Server Travle times and cost

[mr duncan]

I'm not a big fan of rapid server changing either, but I think we already have tools in place to handle such abuses should it be necessary to do so.

No, we do not. Any time it comes up the the response is that we are allowed to travel this often so no one should be punished for it. It really needs to be hard coded because the notion we should 'punish the people who abuse it' is way to fuzzy and will never result in anything as each person will think abuse is a different amount

One standard applied by scripts is fair. Anything else will either result in uneven application of the rule or nothing at all being done

[kid]

I would appreciate it if you would not insinuate that I am defining good RP as damaging.
.

(:

The damage here is in the loss of flexibility for enjoying the game. For example, maybe your RP group is traveling along to another server two servers away but because of the proposed long delay, you get stuck alone because you were out sick for a day or two (or were busy and otherwise couldn't appear to initiate travel at the same time as everyone else). There are a number of other situations I've run into where it would have been simply OOCly not fun to have long restrictions on when players can move between servers.

easy enough to clear any OOC mixup. we do have lots of DMs on atm.
if you lost your friends (i say just RP with others but...)
and you wanna catch up a DM can clear it so easyly.

everybody does it.
im not gonna start pointing out people when they are not doing anything wrong.
(we have a 24 wait. they wait 24 hours)
heck I went to BG for a trial I wanted to be a part of
and came the next day cause I had important IC things on TSM.

I would rather however choose if I wish to go to the trial
or tend to my important IC business on TSM.
my dude cant be in both places at the same time... or rather he can, which is silly.
missing that trial or missing what I had to do on TSM
would have been more interesting ICly.

According to the rules what I did was fine.
According to me it was crapry RP and I shouldn't have done it.
but truth be told if the same situation come I would probably do it again
as most players around would.
both things were important to the character so he/I did it.
To ask me to make up rules that hurt my toon wishes and inforce them
only on myself seems a bit too much for. I think this should be the standard
or it will always be abused.

+ what Mr D. said

[Rotku]

I'm not a big fan of rapid server changing either, but I think we already have tools in place to handle such abuses should it be necessary to do so.

No, we do not. Any time it comes up the the response is that we are allowed to travel this often so no one should be punished for it. It really needs to be hard coded because the notion we should 'punish the people who abuse it' is way to fuzzy and will never result in anything as each person will think abuse is a different amount

One standard applied by scripts is fair. Anything else will either result in uneven application of the rule or nothing at all being done

Absolutely no evidence to support this claim. When was the last time any server hopping incident was raised? Last one I know about ended up with two players getting some sort of official sanction, after they were found jumping from BG to TSM just for statics during a small window between two BG DMs DMing.

If people bring to my (or any AR/HDM) attention anyone who is abusing the system, things will be done. If no one wishes to raise these matters, then you can't complain that the system is broken.

Let us not follow the mistake that was made in late NWN1 of punishing all players to catch a few.

[Rotku]

According to the rules what I did was fine.
According to me it was crapry RP and I shouldn't have done it.

I think that's a very narrow opinion to take. If you go into the situation understanding that time in a place such as ALFA is subjective at best then it becomes a lot easier to explain the situation. You have to understand that ALFA isn't a 24/7 world, that reacts all day, every day. If it was, then I would have no problem putting realistic time delays in place. If I know that planned meeting to take care of business in TSM with a DM there could happen when ever I so choose to say, and that the trail in BG would happen at an IC appropriate moment rather than when OOC schedules dictate, then a delay on travel makes sense. But so long as things are restricted due to OOC factors, we shouldn't punish players in IC manner.

However, if this was something that happened on a regular basis, then I would raise an eyebrow.

Don't punish those who use travel legitimately due to a few who don't.

[I-KP]

Upping the layover time from 24 to 48 RL hours would probably be enough. Not enough to fix any perceived broken processes, or even enough to hobble these suggested server-hoppers, but merely enough to instil a greater sense of distance and to have any such travel decision based more on consideration than whim.

[kid]

Don't punish those who use travel legitimately due to a few who don't.

I just dont see how spending a week on another server in punishment.
if you don't wanna be away a long time from your server, don't go.

