What people think of ALFA

Rick7475 · Post by **Rick7475** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 2:12 am

2 sides to every story.

We kick jerks out of ALFA, and the same jerks bitch on the boards. The only way to confront that sort of thing is to make sure we have the best PW for our genre of RP and then let the positive comments speak for themselves.

Electryc · Post by **Electryc** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 2:18 am

Rick7475 wrote:2 sides to every story.

We kick jerks out of ALFA, and the same jerks b*tch on the boards. The only way to confront that sort of thing is to make sure we have the best PW for our genre of RP and then let the positive comments speak for themselves.

Rick about says it all. +1

Swift · Post by **Swift** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 4:01 am

As a rule, you will rarely ever hear positive comments on forums about any games. The people that are enjoying the game are usually too busy or uninterested in trawling other forums talking the place up...they would rather be playing.

Those that do not enjoy the game, they have all the time in the world to bitch, moan and just generally drag it down on forums.

Look at just about any forums for any game, and the negative far outweighs the positive.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 4:05 am

That is true Rick and I couldn't agree more. I am just concerned about the slander that ALFA has received over the past few years by the people who got caught in their game to be Chiefs in a land where indians are scarce.
Like the ones who wrote those two quotes I posted. They whinned all the time on the forums here about how bad they had it but never lifted a freaking finger to help fix a problem that was out in the open. Though they were handy to point fingers at everyone else till they got their hands caught in the cookie jar.

I personally love ALFA and the idea for which it stands. One realm under the guide of people who listen to what the members want.

ç i p h é r · Post by **ç i p h é r** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 4:37 am

There's no such thing as BAD press. It's better to bathe in notoriety than wallow in obscurity. The more people talk about ALFA, the more curiosity it will engender in the minds of readers. Some will eventually come here to see what all the talk is about for themselves.

So go ahead. Bash away I say. Fill up forums everywhere with pages upon pages of whining about how great ALFA used to be and how bad the folks at ALFA are today.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 4:38 am

I want everyone to remember back to 2003. At least everyone who has been in ALFA that long. We had over 1200 members at that time. The reason ALFA has lost its luster is in fact caused by the negative feed back of pissed off ex ALFA members.
I actually stopped playing in ALFA about 2 years ago because of all the witch hunting going on. The idea of being limited on the XP I gain because I play 10-15 hours a day is absurd.

Being disabled and having a lot of time to sit in front of a PC for hours on end and having the higher ups say I can't is bs. I joined ALFA because it was a RP PW. I always put RP before everything. I RP'ed and explored servers with other PC's. Had a blast.

Then the hiccup and being limited to xp per week/then per day/then per hour. Its was stupid imho. We ( I mean all of ALFA) lost a lot of great players because of that. Then they said more than X number of gold per level was to much. Well isn't that what DND is about? Gold and Glory. You really can't have one without the other.

JaydeMoon · Post by **JaydeMoon** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 5:14 am

As for XP limitations, I only KNOW of one place that this occured, and I applaud the reasoning behind it. It might have happened in other places, but I have seen no limitation on XP a player can earn in any given time period.

Now, the DMs have guidelines on how much to award, but that's less about slowing down players and more about making sure DM A isn't giving Player A 5 times as much XP as DM B gives to Player B for the same thing.

As for limiting wealth, again, there is not (with the major exception of properties that are simply removed from ALFA's environment and therefore not suitable to be held by players, but I would like to note that this is irregardless of actual value of the items) any rule that says a player cannot have X amount of wealth.

And again, the DMs themselves have GUIDELINES on how to distribute wealth, and those guidelines follow the numbers put forth by the 3.5 DMG. Why do we have those guidelines? Again, it's balance issues. I don't think ANYONE suitable for this community agrees that a level 1 PC should be carting around a +5 sword (though it is possible, and if it happened, the player would not be 'punished' by removal of said item so long as non of its properties were illegal properties).

