A Land Far Away

.... off more than you can chew.

ALFA currently has 7 additional servers in development for NWN2 with BG being the most advanced towards live I believe. I am not sure how our volunteer labor force is divided and allocated to various projects, but has anyone given thought to placing the less developed projects on hold to "finish" the next server up ? The quid pro quo could be that those with live servers must pledge to help get the next in line to live.

Seems that many think another live server will solve some pending issues. Just a thought.

BTW this is not meant as a slight to anyone working on servers in development. All of you are amazing and put out truly quality work that is tons of fun to play with and in. Just a suggestion on a possible reallocation of resources as a way to get the next and then the next project to live as they each get close. This may be done already, not sure.

half of those 7 are probably arent even being worked on atm. I personally think keeping us informed of progress every now and then would go along way. Some beta servers at the moment are mostly vaporware.

I know Thang is getting back into doing Moonsea and i cant wait to see the place. With what the Moonsea team had planned before it went kaput this server looked like it would have shaped up into something really awesome.

TFN really hasnt had much going on because Marklos has a serious case of not being able to stay focused on one thing for too long. That and hes playing a million MMOs I told him id help him out and i know Aki is working on some stuff as well. Im not knocking Marky because I love em to death, but sometimes I think Marky would be better as a builder rather than a HDM because his time is limited and it takes someone with more time to manage everyday tasks. Thats just my opinion and take it with a grain of salt. He knows im not knocking him.

Waterdeep...I have no idea whats going on here. Cipher said something about Indio working on it. No idea if Cipher has any other builders helping out. Cipher are you building at all on this server or doing mostly scripting?

The Underdark server that shows Inaubryn working on it I serious doubt is even being worked on at all. I could be wrong but Ill leave Inaubryn to say offically.

The Island Kingdoms...no word whatsoever about this server. Honestly, I think servers without some form of showing progress should be "yanked". If you dont have anything to show then put it back in the pool and let others have a chance to grab the server area and work on it if they can show a qualified team and server proposition.

Western Heartlands.... Teric is trying. Slowly, but hes trying. Im sure he could use some help. People should get with Teric and see what they can do to help out.

Baldurs Gate..same thing. Ayergo is doing his best but he needs help. Im not sure what phase of testing you would consider this server because I havent really done much looking around there.

Last but not least... Nalo has proposed doing a Cormyr server. This is all pretty much in the planning stages as far as I know. Im guessing hes just getting a feel for who would help out. He will need a good group of builders to help him out.

I honestly wouldnt mind seeing new server proposal ideas being accepted as long as those teams can honestly have something to show for being accepted within 5 months or less of their being accepted. I hear all the time this is a volunteer project and you cant force people to do anything..well it shows. If I were to do a server I would be damn sure I had the right team together before I put in a proposal and that we were all on the same page when it came to ideas and being around to get work done.

Well Dan the server proposal process is pretty much considered to have been a bad idea as we lost builders over it. And even with a fully fleshed out team stuff happens and then you're team is one Joe.

If a team has already proposed to do a server and that's the one you wanted to propose, just join their team. Then if the rest are inactive, take it over.

Danubus wrote:Western Heartlands.... Teric is trying. Slowly, but hes trying. Im sure he could use some help. People should get with Teric and see what they can do to help out.

Thank you for the cheerleading, Dan. I am nearing a point of asking for more volunteers with specific jobs in mind. It is on record, however that I'm happy to take on non-toolsetting help. What I need now is writers more than builders. So if you think you can write D&D scenarios that will entertain and enthrall the average ALFAn ... ...

Almost all the server proposals got accepted pretty much straight off the bat. IIRC, the only ones that didn't were Murky's SD proposal and then Murky's TSM proposal.

What we really needed was a different tactic. We needed to focus on getting a single server up and running first to use as a base mod, with everyone who wanted to build to get put to work on that. That would have saved a load of stress and weeks or even months of manpower on each and every other server being built and it would have had us live a lot earlier. But ALFA was worried about it driving away builders - builders who have dropped off the radar due to the shear amount of work and boredom involved in building a server in NWN2 anyway - and the Admin of the time had their heads too far up in the clouds.

After that, I would have preferred to keep the number of servers fairly low. But that's a different issue.

What builders? Do we have any left?

