A Land Far Away - A New Hope

For discussion and formation of server proposals and teams.
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Heero
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Re: A Land Far Away - A New Hope

Post by Heero »

Here are some suggestions on how you can get rolling with this:

All the current build modules are out on DM FTP. Start by pulling each of these down then stripping out the content you want to keep into your new mod.

You can ask tech if you can create branch of the ACR code out on github. Its freely accessible to all so even if they dont want to create a branch for you there you can simply grab all the code files and place them into another temporary repository to allow you to make the edits to the ACR you desire such as not allowing level 1/2 PCs to die.

And, lastly, the obvious one is to simply start building Waterdeep or wherever it is you are thinking of building.

One of the nice things about ALFA is that it is all, for the most part, open source. The ACR is available to all to be viewed or modified (though check-ins are overseen by tech) and the mods are available to anyone who is a DM. Its all right there for the having and using.
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Re: A Land Far Away - A New Hope

Post by HEEGZ »

I think a new NWN2 module for ALFA is unrealistic. Consolidation could conceivably happen, though preferably one server at a time. I like having multiple servers though.

I've been thinking over the comments about our NWN2 content being mostly static and now PW like, which I agree with. There is a huge technical hurdle for updating NWN2 (toolset) which was not nearly as large in NWN1 (toolset).

Unfortunately, there are virtually no members interested or perhaps capable of creating live-ready content for NWN2. I plan to do a bit of experimenting with NWN1 if/when we get a server up and running. There was also a thread in off topic about Dungeon Forge as a newer game platform.

Maybe some consolidation of NWN2, and/or new/old game platforms could inject some new life. I've got a pending project for NWN2 BG that I plan to work on when I get some time, but the NWN2 toolset it a massive hurdle to getting things done though. I would prefer a more dynamic PW style of world, but it seems that is not to be in NWN2 (anymore?).
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CloudDancing
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Re: A Land Far Away - A New Hope

Post by CloudDancing »

I am really liking the idea of building a mega-server.
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Ithildur
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Re: A Land Far Away - A New Hope

Post by Ithildur »

We might be on to something; I just saw this thread now... and I've been having some similar thoughts running through my head which I chatted with a few folks about.

Building a Waterdeep from scratch is... while a great dream to have I think at this stage of the game with the lack of builders we have currently (which is what's causing a lot of our stagnation to begin with) it's a bit of a stretch to place as a primary goal; might be fine as a 'someday if we get a bunch of motivated and solid people on board' kind of dream rather than a realistic goal, certainly not an immediate goal.

I think we should seriously explore the possibility of consolidating the best parts of perhaps just one server to start, onto one of the better developed current servers like BG. I mean no disrespect to HDMs or take away from the work they put in, etc, but it may be a sacrifice for the greater good of ALFA to start thinking in terms of 'if server A or B isn't very polished, isn't actively being kept up, and most of it's content is never seen/used by anyone, then it might merit taking the parts that are well done and adding them to an existing server that's actively kept up'.

We're aware of players being scattered across thinly populated servers not being ideal, but the other thing that I was struck by this week was the same holds true of DMs. It's a poor/misallocation of valuable resources when DMs log into empty servers and struggle to find 1 player logged on when they are very much eager and wanting to DM, and that seems to be happening on MS and WHL (other than the anomaly of Ronan's campaign, which will soon be moving to TSM anyway).
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Re: A Land Far Away - A New Hope

Post by HEEGZ »

I think consolidation is the right thing for ALFA at this point. We struggle to make enough connections between DMs and players on a regular basis. What options would we seriously consider for consolidation at this point though?

I have attempted to build NWN2 Waterdeep before... I just don't see it happening, ever. Also, there is no reason why one of our existing servers couldn't be used as a hub, they all have road/water exits off server.

I have had a look at the work in progress world server module and it is basically barely started. There are hundreds or thousands of man hours needed to get it anywhere close to a beta stage I think.
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Adanu
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Re: A Land Far Away - A New Hope

Post by Adanu »

If people seriously want consolidation, then we seriously need to talk about how to handle the no playing on your DMed server rule.

