Brainstorm: The Next Evolution of Alfa

[Galadorn]

I am one who in 4 years playing my PC rarely was a part of any "regular" campain - some monthly rushes, but never long term. On and off, mostly on, there were numbers of randoms on, some new but most veteran players playing new or veteran PCs. It was hot and cold, but I never worried if it was too hot with numbers, there was usually someone i'd pass by and RP was good. Lately and for a while in fact there just is no one on. I don't mind, i've been here over 10 years also and I'll remain, but it would be good to see 15-20 players on the same time again. It wasn't THAT long ago that we did have those numbers.

I do not think NWN2 ALFA should die, but it does seem a lot of behind the scenes work is being done (SO appreciative of this!) to keep what is still happening running smoohtly and beautifully that does not get 'used' by enough people across 4 servers. It always feels like it's moving ahead for some "burst" of attention we "might" get in some future... as if we're all waiting to see when and hopefully we'll be active in-game when it does/will?

The 2 server idea is a great one. Hell, even nowadays 1 server would be so great. No need to travel, never an issue with when you were last on another server, and most of all, whenever anyone is online, they're automatically on the same server. Hubs in-game will develop and people will RP for better or worse sometimes even when they personally wouldn't even want to.

I wish we had 8 servers, but only if there's 10-20 people on each one. That is not going to happen (see all of the above), but 1 server, means outside of game, when you're in the mood, check out who's online, and if 6 people are (that's NOT many), but if those 6 are on 1 server, then you know you'll run into someone for some RP.

I love MS, but there's no solid "hub". My PC is less than direct with other PCs, but I as a player still do want to RP/interact even if it's indirect RP in the same "area"... people always end up coming to my PC to initiate interaction, and i rarely ever snub anyone since ultimately that was the super-long-term charm/plan of my PC. But the last year or so, my PC is the one travelling FOREVER across all servers just trying to SEE anyone else even when other people ARE online. I spend multiple hours wandering some days and never even see another PC in the same area in the meta-party-screen even.

TSM is amazing, but SO hard to find others. I know it seems counterproductive but I do not like using "tells" to meet up, never did, I like the "natural meet up" between RPers because it feels much more immersive for me... but even I the past 6-12 months have reverted to using tells (rarely) just to find out where the hell anyone is. There was a golden time, not even THAT long ago, that we never needed tells.

Go team 1 server! More people will play I know it. Then, when the community swells up a bit more, add a 2nd server. *shrugs*

[Rumple C]

Just so ya'll know... Obsidian (makers of nwn and nwn2) has teamed up with paizo (maker of pathfinder) for the purposes of make PC games based on paizos intellectual property. First game up is a digitized card game.

Seeds of hope for a nwn3 game by another name? I predict such an announcement within a year.

[Zelknolf]

Good point. When I talk about communities I mean player bases. e.g. NWN2 has a daily player base of ____ if you add all the servers up and ___ active accounts (e.g. people who own NWN2 and still play it). This represents a group we can recruit from and service with ALFA modules.

A developer base is nice if your goal is to build stuff for the sake of building it. The first criteria for any expansion to a second platform might be "we will be using System X because System X has 1000/2000 whatever total players and of that group there is an RP presence." Unity is not going to work if it's just being used to make various games. Where would the players come from?

The other option is to actually build a game with Unity and distribute it (for free) - this would be the creation of our own game title. ALFA SRD let's call it for sake of having a name. You'd have to tackle the aspect of making the product, and getting it to its target audience. Essentially from what I read above Unity involves becoming a freeware gaming company. I am not opposed to that concept but you will need much more regimentation in the build out with due dates etc. And you risk not gathering players during your title launch.

This is pretty much what I'd meant by my summary of the state-- you won't find another community that follows an engine that can be customized to the degree that we need for a game like ALFA. We could try to make it, but we would need to restructure ourselves to facilitate the creation of software. So things that have historically been an impediment would have to not interfere with the project and we'd probably have to try to lure in more actually-skilled people, but then success means that we can draw from any gaming community (after all, game is free. What do folk have to lose? Some time? Maybe-- but they'd probably have lost time and money trying a bad game with a price tag)

Though the obvious counter to it is that we would have to do community building anyway, were we to go this route, and we could just put that effort into rebuilding our player community. We haven't had an LA willing to do that part of the LA's job in some time (it tends to be unskilled people trying to get leverage over the working admin), and thus the attitude of noting that it's someone's job and bitching that said person is bad at it (or just doesn't do it) is easy, just probably not good for our community's survival.

[Castano]

Would the effort be better spent buying the NWN2 game as a gift for new members? That's been done before on a small scale. You are talking the difference between spending say $1000-2000 (in USD) versus the collective multi 1000s of hours it would take to build a brand new product and then get it in people's hands. To me it is 6 or a 1/2 dozen. Build ALFA SRD (the new game) and get 100+ people to play it versus getting people to buy and install nwn2.


The only thing going for ALFA SRD is it would be "new". People like new stuff.

