What RP or Story servers do you play?Are they becoming obsolete?

[Legacy_Jenna WSI]

               An npc didn't want to hire them on for a job because they were blantantly evil/weird and had that spider robe thing going on. I'm sorry but NPCs should react and I still don't blame the DM for having the NPC not trusting people who .. don't look trustworthy at all. Instead of seeing it as a negative situation, you could have specifically made it a character goal to build up trust in the people of this area and do deeds to get recognition and fame.

I didn't see any evidence of the entire server (players and dms included) turning against you or pushing you out of every rp situation, etc. In fact I was one of the dms that watched and helped you through some dungeons. So really... this is stupid to post here, especially since I admitted we're human and are working on our issues. Like everyone else says, give it a rest. Picking at one server after you've already given a review of it just seems petty at this point. If you want to talk to me about it in PMs, that'd be the best option from here on out. Sorry you left with a bad impression, peace.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Jenna WSI, 03 mai 2011 - 12:14 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Jenna WSI]

               

Arinoch wrote...

I have to agree with Jenna as well, though I've not DMed for years - there's a fine line between allowing RP freedom and allowing RP that just shatters the world. If everyone can make whatever character they want, on the scale of "vampire princess drow half celestial", then nothing in the world seems special. The regular old human that doesn't sparkle seems boring, and few would likely pay attention to their actually-normal problems. '> I think players have to be aware of the difficulty in balancing such and accept that rules are not put in place because DMs are evil, but because special should remain special and magic should remain magic. Even in a magical world, if everyone's running around with a glowing +8 sword of destruction, why the heck did anyone ever become a farmer? Even fantasy worlds should make some sense.

If everyone is special, no one is. But then, say no too often and you become the boogeyman. We've got a unique setting where being a bizarre subrace isn't too out of cannon. We just don't want it to become nutty. So we've done things like allowing tails for races like tieflings something that you don't need to jump through hoops to get.. but for wings you'd need a good write up request. I'm interested to hear what other server admin think and how they deal with this problem.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Jenna WSI, 03 mai 2011 - 12:18 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Aleron]

               

Aelis Eine wrote...

I think what AngelRogue is saying is fair comment. Players should be entitled to know what other players like and dislike about a server before they invest the time in creating a character concept, bio, even a name. This can sometimes take hours, which could be better spent doing something else if they had known beforehand what the server's culture is like.

Not singling out WSI in particular - some PWs have an overzealous censorship policy, deleting negative threads on their forums to make them look good. If you remember the old NWN forums, some PWs engage in astroturfing too. Someone would create a thread about a PW and suddenly an army of people that have never posted on the forums before all chime in with stellar reviews of the server.

Bioware Social is a neutral ground, and the bad reviews balance things out. I want to read about them just as much as I want to read the good.

While I can see what you are saying, how exactly do you explain a server's culture? Additionally, this isn't something that stays static. It changes and evolves as the server does with the players that are on it. What that culture is one month can vastly differ from the next. Speaking as someone who has been on a PW for a long period you see ebbs. One month, evil PCs and tieflings are a fad. A few month later you've got paladins and aasimar in majority. The next month it can switch back or to something entirely different. I'm not sure how you can convey that without seeing it for yourself.

The server has changed a lot since the time they played (around six months ago now)  so I think it is wise to take everything with a grain of salt. What is one person's experience won't necessarily be someone else's. That goes for good and bad reviews. I will point out you only covered the people that skew the appearance of the server for the good. There are just as many that do the opposite, trolls and people bearing a grudge that create accounts and suddenly show up to vote a server down or make it look bad. It goes both ways.

Does it balance out? I'm not so sure.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Aleron, 03 mai 2011 - 01:40 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_SuperFly_2000]

               

Metaldwarf wrote...
These days it seems like people are more interested in Action ....

Actually I have felt it to be the other way around.

Some roleplaying servers/communities are the ones that are really big....and tend to atract players just because of that as well.

They are usually really tight knit. It is players who have played together like forever and playing on the server has detoriated into some kind of social drama....

