Can we form bridges with other PW's for PC transfers?

Rick7475 · Post by **Rick7475** » Wed Mar 05, 2008 9:00 pm

When I was in the army, you could go on an exchange with another military even though they might have slightly different rules.

Are we so hated by the NWN2 community, or are we so isolated and high on ourselves or elitist that we can't form an alliance, relationship, or partnership with other PW's that uphold similiar RP standards and represent Faerun?

Exodus for example. Can we not work out some sort of agreement with them that we can transfers PC's (bics or whatever) as a sort of inter PW portalling arangement. Say, for example, a PC travels to Amn from Silverymoon (portals to Exodus to be stored in their vault) and then after a period of time comes back to Silverymoon?

Of course, there would be rules, and PW's like Exodus have fairly strict rules, too. But, if say you were a member of both PW's, and in good standing, why can't we do this?

Or do they hate us sooo much, or we hate them soo much it would never happen?

JaydeMoon · Post by **JaydeMoon** » Wed Mar 05, 2008 9:24 pm

If other PWs like Exodus were willing to do something like this, it could really open things up for all communities involved.

It would only work with communities with strict standards, and we would have to parallel certain decisions (plane touched are allowed in Exodus, for example).

Given the Exodus example, it would double the geographical content for both PWs.

But certainly this is an awesome idea. It may or may not pan out, but it would be a shame not to explore it.

fluffmonster · Post by **fluffmonster** » Wed Mar 05, 2008 9:44 pm

You willing to trust them? Are they willing to trust us?

Conceptually, its not necessarily much different from a PC traveling between servers within ALFA. How many battles did we have internally over concerns of a PC getting twinked on a server and then being resented on others? Its the same trust issue really.

I think it would be really cool if we could buddy up with Exodus and that was deep in my thoughts about Council, but frankly I'm skeptical they'd want to associate with alfa in that way. Maybe you heard different Rick.

AcadiusLost · Post by **AcadiusLost** » Wed Mar 05, 2008 9:51 pm

From a technical standpoint, currently, nothing in particular separates a PC character file (.bic) from an ALFA server, from one from an Exodus one. However, if we do implement custom skills, this will change, and they may no longer be intracompatible. Same could be said for things like custom spells, feats, etc. We can offer whatever we develop here for use elsewhere, but unless the commuinities synchronize in all matters relating to the .bic files, it's a significant potential for problems.

Further, all ALFA's servers communicate with a central database for persistency, on important things like where you last logged out, how much damage you've sustained, etc- crossing into another PW means needing some way to resolve the differences once (if) the PC "returns" to ALFA. The whole idea of centralizing these things was to keep persistency fluid and seamless across all the servers. This would be another technical complication that would have to be considered- especially if such "bridges" were to be automated.

Plenty of game-balance concerns as well, though those aren't really my area, and would in some ways be a matter of trust and mutual understanding- which could be quite inspiring to see work- but might be unrealistic.

Lusipher · Post by **Lusipher** » Wed Mar 05, 2008 10:04 pm

Avlis tried this in NWN1 with the CoCP something or another route. A lot of independent PWs all connected together but not the same projects. I dont know how well it worked out, but there would be a lot of technical stuff to be worked out to make ones PC work on every PW.

Mikayla · Post by **Mikayla** » Wed Mar 05, 2008 11:06 pm

And what of our vaunted wealth and experience standards? I am not particularly wedded to them, but I know many are - how will said standards be enforced on PCs hopping between Exodus and ALFA? How can we avoid people abusing the freedom? Those seem like fairly big questions to me. Not that I am against this - I am all for a bigger sandbox to play in, but the challenges are . . . huge. At least given the way ALFA is currently run.

psycho_leo · Post by **psycho_leo** » Wed Mar 05, 2008 11:16 pm

Aside from any tech issues, before we try something like this we have to start actually trusting our playerbase. Some people already gets their panties in a bunch when PCs come in from another of OUR servers. ZOMG! DM Bob drops the phat lewts to undeserving peeps!

Mord · Post by **Mord** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 3:04 am

Please god, no.

ThinkTank · Post by **ThinkTank** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 8:14 am

Gather round 'childrn a listen ye to the tale of Jimbob the Metaphorical Player and his fanatastical travels.

Now jimbob was yer average sorta fella
He'd farm, He'd gripe and his belly was yella
Picture of innocence when the DM came by
ALFA red tape in knots he'd tie.

Then one fine day, our jimbob did find
A door with a strange notice, all protracted and sign'd
'Welcome to exodus' it proudly proclaim'd
'For our broken stuff we will not be blamed'

Well jimbob was not the brightest of sorts
His XP was lacking, so his BIC he exports
Yet once reassembled the errors where plain
'Where the hells ma legs' he was heard to complain

But after a bodging, and patching of files
Jimbob strides into a tavern, only to find him reviled
In the stocks he is put, a'n eggs are thrown
'And Alfan eh? for this ye must atone!'

