A Land Far Away

With all the fantastic playing and success lately folks have been asking "When can I get persistent housing?" Now you can, and you can help keep this whole ship afloat at the same time!

For those who don't know, for the longest time generous community members like Foam have payed out of pocket to keep things running here. I've often felt that if we all gave just a little then we could reduce the burden on everyone. And what better way to do this than getting your own bit of digital property?

If we make enough we can pay for Waterdeep as well as these forums, and if we get even more we can get more servers online (such as underdark areas)!

To that end, I've set up a Patreon page for ALFA!

Link removed until an official ALFA Patreon can be discussed with admins.

Here are the different tiers:

Room to grow
$2 per month
*Your own room in a shared house in Waterdeep with persistent storage!
*In the event of the death of your PC, you can transfer ownership of the property (minus the contents of your containers).
*Location of shared house/room is negotiable and can be done in guild locations.
*One time 300 gold payment in game.

This old house
$7 per month
*Your own small house/apartment with persistent storage!
*Several locations around the docks and southern wards to choose from!
*In the event of the death of your PC, you can transfer ownership of the property (minus the contents of your containers).
*One time 500 gold payment in game.

Lifestyles of the rich and famous
$12 per month
*Large estate in Waterdeep's swankier areas with persistent storage!
*In the event of the death of your PC, you can transfer ownership of the property (minus the contents of your containers).
*One time 1000 gold payment in game.

I prefer to build my own
$22 per month
*Build your own housing for inclusion in the city! Temple? Villa? You choose!
*In the event of the death of your PC, you can transfer ownership of the property (minus the contents of your containers).
*Some static content/quests/scripts can be added at DM discretion.
*One time 5000 gold payment in game.

Thanks all again for your help in making the server feel truly alive again.

-ayergo

Interesting idea - ALFA's own micro transactions .. sort of. Anyways, I am down for it ... after my PC gets enough gold. While I have the money, my PC has .. like .. 100 gold? Turns out rat-hunting pays just enough to break even on the CLW potions! Good experience though. In fact, its kind of like an internship now that I think about it ...

-M

ayergo, is this an ongoing payment - indefinitely? $22 per month is more than any other online persistent payment game i've ever heard of. Seems very steep.

That aside, because of this system, is it therefore impossible to get any IC persistent storage without paying a monthly real currency as listed above?

Galadorn wrote:ayergo, is this an ongoing payment - indefinitely? $22 per month is more than any other online persistent payment game i've ever heard of. Seems very steep.

That aside, because of this system, is it therefore impossible to get any IC persistent storage without paying a monthly real currency as listed above?

Ongoing as long as you choose to do so. $22 steep? Well, I pay about $25 a month to keep the server on for everyone so it is less than I spend myself on it all. Foam pays even more for these forums we enjoy.

Is it impossible? No.... nothing is impossible in game!

ayergo wrote:With all the fantastic playing and success lately folks have been asking "When can I get persistent housing?" Now you can, and you can help keep this whole ship afloat at the same time!

For those who don't know, for the longest time generous community members like Foam have payed out of pocket to keep things running here. I've often felt that if we all gave just a little then we could reduce the burden on everyone. And what better way to do this than getting your own bit of digital property?

If we make enough we can pay for Waterdeep as well as these forums, and if we get even more we can get more servers online (such as underdark areas)!

To that end, I've set up a Patreon page for ALFA!

https://www.patreon.com/alandfaraway

Here are the different tiers:

Room to grow
$2 per month
*Your own room in a shared house in Waterdeep with persistent storage!
*In the event of the death of your PC, you can transfer ownership of the property (minus the contents of your containers).
*Location of shared house/room is negotiable and can be done in guild locations.
*One time 300 gold payment in game.

This old house
$7 per month
*Your own small house/apartment with persistent storage!
*Several locations around the docks and southern wards to choose from!
*In the event of the death of your PC, you can transfer ownership of the property (minus the contents of your containers).
*One time 500 gold payment in game.

Lifestyles of the rich and famous
$12 per month
*Large estate in Waterdeep's swankier areas with persistent storage!
*In the event of the death of your PC, you can transfer ownership of the property (minus the contents of your containers).
*One time 1000 gold payment in game.

I prefer to build my own
$22 per month
*Build your own housing for inclusion in the city! Temple? Villa? You choose!
*In the event of the death of your PC, you can transfer ownership of the property (minus the contents of your containers).
*Some static content/quests/scripts can be added at DM discretion.
*One time 5000 gold payment in game.

Thanks all again for your help in making the server feel truly alive again.

-ayergo

I think some of this needs further clarification please. . .

particularly the "One time XXXXX gold payment in game"
Even though someone is paying the .... say $7 a month cash . . Does EACH PC have to come up with the 500 gp payment in game if the person goes through a few over a few months time ???? OR does only the First PC have to make that in game payment?

Also . . .. someone starts out paying $12 a month but later can only afford to pay 2$ a month due to RL expenses etc . . . do they then lose any current accommodations they have already paid for with in game coin? Or can they keep it at least for the life of the current occupant?

AND . . is the $22 option for one building only? or does it allow the inclusion of multiple places? Keeping in mind that WD does not have ALOT of options for expansion

as Galadorn pointed out 22$ a month is more than most pay to play games charge a month

Perhaps also add a storage company that just has lock boxes for rent for say a one time $5 cash fee per toon and a 100GP in game fee? These do not carry over to other toons the player may have later.

Arianna wrote:
I think some of this needs further clarification please. . .

particularly the "One time XXXXX gold payment in game"
Even though someone is paying the .... say $7 a month cash . . Does EACH PC have to come up with the 500 gp payment in game if the person goes through a few over a few months time ???? OR does only the First PC have to make that in game payment?