This would also require rethinking the two PCs rule. I like both my PCs and have no desire to choose one over the other, nor do I want to give up DMing on WHL just because of a small slump in numbers.
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CloudDancing
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Re: A Land Far Away - A New Hope

Post by CloudDancing »

Maybe it is merely a problem of perspective. We could easily attach WHL to BG. And TSM and MS would have to stand alone adding more content as we/they see fit.

Right now we've got four people willing to support these four servers and we've got a few dms for each server. And we've got players enough to play 2 PCs if they want to AND be a dm on a server.

It is these invisible lines we draw for our dms and players. A number of dms have tried to become world dms and sacrificed their ability to play characters. Then they found their parties boxed in because some PCs could'nt travel to some servers due to their players being a DM on that server.

So at this time four servers serve a purpose. They can't serve their purpose if we just used two servers because that would shut down travel entirely unless of course you weren't a dm or only had one PC.

So we are back to the whole "you can't dm where you play or play where you dm or play where you already have a PC"

And I think these rules are valid because of the 4 server system is in place.

Plus who really wants to decide who stays and who goes? BG and TSM are the most complete servers at this time. MS lacks static content entirely but has lots of lovely areas to work with, and WHL is WHL; it is more designed for party play due to the vast stretches of untamed lands.
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Re: A Land Far Away - A New Hope

Post by Ithildur »

CloudDancing wrote: Then they found their parties boxed in because some PCs could'nt travel to some servers due to their players being a DM on that server.
I thought this was never a real issue? People can and have gotten permission for special/temporary exceptions under close DM supervision for a variety of things. I don't think Ronan's crew have had any issues with being unable to play on server X because of this? Did the Rumple crew have problems?

As for who really wants to make the tough call... first things first perhaps? If this is something that's going to be seriously on the table, then that should be evaluated first, have honest evaluation/dialog about what a good decision is, etc. before being concerned about how/who leads a decision that ultimately is deemed unnecessary/bad and isn't going to be pursued.

Personally I kind of think pushing through/spearheading difficult decisions is where someone with a 'Lead' on their title comes in, and the stuff in our charter/pillar also gives me the impression that the Lead Admin is the person with the spotlight on them at some point when there are unpopular/difficult decisions on the table.
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Re: A Land Far Away - A New Hope

Post by Rumple C »

Sign of the times. When fishing is bad, the fishermen buy a bigger net.

If you're talking of building this ark (and addressing rule changes), I think it needs to be with a frank acknowledgement that without it ALFA is screwed in the medium term, thus it -might- have community buy in and community participation in its creation. Because that is what you will need to make it a reality. A handful of people won't see it done in a timely fashion. Too slow will be too late.

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Re: A Land Far Away - A New Hope

Post by HEEGZ »

I'm not sure that adding the WHL content to BG is feasible. Though we could probably connect some of it, say Soubar up to Dragonspear Castle. The OLM would not be transferred though.

@Ith
I think this thread is precisely where that conversation is starting to happen? Or do you mean make a new thread for this purpose?

As much as I hate to think about removing some servers, some consolidation would help us in my opinion. Jumping down from 4 to 1 servers seems really drastic, but would give us more player and DM density. I think perhaps keeping two servers going would be a nice interim solution until we feel the need to go to a single server. TSM and BG seem to have the best newbie friendly areas, with static content to fairly easily get to level 3+.

I was really looking forward to DMing on MS and WHL again but can't seem to find PCs to DM there. I am planning to take some of my PCs from BG to both of them soon, so to me it is a matter of what is good for ALFA, versus what would I prefer to do. Keeping all four servers online is still possible, but is it good for us if our player/DM base is very spread out?

CD makes a good point. If/when we consolidate our servers, we need to permit DMs to play where they DM. If BG is kept online, I will support this rule change on BG. I am not sure if the consolidation is the right decision, right now, but when we get to it, I believe we will need to implement this rule change. If we go down to a single server, it will become almost mandatory IMHO.

Finally, in regards to the OP, I would love to have a WD server. Unfortunately, I spent over a year trying to help build one, and burned out, and then quit playing NWN2 for almost 5 years. I am positive that such a project will never see the light of day. Both MS and BG make sense as ports to other places in Faerun, and Silvy is a bit more of a stretch...

