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Re: Legends of Aria/Shards Online Alpha 3: What area?

Posted: Thu Oct 19, 2017 11:04 am
by SCI-kick
I wasn't digging on ALFA with my post about FR getting old.

That's being said, I also agree with somewhere in the northern Savage Frontier ; preferably not a big city but a frontier town, like Yartar or Triboar, with majority of areas east of Yartar.

Re: Legends of Aria/Shards Online Alpha 3: What area?

Posted: Thu Oct 19, 2017 7:51 pm
by Rick7475
With a big city you cater to the thieves and smuggler guilds, fight gangs and sewer or undead invasions. I went through the entire WD server and the history, reviewing certain areas and why they were created. Most of the star players were some form of rogue well connected to the thieving guilds, and a couple of others were police, connected to the magistrates or government. The players of the city all met in one tavern for the most part. WD is a great server, but I believe limited to certain factions, a big city will take most of your server.

With Daggerford I build a base town with a popular meeting place and numerous wilderness quests and areas. There was room for the thieving guilds, and that worked well for that faction. I had wilderness and an elven town for those factions, rangers, druids, etc. I had a barbarian area with various barb tribes that PC's could utilize, and I was working on Ilefarn for the dwarves and wild elves, but never got around to it finishing it. I had a nice area for the monks and paladins, you could join the town militia, etc. Didn't have any evil areas because there was Skullport.

For the Silver Marches, which I think was a good choice for a combination of city and wilderness, we had Silverymoon, a fun city to make, for all races, warriors, thieves, and especially wizards. Indio build the exteriors of Silverymoon, Rivermoot, and a few other areas, and I did a lot of the statics (except the Wizard college), the knights and milita quests and posts, a lot of wilderness, etc. The problems at the start, though, was no central hub for players, no big tavern meeting place to plan things. People became too spread out. With WD there was the AQ geared toward getting players in one place.

But with the fun of building TSM, NWN2 was never as big as NWN1.


So having said all that, and looking at AMN and Calimport, and the existing/former ALFA servers, I think our best start for ALFA 3 is Neverwinter. This is a coastal river town of 23,000, a perfect base for the 'city' people, and so many exciting areas to explore outside the walls for other factions. The sea can connected to islands, the Neverwinter forest with its hidden adventures, the Mere of Dead Men, Luskan to the north. Neverwinter is a perfect hub for adventurers, add a nice home tavern, tons of city static quest, postal quests outside the city, and many more, They have a city watch of 400, thieves guilds, a deep forest areas for secret cults, islands off the coast, and so much potential.

In addition, it is a popular area for FR fans, with other existing games players are familiar with. As a builder, I am loving it.

In conclusion, a nice sized port town, lots of adventure outside with many areas to explore, and diverse enough for everyone.

Re: Legends of Aria/Shards Online Alpha 3: What area?

Posted: Thu Oct 19, 2017 8:33 pm
by FoamBats4All
Rick7475 wrote:So having said all that, and looking at AMN and Calimport, and the existing/former ALFA servers, I think our best start for ALFA 3 is Neverwinter.
I'm agreeing with a lot of what you said. My concern is this: There's an active and complicated IP right now with the Neverwinter name. Running our own Neverwinter-based MMO-like-thing would have a stronger chance of legal action being taken against us, I fear. We don't only have to worry about WotC (which typically doesn't care so long as money isn't being made), but Cryptic Studios and Perfect World Entertainment, which are more unknown.

Re: Legends of Aria/Shards Online Alpha 3: What area?

Posted: Thu Oct 19, 2017 8:45 pm
by Rumple C
I'd rather see a -town- done to scale and done beautifully, than a city scaled down and done poorly.

And no tardis effects. A big old tavern should have a big old footprint.

Re: Legends of Aria/Shards Online Alpha 3: What area?

