Muleing / Twinking discussion

[NegInfinity]

This is an individual issue, not a server issue. Don't like muling? Then don't mule. Easy.

Another huge thread on a nothing issue.

It is not really an individiaul issue, but simply put if somebody bans muling without having a crafting system to replace it, it'll harm the server very badly.

[scriver]

It made me ill when I read the comment that people make a character around an item they found...seriously?

Why? It makes perfect sense. You take a cool weapon, and turn it into integral part of some character's story.

Though the character didn't work out and I haven't played him in a while, I recently found a cool, random generated badtsrd sword with Keen and massive critical and spell resistance that I wanted to build a Warlock around - like the sword was part of the pact and given to him by his patron.

[Incarnate]

I actually have pointed out a lot of things in this very thread a lot of things it affects, but apparently you've missed it, but it is in this thread. Also quoted others who've pointed the things out or have made an explanation to what it does.

Feel free to present a list if you believe there is any valid argument to be presented. Or just quote previous posts.

First of all I already have, and it is in this thread if you bothered to look when I mentioned this the first time, which was both not to clutter the thread with more of the same and not being forced to reiterate something I had already spent a good deal of writing up. With this being an rp-server first and foremost its actually quite important that we treat the game as such, muling doesn't promote rp, it promotes powerbuilding and metagaming. So let me remind you that its the character that earned the items and wealth, not the player, so its the character that owns it, not the player, which means the player doesn't have the right to mule those items and there has to be very actual and contextually correct legitimate rp reasons for why the items and/wealth changes ownership. Using knowledge not lawfully gained by a character in game constitutes metagaming, as such Muling IS an act of metagaming because an act of muling uses OOC knowledge IC'ly. Metagaming is against the rules. Its also a form of god-modding because you're acting OOC'ly through IC-actions and completely ignoring what it means that these are characters in a gameworld. This is already two counts of rule violations with just one act of muling - per character that participates. Playing on the server one agrees to abide by the rules, but aside this, it does affect in a variety of non-beneficial ways and not limited to only these:

• It affects the ingame trade & economy in a negative way
• By allowing Muling this also allows Metagaming to a degree.
• It affects game balance and potentially rp-outcomes - PvP/CvC.
• It shifts the power level - Gamebalance with respects to encounters/CR.
• It skews lore the lore.

Just because items can be difficult to optain, that doesn't in any way, shape or form justify muling.

Oh, and I'm not the only one to point out these things:

There are so many negative side-effects to muling, off the top of mine and Valefort's head:

• Game balance against encounter CR
• Economy - with no twinking, all characters need new equipment all through their levels. When you can’t save an item for your next character you are more likely to put it up for sale, increasing pc-to-pc trade. Items get retired with their owner, so the collective inventory of pc items isn’t inflated eternally
• With twinking you are removing a huge part of the basic premise of an RPG. Half of character progression is equipping your character as he grows. Where is the joy of finding that +1 weapon at level 3, if you are already decked out in +3 gear? (This part only hurts the player himself of course)
• It is an OOC construct. Those are unavoidable, but should only be used when necessary, and when IC constructs aren’t enough to handle a game feature. Muling/twinking is not necessary for anything, and serves no purpose for the game as such
• New players do not have gear to mule, the gear inequality increases the more time you spent on the server account wide. When they compare themselves, at equivalent level, to an old player's PC with twinked gear there's no match (especially for non-casters), which will undoubtedly make them sour. Muleing is a choice for the have, not for the have not
• It promotes grinding-alts and RP-alts instead of sticking with a well rounded character

However, using your logic since you're pro muling, it would seem that either you don't understand what muling achieves on a serverwide scale.

A dead server is not fun. Rules that are enforced for some and not for others is not fun. Unnecessary limitations are not fun. I am pro-fun.

An interesting question:
Should the server conform to the players or should the players conform to the server, personally I'd say the latter.

Now I'm not going name a single thing it will affect, but it does affect game balance, especially CvC / PvP, it affects the economy negatively.

You are not going to name actual examples, because you cannot name a single actual example. It should be easy to prove me wrong.

If you're going to quote me, please don't disregard things that is important to its context, as I already said I did point some things and it is in this thread if you bothered to look when I mentioned this the first time, reason I didn't go write them all up again was both not to clutter the thread with more of the same and not being forced to reiterate something I had already spent a good deal of writing up, but with you disregarding what I said you're forcing me to write it up again, so seriously when I do point out that I already have posted it please don't just disregard it as you just did.