I agree with you, Stormbringer, that cool items are a part of DnD. The standards team has worked hard to ensure that not only do DMs know what is 'too much', but also what is 'too little', and slowly, DMs are coming around to a more balanced way of thinking when it comes to items. Which means players overall are seeing them a little more than before while at the same time lowering the rate of those individual PCs who are head and shoulders above their peers in terms of wealth.

What's my point? That as a community we are maturing. We are taking note of what worked and what didn't and incorporating more of the former while discarding more of the latter. Are we perfect yet? No. But I'll tell you what, there is a steady stream of new applicants, so I don't feel like we're floundering.

I know of at least one new app who's playing (on SD) and is having a blast, having found no instances of DM pwnage, player cliquishness, favoritism, or eliteness.

And I think you'll start to find more and more of that.

A few places still need some work, but I still love it here.

ThinkTank · Post by **ThinkTank** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 6:24 am

Ahhh the stages of alfadom. Hopeful Ignorance > Creeping Doubts > Hate & Anger > Grudging Acceptance & Cynacism.

You start with:

"Hay this alfa thing looks GREAT!, all these people, and no griefers or assholes. Man even multilinked servers covering all my favoret citys! it will be like living in faerun."

Then:

"Hmmm, theres not really anyone around... hello? well I surpose I can go grind this.. oh high DM, WHAT!? no dont kill me I didnt mean to try and get XP & lewt!, *phew* ok now... oh wait a chat program? cewl"

Shortly Followed By:

"WHat do you mean drow are shat? bu..bu..buh I want to play a Drow Ranger! buuhuu why are you all so cruel."

And Then:

"WTF! scew you DM/Player/Admin/whatever!!! your not the boss of me!!11!1!"

And after a period of sulking & lurking:

"Meh, back, hate you all, gonna go make a load of throw away PCs, maybe DM; and generaly hang around cus Iv got nothing better to do."

Until Finaly:

"Hay look a annoyingly happy newb logged onto chat asking about drow rangers, lets crucify the foo and then go bitch in ma favoret dead horse thread about how admin/dm/player/rule/mylife sucks!"

indio · Post by **indio** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 7:13 am

ç i p h é r wrote:There's no such thing as BAD press. It's better to bathe in notoriety than wallow in obscurity. The more people talk about ALFA, the more curiosity it will engender in the minds of readers. Some will eventually come here to see what all the talk is about for themselves.

So go ahead. Bash away I say. Fill up forums everywhere with pages upon pages of whining about how great ALFA used to be and how bad the folks at ALFA are today.

Perfect.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 7:40 am

I spent almost 2 years on TLR. The server was awesome. Not phat loot drops.. no ubber monsters or NPC's to mess with. My first high level PC. A 6/1 Ranger Cleric had +1 leather. Braceirs that gave her +1 to dex. A +1 rapier with 1d4 electric damage( I think). + 1 ring protection. amulet of Will +1. She had other misc items but I thought they were great for her level. (And so did the dragon that killed her..young dragon white and evil).

The Dm's there didn't place spawns on us that were outrageous. They challanged us hard though and I spent several DM quest on the edge of my seat trying to stay alive. Her death was not a real problem for me.

I made a new PC and RP'ed him. Traveled to other servers and WOW. The ubber critters.. kobolds with 40 + hp's casting 6th level spells. Creatures that in one hit did 50+damage without a crit. Thats what got me. Ubber drops from lowly kobolds. Myself and another PC in one hour made around 10k (each) of gold trying to fight our way in and out of a cave. you bet your arse I let the DM know about the ubber drops and nothing was ever said about it.

I understand about the limits but if every server does not conform to the limits then it loses its luster. It becomes a haven for PG'ing. Then ADMINS start pointing fingers. If the HDM's don't make the ubber critters and drops then there can be no PG'ing.

Take DF for instance. (no offense Rick). Myself and Stormseeker explored for about a week on the server when it first went live. We found some bugs and reported them to Rick. We found some exploits that only higher level PC's would find( I was 7th level and Seeker was 8th I think) and let Rick know as soon as we logged off the server. He got the ones we found fixed as soon as he could. There was some that was not found till I was exploring with another PC later on but they was reported and I didn't ever follow up to see if they were fixed but I am sure they was.

