Should we lessen restrictions on the Underdark? [Poll]

[DaloLorn]

Currently Boareskyr Bridge contains the entrance to En Dharasha Everae.

An alternate approach at the moment is to - again - cross Boareskyr, High Moors, Misty Forest and finally transition thru the hidden waypoint.

Getting to EDE is already troublesome due to vicinity of Soubar. Encouraging drow to hang out in that area - right outside the guild town of a chaotic good race that hate drow....

is not a good idea, even if you need a key to use the stone circle.

Yeah, turning Bridgefort into UD Farmlands is a no-go as far as I'm concerned. Doubly so with no alternative route to EDE.

Drow cringe ;P

Voted no, not because I detest Drow or whatever. I, simply, think that the proposed idea isn't a good one. Allowing them to dwell within Soubar gives Soubar even fewer reasons to exist and not be smote into oblivion by the likes of Elturel. In essence, that would be handwaving a major threat that is a den of all kinds of monsters.

Imo, a good middle ground would be removing KoS as a whole and enforcing the current UD-Surface rules; travel is possible for good reasons only and no grinding. We're supposed to be a roleplay server. Grinding on surface/underdark shouldn't come as an important aspect.

... We have mind flayers, wererats, and kobolds in Soubar, and that's just the monsters I can remember offhand. Freaking mind flayers.

Also, Soubar's laws already allow drow to visit unmolested, provided they don't stir up trouble. It literally just allows anyone to come and go as they please as long as they don't interfere with trade.

[Ravial]

We have mind flayers, wererats, and kobolds in Soubar, and that's just the monsters I can remember offhand. Freaking mind flayers.

Few monsters vs an Increasing amount of monsters. A few monsters go under the radar. A hamlet growing into a larger den of such critters doesn't. Soubar laws are irrelevant to it. Only Soubar and its "residents" might recognise them.

[YYA]

I will have to vote no. Everyone has their selfish interests and preferences.

Now, were I to role-play a drow, and were I to bring my character up to the surface, I would actually welcome the possibility that my character could be attacked at any moment -- which means that were my character given the chance to speak -- my charatcer will actually have to talk his way out of trouble. And if blades must be crossed, I could ask OOC:ly about the level range and build of the other guy, which in turn would allow me to adjust my character to be easier to defeat in some manner. And should I win any such fight, well, I literally didn't strike the first blow...

Now, if the Northern Areas become 'safe' areas, it would mean that in order to do the above, I would just have to move my character further South. You know, perhaps I will just plant my character by that campfire in Eastern Farmlands, and just have my character wear a Full Plate Helm that appears quite mis-matched with the rest of the character's appearance... A nudge towards the ancient days of the server.

- 'Hmn... What a strange being you are. Too thin to be a large gnome, or a dwarf, too tall to be a halfling, too short to be an elf that leaps accross flowery meadows. And what strange clothes you wear, red cloth with that massive iron pot for a helm. Did you just start adventuring out, could you only afford to buy a helm and nothing else? Hmn... Very curious indeed.'

[DaloLorn]

We have mind flayers, wererats, and kobolds in Soubar, and that's just the monsters I can remember offhand. Freaking mind flayers.

Few monsters vs an Increasing amount of monsters. A few monsters go under the radar. A hamlet growing into a larger den of such critters doesn't. Soubar laws are irrelevant to it. Only Soubar and its "residents" might recognise them.

I think you overestimate the amount of drow who might contribute to Soubar's monstrosity... and underestimate the amount of Banites and such. (Besides which, if the NPCs are any indication, the amount of monsters in Soubar has long ago become statistically significant.) If I were a crusading paladin, I'd probably already be giving serious thought to the notion of torching Soubar.

[Steve]

Honestly, it's so easy to say "expand X, make more areas of Y". But, just look back. How many new areas we got through past 2 years (and i don't speak old areas that were returned with the split), brand new areas? I know of just few and all of them except Mist lake rework, are surface. With such a speed, it will just never happen, especially since builders see UD is empty, so why bothering to build for it?

Of course it’s easy. Posting anything on the Forums is easy, but making the OPs change WOULD NOT BE EASY, because it would have far reaching effects on RP.

I think the “how many new areas have you seen lately…” argument is a pre-Server Split argument and mentality. Like so many already existing Areas, they are often a mix and match of copy and paste of existing maps, customized to reflect the “new” location. And, there have been many removed areas over the years that could be attached to the UpD.

I hear and read that there ARE devs who want to do this, right now. And I’d be happy to work with Planehopper to manage this Expand the Upperdark project.