Oh, BTW, a small example of what's involved in building; 011 is based on the OAS, right? The OAS has no haks. When I imported the ALFA haks into the mod all the NPCs shoes disappeared. So there's a couple of days of interesting work right there...

Edited for sarcasm

I'm always looking for more builders and testers. No one has yet conquered my dungeons already in.

WD has bits and pieces done, but it's not actively being worked on at the moment. Indio was resurrecting the effort until his hiatus, but even Hercules needs a vacation.

That aside, this is not a new topic. It has been talked about many times and we have at various intervals come together to help move the project along. Honestly, I think the only thing lacking is perhaps some top level organization; a single project list rather than the distributed ones on the various server forums and elsewhere. That would be enormously helpful for a variety of reasons, but mostly so that everyone can get a sense of the roadmap (what we've done and what we've yet to do).

I can certainly organize that if there's a desire on the part of HDMs to provide that kind of input.

ç i p h é r wrote:WD has bits and pieces done, but it's not actively being worked on at the moment. Indio was resurrecting the effort until his hiatus, but even Hercules needs a vacation.

That aside, this is not a new topic. It has been talked about many times and we have at various intervals come together to help move the project along. Honestly, I think the only thing lacking is perhaps some top level organization; a single project list rather than the distributed ones on the various server forums and elsewhere. That would be enormously helpful for a variety of reasons, but mostly so that everyone can get a sense of the roadmap (what we've done and what we've yet to do).

I can certainly organize that if there's a desire on the part of HDMs to provide that kind of input.

A very good idea - we should definitely contact the respective HDMs and get a status list like that. Personally I'd like to get those who are willing to pitch in to help on the server closest to live, moving our 'top priority' server eventually down the list.

It's been great to take a holiday....really helps recharge. Recommended to any builder/DM feeling the strain.

I'm still a while away from returning. No idea how long. But the news of the expansion is just terrific and ensures we will end up with a streamlined building/DM/client platforms, and enough content to last a few years.

Instead of uploading SKullport, I'm going to be starting work on it again soon, probably long before I resume active forum activity. But Skullport will be a small server with the capacity to be Live sooner rather than later with the right sort of help, something the originator of this thread excels at.

See you all soon.

I agree with the OP in principle but in reality it just cant work that way for all builders.. The toolset is often fraught with issues that can become really demotivating at times.

If I didnt have an extremely strong passion to build the Moonsea there is just no way I'd be rebuilding pretty much the entire mod for the 13th time.

I've often thought about helping other teams but TSM, BG, TFN, those regions never grabbed me hence I dont think I could stay motivated and focussed to build for them.

Builders arent work units, they are people attempting to bring their creative vision to ALFA. Its a volunteer thing and it takes large chunks of our precious spare time which is relaxing if you are getting creative. If however some admin ruled that "You will all now build on this server" or even if the community turned around to me and said "Its not fair that you are building what you love building while I am waiting for a servar to play on, build with the other guys you miscreant" I would have to say "Sorry, not interested" and take my building elsewhere.

I dont tell you how to play your characters in your spare time so you dont get to tell me how or where to build in mine..

LancasterX_2 wrote:What builders? Do we have any left?

Just because most builders dont go around bignoting themselves doesnt mean they arent working behind the scenes. Usually we are too busy building s**t to worry about telling everyone how great we are on teh forums.

Thangorn wrote: Just because most builders dont go around bignoting themselves doesnt mean they arent working behind the scenes. Usually we are too busy building s**t to worry about telling everyone how great we are on teh forums.

hehe

Thangorn:

Your comments and point of view are well taken. If volunteer work is not rewarding then why do it? That's as it should be. I did not mean to suggest that Admin should dictate to builders what project they are required to work on, but more of a collaborative structure, where people could volunteer to do some of the debugging and whatnot that needs to be done to get the next project in line to live in return for some of the same cooperation when it is their server's turn to get to live. I just think that type of cooperation could get the most projects completed in an orderly fashion so that everyone's vision is given life and everyone benefits. Communication and coordination about which projects are furthest along is indeed the first step.

By no means was my intent to stifle anyone's creative urges, nor to urge anyone to involuntary servitude. The creativity of the builders here is by far the best I have seen since I started playing this game.

.. And Indio, lemme know when Skullport's ready for some helping hands. =)

LancasterX_2 wrote:What builders? Do we have any left?

This kind of shit certainly doesn't help keep them.