State of the Server (2017-2018)

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Maecius
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Re: State of the Server (2017-2018)

Unread post by Maecius »

30 August 2017

We have decided that the 100% RCR period will end on 7 September 2017. This is everyone's one week notice!

It's always possible that we'll bring it back the next time we make significant changes to existing game content, but for now we feel that 5 weeks is enough time for people who were affected by the changes to evasion to have rerolled their characters (if desired).

If someone has been on hiatus and returns after the RCR period has ended, but was affected by the evasion changes, they should contact the HDMs and admins. Situations like these will be judged on a case by case basis, but may warrant a 100% RCR token even after the 100% RCR NPC has been turned off.
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Maecius
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Re: State of the Server (2017-2018)

Unread post by Maecius »

8 September 2017

For everyone's awareness, we have released a new BG:TSCC wiki, which can be accessed from the wiki link at the top of the forum or at the following web address: https://wiki.bgtscc.net/index.php?title=Main_Page

The main reason we changed wikis is because we had less control over the old wiki, and the host placed a lot of advertisements on it. The new wiki has no advertisements on it, and it is much easier to navigate and use.

Big thanks to Zanniej and Valefort for all the work they did to get this off the ground. Thanks as well to Herisheft and Dagesh for the fantastic logo. Thanks are also due to everyone who's helped so far with the transfer of information from the old wiki to the new wiki, and to all those who have managed and updated the wiki in the past and in the present.
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Maecius
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Re: State of the Server (2017-2018)

Unread post by Maecius »

4 November 2017

We have published our staff guidance document for 2018-2020 here: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=62280

This document is intended to help server staff work together in moving the server forward in a common direction, with a focus on server values, stability, "fun" factor, customization, and roleplay.

As noted in the published post, it is not a set of promises, or a release schedule of what is sure to come; but rather a set of goals for development, and a timeline for when we hope to be able to realistically achieve these goals.

It's being released for public consumption because it is a good look at some of the server's development goals and the server's intended direction over time.
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Maecius
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Re: State of the Server (2017-2018)

Unread post by Maecius »

2 December 2017

We wanted to let everyone know that Chambordini has been granted access to the server to assist with staging updates. This means we'll now have three people on staff capable of staging updates -- Endelyon, Aspect of Sorrow, and Chambordini.

This is being done in order to spread the workload, to cut down on time between updates (particularly with regards to bug fixes), and to guard against brain drain and institutional stovepiping (so that we won't be treading water if we lose a critical staff member).

Big thanks to Chambordini for stepping up to help out with this vital server task!
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Re: State of the Server (2017-2018)

Unread post by Zanniej »

16 january 2018

Just some random forum stats again. (spurred by the "small community" remark in another topic ;-) )
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Overall Visitors (previous check)
  • On January 15th we had 433 unique users ( 422 ) with 1,186 sessions ( 1,232 ) and 15,195 pageviews ( 19,329 ).
  • In the month of December, we had 3,252 users ( 2,797 ) with 28,411 sessions ( 33,897 ) and 304,299 pageviews ( 441,612 ).
  • We post 121.86 ( 116.67 ) posts per day and 9.87 ( 9.44 ) topics per day.
  • We have 9,821 ( 9,765 ) individual user accounts... Deleting all spam accounts didn't lessen that number, it seems.
  • We have 391,860 ( 354,656 ) posts across 31,737 ( 28,698 ) threads.
    *( last time's numbers, where available )
Forum Chatterbugs

The top 10 most talkative forum users are (with post count):
  1. Maecius (8,915) (he finally surpassed Luna!)
  2. Luna (8,103)
  3. Rasael (8,000)
  4. Valefort (7,180)
  5. chad878262 (6,667)
  6. DM Golem (6,418)
  7. mrm3ntalist (6,194)
  8. Deathgrowl (5,793)
  9. DM Dialectic (5,338)
  10. LISA100595 (4,592)
Locations