Posted: Thu Oct 19, 2017 10:26 pm
by Rick7475
FoamBats4All wrote:
Rick7475 wrote:So having said all that, and looking at AMN and Calimport, and the existing/former ALFA servers, I think our best start for ALFA 3 is Neverwinter.
I'm agreeing with a lot of what you said. My concern is this: There's an active and complicated IP right now with the Neverwinter name. Running our own Neverwinter-based MMO-like-thing would have a stronger chance of legal action being taken against us, I fear. We don't only have to worry about WotC (which typically doesn't care so long as money isn't being made), but Cryptic Studios and Perfect World Entertainment, which are more unknown.

What if we call it something else, like North Sword Coast, Jewel of the North, City of Skilled Hands, or the Savage Frontier (I like this one).

Re: Legends of Aria/Shards Online Alpha 3: What area?

Posted: Thu Oct 19, 2017 10:41 pm
by Ithildur
RIck makes some solid points; Neverwinter or something like it could be a great location if legal issues can be skirted.

I didn't play there a ton but from what I saw and what others have told me, Rick's DF back in the day (all the controversy re: scaling/generosity compared to stingier servers aside) was a very well planned and laid out server. It flat out worked from a design standpoint and drawing people in. I think it makes sense to have the 1st server with a new platform be modeled after some of the things Rick was good at implementing, to generate momentum, draw interest, and attract new people... vs say, a really well crafted Evermeet server with every nuance and Elfy RP detail done beautifully, but where only a handful of people would ever log in and sit around elf tavern emoting elegantly talking about court politics/Everquisst until a DM showed up. I say this as one who enjoys elves btw (see signature).

Slight exaggeration there, but there are times when alfa servers historically have ended up looking a bit like the latter - which can be completely awesome especially if you have an HDM/builder/DMs and a group of players who want to do that - let them do it,great, just not as the first server. For the same reason, I would be wary of making our 1st server overly unfamiliar and potentially inaccessible/alienating to a lot of players.

I've also played on Exodus where they had a pretty hardcore Amn that was very clearly racist towards demi humans and arcane magic. It was fun, a great experience, but I can see the concerns over whether that's a good starting point for a first server.

Re: Legends of Aria/Shards Online Alpha 3: What area?

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2017 12:03 am
by Galadorn
You're all awesome.

I truly believe whatever area you gurus of creation decide it will rock. Don't even matter that much to me.

North... Neverwinter... Amn... even a smattering-homebrew... it will be bonkers fun.

Can anyone link a good URL to show the gameplay/POV of Legends of Aria/Shards Online? just to get a reference to spy and dr00l at while thinking up new PCs for the next year?

I am also interested in helping build if my machine can handle it (should be able to), and i'm a patient worker who would be happy to make the "boring things no one wants to build but the world needs"... i've done it before, in the past I made 50 unique NPCs of each race, dozens of interiors of buildings people rarely would ever go in that still needed a unique interior, etc, to pass on to the head-builders who are doing the "important" buildings/NPCs which need more detail etc. Whatever helps as far as my free time can I don't mind doing the "grind building" in some areas.

Re: Legends of Aria/Shards Online Alpha 3: What area?

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2017 12:45 am
by Rick7475
This is the link: https://www.legendsofaria.com/

Check youtube for the videos. Other groups are planning to customize the ruleset for DnD. Not sure which version, but IMHO we should try not to reinvent the wheel and use one that is already in production if groups share code.
I am sure as the release gets closer the ALFA building group will be organized and various tasks laid out, so volunteers would be greatly appreciated.

Re: Legends of Aria/Shards Online Alpha 3: What area?

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2017 3:02 am
by FoamBats4All
Keep in mind Legends of Aria is still in alpha stages. We're working to try to get ALFA3 done around game launch, maybe, instead of 2 years after the game was out, like what (allegedly) happened with ALFA2.

Re: Legends of Aria/Shards Online Alpha 3: What area?

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2017 3:29 am
by SCI-kick
I would think Neverwinter is too big of a city for a whole new beginning. The frontier town is what D&D was originally built around. Yartar seems more fitting to me because builders would not have to flesh out a whole city with factions and all first. Build the simple town, move on to the wilds. A big city can come further down the road.

Yartar has great location almost in center of Savage Frontier, close to many areas to venture into the unknown. And, it's not a hamlet, it's listed as a large town of population 6,000+ , bustling with various caravans, travellers, and what not. Perfect adventuring start.