I also want to comment on this quote:

It may even encourage more people to make UD characters if they can get some more RP surface side.

I’m not commenting to skewer Paul, but if RP changes are made, how does this ACTUALLY benefit the UD, when players just spend their game hours ON THE SURFACE?!?

The UD and the UpD NEED DMs AND EVENTS, that last, the renew, that support Evil-minded role-play. If that can’t be generated first, to help make the UD and UD RP attractive to Players, then imho the UD should really be made into Epic Level dungeons for Surfacers, and make UD Races just NPCs for DMs to create campaigns.

Like myself, players linger with PCs in the UD/UpD with hope one day their will be something where the UD NPC world comes alive for us, because otherwise, we simply run out of things to do but circle grind lootz.

A change to the UD/UpD experience needs to come from the top now—players are down their, waiting for this. Please.

[Ravial]

I think you overestimate the amount of drow who might contribute to Soubar's monstrosity... and underestimate the amount of Banites and such. (Besides which, if the NPCs are any indication, the amount of monsters in Soubar has long ago become statistically significant.) If I were a crusading paladin, I'd probably already be giving serious thought to the notion of torching Soubar.

Being a former DM that worked extensively about Soubar and its environs setting-lore, I'd dare say I do not over and underestimate anything here.

[EasternCheesE]

I will have to vote no. Everyone has their selfish interests and preferences.

Now, were I to role-play a drow, and were I to bring my character up to the surface, I would actually welcome the possibility that my character could be attacked at any moment -- which means that were my character given the chance to speak -- my charatcer will actually have to talk his way out of trouble. And if blades must be crossed, I could ask OOC:ly about the level range and build of the other guy, which in turn would allow me to adjust my character to be easier to defeat in some manner. And should I win any such fight, well, I literally didn't strike the first blow...

Now, if the Northern Areas become 'safe' areas, it would mean that in order to do the above, I would just have to move my character further South. You know, perhaps I will just plant my character by that campfire in Eastern Farmlands, and just have my character wear a Full Plate Helm that appears quite mis-matched with the rest of the character's appearance... A nudge towards the ancient days of the server.

- 'Hmn... What a strange being you are. Too thin to be a large gnome, or a dwarf, too tall to be a halfling, too short to be an elf that leaps accross flowery meadows. And what strange clothes you wear, red cloth with that massive iron pot for a helm. Did you just start adventuring out, could you only afford to buy a helm and nothing else? Hmn... Very curious indeed.'

Please, don't mix up "safe" areas and "neutral areas", they are totally different concepts. Safe areas are only cities, but everywhere else, it's neutral area when one can be challenged for PvP by anyone.
There are "KoS areas", "Neutral Areas" and "Safe Areas".
KoS areas are surface for Underdark races and Underdark for Surface races. It's where one is allowed to just toggle someone hostile and just click their bigby 9 or shield bash without a single line coming into chat.
Neutral areas are for Surface-Surface PCs who have conflict, so they have to do their RP in and provide an RP out etc. Normal PvP Etiquiette.
Safe areas are no-PvP zones unless supervised by DMs.

This proposition doesn't turn north into "safe area", it proposes to turn north into "neutral area" for Underdark PCs. Drow can still be approached for PvP just like it happens in majority of cases anyway. It simply doesn't allow to OOCly start killing other realm people in server surface North without RP happening before the PvP. It's totally understandable and expected that elf may want to fight drow, it simply denies mechanical OOC PvP approach when one can just ambush and one-shot other party without them even knowing what's happened and not breaking rules by such an act.

I think the “how many new areas have you seen lately…” argument is a pre-Server Split argument and mentality. Like so many already existing Areas, they are often a mix and match of copy and paste of existing maps, customized to reflect the “new” location. And, there have been many removed areas over the years that could be attached to the UpD.

I hear and read that there ARE devs who want to do this, right now. And I’d be happy to work with Planehopper to manage this Expand the Upperdark project.

It's been several months since split. I don't try to blame anyone and i know that building areas is long and tedious process. But, after split, there were no new areas to UD and i don't expect them to pop up all of a sudden in next few months also. I know of one lower level area being built currently and i'm very excited to see it live when it's finished. But UD lacks tons of areas compared to surface and 1-2 areas won't help much to bring people back to UD, it requires a major overhaul for it, which is impossible to be in any nearest future due to pretty objective reasons.

Drow cringe ;P

Voted no, not because I detest Drow or whatever. I, simply, think that the proposed idea isn't a good one. Allowing them to dwell within Soubar gives Soubar even fewer reasons to exist and not be smote into oblivion by the likes of Elturel. In essence, that would be handwaving a major threat that is a den of all kinds of monsters.