The top 10 most active countries are:
  1. United States - 20,738 ( 15,728 ) sessions a month (46.78%)
  2. Australia - 2,629 ( 1,363 ) sessions a month (5,93%)
  3. Denmark - 2,447 ( 1,777 ) sessions a month (5.59%)
  4. Canada - 2,438 ( 2,041 ) sessions a month (5,50%)
  5. Germany - 2,280 ( 2,148 ) sessions a month (5,14%)
  6. United Kingdom - 2,015 ( 1,839 ) sessions a month (4,55%)
  7. Netherlands - 1,390 ( 1,491 ) sessions a month (3,14%)
  8. Hungary - 1,208 ( - ) sessions a month ( 2,73% )
  9. Poland - 1,080 ( 1,093 ) sessions a month (2,44%)
  10. Russia - 1,008 ( - ) sessions a month (2,27%)
And last but not least, on city level (though this is dependable on your ISP, not so much your living location):
  1. Perth - 1,081 ( - ) sessions a month (2,44%)
  2. (not set) - 883 ( 557 ) sessions a month (1.99%)
  3. Warsaw - 763 ( 695 ) sessions a month (1,72%)
  4. London - 701 ( 452 ) sessions a month (1.58%)
  5. Sydney - 660 ( 446 ) sessions a month (1.49%)
  6. Los Angeles - 651 ( 514 ) sessions a month (1.47%)
  7. Opelika - 646 ( 474 ) sessions a month (1.46%)
  8. Copenhagen - 613 ( - ) sessions a month (1.38%)
  9. Helmond - 603 ( 470 ) sessions a month (1.36%)
  10. South San Fransisco - 598 ( - ) sessions a month (1.35%)
Zanniej
(Zahn-nie)
Barn Manager: We do not have a barn, nor anyone in there to manage... yet here I am!
Server Owner & former Global Admin. Still always around (and still playing), but not as involved.
Keeping a close eye on the Server Finances.
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Maecius
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Re: State of the Server (2017-2018)

Unread post by Maecius »

20 February 2018

As many of you have likely noticed, the server's stability has been restored to pre-December levels. This is the result of our hardworking development team's herculean striving, the tireless bughunting of the QC team -- and the efforts of all of you who reported in to staff about what you noticed or thought might be causing server crash events.

Player reporting played a hugely important role in helping staff to isolate the causes of the crash events, and then correct them. So thank you to everyone who chipped in here, staff and non-staff.

Player reporting also regularly helps the DM and Forum Moderation Teams, greatly enhancing their awareness of areas or players requiring their attention. Player-to-player mentoring and support for each other (and general roleplay inclusiveness) plays a huge role in whether a new player decides to stick around on this server, as well -- often, we've found, weighing higher than the server's features and maps, and weighing higher than DM Team campaigns and events.

In short, this state of the server notice is to both report that the crashing should be more under control now; and also to report on the fact that we have a really awesome community of players here. Thanks for all that you all do to keep this place thriving.
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Maecius
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Re: State of the Server (2017-2018)

Unread post by Maecius »

19 March 2018

It has come to our attention that several "passive item bonus" items have somehow made it onto the server module. These are items that grant bonuses to characters simply by sitting in their inventories (that is, you don't have to equip them to receive the bonus).

Effective next update, we will be disabling these items (with the exception of the old guild token items, which are bound to specific characters and cannot be transferred*) to bring the module in line with server rules.

This announcement is being made because we suspect that while several of these items were hacked illegally into the game, several others may have been handed out by DMs who did not realize that these items were illegal (or did not care that they were illegal). If you feel your item was deserved, please PM the Head DMs and Global Administrators and explain how the item was received, and from who you received it. We may reimburse you in part, but it will not be with a passive bonus item.

Thank you for your understanding!