I am trying to find good server with "adventuring"....might sound easy ....but it isn't. With adventuring I mean a mix of roleplaying and action....and a world where necessary OOC like partying up etcetera is not frowned upon.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Aelis Eine]

               

Aleron wrote...
While I can see what you are saying, how exactly do you explain a server's culture? Additionally, this isn't something that stays static. It changes and evolves as the server does with the players that are on it. What that culture is one month can vastly differ from the next. Speaking as someone who has been on a PW for a long period you see ebbs. One month, evil PCs and tieflings are a fad. A few month later you've got paladins and aasimar in majority. The next month it can switch back or to something entirely different. I'm not sure how you can convey that without seeing it for yourself.

The server has changed a lot since the time they played (around six months ago now)  so I think it is wise to take everything with a grain of salt. What is one person's experience won't necessarily be someone else's. That goes for good and bad reviews. I will point out you only covered the people that skew the appearance of the server for the good. There are just as many that do the opposite, trolls and people bearing a grudge that create accounts and suddenly show up to vote a server down or make it look bad. It goes both ways. 

Does it balance out? I'm not so sure.

What you described is the server's culture, but in an IC sense. However, I was referring to the attitudes, beliefs and values of a server's staff and players, i.e. the OOC aspect. This culture reflects what the power hierarchy of that server is like, how decisions are made, what the norms are and how new players should adapt. These are things that cannot be seen without playing for an extended period of time, but can still be related in words. For example, "The DMs went out of their way to make sure I didn't feel left out in the event, despite my low level" or "In my two weeks here I was completely ignored by other players, who seemed content to stand around town in hoods, pretending to be AFK until a DM showed up."

Of course, both IC and OOC culture can both vary over time, but OOC culture tends to be a more resillient, usually changing only when there is a big shakeup somewhere in the hierarchy - whether at the player, staff or admin level. Timeliness of a review is still important, and if you feel the server you represent has been wronged or has changed since the date of the review, you can step forward and say that. That's exactly what you did, so I'd say it balances out.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Aelis Eine, 03 mai 2011 - 11:35 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Gregor Wyrmbane]

               

Aelis Eine wrote...
I think what AngelRogue is saying is fair comment. Players should be entitled to know what other players like and dislike about a server before they invest the time in creating a character concept, bio, even a name. This can sometimes take hours, which could be better spent doing something else if they had known beforehand what the server's culture is like.

Perhaps, but hijacking someone else's thread isn't the way to do it. If AngelRogue want's to expend all their time and energy bashing WSI they should start their own thread. I doubt the OP appreciates all the back and forth bickering here between the involved parties. 
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_SuperFly_2000]

               It's not really "hi-jacking" if you just write one comment about a server...as this thread...after all....is about servers....
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Gregor Wyrmbane]

               

SuperFly_2000 wrote...

It's not really "hi-jacking" if you just write one comment about a server...as this thread...after all....is about servers....

Exactly. "One comment" would have been acceptable. 
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Aleron]

               I'm quite happy to let it drop. In the end, it was a simple fact that people did not see eye to eye. This happens. It seems to have worked out for everyone in any case, as they have found a server more akin to what they were seeking.

As for the comments about NWN going more toward action, I really do prefer a mix. If I wanted straight up action I've got dozens of other games I can play for that. I come to NWN for the stories, rp, and community of likeminded people. While no server is perfect, you can usually find one that suits your taste and views. If not? You can always make your own too which is awesome. Real shame you can't do it in other games too! '>
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Aleron, 03 mai 2011 - 02:31 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_muvs32]

               

SuperFly_2000 wrote...

Metaldwarf wrote...
These days it seems like people are more interested in Action ....

Actually I have felt it to be the other way around.

Some roleplaying servers/communities are the ones that are really big....and tend to atract players just because of that as well.

They are usually really tight knit. It is players who have played together like forever and playing on the server has detoriated into some kind of social drama....

I am trying to find good server with "adventuring"....might sound easy ....but it isn't. With adventuring I mean a mix of roleplaying and action....and a world where necessary OOC like partying up etcetera is not frowned upon.

 I agree with your statements Superfly. NwN PW's are a great platform to get up a party and adventure/RP but it would take a sceduled (probably closed/app) campaign to really have me invest the amount of time needed to establish multi-demensional character with complete backstory ext. I would like to find again what you are looking for and if you have found it, I wouldn't mind hooking up with you there sometime.

