Critters giving no XP

[CloudDancing]

After sitting through TSM as a party only player it became pretty easy to determine who was soloing and cleaning out the caves. Look for people who are on by themeselves for long periods of time both milking the RPXP system and/or obvious located in caves and spawn areas.

As a former DM, I know that a full circuit of TSM through the "easy" caves and picking up various "easter eggs" on daily basis can result in a quite a stack of wealth. I dicussed my personal thoughts on the "easter egg" farming before and it was ignored.

And since my time as a player and on to a DM who read the logs every morning, I know exactly who spends all their time farming, seen the results of their so called ill gotten gains. And I have reported this to the proper authorities.

I am not saying the system doesnt work here, but all it takes is a quick scan of a log file to see EXACTLY how much time is spend alone in what areas, what they pick up, and of course what they kill. And a quick look at a player list in an area can show you who is active, say in Rivermoot, trolling the various juicy caves of 1 XP buggers.

But honestly the players that farm, dont offer much to ALFA in the way of roleplaying and thats probably why they are in the caves in the first place. Eventually TSM will spawn something a little too big and NOM, no more farmer.

[Regalis]

Players are sitting inside the Golden Oak Roleplaying.

There is a trigger painted there with an OnHeartbeat() script.

i. Is there a DM on? If so, abort.
ii. No DM on, d100()
iii. On 99, ExecuteScript("dynamicquest") on RandomPlayer

An NPC shows up at the door to the atrium. It walks over to RandomPlayer and initiates a conversation. "Halp! Halp! Blah blah blah." <insert social skill checks here>

RandomPlayer gets quest that leads to either another NPC for a dialogue node or maybe straight to the adventure.

"Issa merchant. My caravan was robbed by <ninjas> on the way to Sundabar. I lost my <precious heirloom>. Please get it back. You're welcome to anything else you find. I'll be <waiting at my house/inside some bar/inn/temple>."

RandomPlayer, "I'll do it." A trigger somewhere will now activate an adventure for a party with RandomPlayer in it.

NPC gives a <good/vague/wrong> description of where.

PCs party up and set off, wandering around the pass looking for a spot that fits the description.

They eventually stumble upon the trigger and get ported to a small area with a few <ninjas> standing outside the entrance to a cave. At this point, the server dynamically creates the dungeon. It scales the difficulty based upon the mid-point of the average party level and highest level party member. (No power leveling for j00, 1 year.) It randomly determines the layout of the dungeon and the ambiance (lighting, sounds, music, and what types of placeables will be found).

Since they are fighting <ninjas> and <ninjas> are <sneaky>. The PCs walk through the dungeon completely unmolested until they come upon a massive pile of treasure and a pitiful looking person tied up. They rush over to <get phat lewts> or <save fair maiden>. <Ninjas> drop down from the ceiling and slaughter them.

Aren't you glad the server isn't set in Kara Tur?

Of course it could have been <Banites> and <Banites> are <stupid>. The PCs walk into the <meticulously organized and clean> cave, finding an altar to <Bane>. The <Moderately Lackluster Tie-Interceptor> of <Bane> turns around and <smiles>. <"Hark! The lord of strife has blessed us with adventurers! I say, yon adventures, we would do battle with you. I must insist, of course, that we follow the Queen's Mary rules. Also, I have consulted my, 'Volo's Guide to Villainy' and it is incumbent upon me at this point, in the interest of fair play, to offer you a chance to parley or simply make a long soliloquy about how awesome Bane is and how screwed you are so that you will have plenty of time to ready your defensive spells. How was that? Excellent. Die fools.">

Loot from the dungeon based off of tables in compliance with standards.

If they party wipes, they and their corpses are lost in <completely innocuous looking cave in the middle of no where> never to be heard from again. It's a permadeath server, right?

If they leave and try to come back, they find out that <these were not the droids they were looking for> and move along. You get one shot only. Be a boyscout. Be prepared.

The party retrieves <precious heirloom> and gets some small additional reward. Of course, who says that it might not all be a trap sometimes?

PS: Also, can I bribe someone to replace "Shambling Zombie" with "Tie-Interceptor of Bane"?

[Hialmar]

*whistles and looks at Regalis' rank*

[Blindhamsterman]

*whistles and looks at Regalis' rank*

That is.... priceless!

