Mick wrote:My oh my. It looks like more people are in favor than not.
Now what?
Nothing happens. This was just a poll because OGR requested it, as per the information in the original post. The poll merely gives an idea of what ALFAns and others could accept in the community, which means it becomes food for thought for anyone who really is considering performing CPR on the dead horse (which for those who know about CPR is by and large useless if the horse has been dead for more than 4 - 6 minutes... in this case, 4 - 6 years).
I'm just glad Nalo Jade isn't around to see interest in such things -- we'd suddenly be having posts about removing the application requirement, dropping the server password and having an OAS on the main servers to fence-off the people not fully adept in RPing.
Part of ALFA since May 2000. NWN 2 PC (BG): Layali Mae (Arcane Trickster) NWN 2 PC (MS): Marius Lobhdain (Druid)
Curmudgeon in IRC wrote:(2:29:40 PM) Curmudgeon: The community wants 24/7 DM coverage, free xp, and a suit of mithral plate mail in every pchest.
To me, D&D has always been about adventuring. Anyone who has played with me knows that development of relationships between characters and social RP is something I enjoy very much, but relegating players to just social RP when DMs are not logged on by removing all static content would be a mistake in my view. IMO, that is not really a persistent world -- which is a pillar of ALFA btw -- "ALFA's Faerun shall be persistent." It's essentially a campain server, unless DMs are logged on 24/7 and that's just not realistic. Static content becomes an issue if people abuse the static content at the expense of RP, which is against our rules. The static content is there however as an aid to RP and that is how I have seen it used as a player and DM on ALFA. And it works. Indeed, just the other day my PC had a random encounter (static content) on the road from Rauvinwatch Keep to HH where a dragon swooped down over his head and landed on some rocks watching him. This happened while my toon was hauling supplies for the Keep (static quest) while I was the only person logged on the server. This static content event led to about an hour of RP with two other players about the dragon, the effect on the PC from the encounter with the dragon, how he named his new sword after it and took it as some kinfd of omen etc., etc. I can tell dozens of stories like this. If not for the static content I would have simply logged off when I was alone on the server. Nor would my toon and his friends have had much to talk about. Leave the static content the way it is.
Nor do we have any issues, as far as I am aware, with PC wealth and level progression being out of control which is usually a symptom of static abuse.
its also worth noting that in D&D Tavern RP is designed to fascilitate the adventures and quests, usually taking up only a tiny portion of a session, this isn't possible in ALFA as we lack enough DMs to make it really work that way, which is the reason for static content, for many sitting about doing nothing, isn't why they log in, they log in as they wish to be adventurers, travelling the land, battling evils, recovering lost treasures and perhaps even getting the girl.
Obviously, D&D is a Roleplaying game, so we should be playing a role, it just depends on how people go about it. ALFA isn't a social RP server, its a story based adventure RP server (mouthful I know) If a person chooses to make a noncombatent that enjoys sitting about in a tavern doing not a lot of anything, more power to them, but I know from speaking to others, that for many it's not what people want to do when they log in.
It's also worth noting that a Tavern isn't needed for socializing and developing a characters personality, most of the profound events in my PCs life happened in a temple or on the road.
What would be nice, would be the whole random dungeon concept thats come up from time to time, I know it's been shot down more than once, but its that kind of system, where there is a requirement for a balanced group, that forces people into grouping up, currently the kind of static areas we have don't do that, one or two clerics or warrior types can easily just walk through places with no concern for locks, traps, obstacles etc... More importantly such a system provides people with something that is much needed, a way to RP adventuring without a DM available, it's all very good talking about going on an adventure but it's another thing entirely being able to actually plan an adventure. Another benefit to this kind of thing would be taking a little pressure off of DMs, they are able to focus on their awsome storylines, and wide spanning campaigns, while the adventurers... adventure (it'd also be fine to have rewards from such a system be minimal, next to no exp, and maybe enough gold to come out just slightly on top of what you'd need to spend in supplies for the adventure)
but back on topic, level 2 starts, bonus hp, whatever, a compromise to keep those people that wish a little more survivability is cool with me (assuming the hand in of a bio and acceptance from HDM, as per extrordinary PC rules)
Cloud_Dancing wrote:Soloing and being online solo with Character gains w/o a DM really is a function of an MMORPG environment. Alfa is not an MMO.
It's also the function of an online persistant world (or a MORPG if you like) that has static content for when a DM (or other players) are not also online.
Let's not forget that ALFA is still a game and games are meant to be enjoyable. If a player who lives in a relatively isolated time zone, let's say New Zealand (just for example), when that player gets home from work and wants to get his gaming fix after work, it's pretty late US time and rather early on a week day EU time. Quite often said NZ player will find himself online with no DM or other players. I don't know about this exampled NZ player, but I for one, would not enjoy waiting around in a tavern waiting for people who will never show up until it's time to go to bed... I'd much rather go out and do (kill) something.
(i.e., I take exception to your comment)
Current PCs:
NWN1: Soppi Widenbottle, High Priestess of Yondalla.
NWN2: Gruuhilda, Tree Hugging Half-Orc
NickD wrote:It's also the function of an online persistant world (or a MORPG if you like) that has static content for when a DM (or other players) are not also online.
Let's not forget that ALFA is still a game and games are meant to be enjoyable. If a player who lives in a relatively isolated time zone, let's say New Zealand (just for example), when that player gets home from work and wants to get his gaming fix after work, it's pretty late US time and rather early on a week day EU time. Quite often said NZ player will find himself online with no DM or other players. I don't know about this exampled NZ player, but I for one, would not enjoy waiting around in a tavern waiting for people who will never show up until it's time to go to bed... I'd much rather go out and do (kill) something.