Imo, a good middle ground would be removing KoS as a whole and enforcing the current UD-Surface rules; travel is possible for good reasons only and no grinding. We're supposed to be a roleplay server. Grinding on surface/underdark shouldn't come as an important aspect.

Isn't Soubar under patronage of Zhents, Banites etc, which are already considered really evil factions themself? Someone trying to wipe Soubar would face a big resistance from those who consider north their territory. Honestly, don't forget that north politics are lead by team evil mostly and some Paladin of Tryad should be in bigger danger there than a tiefling or drow or whatever. Correct me if i'm wrong, but i always perceived north being under Zhent and Banite control.

[Ravial]

Isn't Soubar under patronage of Zhents, Banites etc, which are already considered really evil factions themself? Someone trying to wipe Soubar would face a big resistance from those who consider north their territory. Honestly, don't forget that north politics are lead by team evil mostly and some Paladin of Tryad should be in bigger danger there than a tiefling or drow or whatever. Correct me if i'm wrong, but i always perceived north being under Zhent and Banite control.

Unless DMs suddenly had given Darkhold ownership of Soubar, which I don't think they did, then no. It has the Black Abbey banite shrine and a ruined temple underneath, but Soubar becoming a banite heaven is 4'th edition lore. As it was established on BG, it remains a mostly Chaotic Evil area with a good number of outcasts, assassins and other na'er-do-wells. And monsters, in lesser numbers.

Although, I think, the monsters are going to get another surge in population!

Edit: Soubar, in fact, is mostly a transit settlement through which most normal people pass by or go around if they can. It's an outpost that in summer surges a bit in its population, but other than that? Not a great town/village defence.

[DaloLorn]

I also want to comment on this quote:

It may even encourage more people to make UD characters if they can get some more RP surface side.

I’m not commenting to skewer Paul, but if RP changes are made, how does this ACTUALLY benefit the UD, when players just spend their game hours ON THE SURFACE?!?

The UD and the UpD NEED DMs AND EVENTS, that last, the renew, that support Evil-minded role-play. If that can’t be generated first, to help make the UD and UD RP attractive to Players, then imho the UD should really be made into Epic Level dungeons for Surfacers, and make UD Races just NPCs for DMs to create campaigns.

Like myself, players linger with PCs in the UD/UpD with hope one day their will be something where the UD NPC world comes alive for us, because otherwise, we simply run out of things to do but circle grind lootz.

A change to the UD/UpD experience needs to come from the top now—players are down their, waiting for this. Please.

Much of the discussion going on in the restructuring Discord has centered around the notion of treating the UD like a massive faction zone, not unlike how the Zhents have Darkhold, Corm Orp, and (very, very loosely speaking) a good chunk of the surface maps attached to them. The analogy isn't perfect, since the UD is still so much bigger than Zhent territory, and has multiple factions (and their innumerable subfactions) competing for a piece of the pie, but it works.

The Zhents do stuff back home, but they also venture out of their domain for any number of reasons, RP or otherwise. The elves of Doron Amar or EDE do stuff in their respective villages (and, if I'm not mistaken, the remainder of their respective forests), but you don't see them refusing to leave their forests. And why should they? They don't have enough of a population to be self-contained, and there's not enough DMs to assign one of them to each guild whose territory might reasonably keep them unmotivated to wander out.

The UD playerbase needs to balloon out, attain critical mass, before it can be seen as a self-contained environment. It cannot do that unless something changes to give them things to do, and we have two options on how to do that:

• Treat the UD as a separate PW unto itself, with its own roster of DMs, and accept that those DMs will "show favoritism" towards their tiny population. Those DMs, in turn, will have to accept that even when they dedicate all their DMing time to the UD, it will not magically create new players, so it will take time for the population to reach a healthy size. Moreover, as someone who very rarely sees a DM, much less gets to participate in DM events (especially not for the whole duration!), I can tell you that there will still be players who won't be drawn into the UD by this plan, even if they would like to be.
• Increase the porosity of the UD/surface divide, and let the "UD faction" interact with the surfacers. There will still be IC laws and OOC mechanics constraining their activities considerably, and no shortage of PCs who will try to shoot the filthy drow down whenever they can. But it will give UDers the opportunity to do something when there are no other UDers around, which will in turn increase the longevity of individual UDers, which finally brings us to the desired result of having more concurrently active UD characters who can then do stuff in the UD.