[Mirabai]

1. I still play on a thriving and dynamic NWN1 server that has the best spawn system I've ever seen. Basically it goes like this (and I think someone else suggested something similar):

A group of PCs enter an area. If you're all low level you get spawns which are tough but not impossible. If you are a mixed group with one high level (lvls 7-10, no one is higher than 10 there) the spawns scale up dramatically too accommodate the level 10, but still not impossible. If a group has been through the area a short time before, whatever spawns they didn't kill will still be there but no one ones will spawn. Once in a while you will enter an area and a "special" encounter will spawn, usually with some named NPC like an orc named Grorg the Destroyer and a few of his minions. When that happens, be afraid.

I have no idea how the script figures out what to spawn and how high a CR to spawn, but I do know that in 3+ years of playing there I have noted that the place is deadly without being overwhelmingly frustrating so, and the spawns have always seemed CR appropriate to me. The place is geared so that exploring alone will absolutely get you killed, no question, unless you are higher level and have awesome stealth. I don't know how they work it but traveling in the wilds is generally impossible alone unless you are a real naturey sort, traveling in groups is consistently challenging and sometimes deadly but always makes sense.

In terms of XP, they work on diminishing returns. Using the example of trolls, I have a level 8 wizard who never gets more than 1xp for a troll. But also keep in mind that this server has a soft level cap of about 7. I've simply been lucky.

I am not a scripter. But considering this server has been around and VERY successful for a long, long time, I imagine the information on how to do it must be out there, somewhere. Love to see this for ALFA.

2. Regalis, are you scripting for us? If not, why?

3. In terms of DMs placing 'surprise!' encounters... honestly this never occurred to me and the reason why is that in NWN1 the servers reset A LOT, so chances are whatever I set up would be gone before any PCs found it. Also, NWN1 servers were vastly larger than NWN2, making the chances of a PC stumbling across something like this very unlikely. So that's why it hasn't occurred to me. Now that you all have put it in my head, I will happily do this for you guys.

HOWEVER... if someone dies to one of these encounters, I don't want to hear any whining, or I will never set one up again.

[danielmn]

3. In terms of DMs placing 'surprise!' encounters... honestly this never occurred to me and the reason why is that in NWN1 the servers reset A LOT, so chances are whatever I set up would be gone before any PCs found it. Also, NWN1 servers were vastly larger than NWN2, making the chances of a PC stumbling across something like this very unlikely. So that's why it hasn't occurred to me. Now that you all have put it in my head, I will happily do this for you guys.

HOWEVER... if someone dies to one of these encounters, I don't want to hear any whining, or I will never set one up again.

This was done on BG for a time by a dm when I was HDM, though they were even safer as in they weren't exactly "surprise" encounters.
Two PC deaths later (both of which were the only rezzes on the server sponsored by PC's during my tenure other than tech rezzes due to an extremely high CR spawn that was also complained about, may faerun ever be a bastion of safety amen) I grew quite tired of the complaints. Granted, the things left were tough critters, tying into a plot, but they were advertized in the rumor thread as well as previously found during a dm session, so the knowledge of their exsistance and general locale were out there. Still...a lot of complaints. I hope things go better for you than they did for me...just beware of the having cake/eating it too scenario.

[Mirabai]

Yeah there is a very real possibility that will happen, but it's pretty simple- like I said, the first complaint means it will never happen again.

[Blindhamsterman]

I love the idea of random spawns etc being put in Mirabai

I vow to log out in sensible places going forward!

[CloudDancing]

Lol Regalis..its called Dungeons and Dragons Online Stormrage or Lord of the Rings Online or Age of Conan. All of them offer this stuff because their MMO servers can handle that sort of thing.

What you loose for scripted content that is persistent like an MMO is a few things.

1. Divine Intervention: Dms can change things up and help your character live dynamically

2. Constant fights to prevent exploiting of content. People being what they are will repeatedly jump on the trigger that gives them a food pellet till it gives them the food pellet. If they find a yummy treat, they will go back 100 times to get more yummy treats.

3. And of course TSM is really special server..very few places have such wide spanning vistas. If we had all that memory going for this creation of new dynamic areas..we might have to trim on the epic scale TSM has. As well there is a teeny problem of crashing servers and characters NOT being areas that exisit anymore..which happens in WoW honestly and results in all sorts of troubles.

[Regalis]

2. Regalis, are you scripting for us? If not, why?

Yes and no.

I am working with Hialmar a bit on the Vault project.