 I had won role player of month on a couple servers and DMed and such but I had much more time to devote to it at that time. (2008-9) These past years later I have seen a number of old timer, like me(36) retire to life and families or become mostly action (WoGreyhawk) players only, or switched to W0W.

I love NwN more for nostalgia then anything I guess.I am finding it daunting to crack into a lenghtly campaign on a PW and would love to find a decent homebrew mod or even FR if it is not Salvator/canon ruled only. My belief is RP should advance RP, not literature. Finding again a homebrew world with good RP and relaxed attitude would be a treat...Avlis looks intriguing but all that lore collected from all those years online is intimidating.

 Things being what they are I have decided to join a PnP game to get a real RP fix, we'll see how it goes as I have not done so in 20 years. It will at least be interesting .

 Be well all, Muvs.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Metaldwarf]

               

Gregor Wyrmbane wrote...

SuperFly_2000 wrote...

It's not really "hi-jacking" if you just write one comment about a server...as this thread...after all....is about servers....

Exactly. "One comment" would have been acceptable. 

I know that some people might disagree with this but as the OP I had no problem with the comments made. I started this topic so that people could post their own thoughts and reasons on why they no longer played RP or story-based servers. However, I don't think it will devolve into blatantly insulting any one server, or indeed any one person's roleplay style.

One reason I like posting here rather than some of the server forums is that people tend to be more levelheaded here.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Metaldwarf]

               

SuperFly_2000 wrote...

Metaldwarf wrote...
These days it seems like people are more interested in Action ....

Actually I have felt it to be the other way around.

Some roleplaying servers/communities are the ones that are really big....and tend to atract players just because of that as well.

They are usually really tight knit. It is players who have played together like forever and playing on the server has detoriated into some kind of social drama....

To the first part, I know what you mean. There are servers where people who want to go out and level up their characters before becoming embroiled in the politics of the world are ridiculed and ignored. This actually happens frequently on a server I used to call home.
On the other hand, you have people on rp servers who are so eager to level that they ignore canon, lore, and even basic things like classes. I have seen  Tormite paladins happily slay orcs with Velsharoon necromancers, and have witnessed elves who claim to be half-drow and proud of it. Now granted, that's not as bad as the celestial vampire dragonling trapped in a dwarf's body scenario, but it still breaks immersion. Of course these are specific examples of Forgotten Realms based servers; so not everyone would care or can relate.

As to your second point about the 'cliques'...I've never seen a server these days where that isn't true unfortunately. Having been part of some and on the edges of many, I can understand why new people don't feel welcome or inspired to stay on RP servers. I speak mainly of RP servers because the cliquishness is unique to those and likely Story servers because you spend a vast majority of your time building a character's personality and relationships and their place in the world that dramatically effects everything around them. It's impossible not to get attached to that character, and to form bonds with other like-minded folks. When I returned to my main server after a few months absence I certainly felt welcome, but very little else had changed. The same three or four year old epics ran everything, the same groups tended to keep to each other, and the same wars and politics inundated the rp of the server at the expense of other stories and high adventure. People grow comfortable with things and perceive a threat to that existence and tend to become extremely protective. Cliques are a natural progression of that philosophy.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Metaldwarf]

               

TSMDude wrote...

Satisfied owner of BG 1&2, KOTOR, NWN 1. Owner of NWN2.

^^^^That is some funny stuff right there btw. ^^^^

I
played on a lot of worlds. I DMed on several. I have been in some shape
or form a part of about 10 to 15 different role playing PWs or
Persisitent Story PWs. And yes, even one social server....ahem...

For
the last two or so have been on the aforementioned tales of the Silver
Marches and realized that wow...there is so much we can do and have not
done yet. Scripting, building...this or that...

Yet what it comes
down to is the Base. Not just the players. Not just the Quest Leaders.
Not Gygax, Greenwood, or Salvatore. Not even my old friends from the PnP
days who we went to the same colleges and stayed up later than late
over the weekends when sensible people were drinking and running naked
through briar patches...
What drives me is the Realms itself. It is like an itch that needs to be scratched over and over again.

Even
now, with our smaller numbers in the teens and sometimes even single
digits I find myself glued to this screen and this toolset remaking the
entire North Realms for people to explore...to fit our Lore we have
crafted for the Realms. It...excites me as I sit there reading books and
listening to the Last of the Mohicans soundtrack or a hodegpodge of
music like the song from the lass in King Arthur.