But Jimbob was a whily cove
and soon enough through their lands he rove
fighting beasties and getting XP
Anythin with treasure from him would flee

Over and over he heard that 'ping!'
As the levels from the server he'd wring
Loot sacks burstin with magical whatsits
This standards lark he fancys he outwits

Yet as he returned through that fateful portal
I terrible voice cryed 'VAS IS DAS MORTAL!?'
Yeay the jackboot of justice decended from on high
'Ze BIC ez out of order, plz stand't by'

Jimbob wail'd as his loot was nicked
Railed did he against this verdict
'Why'y takin ma gold, magic and jewels!'
The voice replyed 'Now ve have new rulez'

Sure enough there loom'd before 'im a sign
Its 100ft foot letters both clear and fine
This it proclaimed, in both white and black
'If you go through here, dont come back!'

A restless lynch mob he soon beheld
'We blame you for this' they yelled
an 'we blame you for that'
A scapegot you'll be for us in chat

Yet Jimbob now was right roused
An 'is view on the matter soon espoused
'ta' hell with ye, exodus was better'
And from his leg he threw ALFAs fetter

So our tale ends, with Jimbob leavin
Not that any there where grievin
A 'lulz' they gave at his walkout
Only 'memberin him as a PGin lout.

Mikayla · Post by **Mikayla** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 8:56 am

I believe that was down right awesome. Or awesomesauce as is required on the internets.

Hialmar · Post by **Hialmar** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 11:55 am

Danubus wrote:Avlis tried this in NWN1 with the CoCP something or another route. A lot of independent PWs all connected together but not the same projects. I dont know how well it worked out, but there would be a lot of technical stuff to be worked out to make ones PC work on every PW.

It was called CoPAP (Confederation of Planes and Planets) IIRC.

However they only shared membership. Ie if you were accepted in Avlis you were a member of all the other PWs and vice versa.

Having the same bic on all PWs is way more difficult for the reasons AL stated.

We could do something similar to CoPAP though.

In Toril we had that with another PW (can't remember the name) and the Toril Orientation Courses (not sure of the name but that was what replaced the OAS there) gave membership to both PWs.

Of course it's still a question of thrust.

I think that Ava tried to do that with ALFA and Toril when she was DM Admin but there were a lot opposed and we ended up with only a cooperation between builders and scripters that did not work a lot IIRC.

Cassiel · Post by **Cassiel** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 12:32 pm

Hialmar wrote:In Toril we had that with another PW (can't remember the name) and the Toril Orientation Courses (not sure of the name but that was what replaced the OAS there) gave membership to both PWs.

Of course it's still a question of thrust.

I think that Ava tried to do that with ALFA and Toril when she was DM Admin but there were a lot opposed and we ended up with only a cooperation between builders and scripters that did not work a lot IIRC.

I think it was Legends of Greyhawk. And for the purposes of historical accuracy, I am duty-bound to point out that we ran the TOC before the OAS was around!

I can also testify to the grief Ava got for trying to align the two projects back in the day.

Rick7475 · Post by **Rick7475** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 1:21 pm

Well, maybe you are all right. Exodus rejected my app, heh. Back to buildin TSM. I am, however, in favor of slacking off on some of our strict standards, but that's for another day.

Brokenbone · Post by **Brokenbone** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 1:48 pm

It sounds like a neat idea.

I imagine pretty substantial technical hurdles, as soon as you start getting into character specific hak differences... spells, skills, feats, races, and other things that differ between worlds. Automatic conversions would probably be ridiculous to try figuring out. Manual rebuilds couldn't be any harder than rebuilds all DMs from time to time get into from tech rezzes or some substantial change to character description.

As to standards though, there's probably creative (or imitative?) ideas to get around that. Was recently reading about some funky global RPGA campaign for Eberron, the "Xen'drik Expeditions" stuff, where every now and again they announce the level and start gold for new joins (i.e., campaign reaches level 10, start gold is 49K), I guess the play actually unfolds at conventions with people who've never met, but can agree that they all have "appropriate" characters for the campaign. Link: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebxe/welcome

I don't have a vision for how ALFA and any other project would try to get some kind of agreement or implementation of a similar spirit... PC Bob, level 10, wants to travel a thousand miles from "Persistent World A's Chult" to "ALFA's Moonsea", maybe he can come over with $x worth of gear, something the worlds agree is appropriate per level. Make up a cockamamie story for gains / losses along the way (I got robbed, I won a tournament at arms, I tithed a lot to needy shrines on the way, I was given a grant by my church to bring redemption to the Moonsea region... whatever). Whether their original gear sits in an OOC, inaccessible pChest if they want to re-select it upon a trip back, don't know.

Again though, sounds like a neat idea. Tech stuff sounds more aggravating than standards stuff, but maybe I'd be quickly proven wrong.

Veilan · Post by **Veilan** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 2:31 pm

Shared player status may be a good idea to start with, without necessitating to overcome all the hurdles character transfers would represent, both technically and philosophically.