The rest of what I am working on would be available to ALFA if it wanted to use any of it. I am, for the most part, trying to open people's minds to possibilities. Some minds are more open than others.

It is a question of whether the path forward involves more content or smarter content. (Smarter in the sense of dynamism and interoperability.)

Some believe that building new servers will spawn new players and new DMs. I view new content and items through the lens of 'diminishing marginal returns' and believe that the focus, for the entire NWN2 community, needs to be on enhancing content and systems in order to remain competitive in the broader online gaming space.

[Ithildur]

Eventually TSM will spawn something a little too big and NOM, no more farmer.

Eloquently put.

Regalis, I'd love to see some of your ideas tweaked and implemented.

Perhaps content can be scripted to offer other RP elements besides combat/rescue quests as well, ie conversations with NPCs that are more than simply 'talk to npc a over there and convince him to give up their brass knuckles, bring it back to me', but are actually small story/plots. Or perhaps a local bard who hangs out in a watering hole who for a price of coin for purchasing a drink or a high enough diplo/gather info check has a slew of useful lore/information on everything from various regional backgrounds (which are already in the ACR and would not require rewriting) to information on common religions (various dogmas should be somewhere in the module's content already I'd imagine), areas around the Marches/Swordcoast with warnings/dangers, information on monsters, various beverages available around the region (pre existing in the vanilla game), as well as false rumors and nonsense (perhaps on a low diplo/gather info roll)... anyways, getting a bit off topic, but then this is a brain storming thread.

[tatsuyasuou]

This is probably the last place someone green as me should be posting but as an aforementioned "new player" I thought I'd chime in and add my two cents. When I first joined ALFA the first thing I did was look for a handful of people to play with/RP with regularly so I wouldn't be one of those people that winds up wandering around in the easiest places looking for creeps to farm. That said, I knew nothing about EXP rewards, respawn rates of static spawns, etc. on the ALFA servers when I joined the community.

In any event, the crowd I fell in with made me decide to roll a character who is essentially dumb as a sack of rocks and burly as an ox. While I love to play the lovable lummox that misinterprets words and meanings of things and has an obviously difficult time understand much of what he's hearing, you can only contribute the same thing in tavern RP so much with this sort of character and, seeing as he's acting as the hired muscle for his tiny little band, makes him something of an untapped resource as there haven't been overly many heads to smash, at least that I have seen. Warranted I realize that Moonshae is very new and much of the proposed content has not been implemented but it does make one feel somewhat lackluster when they are limited in what they can add to casual conversation and yet they lack heads to crack.

Much of the DM based roleplay has been combat light as well, giving way more toward posturing and conversation than anything more physical. There is nothing wrong with this either but I suppose it just makes me feel as if my character will ultimately fall fallow with lack of use as he really cannot contribute overly much.

I guess the "tl;dr" here is that my response to the "keeping new players interested" statement from a previous post and as a new player I would respond with, "on a heavy RP server, a new player ought to make their own interest with those around him or her" but on the flip side, at least from my character's stance, much of his best roleplay would be done alongside hacking and hewing, which sadly he has found few opportunities to do and those he has found, from the perspective of experience gain have been very low.

[dergon darkhelm]

first, tatsuyasuou ..thanks for being the muscle! It has been fun and hope you're warming into it ....but as always -- Play what you want!

I'll try to find a bit more action for us....but trying to just build IC to make sense as a profit proposition. Don't lose faith, brother. There's hack n' slash to be had ....just a bit of a wait maybe

[Swift]

The only issue with scripted content in my view is the fact that anything more than "Take item A to NPC B" requires far more time to create than it takes for a PC to complete it. If the locations they are sent are random, it adds onto the testing that needs to be done to make sure everything works.

Ontop of that, what could be created in a month is likely to be consumed by PCs in a week, then you will start to fall into the WoW daily quest grind where players start to think "Ugh, not this one again".

I would love to see some scripted content in ALFA similar to the kinds of things that can be done in MMOs, it simply comes down to how feasible it is to create.

[Curmudgeon]

As it turns out, there was an issue with the way many of the TSM spawnpoints were configured that would cause them to eventually stop spawning after the server had been running for a while. This issue apparently goes back quite a ways, but never became evident until we got the server stable enough to stay up for many days at a time without a reset. I've spent the last couple weeks fixing this issue, and spawns should now be functioning as designed.