* Guild tokens were given out several years ago to encourage players to join focal guilds. They gave +1 saving throws or +2 to two or three skills to the guild members who had them. It was eventually decided that this was not the best way to encourage lore guild participation, however, and they were removed from the server environment. A previous administration opted to grandfather these items, however, on the characters that had them, with the understanding that they could not be transferred or muled over to new characters. A very small handful still exist in game, but the intention is that they will be phased out entirely over time (since they cannot be transferred over to new characters).
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Maecius
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Re: State of the Server (2017-2018)

Unread post by Maecius »

31 March 2018

HUGE CHANGES! The Elfsong Tavern and the Gloura's Wings forums are no more!

:D They've been changed to "Sword Coast Roleplay" and "Underdark Roleplay" respectively. We've also added an "Upperdark Roleplay" forum.

This is in response to player requests that these forum names be clarified (and that an upperdark forum be added).
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Maecius
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Re: State of the Server (2017-2018)

Unread post by Maecius »

1 April 2018

So, we've decided to change the server banner!
Every now and then, changing things up is good for you, you know.
Nobody likes staring at the same old thing, right?
Don't worry, though, this was professionally designed.

How do you all like it?
Everyone I've asked said they loved it.
Like, really loved it.
Please don't think I only did this because I'm being held hostage by a farmer or anything!
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Maecius
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Re: State of the Server (2017-2018)

Unread post by Maecius »

29 April 2018

The appearance changer should be working again after the next server reset. It ought to be shipshape, but please let us know if there are any issues with it. Thank you, also, for your patience with us while the system was being repaired!
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Re: State of the Server (2017-2018)

Unread post by Maecius »

1 May 2018

The Ippensheir is upon us! Special thanks to Zanniej for creating and updating the new temporary banner.

But what is Ippensheir? Why, it's something you can incorporate into your RP over the next couple of weeks, especially if you're a Gondsman:
The Ippensheir is the name given to the 12 days immediately following Greengrass. It is named for Ippen, the first great cleric of Gond, who sometimes appears to clergy in need these days as Gond's First Servant. During the Ippensheir, all clergy members of Gond's faith and his devout worshipers gather at a temple, abbey, or holy site of Gond to share innovations and show inventions and innovations they have made or witnessed with and to their fellow Gondar. (Many cavern networks and remote towers where capable inventors once dwelt are revered by Gondar as holy sites.) It is a time of feasting, drinking, and revelry, and some Gondar make much use of personal teleport magics and the network of gates maintained by the priesthood to link major defensible holy houses to visit as many gatherings of the faithful as they can during this time.
Happy gaming!
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Maecius
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Re: State of the Server (2017-2018)

Unread post by Maecius »

13 May 2018

On the state of the appearance changer:
Aspect of Sorrow wrote:Behind the scenes multiple GB backups are pulled and compared by with the current vault to determine a few bytes of changed data and catch / remove duplicates. Most have been courteous to come forward that a dupe has occurred on their accounts, but having to deal with the problem of a rather game breaking issue unfortunately takes precedence over non mechanical aesthetics.

We said it would be fixed shortly, and while we had a few band-aids put in place it appeared to either be a cause of or contributor to newer issues, things such as stack enumeration that is pretty straight forward in human understanding apparently creates problems in nwscript, or is outright unreliable in execution.. The appearance changer is one of the least reliable and more convoluted features in the BGTSCC module inherited by the xp_craft project.

Development's time is better spent on on a functional replacement that we have control of the code over from end to end unlike today where we don't have the source to the xp_craft.dll plugin in NWNX. We will introduce appearance changing to the module again when everything is vetted for, stable, and not subjected to the exploits seen today. Much of the logic regarding the newer features is removed from NWN2 altogether and doesn't even require NWNX at all.

I recognize that dress, or that tiara, or that earring is important to your character's aesthetics and to your roleplay, but not at the expense of the adverse effects that the feature currently causes to the module and the playerbase at large. If it were a small ordeal we would approach this differently.

