The Easting Reach: A NWN1 Persistent World

[Legacy_Solena_Salafiel]

               

We happily announce The Easting Reach, a new NWN1 persistent world set in Impiltur.


Like so many modules based in the Forgotten Realms, The Easting Reach offers countless opportunities for heroism, exploration and adventure. But none of these are what you've come to expect. As a low level, roleplay-oriented server, celebrated heroes may rise as high as 8th level after a long career. Along the way, they can learn new and altered skills, feats and magics to make them experts in their field.


With highly detailed, lovingly crafted areas, every journey is its own reward. From Dilpur to Arn's Cove, from shore to mountains, our builders work to drop your jaw. Sprinkled liberally through the countryside are nooks, caves and ruins begging your attention, often harbouring perils. Cleverly designed dungeons need teamwork, haste or quick thinking if you are to survive and claim its riches.


With scripting systems designed uniquely for this module and a range of custom content kindly provided by you, the NWN community, we hope to set new standards for you to enjoy.


Come and check us out at eastingreach.freeforums.org

We hope to see you soon!


On behalf of The TER Crew,

- Kilaana (aka Solena_Salafiel)

 

               
               

               

                     Modifié par Solena_Salafiel, 24 septembre 2014 - 01:43 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_henesua]

               i tend not to like when placeables overwhelm the tileset in area design, but despite that I really like that fishing village. nice work there. That is a very cool looking area.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Athain]

               Agreed, I'm very impressed with that fishing village.  Might be the best building work I've seen in years.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Guppy01232]

               That fishing village is beautiful. What tileset is it if you dont mind me asking?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Athain]

               I could be wrong, but it looks like Lord R's Rocky Mountains, with some NWN2 placeable houses comprising the buildings.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Solena_Salafiel]

               Thank you everyone for your kind compliments. I hope the images compel you to step foot into our little module someday.

Yes, it is indeed Lord R's Rocky Mountains with the swamp hut models from CEP 2.4. That tileset is very versatile, it's helped me bring to life many a setpiece that would not have been possible without it.

This might belong better in the builder's section, but since it's PW related I might as well share here. Using the same tileset I've managed to achieve a somewhat different look for a mountain village here (WIP screenshot): i.imgur.com/IsGaR7r.jpg
Of course it's not as perfect as i'd like it to be given the many limitation imposed by both the toolset and the tileset, so I ask for your understanding.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Solena_Salafiel, 09 janvier 2014 - 03:26 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Fester Pot]

               Nice work. You should become one big PW with The Dragon's Neck. Exact same style, so I'll go out on a limb and say you're an offshoot from that PW or an old builder that helped out there.

Regardless, it's a very unique style that I've not seen before (TDN of course the only other place).

It's very visual and laid out quite well. In the defense of using so many placeables to achieve a particular look, when set to PLOT and with proper PWK to block pathfinding, it can really create atmosphere. What causes hiccups in said areas are NPCs with particular clothing/tails/wings. This can be see in any PW that have NPCs with those long trench coats (robe setting), rather than the number of placeables. PLOT is very important to avoid AOE spells causing wide spread lag on placeables that are not PLOT. You probably know that already though '>

Sadly, and I don't mean this as a jab, if it follows the same guidelines as TDN, level advancement is slow. Items in shops are nonmagical and treasure is that of coin and basic items - paintings, carved stone, gems and the like - which is a real niche in a PW.

Now I like that in a PW, because it focuses more on exploration and partied adventures, but the more casual player who wants advancement straight up in a few hours, would really need to be impressed to stick around.

Regardless, stick to how YOU want your PW to be, and enjoy those who do come and like that style. I'll check it out one day, because I love getting lost in lush areas exploring little caves, following streams and general exploration.

How long until it's out of ALPHA?

FP!
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Fester Pot, 09 janvier 2014 - 07:36 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Solena_Salafiel]

               You're right in your conclusions, FP. Ours is a very small team, and most of us in there are the sort of players who find more delight in the storytelling than how fast it takes to get from Level 1 to 10. In fact, one of the features of TER is that XP is no longer gained through monster-bashing; instead it is awarded through exploration and puzzle-solving (and as DM reward). We took a big risk in implementing such a system, which is why we encourage constructive feedback as we know we are deviating vastly from the norm. We also know that this may mark us as a niche server, and that those who DO enjoy our server will be those who are most interested in role-play, in the true sense of the word.