If the community and the administration refuse to do either of those things, then yes, you might as well permakill all the UD characters and turn their territory into a huge adventure zone. But the reason we're even having this discussion is because a large portion of the community and administration is interested in considering ways of bolstering the UD population.

[DaloLorn]

Isn't Soubar under patronage of Zhents, Banites etc, which are already considered really evil factions themself? Someone trying to wipe Soubar would face a big resistance from those who consider north their territory. Honestly, don't forget that north politics are lead by team evil mostly and some Paladin of Tryad should be in bigger danger there than a tiefling or drow or whatever. Correct me if i'm wrong, but i always perceived north being under Zhent and Banite control.

Unless DMs suddenly had given Darkhold ownership of Soubar, which I don't think they did, then no. It has the Black Abbey banite shrine and a ruined temple underneath, but Soubar becoming a banite heaven is 4'th edition lore. As it was established on BG, it remains a mostly Chaotic Evil area with a good number of outcasts, assassins and other na'er-do-wells. And monsters, in lesser numbers.

Although, I think, the monsters are going to get another surge in population!

Edit: Soubar, in fact, is mostly a transit settlement through which most normal people pass by or go around if they can. It's an outpost that in summer surges a bit in its population, but other than that? Not a great town/village defence.

Soubar also has the Blackroses, and the... Ebon Blades, I want to say? It's been a while, so I can't remember what they were called. Both factions would object quite strenuously, I think, to an attempt to destroy the only settlement in their zone of influence.

[Ravial]

Obviously, but unless they can put up an army, their objection might as well be worthless to a major power that wants to wipe it off the map. The only thing protecting them is guild protection rules.

[DaloLorn]

I will have to vote no. Everyone has their selfish interests and preferences.

Now, were I to role-play a drow, and were I to bring my character up to the surface, I would actually welcome the possibility that my character could be attacked at any moment -- which means that were my character given the chance to speak -- my charatcer will actually have to talk his way out of trouble. And if blades must be crossed, I could ask OOC:ly about the level range and build of the other guy, which in turn would allow me to adjust my character to be easier to defeat in some manner. And should I win any such fight, well, I literally didn't strike the first blow...

Now, if the Northern Areas become 'safe' areas, it would mean that in order to do the above, I would just have to move my character further South. You know, perhaps I will just plant my character by that campfire in Eastern Farmlands, and just have my character wear a Full Plate Helm that appears quite mis-matched with the rest of the character's appearance... A nudge towards the ancient days of the server.

- 'Hmn... What a strange being you are. Too thin to be a large gnome, or a dwarf, too tall to be a halfling, too short to be an elf that leaps accross flowery meadows. And what strange clothes you wear, red cloth with that massive iron pot for a helm. Did you just start adventuring out, could you only afford to buy a helm and nothing else? Hmn... Very curious indeed.'

Please, don't mix up "safe" areas and "neutral areas", they are totally different concepts. Safe areas are only cities, but everywhere else, it's neutral area when one can be challenged for PvP by anyone.
There are "KoS areas", "Neutral Areas" and "Safe Areas".
KoS areas are surface for Underdark races and Underdark for Surface races. It's where one is allowed to just toggle someone hostile and just click their bigby 9 or shield bash without a single line coming into chat.
Neutral areas are for Surface-Surface PCs who have conflict, so they have to do their RP in and provide an RP out etc. Normal PvP Etiquiette.
Safe areas are no-PvP zones unless supervised by DMs.

This proposition doesn't turn north into "safe area", it proposes to turn north into "neutral area" for Underdark PCs. Drow can still be approached for PvP just like it happens in majority of cases anyway. It simply doesn't allow to OOCly start killing other realm people in server surface North without RP happening before the PvP. It's totally understandable and expected that elf may want to fight drow, it simply denies mechanical OOC PvP approach when one can just ambush and one-shot other party without them even knowing what's happened and not breaking rules by such an act.

Incidentally, Soubar is already a safe area for the reasons I already described. SummerBreeze's proposal is about expanding the amount of neutral areas where UDers are subject to the same PvP rules as surfacers.

Obviously, but unless they can put up an army, their objection might as well be worthless to a major power that wants to wipe it off the map. The only thing protecting them is guild protection rules.

They did, at one point, run a successful campaign against bugbear clans in Thundar's Ride. Neither faction might have quite the same amount of military oomph as Elturel or the Gate, but defensive wars tend to be easier to prosecute than offensive ones. Sufficiently so that I would expect nothing less than a DM plot on par with All-Father's current Cloakwood plot before someone was allowed to "forcibly civilize" Soubar.