I'm personally working on this replacement, of which part of it's mechanism of working is riding on the upcoming tiefling tail update tonight. If all of those functions pan out well, and it should, this will give us a lot less grief in the future, and more features to work on such as templating the layout of your armor than iterating sequentially, and more.

Please be patient, it'll be worth it in the end.
In short:

Please know that fixing the appearance changer is a high priority, and work is underway on a full replacement system that we have high hopes for! In the meantime, please bear with us a little while longer.
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Maecius
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Re: State of the Server (2017-2018)

Unread post by Maecius »

30 May 2018

On trolling behavior and inappropriate roleplay:

There have recently been several reports of players subjecting other players to crude, sexual comments and unwanted, mostly adolescent advances. In each of these cases, the "roleplay" was more trollish in nature than it was character-based.

Please be aware that trolling and griefing will not be tolerated in general, but trolling of a sexual nature in particular will likely result in a ban until the behavior is corrected. We do not wish to subject our community to an environment where their roleplay is interrupted by sexual harassment and crude out of character behavior.

If you were recently banned as a possible result of this kind of roleplay, PM me or the DM Team and we can talk to you about it. It's possible we will lift the ban if you agree that your behavior was inappropriate for this server and will not continue.

Thank you,
Maecius
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Maecius
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Re: State of the Server (2017-2018)

Unread post by Maecius »

1 June 2018

After discussing it, Endelyon and myself have decided to invite Aspect of Sorrow to be a Global Admin for BG:TSCC. The job description is below:
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The directors (or global admins) administrate the server's host machine and forums, maintain the financial accounts, ensures that all hosting fees are paid, and see to the server's overall operations. They help direct the server's strategic vision, communicate with the administrators of other Neverwinter Nights 2 community servers and the Neverwinter Nights 2 community at large, and maintain a developer and DM staff to help with day-to-day administration.

You may want to reach out to the director if:
You would like to volunteer as developer;
You would like to lodge a complaint against a developer, or a Head DM;
You are being booted or have been banned;
Your character file has been corrupted;
You notice content you've authored is in use, but has not been credited to you;
You need to communicate about the server as a whole;
You have an exploit to report;
You have a legitimately bugged character (stuck name from disguise toggle, etc.);
You wish to report a server or service outage;
You need a character rollback (copy to HDMs as well);
You need your CD keys cleared or additional CD keys added;
You have some kind of mechanical issue that none of the other teams support.
As many of you know, I have been trying (largely in vain) to retire for many years now. I suppose the only thing keeping me is the fact that I really do love this community, and everyone who's a part of it. But eventually I'm going to rip off the band-aid! And when that day comes, I want to be assured that this place is left in good hands.

Aspect of Sorrow already does much of the duties of a Global Admin. He will be training on a few of the items he does not yet do, as well as getting some additional accesses to forum and server accounts. But other than that his role on the server will in many ways continue as it has been. It is my hope that by having a third person in this position, it will better ensure the server's continued long-term health and well-being, even in the eventuality that Endelyon or myself should leave.

Aspect of Sorrow's "name color" and permissions on the forum will probably change to reflect this adjustment in the next couple of weeks.

Thank you to Aspect of Sorrow for agreeing to step up to this role.
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Maecius
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Re: State of the Server (2017-2018)

Unread post by Maecius »

21 June 2018

We have published privacy policies for the BG:TSCC website and game server. You can find them here: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=66244

We've done this to better inform users of their privacy rights, the kinds of data we collect, and our privacy policies.

These were constructed to be compliant with the strictest policy regulations currently being enforced (the General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR policies of the European Union).

We are quick to admit that we are not lawyers, though, so if someone with greater familiarity with these regulations than ourselves notices things that should be included, altered, or even removed, for whatever reason, please let us know. Any substantial updates to the privacy policy (that is, anything above fixing a typo or adjusting some syntax for enhanced readability) will be recorded and announced.

Thank you.
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