Thank you for your compliments; I used to help out at TDN but left that project for personal reasons which has little to do with TDN's owners. They are a good bunch with lots of talent. I learnt a lot from them. To say that we share the unique style is a great compliment, so thank you again.

As for the end of Alpha, we're hoping sometime before May or June this year, earlier if we're lucky. It's just a matter of supressing our perfectionist instincts (or else it'll never see the light of day) '>
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Solena_Salafiel, 09 janvier 2014 - 08:41 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_T0r0]

               I would visit. I enjoy low magic, HCR (ish), earn all you got kind of world. Congrats on putting it together !
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Fester Pot]

               I did create a character and have explored the server very lightly. Personally, I find the night way too bright. Some moon ambient color in a blue hue could add to the areas that have no diffuse or ambient color for the individual tile. Placeables could be illuminated with color by using the individual tile properties Main Light 2.

Not a fan of having lost -1 constitution for respawning on death while walking along the road, when the starting NPC tells you to stick to the roads for safety. Got hijacked by some arrow shooting feathered enemy, arriving in Outentown - Ilmatari Shelter. You can't even rest there, so why put a recovering player there? If it's an RP server, am I expected to drag my bloody corpse across town to the Homestead just to rest?

Can't apply head changes to a character through the tailors, be it in-game or through the starting area.

Enjoyed the area design, very much like TDN's style, but you've got to allow safe areas such as a town, village and a city to be revealed map wise. If not, at least allow a character to purchase a map for each village, town or city that would reveal the entire area, and be reapplied on server reboot.

Explored a cave before getting hijacked on the road, sold a few items and made some coin. Bought a necklace that helps with dreaming and resting - I figure it's just an RP item - but for 15gp, it was a steal. Picked up 5xp and 35xp for exploring and surviving a dangerous situation in the cave. Great work, really enjoyed that.

A token to save one's location would be ideal, with an option to return to your last saved point or start at the generic starting location on a reboot. Since a lot of the server is based on exploring, it kind of defeats the purpose of exploring, when you log out in a distant town, only to have the server reboot and find yourself back at the generic starting location.

Perhaps I missed being able to do that. If you don't want to do that, another suggestion is to create a placeable in all inns and taverns, that a character can click on to bind. Then they'd start there instead on a server reboot.

Otherwise, quite a positive experience for an alpha version.

Keep up the great work!

FP!
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Solena_Salafiel]

               FP - first of all, thank you for sparing some time in your schedule to testdrive our module. Your feedback is also much appreciated, so I will try to respond accordingly:

The module has more than one builder on the team, so areas generally tend to vary due to individual abilities. The suggestion about night being too bright can be finetuned, so thanks for that.

If I recall the feathered enemy type you encountered, then its spawn should be off the main road. I can only conclude that your character explored a side-route or dirt path that caused the encounter to happen. We try to avoid road encounters in and around areas that the PC starts off in, but we won't guarantee that road encounters aren't possible further out in the wilderness where human traffic is a lot more scarce. The resulting penalties were implemented to discourage fast levelling phenomenon, as a means to encourage group exploration, and to motivate characters to stay alive. It is our attempt to make death a little more tangible in the game. Penalties like these can be restored temporarily, for a small fee, by NPC priests. Greater Restoration and Ressurection will restore every single stat point you lost through dying permanently, but let's bear in mind that these are divine magics and do not come cheaply, nor can every village priest perform such work. In retrospect, we don't take gold, XP, or items that you've earned. The stat loss is not guaranteed and when it happens it's ultimately reversible. Say what you will, but we do think we're being quite lenient here already. '> Finally, you not being able rest in the Ilmatari shrine is really my fault for forgetting to set it as such.

Head changes are indeed available, but they aren't immediately accessible except upon DM request, so we apologize for that.

Regarding safe areas such as towns, villages and cities, we'll be sure to look into tweaking the code to allow for this, so thanks for the suggestion.

We're glad that you enjoyed exploring the cave and seen some of our XP system at work. You came away with a positive experience, enjoyed the journey, that's our goal.

