Opportunities

[Ifthir]

Just wanted to take this time to first comment on the attention to detail and the adherence to canon around here. I'd say this is the first place where as a strict FR player, I've felt like I've found kindred spirits, since way back in the days of MUD's. That said, onto the post.

I am sure I will put this in a less than eloquent manner, but just how much of the 3.5E canon will go into ALFA? As this edition of the rules will never be expanded, we have an amazing opportunity to actually implement it all, from an NPC>Feat>Spell>Area, and to actually live that amazingly rich world that was built upon by some of the great writers of our time. What I mean by this is, are their plans to customize the engine to take all 3.5E feats/item properties etc in to play? Are there certain things that simply can't be accounted for in NWN2 due to the limited number of callbacks? I'd sure love to one day see every feat selectable that I have in my 3E books, and to be able to cast every spell I have in my 3E books, etc etc.

I know from my NPC creation that right off the bat there are serious limitations, from player races all the way through skills and even into stats. So again, just how far does ALFA plan to take it? Is there anyone else out there who'd love to see regional feats (on their respective regional servers!) and the like, and mages with unique spellbooks? Thanks for reading!

[hollyfant]

just how far does ALFA plan to take it?

At first, I wanted to just write "As far as we can take it!", but... that's not really true, now is it? In part, it's up to standards (I think it's standards) to "ban or nerf" stuff to put it unfriendly. Some feats have been limited or altered to better fit the rules, and if you have further suggestion to bring the game into FR line I'm sure they'd welcome them.

Then come the scripters, who attempt to bend the engine to their will. It's very much a matter of their skill vs. the game's limitation as to what can and cannot be added or modified to better reflect the "proper" FR.

Next come the builders. Now most do rifle the source books to bring their creation up to specs vis-a-vis canon, but once a server goes life it creates its own canon and any errors or inconsistencies not spotted before then are hard to rectify.

And last but not least there are the DMs. They have a story to tell, people to entertain and with any luck may actually enjoy themselves once in a while too. Some are quite rigid in their canon, others... not so much. But again: once facts are established they becomes "the new canon" for the server, for better or worse.

So, really it all depends on who did what at what point of whatever the what was that who did. And how.

As far as the titbits you mentioned are concerned: our characters can come from other areas than the server we start on, and so limiting regional feats to specific servers won't work. And personally I loathe the idea that NPCs could do things that PCs can't. I want cardboard cutouts for townsfolk, I'm the hero here!

[paazin]

Holly is pretty much spot-on here.

We follow canon as closely insofar as it's possible. It's quite a tough balancing act, trying to tie being a persistent world with being as close to D&D rules and canon as possible and still trying to be somewhat equitable and doing what we can to avoid exploitation (hence where standards comes in).

And, of course, that doesn't even touch on our scripting, building and DMing staff - certainly if we had scores of people who were able to work on each area, we could fill in every minor PC ever listed to the most minute detail; sadly, we do not so there are omissions - but if you know the canon yourself there is no reason you can't inference that those NPCs and places "exist" if they're not immediately present within our gameworld.

[AcadiusLost]

In terms of skills, I've got the full PnP complement of them (complete with the 9 separate Knowledge skills, and all the Perform subtypes) lined up for eventual inclusion, though they need more testing and some GUI tricks to allow PCs to roll skill checks for them just like they do for the normal skills.

Languages, as well: the DMFI tools have handling for pretty much every FR language (except Netherese, from what I've seen), including quite a few I've never heard of. Once the Skills update is in, you'll also be able to choose your character's Starting Region, which will give you the opportunity to know or learn all the FRCS bonus languages for that region, the region your PC is currently in, or any language which another PC has tried to "teach" your PC. (by buying Speak Language ranks).

Feats are a bit trickier: much of combat happens "behind the scenes" in terms of the parts of the game we have access to with scripts and haks. Creslyn managed to work around it to get a subdual/nonlethal combat system working, but the sheer number of exceptions and possibilities he had to account for were staggering. I don't imagine we'll be able to script many combat feats.

With spells; there are nearly limitless possibilities on spells we could implement- from simple ones like the Ghost Sound cantrip, using the DMFI tools to "throw your voice" for emotes from placeables, all the way to scripted teleports, Contingency, or Word of Recall. These pretty much have to take a lower priority though, since they only benefit a narrow slice of our playerbase, and take up a lot of time for testing and balancing. I'd really like to get more spells implemented, but it's not likely for the near future unless we get some more scripting talent recruited.