As for the world server idea, the current project is barely started and would take a lot of time to complete. I would rather see us drop to a port/hub server, and spend that time and energy making one-off locations across Faerun for us to visit. We could put these new locations onto a world server and then alternate them from time to time, or host them on in the same module, but not connected.

What it comes down to for me though, is that any building effort should be spent directly on creating playable areas, as this is something sorely lacking in NWN2 compared to NWN1. Creating a hub and over map are nice ideas, but not practical for DM play in NWN2 ALFA at this point in time.

I'd like to wrap up this post by stating that I will support whatever our active community members want to do. Mostly I am just reflecting and thinking about how to keep ALFA going for as long as possible, and in particular, the connections between DMs and players.
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Re: A Land Far Away - A New Hope

Post by Zelknolf »

It is probably worth noting that we probably can't sew any two servers together, on account of the way nwn2server handles resources (namely, by loading all of them into memory and never unloading them). Even adding the relatively-svelt WHL to our not-quite-as-svelt (but smaller than the remaining two) BG would be a hefty combination.

Though we'd probably be able to achieve a lot of that consolidation through transportation, and could probably make ALFA into hub and spokes, and make the hub server form itself by releasing content. This is basically what happened in 2011-2, which was reasonably successful.
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Re: A Land Far Away - A New Hope

Post by HEEGZ »

Zelknolf wrote:Though we'd probably be able to achieve a lot of that consolidation through transportation, and could probably make ALFA into hub and spokes, and make the hub server form itself by releasing content. This is basically what happened in 2011-2, which was reasonably successful.
This sounds enticing but I have no idea what you are referring to. Can you be more specific or give me an example or vision of what this might look like please?

[edit]
Is this the idea where we have a hub server and many smaller modules that connect to the hub server for new playing grounds? This is similar in concept to the two ideas that Boom and I have proposed the last 5 months or so.
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Re: A Land Far Away - A New Hope

Post by Zelknolf »

HEEGZ wrote:This sounds enticing but I have no idea what you are referring to. Can you be more specific or give me an example or vision of what this might look like please?
In 2011-2012, ALFA de-facto moved onto a hub and spokes model-- that is, people basically played on one server and took trips to the others, with small irregular groups that just settled on the others, usually because they didn't play often and had regular sessions-- through having a central server with a bunch of portals (BG) which was regularly updating, especially to include additional static content, and BG also took to be an early/only adopter of features from core content. This was around a period of (at least initially) relative inactivity in the other servers, so BG was where the content was, which resulted in some increased player density. BG had a few regular DMs and a few more irregular DMs to add spice/variety to things afoot, and a big event in the middle of it (lich problems and a multiple-charge helm of opposite alignment). Basically if you want to gather up a bunch of humans to spend their leisure time in a certain place, then you need that place to provide novelty, and as all of our servers are currently basically empty when sans-DM, we've good reason to believe that they're played out, that a similar addition of interesting/discoverable content would draw attention, and that we could increase the effects of this if we made it easier to get to the content and/or to get to locations where players are likely to be.

The trick of course is that you need at least two active and engaged contributors to make this work-- need someone to work on the module and someone to make core changes to support the module work and they need to share openly with one another so that they can contribute to and/or rely on one another's work (or you need a team that is willing to cede significant portions of build to someone who will generate content-- important bit is that we know this doesn't work if there are bottlenecks or secrecy, because either will stop you from getting content out regularly enough to keep the server fresh and novel, which has a lot to do with why this never happened to TSM and contributed to it ceasing to happen to BG [combined with people burning out]).
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Re: A Land Far Away - A New Hope

Post by HEEGZ »

okay thanks. i have some ideas i'd like to bounce off of you on IRC later tonight or this weekend zelk.
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Re: A Land Far Away - A New Hope

Post by Castano »

before we start reformulating our NWN2 servers I'd like to see some data that we aren't just going through a "people are busy with stuff" spring period. ALFA player numbers wax and wane over time. If we had an honest graph of hours played by month that spanned a few years that would be helpful.

obv. going hub and spoke is meaningless if HDMs step up and start adding content and DM sessions, so I do not see how you can enforce it.
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