[oldgrayrogue]

Like I said, most times I log on the CE says there is somewhere between 200 -300 players logged on playing NWN2. Like half of those are logged in to 2 to 3 servers. Not ours. That is our player base, unless folks like Dergon can get their old PnP pals to buy the game and give ALFA a try. The complaints I have heard about ALFA most often from new players is that it is "empty" or there is "nothing to do." Once someone RPs with them, they usually love it though. If we want to keep ALFA PW the solution is for more players to log on more often. If we want to finally just make the switch (officially) to purely campaign style play then I think we need to change a lot of our rules.

[Castano]

I have played on those higher population servers and they are built like and function like MMOs. The reason the people from over there don't come over here much is because we do not offer the steady stream of endorphin releasing content an MMO does.

RP folks have always made up a small sliver of the NWN2 community. If you want those 200 to visit us we will need to become more like an MMO.

Either that or people who are members here could start logging in more and gaming with each other.

[Zelknolf]

Would the effort be better spent buying the NWN2 game as a gift for new members? That's been done before on a small scale. You are talking the difference between spending say $1000-2000 (in USD) versus the collective multi 1000s of hours it would take to build a brand new product and then get it in people's hands. To me it is 6 or a 1/2 dozen. Build ALFA SRD (the new game) and get 100+ people to play it versus getting people to buy and install nwn2.

Well, 1000 hours of work doesn't produce anything close to a finished engine (see my various Mundasia projects). But even if we make the completely-insane estimate of 1000 hours of work vs. 100 copies of NWN2, you'd have to assume that software developer time is worth manual labor wages to dub them equal (and it's not). Though I didn't really bring up Unity as something we'd realistically transition to-- I've looked into it, sure; we've been talking about potential platform transitions on and off for a couple years, and anything that claims to come with a toolset at least got looked at. I think it's more an example of how doomed we'd be if we tried. We're not big enough, we're not organized for it, and we'd be picking it up for the wrong reasons (really, the "right" reason would be if we needed to control the source of our game-- there's lots of advantages to that, but see previous posts for how it blows up).


So, let's say hypothetically we had free NWN2s to give out to people. Or non-hypothetically. I'm perfectly happy buying 10 copies to pilot this, if there's real willingness from people who are better at advertisement/ visibility to work with it. Offer them up with a deal that if you're an active player on ALFA (defined as playing at least twice a month for at least three hours each play session), you keep your license to use one of my NWN2s. Fall off of that, we give it to someone else. How do we get these ten people to try our game? Waggling a thing about for free with no visibility is hardly a game changer (pun intended).

[boombrakh]

Would the effort be better spent buying the NWN2 game as a gift for new members?

What an absolutely stellar idea!

[Castano]

Well we'd need to waggle about the free games someplace, that's for sure. Same issue as making a new game, you need to waggle about that too and a lot.

I think we've written advertisements fro ALFA before. They need to get posted to gaming forums with links back here. We should post the availability of free nwn2 games on our main site as well.

Let's do a pilot of 10 games then? See if we can find 10 people.

[Zelknolf]

If we can get a more-concrete plan than that and someone to carry it out, sure. Seems a bit flimsy right now.

And as Boom's tongue-sticking-out face indicates, he did something very similar a while back and I don't recall what happened to any related copies of NWN2.

[Analogkid]

I'll help cover the cost of offering free games.....within reason

[Castano]

And as Boom's tongue-sticking-out face indicates, he did something very similar a while back and I don't recall what happened to any related copies of NWN2.

Yep I know he did that's why I called it out in my post. Not sure how many people we got, but iirc the times members have done this they have personally known the people they were buying for.

I think a pledge of support (w/o transferring the money) is worthwhile in and of itself. If we get someone to come join good, if we get 10 someone's proof of principle and double triple awesome goodness.

How should we advertise this AK? Are there any RP-focused forums or communities we can post the free 10 games link in?

I know Second Life has a few active fantasy RP communities (pretty much all that is left of SL is the RP groups and of course the cyber sex crowd). If any of these have forums and someone can search the net to locate them that would be great. We need a permanent post up not a spammy IM to in group chat.

[Rumple C]

I really think you guys need a venue/campaign to put new players. Simply getting people to log into an unfamiliar, empty, and fatal to solo PCs server will only see them spin right back out that revolving door.

Padding any recruitment post with potential campaign/DM sessions will go a long way towards player retention methinks.

[Castano]

Good idea Rumple, we need a welcoming committee, e.g. a DM to run a group for them on a weekend day at a set time. Or at least a set time for them to gather and RP together if the DM can't make it to that session.

[boombrakh]

Not sure how many people we got, but iirc the times members have done this they have personally known the people they were buying for.

I believe I bought a copy to.. uhmm.. was it RDW? Regardless, I didn't know the guy. But yeah, in general I think it's the way you describe it above. I've bought four games where one has gone to the unknown guy, one has gone to a friend and two has been sent to someone in the community who was in charge of some player-thingy.

#NamesEscapeMe