I still don't undertand why would you wanna go on another server for 1 day.
(other than time warps which allways include DM in which case he can slolve it easyly)
once we have diracte travel from MS to TSM we must up the travle time imho.

but... seems clear most of you are keen on keeping things as they are. *shrugs*
so... i'm done.

[t-ice]

Increasing costs for server travel only shafts new/poor PCs. The well-off PCs could easily afford it anyway, and ironically the well-off would include those who would hop between DM events on servers.

It would be possible to use the different travel options "magic as technology" offers, no? A teleport spell as a service, according to SRD, is 450gp (CL 9 * 50gp).

So maybe two different traveling options could help:
1) Travel by teleport. Cost 500gp. Travel restriction 1 day. (Those wizards/clerics aren't quite available like cabs in a line at the airport, after all.)
2) Travel by caravan/ship. As adventurers are useful to guard such travelers from bandits/pirates/monsters, the PC might even net, say, 50gp. Travel restriction 1 week.

Teleporting removes any IC incongruency in "how did you get here and there so fast". FR totally allows this much magic as technology. The problem is that it potentially institutionalizes "the same people saving the world on parallel tracks in two areas half the world apart". As if there wouldn't be enough things to do in on place or the other. Which is big meh and stretch of suspension of disbelief - but this can't be avoided if travel is allowed in the first place. Since there really is not enough to do in the game in one place.

Another minor issue might be that lvl9 wizards / clerics with Travel domain might start to demand waiving the "fast transit" fee, as they can cast teleport themselves.

This might be a best of both worlds solution, allowing PCs to invest to fast transit, given that there's 3 evils that must be chosen in between:
1) PCs are strongly tied to their servers, players missing fun elsewhere having to sit alone in an empty corner.
2) PCs hop around between servers freely, creating a major stretch in story plausibility with "he same people saving the world on parallel tracks in two areas half the world apart".
3) Players are allowed to play separate characters on separate parts of the world.

Picking one is inevitable. My pick would be 3 hands down, as that doesn't force the players to play OoC or not play at all. But since that's a conversation best not dwelved down, perhaps a dual IC travel option between magic/mundane expensive/cheap would give a good compromised between 1 and 2.

[Veilan]

No, we do not. Any time it comes up the the response is that we are allowed to travel this often so no one should be punished for it. It really needs to be hard coded because the notion we should 'punish the people who abuse it' is way to fuzzy and will never result in anything as each person will think abuse is a different amount

One standard applied by scripts is fair. Anything else will either result in uneven application of the rule or nothing at all being done

I do agree with this, in the sense that if our scripts allow us to portal every 24 hours, it would be hard to justify punishing someone for doing just that from the portalling rule alone.

However, we do have a catch:

Metagaming is gaming that transcends the game. It is taking advantage of the fact that NwN is a game, and doing things you could not do if you were actually in the game world.

Of course, DMs usually have better things to do than trying to police the game, very few actively want to pursue cases of abuse, and they are more than justified in rather wanting to, well, enjoy the game. So if nobody then files a complaint... where there's no plaintiff, there's no judge.

I still massively prefer hard-coded, scripted solutions than "DM arbitration" - which means favouritism, DM workload, burn-out, and uneven calls for the same matter. Don't let people worry about stuff a script can do . However, the problem is to find the script we all agree on...

By and large, it's a balance between enjoying a game and enforcing "RP purity". Some people err more on this, some more on the other side, hence the constant need to find compromises that satisfy both sides. Personally I still would like to see an increase in layover time, if one jump connects everywhere - you can move to where you need to be, but you can't frequently tour the whole realms.

So this all boils down to opinion, doesn't it?

[SwordSaintMusashi]

For note, Arms and Equipment has prices for "teleportation services", which is 1 gold piece per mile teleported. So its a hefty cost to get there fast, and at minimum level of 9, there is a decent chance you'll mishap and end up somewhere else. Just a fyi.

[Darkmystic]

Eh or people just learn to keep to one server? Has worked for me so far. Dont bounce back and forth.

[Rotku]

Eh or people just learn to keep to one server? Has worked for me so far. Dont bounce back and forth.

See, but that same argument could be used for everything. Why do we need PrCs? I've lived without them for my entire time in ALFA, others should do the same. Why do we need any static quests? I never use them and am still around, others should just get over it and do the same.