As for PvP, there are rules in place to prevent it from taking place without some in-character justification. Not to mention that it is actually impossible to create truly balanced PvP with the third edition D&D rules. How are you going to bridge the power gap between a level 1 and level 30 character? It does not exactly help that due to the nature of this game itself 'mechanical power' is acquired in bursts and at unspecified levels, although mostly at 20+. Then you can have characters that are item dependant, and characters that are not. The only way for balanced PvP to exist is by limiting everyone to a singular build, with a singular set of equipment, so that victor is determined by player skill or sheer luck.

Muling is not a PvP balance concern because the equipment available on this server is rather limited in nature. I mean, it is not like we can have those +8 weapons with three types of 5d6 elemental damage on them. And while a +4 weapon at level 1 might be a notable boon, hoever, its effect is not exactly notable in a matter of just few additional levels. I mean, when my Wisdom based Ranger acquired Epic Longbow of Knocking to replace her Greater Longbow of Knocking, I honestly could not tell the difference. +3 EB, +4 EB? The difference does not exist, it is just +5% chance to hit, and less than that in damage output.

These rules DON'T affect the balance at all, it just means there has to be actual reasons for the PvP and also, not everyone respects the PvP rules. You think muling makes its more balanced with low vs. high level - it doesn't. Because higher level characters also have great gear on, so the only thing that will balance it out is acquiring more levels. But this does also make muled characters vs. unmuled characters who're somewhat equal level, very unbalanced. Also PvP isn't just players fighting each other with weapons and spells, but also social interactions where skill rolls are involved. Bridging the gap between low vs. high level from a balance perspective isn't mechanically possible without creating other balance issues. Also, muling doesn't mean that its just one item thats going to carry over, it might as well be a ton of wealth, weapons, armor pieces, magical items, potions, scrolls, etc. In fact it could be all of it in one go - where it would take a ton of time for this character at this time to generate the amount of equivalent wealth. Also, this skews lore quite a lot as well, as this sort of gear in Forgotten Realms isn't something that everyone has, and certainly not low level characters who're just starting their adventuring days. It might be that gear is more easily obtainable on the server but this gear still has to be obtained and equipped. So by comparison it does affects the balance by a great degree and potentially to an extreme degree, and not only that it also means that muled characters can skip alot content, which also might affect who they end up partying with, say they party up with others for higher leveled encounters instead of with those of equivalent level. Or if they party up with those of equivalent level and take on equivalent encounter areas - they will absolute steamroll any opposition they meet, the other players will not be able to do anything notable in comparison - which ruins the fun the for other players. So you might say it would ruin your fun because you cannot mule - but let me ask you, which should conform to which, should the server conform to your playstyle or should you conform to the server and its rules? Another thing muling also does, is that it actually skews lore.

As for server economy, any ban on muling will have only have a detrimental effect to the economy. Inventory slots are limited, which means that any established merchant can only afford to keep a select few of their best items in their limited number of inventory slots. Additionally, what is the value of in game gold again? The correct answer to that is that it depends. A player that desires an item sold in an NPC store will treat in game gold as a thing of value, but a player that sees no desirable item in an NPC store sees in game gold as a thing of no value. The value of in game gold is determined solely by its use. This means that more often than not some rare items can only be traded for other rare items. But unfortunately not all rare items are equally desired, and we have to consider the actual supply and demand. A greatly desired item is unlikely to be traded to a less desired item, or even to a pile of less desired items due to nature of now limited inventory space. Hence, you can only trade singular things of equal value. The high end server economy stagnates.

There is at least one ingame storage method that I know of. The value of items depends on supply, demand and desirability - at least the item value the players put on them. Whereas gold has a worth in terms of what it can be used to obtain, no matter how you see it, even for one who has piles and piles of it still has worth, it might be worthless to this character because he/she has nothing to spend it on, but thats a completely different problem.

Why buy a piece of +4 equipment when a spell can grant you that +4, +5, +6, or something far higher. The only item of universal interest would be the dodge boots, and these days you can buy +3 and +4 dodge boots from NPC merchants. The low end server economy stagnates.

There is a very good reason for buying equipment that gives great bonuses, because often they stack, and even if they overlap it gives a powerlevel thats sustainable, so in the event the buff expires and there is no means to quickly having it reapplied then at the very least one isn't greatly underperforming. Personally I think it would be a good idea if magical items wasn't so easily and readily available, and the fact that it is makes it also quite skewed from lore. That would really make getting magical items a lot more lore "organic" rather than artificially getting it. As in one rightfully obtaining it, either through adventure, purchase or crafting.

In short, a ban on muling would be a disaster for the server economy, have no effect on PvP balance, and generate accusations of favoritism and sensation of unfairness.