(i.e., I take exception to your comment)
Take exception? get over yourself. cloud is absolutely right. you're logging in just to get your hack-and-slash freak on? you should know better.
Built: TSM (nwn2) Shining Scroll and Map House (proof anyone can build!)
"But Mr Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months."
"Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything."
"But the plans were on display ..."
"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."
"That's the display department."
"With a flashlight."
"Ah, well the lights had probably gone."
"So had the stairs."
"But look, you found the notice didn't you?"
"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'."
Regalis wrote:That's a separate topic, BB, but I believe you caught someone plagiarizing the eulogy for Abe Lincoln recently. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that presently. If you start giving out XP for posts, it becomes an issue. Find & Replace all ftw!
Yeah it wasn't meant to be "busting", and I thought it was a great job DD did. I learned something too, it was a cool eulogy in the original.
Don't need the topic to drift too much, yeah, but if maybe some portion of a compromise proposal tags "XP to written bio", it does make me wonder whether there's other written materials that can attract XP out of game, or if technically they cannot... so be prepared to cut and paste 100 lines of a poem you wrote (or plagiarized) into a tiny chatbar and THEN you can be awarded XP. Or alternately, type *hands in report to Seageant Militaguy* and PM your written report to the relevant DM, you only get XP for the "emote" IG, but nothing for the lovely account of a past battle key to some DM plot? Again, not clear what restrictions are on DMs re: XP these days, there were past problems with purely discretionary rewards which I think got technically disbarred from properly adding to an XP total, as opposed to being a rule people had to remember. Maybe those systems aren't in place though.
ALFA NWN2 PCs: Rhaggot of the Bruised-Eye, and Bamshogbo
ALFA NWN1 PC: Jacobim Foxmantle
ALFA NWN1 Dead PC: Jon Shieldjack
Oh, another thing to simply toss on the list of potential compromises is something like some multiplication factor on any source of XP you can technically apply it to which applies only if you're first level. After that, it goes back to "normal."
Whether your diet is pure RPXP, statics, combat... well, if you'd normally have earned 100 RPXP, maybe you get 200. A static normally worth 50, well, it's worth 100. Critter worth 5xp, you get 10xp. Means if you luck into a DM event, great, you may be 2nd very quick. If you have no alternative based on time zones, work hours, whatever than to sit in a tavern with tears in your beer, at least you're only there half as long (or a third, or a fifth, all depends on the multiplication factor).
This all still requires "activity" of some sort, none valued more highly than others, if there's some kind of "work ethic (of grinding)" that people are concerned about, no something for nothing, just something for... well, less than you'll have to do later.
ALFA NWN2 PCs: Rhaggot of the Bruised-Eye, and Bamshogbo
ALFA NWN1 PC: Jacobim Foxmantle
ALFA NWN1 Dead PC: Jon Shieldjack
I'd say DM rewards are properly an issue to be addressed by DMA, the HDMs and DMs and beyond the scope of this thread. The suggestion for a bump in XP for a bio was just offered as a potential compromise that to me made sense. Obviously, if any change is to be made, exactly what it is would have to be discussed and decided by Admin as Rotku pointed out. I know when I was a DM I gave XP for a play by post RP between a DM NPC and a player necessitated because of time zone differences. I would have rewarded the RP if we could log on at the same time, so I did not think it was an issue.
That said, I don't see why a one time discretionary 1000 XP bump for a bio at creation opens any can of worms as to DM XP rewards. I trust our DMs to make proper XP rewards.
Brokenbone wrote:
Or alternately, type *hands in report to Seageant Militaguy* and PM your written report to the relevant DM, you only get XP for the "emote" IG, but nothing for the lovely account of a past battle key to some DM plot? Again, not clear what restrictions are on DMs re: XP these days, there were past problems with purely discretionary rewards....
Written communitcation to NPCs has been a huge portion of my own PC's character development and plot movement since live. I use to hash out issues with other player characters too.
I have never been formally awarded XP for it, and haven't expected to be, but I would presume that those things are kind of generally thought of by the DM team as "good citizenship" within the community. And I wouldn't be surprised if DMs have taken some of thaat into account when giving rewards ingame either.
I and another unnamed TSM DM of good reputation have always given RP XP for stories and reports. It really is a help. Bios are essential I think too but I really HATE when I get these fabulous exciting bios and the character gets one-shotted by a mob or a road spawn in three days.
What is problematic here:
*Our entire system is made to function with a DM. Our attempts to give more autonomy to the players are so easy to exploit and tempt players to powergame. And when you take the DM out and well you get an MMORPG.
*Without a DM the world is basically silent. Our NPCs that talk back are few and far between and definately not interactive. Playing solo in a silent world is a little...depressing.
D&D is a social game for people who enjoy high fantasy to meet and enjoy each other's company.
*After that..why even log in? Really? Kill some monster alone? Accrue some XP alone? Roleplay alone? Wait for death and a random server glitch to waste your PC and die a rich but lonely corpse?
NO. There is no such thing as roleplaying Alone in the D&D format alone. Watch the movies I posted in the off-topic forum and tell me that does not remind you of a vision of tabletop gaming made real.
This all can be solved in doing something Viigas, El Cad, and Sand have proved as very very releveant and organized solution. We must focus on dedicated DM faction or party based sessions that happen three times a month at least with scheduled times.
Reduce the things that are distracting players from playing with each other. Slow the leveling rates. Engender teamwork and core D&D princples. Remove content that supports an MMO type environs. And of course provide intrinsic and external rewards for those that go the distance to make a well planned PC, such as level 2 or 3 and/or custom start up kits, as well as the means to meet and link up with other adventurers.