Restructure or Status Quo

[Tekill]

The game is getting old and so people lose interest and stop playing. Its simply entropy math and therefore the end, is ultimately unavoidable. Don't rock the boat or you will just speed up the exodus.

Or

There is enough of a community of Neverwinter Nights players that will allow the best of the best servers to flourish with high populations. Right now NWN(1) seems to be proving this. If we do not rock the boat on server activity every once in awhile, it will speed up a servers decline.


Both points are exist mutually without contradicting each other. They are true, both being valid and reliable. Together both points illustrate:
1) The Neverwinter Nights community as a whole is old and therefore small. But, I think the community (between both games) is a bit more stable than it appears. There is a base of us D&D fans that can not get around a table once a week and this is a great substitute.
2) Because of the small size of the community, the servers have to become the best of the best in order to be successful. We are all aware of the only 3-4 servers worth playing.
3) The philosophy of the individual servers are more important than graphics. Neverwinter Nights one is a terrible looking game compared to NWN2 but some of them have way more players.
4) These successful servers are popular because their philosophies are not afraid to rock the boat – they are not afraid to cause drama at times. They understand if they focus too much on making sure that nobody ever gets upset then they are also making sure most have no fun. The drama is a headache but it avoids the risk of running said servers as bureaucratic, homogenized, mediocrities.

BGTSCC – Meets the requirements of the first two:
1) The community knows this server exists and has some respect for it.
2) I think this server is in the top four allowing it to contend for best of the best – if it wanted to.

BGTSCC – Does not meet the requirements of the second two points:
1) Even though this server has great graphics and solid mechanics it is still losing players and DM's. The games mechanics are a big limitation and cannot be helped, but other aspects can be.
2) This server has good intentions but these good intentions are suffocating too many of the players that play here currently or have played and have since left.

If you fear change, or think change will be too much trouble or too much hassle or that change will just make matters worse then maybe just letting the game eventually die in peace is the best idea.
If you do not want to RP in of a community where there are actual IC consequences, that will inevitably lead to someone having hurt feelings, then maybe the status quo works for you– I guess I will see you at the campfire.

But if you want to actually try and draw new and old players to the server then we will have to try and make this server the actual best of the best. To do this we need to shake things up and restructure the server, its philosophy and how it is organized.

I suggest three ideas to restructure the server:
1) Two types of Dms- Administrative DM's and actual DM's.
Admin DM's - You can have a group of people that do the unpleasant 'office work' part of the DM team. They are the ones that focuses on the behind the scenes stuff. They can be the complaint department and also hand out punishments for rule breakers. Organizing and filtering DM requests, responding to the requests that do not need events. You can have a Admin DM that has a big spreadsheet listing all the factions and related players cross referenced with the activities they have completed and pending activities. The Admin DM's can provide support to the Actual DM's and act as dispatch for DM events that require an actual event. May not sound like fun to you but there are a lot of us that are cut out for this sort of thing.
Actual DM's – Have the fun job of just focusing on running events and helping players with in game stuff.
This is already happening to a degree but the way its happening is muddy and unclear. Create the specif roles for each DM and then that DM needs to stay in their lane.

2) Players given more freedom to control positions of power- This is what will bring players back to BGTSCC. Make it possible for a player to become a duke or a member of the Conclave. You do not need to make it easy for them, but at least make it possible. You want to set up a Flaming Fist faction- start it. It works for Candlekeep it should work for anything else. If you are a terrible flaming fist guard and people complain- you will get fired or arrested. If you become a Duke of Baldurs Gate then suddenly stop playing – you will be deposed. If the DM's decide you are not doing a satisfactory job they will find an IC reason to try and remove you. Will this hurt your feelings?

3) Current staff, have to loosen up the control and let players take control. If players are to be given positions of power this will be a must. Let the ooc drama happen if it does. Its not going to turn into some wild west pvp hellscape. There will be a whole DM Admin department created and organized for it. Stop looking at all conflict simply as future OOC Drama and more like RP opportunities. Let the players try crazy shit – give them a chance to succeed – that's what dice are for!
-You can 'PVP out' if you want but that doesnt mean you can do what every you want. You are not automatically losing but you are backing down.
-Keep RP as the priority, but allow players to add an element of danger to each other. If it gets abused, complain. The abuser will be dealt with – not a big change here.
-Balance the new player freedoms by handing out more permastrikes.
-Stop using PG13 as an excuse.
-Stop using Lore as an excuse – let in game player achievements, trump canon.
-Give us more to do than leveling and grinding. If we can free up Actual DM's to get in game that would be amazing.