Players should already spawn back in their last logged location after a server reboot. If this is not happening, then please let us know via a bug report and we'll see to it.

As before, if things aren't immediately clear from the get-go, we apologize given our Alpha state. Be assured that things can only get better from here on.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Solena_Salafiel, 10 janvier 2014 - 09:34 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Solena_Salafiel]

               

We are pleased to announce that the Beta stage for the server has begun on April 1st and is ongoing.


We expect it to last for about two months. Depending on the participation and feedback we receive, it may be longer (or shorter!). At the start of Beta, there will be several changes:


- Some of the hak packs and the tlk file will be updated, so please remember to download the latest versions.

- All testing characters from the alpha phase will be deleted.

- Most of the testing commands will be disabled, including those for extra coin, XP increases (but not reductions), healing and resurrection.

- XP gain will be increased for faster levelling. The XP cap will still be disabled.


You are encouraged to stay in-character (IC) during play, taking any necessary precautions as your character sees fit while exploring the wilderness.


We would also like you to:

- Continue reporting any bugs you encounter.

- Provide feedback on your experiences (good and bad).

- Suggest improvements to the module.


In particular, we'd like to hear how profitable (or costly) adventures are. You can help us with this by keeping track of what you earn in treasure and what you lose on supplies. Noting the area you explored, your party size and party level will also be helpful to us.

To help out, there will be a new testing command to tell you what the average merchant would pay for your entire inventory.


At the end of the Beta phase, we will configure the module for 'normal' play. Beta characters will be deleted so everyone starts off on the same foot. You are most welcome to remake your favourite ones, but be aware that events during the Beta phase are not yet part of the official timeline.


Finally, we'd like to point out that the module is a work-in-progress.

We expect the module's development to continue long after Beta, as we add new areas and improve old ones, create more variety for the treasure tables, introduce more and more user-friendly options, flesh out undocumented parts of the setting and so forth. For that, we beg your patience.


With that said, we hope to see you during Beta. Don't forget to have fun!

 

You may find more details and the necessary downloads from our forum here.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_xidekeen]

               

From what I read about your server it seems like a perfect fit for my play style, low magic and low levels and the screenshots are looking good. This is something I been hoping for and glad you and the team are working hard on it and can't wait for beta to finish.

 

Also, is there crafting in-game and if so are there any info I can read on it?

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Solena_Salafiel]

               Hello and thanks for your kind words.

As to your question, crafting is something we may look at in the future if we can find one that we like. It's a system that requires a great deal of balancing; at its worst, many such systems require endlessly grinding for resources in order to build a skill. Rinse and repeat ad nauseum. We would consider a system where crafting has some progression without sacrificing the risk/fun factor. The other thing to consider is that, as a low level server, we're very limited in the type and power of properties we can put on items. So whichever crafting system we implement, the items that come with it will be no good and must be redesigned entirely.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Solena_Salafiel]

               

Hello everyone,


It has been an exciting 2.5 months since we opened our doors to Beta. On the first day, we had nearly 17 players online, eager to test the waters. For a new, little-known module such as ours, this is quite an accomplishment. Since then, we have held many a testing session to iron out numerous bugs, and with your help we have tracked down new ones as part of the module refinement process. Aside from that, a small mention on a Joystiq.com article, along with some kind words from one of the community's famed tileset creators has certainly made all our hard work seem all the more worthwhile.


As we roll into summer proper, some of you have asked - when exactly will Beta end so we can play our characters for real?


As of now, a post-Beta isn't too likely at the end of June. Here's a quick list of the various things we still need to get done before the module gets comfortable enough to evolve into a post-Beta stage:

 

• Loot system updates (currently top priority & most time-consuming)


• Balancing Summons


• Addition & completion of PrCs such as Daemonbinder and Spirit-Caller respectively


• Updating Class Packages


• Fixing wizard spell research


• Updating & adding skill-related and level-1 feats


• More intelligent NPC behaviour


• Ambush system


• Improved dungeon scripting


• Null/Wild Magic

... and more.


While we continue to develop the module through summer, you're welcome as always to drop in and explore. Though we have a changelog for each time we update the server, it's under Staff section as most of the changes are rather spoiler-ific.


Hang in there with us - and as always, many thanks for your continued interest in the server!