The biggest complaint I ever had with ALFA is many good players get punished for the few bad.

Rotku · Post by **Rotku** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 8:27 am

I honestly think that way of doing things (with the big witch hunts) is well and truly in our past. As Jayde rightfully stated ALFA is learning and maturing. We are learning from the mistakes that were made during (and before) NWN1, as we have been for many years now. It's a slow process, but it's certainly happening - you can see the effects around you. With any luck, these changes will give us a great platform to attract and maintain new community members once we start to get some good solid work on the table and I know for certain that we have some amazing masterworks in production.

AlmightyTDawg · Post by **AlmightyTDawg** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 10:33 am

Stormbringer wrote:I understand about the limits but if every server does not conform to the limits then it loses its luster. It becomes a haven for PG'ing. Then ADMINS start pointing fingers. If the HDM's don't make the ubber critters and drops then there can be no PG'ing.

Seeing as this has inevitably returned to the "witch hunt" idea, I think I'll return to one of my earlier comments. I don't think we've always taken the most sensitive steps to get from point A to point B, and part of that problem at least in the beginning was manpower. There were too many things that needed to happen, a lot of which meant a lot of work examining, then a lot of work by HDMs correcting, and a lot of efforts with individual ADMs who may or may not have been compliant. Coupled with that, we (used ambiguously because it changed on various subjects) couldn't introduce change too quickly, at least at first - the nature of ALFA politics was a bit too reactive and for my money, some HDMs would look on change as advancing another "clique" or attacking them.

So "test cases" were the order of the day. You'd find one of what you thought were the larger and more glaring issues, and hit on that publicly. Chip at the edges, the greatest excesses, where if you made a decent enough case most people would agree. It was all about avoiding biting off more than you could chew, with a long 2-year plan in mind. Heh, now mixed in that were a lot of things I could have never expected - like the exodus following the Khondar kerfluffle and some genuinely personal and nasty dogfights in the mix (particularly back when election threads weren't nearly so civil). I think some people caught some bad raps they just didn't really deserve.

And others, like Storm, rightly didn't like an atmosphere where they were always wondering if ALFA was going to, in its inimitable random walk sort of way, nominate them as "public enemy #1." The consequence of not tackling things all at once is that you're creating an atmosphere where you know change is coming, but don't know where on a given day. I had always hoped we'd get some more volunteerism (shout out to those who I did talk to over the years), but I understand that for the in-the-trenches player, it was more work than people cared about. And that was the feedback part of the loop that always made it a small effort from a determined core, rather than a groundswell.

ALFA is always going to have that legacy. While things are much more on the even keel now, the path to get there was rocky. I don't think we've always done right by some people. But on the flipside, I think some people haven't done right by us either - demanding too much for themselves at the expense of the community. That's the story that'll never be told outside ALFA.

Post by **ayergo** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 4:08 pm

Stormbringer wrote: The biggest complaint I ever had with ALFA is many good players get punished for the few bad.

QFT

Stormseeker · Post by **Stormseeker** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 4:08 pm

The question is not about what others think of alfa but what do the alfan's past and present think. Sure there will be a lot in the past with problems, for that matter there will be quite a few in the present too. Myself i am unhappy with the place(due to multiple factors) but hopeful of the future in nwn2. Even though i may be unhappy i won't say a bad word about the place outside my fellow alfan's...after all i am a clannish hillbilly and you just don't talk bad about your "kin" to anyone outside the family. *grins*

fluffmonster · Post by **fluffmonster** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 4:12 pm

The removal of static content to guard against potential exploitation was a tremendous, huge mistake. Thankfully, server teams are putting the stuff back in. I think letting HDMs have the authority to unilaterally ban individuals from their servers was pretty critical in emphasising that problem players can be removed without denying everybody else content.