I think this is going to be the last thread I will spend discussing the matter. I'd like to hear other suggestions but I think we have heard enough complaining without any suggestions to address said complaints.

In the end if the server is bleeding players and DM's, and people have been making the same complaints consistently year after year, then it is time take a chance – whats the worst that will happen – people will quit?

With more organization and some added excitement it will eventually draw more players than lose.

We can start by creating a call for volunteers willing to set up the new Admin DM Team. What else? What did I miss?

[Lockonnow]

well i only wish that my Assassin spellbook will be fix so i can pick blood maguis then i can go on with RP about the bloody timehe can.

[Tekill]

well i only wish that my Assassin spellbook will be fix so i can pick blood maguis then i can go on with RP about the bloody timehe can.

Never give up the dream!

[Steve]

What else? What did I miss?

With all that is suggested, find ways to make it rewarding. One, it shouldn’t become thankless volunteerism. Two, a BGTSCC where players have “more power” is not necessarily a better server, IC or OOC. But I do agree that players should have more agency with the RP of their Characters. But in my opinion, that requires more DMs and builders to suppprt it. So yeah, BGTSCC could definitely use a population gain across the board.

[predrag]

NWN2 hasn't had a sale in over 3 years now and only GoG sells it to my knowledge , it's hard to convince folks to try it for me .
If a NWN2 enhanced edition even happens , more folks may join us , until than we aren't likely to get many new players or old ones returning .

The changes proposed though could be a two edged sword .
I'm mostly ok with how things are atm . Just wishing more folks would play at my play times .

[Louvaine]

First and foremost, I feel that it's important to establish if the need for change is something desired by our Staff and players. We know that many players believe it to be crucial, but truthfully I don't get that sense from the majority of Staff and the players. If it's just the vocal minority who desires to change things up, it's worth considering saying 'no' to that, even if it means letting that minority go.

One thing everyone can probably agree on is DMs being overwhelmed. Be that sheer amount of stuff to do, be that lack of motivation or knowledge, or something else entirely, it occurs to me that we don't really know much about what's happening in DM group. That makes it difficult to offer assistance, encouragement or feedback. All, in my opinion, crucial to D&D in any form.

I recall that there were attempts at aiding DM Team with paperwork through Staff Groups. I can't remember how that worked out exactly. One thing I do remember is concern for how much information is to be shared with non-DMs in fear of metagaming or potentially wrong decisions being made by an uninformed party. I am sure there are others in our community with better memory of this than mine.

If I'm being honest, Tekill, while I strongly agree with the vast majority of what you have said, I'm not so certain if such change is possible or even desirable. This conversation, and others like it, feels like some players have skipped on session 0, where DMs would sit us down and talk to us about everyone's expectations and aspirations with the game we're about to play. Now, I don't think having session 0 is possible on PW. The Closest BGTSCC gets to session 0 with their players are posts under Announcements and Community Information, Server Rules and Content, Supporting BG:TSCC and any Development releases and discussions.

We don't really hear from Staff other than those, we just piece together what is being focused on by posts like "Deities and Divine Roleplay" or "How to Possibly Gain Political Influence with NPC Polities". Now, I'm not saying that it's a bad thing or that there is a better way to do things like this on PW, but I am saying that I can't remember the last time we heard from our DMs about how they're doing and what their struggles are. I can't remember a conversation about their ambitions and expectations. I can't remember the last time I felt as though this community had discussed anything like session 0. The reason, I believe, is that we who currently take positions as Admins, DMs, Devs and players, have essentially inherited the server with its rules, setting and lore. We play together and make some changes, but is the amount of change suitable for the wants and needs of the current community? I would honestly like to know what part of our community wants things to change. Not only to learn if threads like these can bring anything more than let down and negativity, but also to know if my time is better spent elsewhere, with what my expectations and desires out of a persistent role-play world are.

[DaloLorn]

One thing I just want to note is that NWN:EE enjoys considerably greater publicity. At this point, it wouldn't surprise me at all if Ravenloft alone had more active players than all of NWN2 put together: It's not a fair comparison.

Having said that... I have some doubts about some of the details of your proposal, but the broad strokes do appeal to me, for whatever that might be worth.

Louvaine also raises a lot of good points, but I have no noteworthy thoughts about his post so far.

[Aspect of Sorrow]

The game is getting old and so people lose interest and stop playing. Its simply entropy math and therefore the end, is ultimately unavoidable. Don't rock the boat or you will just speed up the exodus.

Observable changes to the activity by the DM events and general PW updates that come through, else the population count sort of floats in a lower holding pattern.

There is enough of a community of Neverwinter Nights players that will allow the best of the best servers to flourish with high populations. Right now NWN(1) seems to be proving this. If we do not rock the boat on server activity every once in awhile, it will speed up a servers decline.