Re: Legends of Aria/Shards Online Alpha 3: What area?

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2017 3:45 am
by HEEGZ
There are some great reasons to use the north. Fifth edition has some really great areas published due east of Neverwinter, I have enjoyed DMing in this region for the past few years, in tabletop. The 5e starter set is located between Neverwinter and Yartar, and the Princes of the Apocalypse adventure is located south of Yartar. There is also the Giant adventure which includes updated lore for the whole region in the north as well if we want to use this timeline/region. It is really a great area that we could carve a niche out of.

I am also very partial to the north Comyr, Sembia and Dalelands region...

Finally, Amn is cool but has the magic issue, and Tethyr would make a good substitute in the same region.

I'm not a huge fan of Calimshan/Calimport.

Honestly, I'm excited to see that backing Shards Online might have been worthwhile. I hope that it will be easy enough to build in that I can take part.

Re: Legends of Aria/Shards Online Alpha 3: What area?

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2017 2:24 pm
by Rick7475
HEEGZ wrote:There are some great reasons to use the north. Fifth edition has some really great areas published due east of Neverwinter, I have enjoyed DMing in this region for the past few years, in tabletop. The 5e starter set is located between Neverwinter and Yartar, and the Princes of the Apocalypse adventure is located south of Yartar. There is also the Giant adventure which includes updated lore for the whole region in the north as well if we want to use this timeline/region. It is really a great area that we could carve a niche out of.

I am also very partial to the north Comyr, Sembia and Dalelands region...

Finally, Amn is cool but has the magic issue, and Tethyr would make a good substitute in the same region.

I'm not a huge fan of Calimshan/Calimport.

Honestly, I'm excited to see that backing Shards Online might have been worthwhile. I hope that it will be easy enough to build in that I can take part.
Hey Heegz, I also just DM'd Princes of the Apocalypse table top over the last 2 years, plus the Dragon Queen, I love 5e and the areas.




SCI-kick wrote:I would think Neverwinter is too big of a city for a whole new beginning. The frontier town is what D&D was originally built around. Yartar seems more fitting to me because builders would not have to flesh out a whole city with factions and all first. Build the simple town, move on to the wilds. A big city can come further down the road.

Yartar has great location almost in center of Savage Frontier, close to many areas to venture into the unknown. And, it's not a hamlet, it's listed as a large town of population 6,000+ , bustling with various caravans, travellers, and what not. Perfect adventuring start.
I like the Yartar, too, but it isn't a port city. I would really like to see a port to expand to other cities or areas on the coast. But 6,000 to 22,000 (Neverwinter) isn't that big of a difference. Neverwinter isn't a huge town like Waterdeep or Baldur's Gate. I grew up in a town that size and could walk from end to end. In fact my high school was on the southside of town and I walked to school everyday (yes, I lived in Riverdale). Then again I am old and that was before they invented cars. I think Neverwinter works as a frontier town, east is a huge forest, south is a deadly swamp, lots of potential.

It fits the "spoke" ideal and a lot of factions and races, big enough for major wizardry, smuggler thieves guilds, righteous orders in the open, bad guy orders in secret, town watch, forest and high way patrols, caravans, river boats, I know Yartar has some of this, too, but not to scale for bigger stuff, and we need a well known crown jewel to start ALFA 3 off, and I believe Neverwinter fits. But, if we call it the Savage Frontier, there would certainly be room for Yartar in an expansion.

Re: Legends of Aria/Shards Online Alpha 3: What area?

Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2017 1:42 am
by Ksiel
While I don't know what changes 5e may have made in the city/area... What about Phlan?

Re: Legends of Aria/Shards Online Alpha 3: What area?

Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2017 7:23 pm
by Rick7475
Here is the list so far. We should make a poll, but I don't have the rights.

Calimshan, Calimport.
Amn, Athkatla
Tethyr
Cormyr
Savage Frontier, Neverwinter
Savage Frontier, Luskan
Savage Frontier, Yartar
Savage Frontier, Triboar
The North, Ten Towns
The North, Mirabar
The North, Lurkwood
The North, Spine of the World