[Ansha]

It seems to me that if we are going to talk about immersion and the disruption thereof, we should be looking at how far it is possible to go in the course of one game hour ( 7 RL minutes). Without encounters, it's pretty easy to get from Baldur's Gate to Beregost (250 miles) within a half-hour, via BG's obnoxiously-long roads. That's 5 game hours to travel 250 miles. Similarly, from Rivermoot to Silverymoon or vice versa doesn't take much more than 10 minutes (and is--roughly estimating from memory since the FR wiki didn't have any maps with scales for the region, that I saw--about 50 miles). Our PCs are managing to walk at roughly 50 miles per game-hour. It wouldn't take them more than 3 RL hours (on a travel map at the same scale as TSM's to travel from Rivermoot to Waterdeep (600 miles), and another handful of RL hours to make it to Baldur's Gate. That's a far cry from a 24 RL hour lockout.

So the lockout is arbitrary. Immersion is already broken just by keeping the maps and zones scaled as they are. Why are we contemplating an arbitrary extension of this lockout period when we are already inconsistent with how much ground our PCs can cover in a given amount of time? And if we are going to argue the concept of "comic book time"--then why do we need the lockout there, either? It seems more like a method to enforce certain behaviors on the parts of players and their PCs (again, arbitrarily) than to maintain immersion, which has already been broken by the road-map and travel-map scales.

See, but that same argument could be used for everything. Why do we need PrCs? I've lived without them for my entire time in ALFA, others should do the same. Why do we need any static quests? I never use them and am still around, others should just get over it and do the same.

Well,the obvious answer to your various questions is "Because someone else wants them"--presumably, one could add "And it doesn't affect me." In the case of the travel lockout extension raised here, the reason people want it is a variation of the former--"Because I want it." But it doesn't just affect you. You (those of you who want a longer travel lockout between servers) want it to apply to everyone across the board. But not everyone else wants them, and you're trying to force it on them. So why shouldn't the impetus be upon you to explain why the rest of us who don't want the extra restrictions should go along with the idea?

[t-ice]

Just because you can't impose "perfect" immersion doesn't mean any mechanism to impose it shouldn't be there.

The biggest problem with metagaming and immersion is that it's a shared experienced. Hard to be immersed in a fantasy realm if the people around you are chatting about getting a beer from the fridge. And it feels stupid RPing your PCs once-a-year travel between two parts of the world as a big deal, if the people around you do it thrice a week.

So "you keep out of my immersion and we both do whatever we want" is unfortunately too simplistic. But remember that people don't metagame server hopping because they want to. They do it because they're forced to either do that or not play at all.

If you force people to travel to get their game, then at least give them an IC way to do it: Teleport is there in the books. Not even splatbook, but "spells as service" in SRD. Much less of a hassle to figure out why your PC cares about events in two separate parts of the world when there's a reasonable way to travel in between.

[Swift]

Don't punish those who use travel legitimately due to a few who don't.

This.

We use comic book time on a near constant basis. I see no reason to limit server travel any more than it already is, so long as people are doing it for the right reasons (ie to play and have fun together). Farmers get caught in the end.

[Brokenbone]

We use comic book time, and also abstract "inside a server" travel (marching 10 days distance between towns in ten minutes), I do not see changing servers for any-old-IC reason as a problem.

Those who want to, go for it. Hopefully for good IC reasons or with good IC tales of the road, or just dead silence about the fact you go everywhere so merrily since it seems to offend some fellow players.

Those who feel it should be a bigger deal, make it a big deal when you do it... but do not critique others, especially not IC. BS "*raises an eyebrow* You went eleven-hundred miles to buy a mug of grog in Skaug because you missed the taste of it?" is just mean spirited / elitist, not promoting any fun. Play your own character, and if you find other players insufferable, steer clear of them. Some people play well together, some don't. Some have similar playstyles, some don't.

It is a small community, I don't think there are significant "event hoppers" around any more, but if there were... it's a 3 server project with actually fairly decent DM coverage, and many of the DMs also play. If there's something "not cool" going on, I assume DMs will manage the issue.

The 24h business seems "good enough" to me. Folks maybe recognizing that "big trips are a big deal" seems good too, apparently making too light of it makes some % of people unhappy. Don't harsh their mellow I guess.