I greatly disagree, and I have pointed out a lot of things in this regard.

This isn't is Diablo or Path of Exile where it doesn't matter if one where to mule because that is specifically made for it, even those two game has rpg elements to it, they aren't a true rpg. Muling does a lot more than you seem to want to merit. Apparently you haven't noticed that a lot of people see its a problem, so its not only me, even a lot of staff recognizes it as a problem but tolerate because they don't know how to deal with the problem effeciently.

In Diablo, you run in circles to gain loot and experience. In BGTSCC, you run in circles to gain loot and experience. And honestly, I do take Diablo II RP over the campfire RP any day.

The two meanings of RP aren't the same contextually and quite frankly are vastly different, so the RP parts cannot be compared in that regard. Another point here, is that D2 caters to casual gamers where convenience matters a great deal, where actual rp is virtually non-existent, because the "RP" isn't dynamic but follow a quite linear progression. Where with BG:TSCC its dynamic and is a mix between NWN2 and PnP, and as such it should have a lot more emphasis on the integrity of the rp and lore.

So what can I say? Incarnate, stop being a lazy bum, and get off the couch.

You could consider the fact that there are many others who actually think its a problem and agrees with me. With regards to being lazy, I'd say that it is those who mule who the lazy ones if anything.

[Sapper Woody]

An interesting question:
Should the server conform to the players or should the players conform to the server, personally I'd say the latter.

Please, please, PLEASE tell me you see the irony here.


HINT: You are trying to have the server conform to you, and using this sentence to help that.

[Young Werther]

Evil twins enter the scene

Evil twin 1: I need a mule.

Evil twin 2: Yes, a mule. Let us create one.

Evil twin 1: When shall we do it, brother?

Evil twin 2: Tonight when the crows caw their last.

Evil twin 1: The DMs shall not observe nor shall the scripters stop us.

Evil twin 2: We are so clever, brother. Let our powers be unstoppable.

Evil twin 1: They shall fear our mule.

*evil crackling, scene fade*

[Incarnate]

An interesting question:
Should the server conform to the players or should the players conform to the server, personally I'd say the latter.

Please, please, PLEASE tell me you see the irony here.
HINT: You are trying to have the server conform to you, and using this sentence to help that.

Actually, no! That is really intended as its written! Its really matter of perception, where some would say the server has to conform to the players, where others would say that the players has to conform to the server! You can go about interpreting in many ways, but ultimately that is what it comes down to. I see so many writing that people should be allowed to play however they want, or no one should dictate how they should play, etc. even to point where it violates several rules, is at the expense of game balance and what not! So its really intended to make people stop and think it through!

[Xanfyrst]

The server is at its best when its players are given all the freedom the rules and lore setting provides them. As shown throughout its history.

I see no issue in muling or twinking. Just wish we had a storage system again. Hate to ask friends or DMs for assistance in such trivial matter.

[NegInfinity]

However, using your logic since you're pro muling, it would seem that either you don't understand what muling achieves on a serverwide scale.

A dead server is not fun. Rules that are enforced for some and not for others is not fun. Unnecessary limitations are not fun. I am pro-fun.

An interesting question:
Should the server conform to the players or should the players conform to the server, personally I'd say the latter.

I'd say you're wrong here.

Server and player realtionship is supposed to be two-way street. People put their effort into maintaining the environment, and in exchange get to experience the result.

However, the people are here for fun. So, if they stop having fun, they'll leave. Adding too many rules and limitations will reduce number of people willing to put up with them. So, you'll simply kill the server with good intentions.

At best it should be a healthy balance between the two approaches, and not "one or another" kind of situation.

In general, the less rules, the better, because more rules means higher chance of players disliking them.

[Sun Wukong]

A reply to Incarnate's first blob of text:
If you have written something, you can always just copy and paste it, especially when it is requested. It saves your time, it saves my time, it saves everyone's time.

Now you also stated that muling does not promote role-play, and that it instead promotes promotes powerbuilding and metagaming. Your statement is entirely false. Merchant role-play on this server is only possible due to existance of mule characters to store items. Powerbuilding will exist with or without muling, because powerbuilding is ultimately based on desire for power and ability to find success. Not to mention that you are playing NWN2 on a persistent world and eventually all players will learn the secrets that the persistent world holds, which means that each and every player will learn to 'metagame' the enviroment with or without muling.