[EasternCheesE]

Isn't Soubar under patronage of Zhents, Banites etc, which are already considered really evil factions themself? Someone trying to wipe Soubar would face a big resistance from those who consider north their territory. Honestly, don't forget that north politics are lead by team evil mostly and some Paladin of Tryad should be in bigger danger there than a tiefling or drow or whatever. Correct me if i'm wrong, but i always perceived north being under Zhent and Banite control.

Unless DMs suddenly had given Darkhold ownership of Soubar, which I don't think they did, then no. It has the Black Abbey banite shrine and a ruined temple underneath, but Soubar becoming a banite heaven is 4'th edition lore. As it was established on BG, it remains a mostly Chaotic Evil area with a good number of outcasts, assassins and other na'er-do-wells. And monsters, in lesser numbers.

Although, I think, the monsters are going to get another surge in population!

Edit: Soubar, in fact, is mostly a transit settlement through which most normal people pass by or go around if they can. It's an outpost that in summer surges a bit in its population, but other than that? Not a great town/village defence.

Fair point, thanks for clarification. Though, since Zhentarim are Banites and Soubar is located in their sphere of interests (north), i don't see how a team good can wipe Soubar without major feedback from northern evil parties as well. It's not about straight going to battle, but about lots of politics and sensible things around north in general. Straight out assault may cause a major tension and open fights in region, in my view, which Southern region can understand and think twice before causing massive conflict. Also, Soubar being a haven for chaotic evil individuals combined with "outlaw lands" does actually mean said evil individuals would see paladins roaming around as something threatening, but it doesn't happen in current RP culture. Currently, Soubar is a place where all PCs walk quite freely, be they good or evil.

Just like RL countries don't have official ownership over other countries, it doesn't mean those don't fall into their sphere of interests. Other party invading one's sphere of interests will produce the conflict, even if it's an unclaimed piece of land.

Anyway, talking politics is long and doubtfully can bear fruits as it's a battle of opinions and "ifs" rather than clear logic. Only time tells who was right.

[Ravial]

I wouldn't compare Flaming Fists' 1'st company, what is meant to be as the best military force of the best mercenary army to what Soubar can reliably muster, to be honest.

Of course, nobody here talks about .dot killing Soubar without any roleplay beforehand that may lead to it or avert it. Still, with matters as is, the realistic conclusion would be Soubar being torched yet again.

[gotesu]

Personally as a player, I really wanted to have an active UD character several times but then gave up because most of the times I ended up wandering alone with nothing happening and no one to rp with.

Without a consistent UD population, which I dont think is feasible due to server overall population numbers being too low for it, I am very for the "make it easy" for UDers to rp with the surface population at shady-type areas and Im glad this is brought into discussion by an HDM (thank you SB).

That said, there are two "risks" that needs to be taken into account:
1 - breaking the setting by "causing" ppl to ignore the drow/Duerger (dont forget'em!) unique contribution to the FR lore as the Dr. evil races which are loathed and feared by everyone - especially elves/dwarves - being literally at an all out war with them. (Just like Tieflings are no longer fiendspawns but friendly neighborhood folks with tails).
2 - (which is in part the flipside of point 1) Causing increasing friction between characters that are setting-wise at war with eachother, something that will cause people to either : increase PvP encounters to unhealthy lvls, to ignore eachother(because you dont want to do conflict so much, but you cant be buddies) , or to fall back to problem number 1.

As of current, The Soubar area has the highest density of high/epic lvl dungeons (Troll claws, Yuan-tis, Reaching woods, Forest of Wyrms, Fire Giants, Orogoth) which means all the knightly goodly two shoe Banite hating paladins HAVE to go there (because we dont expect a lvl 29 Tormite paladin to do the BG farmlands bandits). Not to mention as was said before that it is how you get to EDE which is an elven settlement, and increasing friction between elves and drow is unhealthy imo, as stressed in risk number 2.

So, while not having a perfect solution, I think the following might do good in making UDers more compelling to play by increasing their rp possibilities and shouldn't be very heavy on the Dev side:
1 - Remove the rule stating UDers need a reason to go to the surface (They've got a good OOC reason, which is the same reason they logged into BG for - to rp and have fun).
2 - Copy-paste some epic lvl "dungeons" to more goodly areas to strengthen Soubar's/Corm orp's theme as a more shady-evil inclined places (including drow), allow drow to grind/loot at the evil inclined places - this will also allow DM events aimed to the more shady areas to include UDers.
3 - Move main access to EDE elsewhere (maybe from thunder's ride).