Just the first PC. Basically right now most of the higher level PCs are waddling around with a few thousands of goldpieces each so I don't anticipate it is much of an expense. A new level one character will have problems though.

Arianna wrote:
Also . . .. someone starts out paying $12 a month but later can only afford to pay 2$ a month due to RL expenses etc . . . do they then lose any current accommodations they have already paid for with in game coin? Or can they keep it at least for the life of the current occupant?

Best handled on a case-by-case basis. I don't expect it to be a common issue.

Arianna wrote: AND . . is the $22 option for one building only? or does it allow the inclusion of multiple places? Keeping in mind that WD does not have ALOT of options for expansion

as Galadorn pointed out 22$ a month is more than most pay to play games charge a month

I'm going to say one compound which might have a few interiors. While there is a lot of options for expansion there is limited room for new stuff in the module, I'll probably have to cut other stuff so space is a bit tight.

And as pointed out above, it is indeed a lot more than most people. But I am not asking for more than what I pay so we can all game, and less than half of what Foam pays so we can all game. You can see our funding goals on the Patreon page, if we make enough then we'll put it towards funding the forums and possibly an underdark server as a stretch goal.

No one is trying to make a profit here, we're trying to make this a true community effort.

You really don't have to pay anything to game here. This is just a way for folks who only want to play give back something.

Arianna wrote: Perhaps also add a storage company that just has lock boxes for rent for say a one time $5 cash fee per toon and a 100GP in game fee? These do not carry over to other toons the player may have later.

That's something I'll consider for the next major revision. I'm hoping to only be doing minimal toolset time for now and focus on DMing.

The NWN1 servers are a nice unofficial side project, but collecting money for ALFA unofficially has some issues. You're advertising as a $25+ goal of paying for forums/NWN2 servers, and we'd need to work out how that would work. If we have any lawyers in the audience with knowledge about such things, I'm also concerned about my stuff, considering I'm footing the bill for everything currently.

ALFA1 servers aren't connected by our central server either. Can you rename the Patreon or seek to make the NWN1 servers official? If they were official, and under the review of the DMA instead of being a sort of unofficial side project, we could hook them up with a central server and have core ALFA projects target them more.

I'd also really not like to see pay to win and ALFA mix, ever, and I feel like we're getting rather close to that line here. Houses (IMO) should be purchased in-game, approved from part of a backstory, or awarded for in-game feats of heroism/backstabbing/theft/whatnot, not primarily purchased with out-of-game funds.

I think at its core, this is a well-intentioned and kindly meant idea.

To clarify, ayergo is of course free to raise money for his WD server in whatever way he sees fit. WD is at this point not a part of ALFA nor subject to its rules - I believe the current admin, as a whole, just think it is a cool thing and that there is benefit for everbody in sharing ressources.

However, there is no connection to actual ALFA funding here, and I think the current administration would be very cautious in connecting any in-game benefits (even something as unproblematic and cosmetic as player housing) to real money. The relationship between DMs, builders, Admin and players is a loss less strained (and lot less legally problematic) if there is no actual quid-pro-quo involved. To me it seems more relaxed if we make any direct obligations vanish in the haze of untargeted donations.

I will put this before the other admin to consider and then, if necessary, update the position here - feel free to give ayergo money as you please, but at this point, that money is not funding any "official" ALFA infrastructure.

Cheers,

All great points.

*ahem*

"Toliv Yanei requests to see the available estates and manors, bought, sealed and paid for."

I liked the system where everyone gave blood and Velian funded Alfa. Take my blood!

In other news, it isn't really fair that Ayergo is solo funding Waterdeep, so am perfectly ok with people kicking in to help out.

(also not fair that Foam is funding the forum/website solo)

Make me A STICKY thread?

Certainly there are some issues that could arise with taking money. Thankfully the Patreon page and system will handle all of that, and is all in my name. Thus, all risk is on me and if I don't deliver and players complain then they come after me.

And to re-iterate again, from my first post about Waterdeep I have asked for "official" status. I still stand by that and I think you'll find everything with the server is to ALFA specs.

I think we should be refocusing ALFA with both NWN1 and 2, and get 1 official status ASAP. There are more people playing NWN1 than 2 online, so we can bring in a little new blood and old returning players.


As for room, the WD mod has plenty of room if we strip off the dead weight. There are a dozen areas that don't link anywhere anymore, not including the 50 or so areas of the Sword Coast. In addition there are at least 20 homes with keyed locked doors that no one can use perfect for players to purchase. There are lots and lots of areas and room for expansion. For example, there used to be houses to rob and break and enter. Now all those doors are barred and they cannot be entered, but the 5 or so house areas are still there, so they can be removed.

This:

Rick7475 wrote:I think we should be refocusing ALFA with both NWN1 and 2, and get 1 official status ASAP. There are more people playing NWN1 than 2 online, so we can bring in a little new blood and old returning players.

And this:

ayergo wrote:And to re-iterate again, from my first post about Waterdeep I have asked for "official" status. I still stand by that and I think you'll find everything with the server is to ALFA specs.

+1

On the Admin stuff: I wrote a long post (or posts) a long time ago about the complications that arise from ALFA accepting money in return for whatever. The short of it was I suggested we incorporate as a non-profit if we were to do that, and don't take money if we don't. I am not going to re-write the post here because ... I don't feel like it. Its somewhere out there, I don't know if in Admin forums or general forums.

On the Housing: Sounds great ... but ... still don't have gold-pieces ... at 3rd level ... still working with starting gear and have less that 200 gp to my rat-catching, goblin killing name. Guess I am part of the growing WD homeless problem ...

On WD/ALFA: Why isn't WD part of ALFA? It SEEMS like it is part of ALFA.