I would also like to remind you that characters do not exist without a player behind them. And how you are only in control of your own characters, and therefore, what characters of other players choose to do is not your concern. If a character decides to fling away a suit of armor in the middle of a forest, they can do so, and there is absolutely nothing that you can do to prevent it. What you are trying to do is bolster your own argument by throwing out words with negative meaning - without even using the words correctly.

• And once again, if you are going to claim a negative impact on the server economy, you need to be able to explain how and why. You have not.
• Player experience means that some degree of 'metagaming' must be tolerated on persistent worlds. Otherwise, the world itself cannot function.
• Out come of PvP is also affected by character levels, and associations, and locations, and myriad list of other things. Muling is nothing exceptional.
• It is not your place to decide the level of challenge another player wishes to face.
• This is a persistent world, the game mechanical boundaries and player actions will skew the server lore, and create new lore. This is not a book written in stone that you merely read, it is thing that is shaped by countless hands as time goes on.

A reply to Incarnate's quote of Dedude and Valefort's views:

• A far bigger role is played by the power difference between builds.
• It is possible to make builds that require very little when it comes to equipment, and hence not all builds are in dire need of equipment. In the past those Dodge boots used to be the only type of item that held value to almost all characters, the only type of item that could be traded to almost anything else. This is no longer the case because there are epic dodge boots in NPC stores. Additionally, just because a specific player character is not currently in active use, it does not automatically mean that the items the inactive character holds can be used by other characters under the same player. A new character often requires its own pair of dodge boots of old, and this is why the economy keeps ticking on. It is a bother to mule equipment just to use an old character on a whim. You also have to consider that not all players wish to partake in PC-to-PC trade. For example the majority of the merchants on the in game auction forum tend to be highly unprofessional. They do not communicate time accurately over different time zones, they do not inform when they check the personal messages merchant forum account, and once someone has waited and waited long enough, they will just prefer to avoid the in game auction forum.
• How do you store large quantity of items? In game storage? It went offline as far as I know. Not to mention who knows when its bugged next time, or something else.
• And we also have old players who get bored if they mule and twink out their new characters. Not to mention that the in game consingment store does allow easy access to +3 equipment. The difference between +3 and +4 is practically nothing. But, if you truly think a new player who gains a sour face out of jealousy is a genuine concern, then you may hand them your own equipment for free.
• Not everyone wants to stick with a singular character, Maelir Ostrichead. Not all characters will partake in similar role-play, and so on, and so on...

A reply to Incarnate's second blob of text:
You may refer to NegIninity's comment.

A reply to Incarnate's third blob of text:
You should learn to use this thing: " . "

And you cannot claim context when your use of " , " could be easily replaced by a " . "

A reply to Incarnate's fourth blob of text:
Blah-blah-blah. What you wrote makes no difference. If you meet a powerful or a wealthy character, you have met a powerful or a wealthy character. You do not get to decide what the characters of others are. They are not your characters.

A reply to Incarnate's fifth blob of text:
I guess that is an attempt to paraphrase what I just said. Doesn't support your side of argument at all though.

A reply to Incarnate's sixth blob of text:
Spellbook managment. It is a simple thing to do.

A reply to Incarnate's seventh blob of text:
You've pointed out nothing.

A reply to Incarnate's ninth blob of text:
You have never role-played in diablo 2, have you? It literally blows the lid off from the usual campfire tea sipping that takes place in that one particular area.

A reply to Incarnate's tenth blob of text:
Stop being a lazy bum, get off the couch, and get a job. Earn your own stuff in game, and you do not have to be jealous of the things that others have.

[NegInfinity]

A reply to Incarnate's first blob of text:
If you have written something, you can always just copy and paste it, especially when it is requested. It saves your time, it saves my time, it saves everyone's time.

Dude, use quote within a spoiler tag. If you don't want to use the full quote. Like this:

Hidden: show

A reply to Incarnate's first blob of text:
If you have written something, you can always just copy and paste it, especially when it is requested. It saves your time, it saves my time, it saves everyone's time.

Now you also stated that muling does not promote role-play, and that it instead promotes promotes powerbuilding and metagaming. Your statement is entirely false. Merchant role-play on this server is only possible due to existance of mule characters to store items. Powerbuilding will exist with or without muling, because powerbuilding is ultimately based on desire for power and ability to find success. Not to mention that you are playing NWN2 on a persistent world and eventually all players will learn the secrets that the persistent world holds, which means that each and every player will learn to 'metagame' the enviroment with or without muling.

I would also like to remind you that characters do not exist without a player behind them. And how you are only in control of your own characters, and therefore, what characters of other players choose to do is not your concern. If a character decides to fling away a suit of armor in the middle of a forest, they can do so, and there is absolutely nothing that you can do to prevent it. What you are trying to do is bolster your own argument by throwing out words with negative meaning - without even using the words correctly.