I know that
our players are excited and scared and filled with trepidation but I
also know they will spread out as they always do as we reinvent the
server every few years(no we dont wipe server vaults, lol) and try and
explore what is out there to find that Explorer XP points.

I know
we had one player who we lost to real life finally who would spend
hours walking around in first player JUSt to see the server. What an
awesome compliminet it was.

I do not know other servers as much
as I used to. I know what I have been told and what I have seen but I do
know this...I may miss the old players who we may have lost to graphics
or real life or combos of both but I truly am glad for the friends I
have met in my travels and the things i have seen.

Role Playing
will never become obsolete. It is the best of pure escapism and if we
were just text lines on a screen ala Pool of Radiance...I bet we would
still see some of you there.

Well said, and I could not agree more about the Realms. It still excites me after nearly twenty years of playing in Greenwood's sandbox. (Say what you will about Elminster being a Larry Sue, the man can bloody do what he wants after creating such a fine world for us to play in, imho.) Sometimes I catch myself wanting to type or do things that my character surely doesn't know on servers to this day because I've got so much information about the Realms personally that it's tough to keep it all inside. There are people who are DMs on a certain server that is steeped in FR lore that have claimed they not only care little for the lore but they actively dislike it and look down upon those who draw great inspiration from the lore. They fiddle and manipulate and break lore and applaud others who do it if it means more 'interesting' roleplay can occur. However, I do not mean to begrudge that entire server. For the most part they do a fine job of balancing such things with the rest of the FR world.  It is however a contributing reason why I don't find myself as enamored with it any longer, despite it being where most of my NWN buddies still play.


One thing I tend to notice is the amount of backbiting and mudslinging that exists in nwn chat and in server forums for other servers. This attitude is shameful to me, because most of these people have never even played on the servers they insult so wildly. How do I know such a thing? I asked the people. The ones who had legimate complaints tended to acknowledge that it had been a long time(years in some cases) since they had played on that server and maybe they were being unfair. I think it'd be awesome to get people from the more prominent, higher-population rp servers together in chat somewhere and share ideas, discuss things, like an actual community forum. I sincerely doubt most people are open to that idea however.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Metaldwarf, 04 mai 2011 - 01:51 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_TSMDude]

               Cliques form no matter where you go. And then with the idiotic griefers it made some servers become even less friendly for awhile.

People want to play with thier friends. I hate cliques tnh and am a dedicated soloist adventurer. Always have been and yet here I sit running a Role Playing server that is for the most part as hard core role playing as they get.

When a server starts to become stale...it is the builders fault. I would love to say the DMs/QLs dont do this or the players dont do that but the blame normally rest squarely on the scripter/builder. (And yes I am one so I do take the Lion's Share of the blame trough)

It is our job to keep things exciting and fresh. If a Epic has seen everything then they become idle and idle players leads to boredom and then routine sets in. When that happens you screwed the pooch, jumped the shark...ate at Moes...whatever you want to call it.

Do something crazy. Blow up the main city woth a portal to hell opened by some baddy forcing the players to move somewhere.

Kill the main merchant.

Ask one of your main people with an epic pc to fall on the sword in some spetacular fashion.

Boredom and tedium is the enemy of us all.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Arinoch]

               

Boredom and tedium is the enemy of us all.

Here here. I left a server I'd been on for three years because of that, and I still loved the players I was playing with, no less. I had an epic character, which felt like an accomplishment as the DMs had to nominate your character to be advanced above 20. But still, I'd gone everywhere and done everything, and could only count on DM plots, which at the time were few and far between, to get any sense of danger. Maybe that same reason is why I champion the scaling system on TWI so much, because it extends the life of the areas you've been to over and over. Combine that with slow, purposeful leveling and the game world extends itself significantly.

Of course, game world is nothing without players to fill it, so that's the other issue that arises, especially with an aging game like NWN. I wish I knew a way to gauge whether the number of committed RPers are on the decline, even in the real world in terms of PnP play. If there were even D&D forums to visit where you could say "you guys should buy Neverwinter Nights and come play", it's going to be that much harder to get a copy of the game as time progresses. NWN2 is on Steam, at least, so there's always that when the day comes, I suppose.