade, Red Wizard of Thay, Sacred Fist, Warpriest, and Weapon Master.
Authors note: I would like to thank Sandermann for the wonderful template provided through his application to build the Northern Underdark. Without it, I am sure it would have been a lot more disorienting to read.
Wow, that was quite the chunk of text. I guess that'll do as my official proposal to have Waterdeep built for this community. And remember, if you want to be a part of this, just send me a PM and we'll see about making that happen. I am really looking forward to this and I hope others are as well. Now, if I only had edit permissions to this thread, that would be great. *nudges Hialmar*