• And once again, if you are going to claim a negative impact on the server economy, you need to be able to explain how and why. You have not.
• Player experience means that some degree of 'metagaming' must be tolerated on persistent worlds. Otherwise, the world itself cannot function.
• Out come of PvP is also affected by character levels, and associations, and locations, and myriad list of other things. Muling is nothing exceptional.
• It is not your place to decide the level of challenge another player wishes to face.
• This is a persistent world, the game mechanical boundaries and player actions will skew the server lore, and create new lore. This is not a book written in stone that you merely read, it is thing that is shaped by countless hands as time goes on.

A reply to Incarnate's quote of Dedude and Valefort's views:

• A far bigger role is played by the power difference between builds.
• It is possible to make builds that require very little when it comes to equipment, and hence not all builds are in dire need of equipment. In the past those Dodge boots used to be the only type of item that held value to almost all characters, the only type of item that could be traded to almost anything else. This is no longer the case because there are epic dodge boots in NPC stores. Additionally, just because a specific player character is not currently in active use, it does not automatically mean that the items the inactive character holds can be used by other characters under the same player. A new character often requires its own pair of dodge boots of old, and this is why the economy keeps ticking on. It is a bother to mule equipment just to use an old character on a whim. You also have to consider that not all players wish to partake in PC-to-PC trade. For example the majority of the merchants on the in game auction forum tend to be highly unprofessional. They do not communicate time accurately over different time zones, they do not inform when they check the personal messages merchant forum account, and once someone has waited and waited long enough, they will just prefer to avoid the in game auction forum.
• How do you store large quantity of items? In game storage? It went offline as far as I know. Not to mention who knows when its bugged next time, or something else.
• And we also have old players who get bored if they mule and twink out their new characters. Not to mention that the in game consingment store does allow easy access to +3 equipment. The difference between +3 and +4 is practically nothing. But, if you truly think a new player who gains a sour face out of jealousy is a genuine concern, then you may hand them your own equipment for free.
• Not everyone wants to stick with a singular character, Maelir Ostrichead. Not all characters will partake in similar role-play, and so on, and so on...

A reply to Incarnate's second blob of text:
You may refer to NegIninity's comment.

A reply to Incarnate's third blob of text:
You should learn to use this thing: " . "

And you cannot claim context when your use of " , " could be easily replaced by a " . "

A reply to Incarnate's fourth blob of text:
Blah-blah-blah. What you wrote makes no difference. If you meet a powerful or a wealthy character, you have met a powerful or a wealthy character. You do not get to decide what the characters of others are. They are not your characters.

A reply to Incarnate's fifth blob of text:
I guess that is an attempt to paraphrase what I just said. Doesn't support your side of argument at all though.

A reply to Incarnate's sixth blob of text:
Spellbook managment. It is a simple thing to do.

A reply to Incarnate's seventh blob of text:
You've pointed out nothing.

A reply to Incarnate's ninth blob of text:
You have never role-played in diablo 2, have you? It literally blows the lid off from the usual campfire tea sipping that takes place in that one particular area.

A reply to Incarnate's tenth blob of text:
Stop being a lazy bum, get off the couch, and get a job. Earn your own stuff in game, and you do not have to be jealous of the things that others have.

[chad878262]

Just to clear the storage thing up, it did not go offline. It simply no longer works with disguise, so you can't use it to mule equipment between your characters. This was not done due to any kind of rules issue, but due to some inherent bugs / issues caused when using disguise with the storage system.

[Sun Wukong]

Dude, use quote within a spoiler tag. If you don't want to use the full quote. Like this:

I could, but what I did works just fine for me. I can just use the link to to open the desired post into a tab, and I can just compare the two and count the blobs of text.

[Hawke]

A lot of latitude has been given lately to threads that are spiraling out of control.

Be respectful and kind to one another. Or those who cannot, might find themselves the focus of the moderator team.

Thank you.

[Theodore01]

Just to clear the storage thing up, it did not go offline. It simply no longer works with disguise, so you can't use it to mule equipment between your characters. This was not done due to any kind of rules issue, but due to some inherent bugs / issues caused when using disguise with the storage system.

What ? Just yesterday i used a disguised name to mule - it worked well as always

[chad878262]

What ? Just yesterday i used a disguised name to mule - it worked well as always

Oh, maybe they changed their minds... I was basing this on assumption from Endelyons notification:

viewtopic.php?p=795842#p795842

Figured it would have been disabled by end of February, but suppose not.