A Land Far Away

To be honest, NWN2 is a wonderful little niche in a highly competitive world of fantastic MMORPG's. I don't think the numbers were there like NWN1, which was a smashing break through in gaming. And I think it is slowly bleeding away.

The 3.5 edition has already been replaced. It is rather disappointing that WOC would so quickly come up with 4.0 when 3.5 was still so popular. Why couldn't they have concentrated on making new refreshing modules (esp epic level) instead of rulesets? Ah well, we know $$$

But I also think ALFA has staying power for the time being.

With that being said, I don't think I'll be building NWN2 WD. I am simply too swayed by the current MMORPG's coming out and getting my stories and novel published. And most importantly of all, I just don't think we have the numbers to support a huge effort like WD. I really can't see spending months of hard effort and testing and trying to recruit more DM's for less than a dozen players (if that) that would probably end up playing on the server anyway.

NWN1 is holding its own: TSM is doing well though more DM's are always needed. One or two more NWN2 servers and I am afraid we have maxed out our player base if we haven't already. There is no room for NWN2 WD.

Of course, if we suddenly have a super influx of players and talent, doubling and even tripling what we currently have, I may ask to step back up to do WD. But I am not optimistic. What we have is what will be.

I have a toon on TSM that I may play occasionally and if I ever find a DM I may keep playing.

But, for now, I am retiring from building unless there is a drastic increase in the active membership.

As a player dedicated to playing and building only on our nwn2 platform... I think this is a GREAT idea.

NWN2 is in its infancy, we need 2 (maybe 3) servers and thats IT! If any work is to be done, it should be done by joining one of the teams that are already working hard on getting live.

Instead we had a rash of "My server will be the BEST!" and everyone rushed off to make their "own" server with a team of like 2 people.... and none of the great servers got past a few zones. (this means they werent great, they were a waste)

Hopefully more level heads will prevail and we wont have any more of either the mad rush to get more servers approved, nor will we end up with dejected builders/scripters feeling their half-baked (lil toolset humor there) mods will never be appreciated.

The balanced, middle path, would be to get involved with one of the other beta projects that actually are CLOSE to live but could use a lil support. Build for BG, build for western heartlands, build for the MOONSEA! These places are not a lost cause.


Thank you for all your work on TSM, and your WD mod. I hope you can step away from the erratic swing between buidling fury and builders block and find a place/team you can build happily and at a relaxed pace for/with.

J

Aww man, that sucks but Duncan hit the nail right on the head in the post above when he mentions that we had the rush of "omg I'ma do my thing." I think things would of been different if there was a deliberate concentration on what we ought to build and when. I do hope you decide to keep playing, if not, please continue to stop by once in a while. As they say, "don't be a stranger."

Rick's a writer? Awesome, good luck with it, keep people apprised on publishing type progress (sample chapters in ALFA Library? Heh).

Completely understand the reasoning described along with that writing revelation though. You never know if something awesome might still get scavenged, either for campaign "field trips to Waterdeep", or facelifted locations that get used elsewhere, I'm sure some of the efforts will see light of day one way or the other, if desired.

/me takes off his hat and hums the "Last Post".

I think this is a good call Rick.

Probably to the benefit of ALFA in the long run.

Thanks for all the ahrd work you've put in and good luck with the writing.

Mebee see you on tsm.

Word. I always thought myself the building regime needed to be centristic and focused on one server at a time rather than seven or eight servers when 4-5 of those might not even see the light of day. Much better to get all builders focused on one server at a time...hell, we're still adding major things to TSM over six months after live, so I wouldn't even consider that server "done".

That being said, thanks for the major efforts you put forth in the HDM position, building, dming and all else you've done for NWN2. Hope to see you in game soon!

Daniel

danielmn wrote:I always thought myself the building regime needed to be centristic and focused on one server at a time rather than seven or eight servers when 4-5 of those might not even see the light of day. Much better to get all builders focused on one server at a time...

...

Ah well, would have been nice to have a purely city based server, but it is what it is. We can only thank Rick and everyone other builder that has put in their time for the benefit of the community.

mr duncan wrote: Instead we had a rash of "My server will be the BEST!" and everyone rushed off to make their "own" server with a team of like 2 people.... and none of the great servers got past a few zones. (this means they werent great, they were a waste)

Can I just comment on this perception?

Server proposals were not allowed to be accepted unless they could demonstrate a working group of sufficient size and skill, a host and a DM team. As it turned out, very few of the people who were originally enthusiastic to get involved and included in our proposals actually delivered anything. In our own Moonsea proposal, a team of 12 people were originally included.

I'd say from my own experience, out of all the people who talked about it, about 25-30% actually delivered something and then less than 5% actually stuck with the building. This is not to play the blame game because everyone who didn't contribute in the end had very legitimate reasons for refraining.

Building contributions for NWN2 picked up significantly soon after we got a server to live. I guess because people saw that their time wasnt going to be wasted after all..