The NWN series invites players to practically split the activity up among various takes on what they perceive is best rather than settling; there is advantage to BGTSCC on a number of fronts but those advantages are worn out today.

1) The Neverwinter Nights community as a whole is old and therefore small. But, I think the community (between both games) is a bit more stable than it appears. There is a base of us D&D fans that can not get around a table once a week and this is a great substitute.

The NWN2 tally can be found by the nwn2 client extender console, give or take one when Steve or Sirion plays, and at the time of this writing :

Code: Select all

There are 33 user(s) online playing Neverwinter Nights 2.

The NWN tally for EE can be found from https://nwn.beamdog.net/. I don't trust the population counts from NWN1's base and EE as there are servers known to inflate their player count reporting so that the master services report activity when there isn't. Skywing addresses a version of this also previously happening in NWN2 in nwn2dev-public/NWNMasterServer/NWServerTracker.cs though the NWN1 side doesn't delist those questionable servers. What I've personally found is the NWN1 population is about 80% of what is reported when this discussion was last brought up. These numbers are further split by language specific offerings.

2) Because of the small size of the community, the servers have to become the best of the best in order to be successful. We are all aware of the only 3-4 servers worth playing.
3) The philosophy of the individual servers are more important than graphics. Neverwinter Nights one is a terrible looking game compared to NWN2 but some of them have way more players.
4) These successful servers are popular because their philosophies are not afraid to rock the boat – they are not afraid to cause drama at times. They understand if they focus too much on making sure that nobody ever gets upset then they are also making sure most have no fun. The drama is a headache but it avoids the risk of running said servers as bureaucratic, homogenized, mediocrities.

I have difficulty believing in 3 and 4 being what makes them stand apart. There has been a history of NWN2 servers that have been created by players who saw to do that very thing, they changed the experience up enough from their original servers only to watch things dilute. PWs such as RDA, The Song of Ice and Fire (which was a technical marvel by comparison to other PWs of its time) and originally staffed from ALFA's talent, IMS, even The Rise of Neverwinter with its roots in BGTSCC can barely squeak into double digit player counts consistently despite the theatrics and promises made, not to mention all the other issues it currently has.

BGTSCC – Meets the requirements of the first two:
1) The community knows this server exists and has some respect for it.
2) I think this server is in the top four allowing it to contend for best of the best – if it wanted to.

BG shares overlapping traffic with Sigil and Haven. You can see the dips in the activity of two servers when another hits a milestone or has a considerable event lined up. It's been a top four server for well past a decade now, but this isn't to mistake this statement as a favor toward status quo.

I suggest three ideas to restructure the server:
1) Two types of Dms- Administrative DM's and actual DM's.
Admin DM's - You can have a group of people that do the unpleasant 'office work' part of the DM team. They are the ones that focuses on the behind the scenes stuff. They can be the complaint department and also hand out punishments for rule breakers. Organizing and filtering DM requests, responding to the requests that do not need events. You can have a Admin DM that has a big spreadsheet listing all the factions and related players cross referenced with the activities they have completed and pending activities. The Admin DM's can provide support to the Actual DM's and act as dispatch for DM events that require an actual event. May not sound like fun to you but there are a lot of us that are cut out for this sort of thing.
Actual DM's – Have the fun job of just focusing on running events and helping players with in game stuff.
This is already happening to a degree but the way its happening is muddy and unclear. Create the specif roles for each DM and then that DM needs to stay in their lane.

Some element as you stated exists of this, and has previously. There were even delegated roles specific to this a few years ago. The common response has generally been that the workflow needs to be changed; you can view threads about this particular issue as well as the commentary on it in BGTSCC's Discord. Players in the administrative roles get burned out on the volume of requests and a modification to that was to suppress the inbound quantity from a single player over a length of time; while that helped alleviate the inbox the daunting work remained. Secondly to this is no guaranteed consistency, staff on this measure would still have to communicate with the in game DMs on occurrences and discrepancy and can add yet another layer of administrative complexity - at times leading to "we haven't resolved an answer yet until availability permits us to do so." The creation of these additional layers will require additional work despite the intention to lessen it; first identify and sort through the intake issues.

2) Players given more freedom to control positions of power- This is what will bring players back to BGTSCC. Make it possible for a player to become a duke or a member of the Conclave. You do not need to make it easy for them, but at least make it possible. You want to set up a Flaming Fist faction- start it. It works for Candlekeep it should work for anything else. If you are a terrible flaming fist guard and people complain- you will get fired or arrested. If you become a Duke of Baldurs Gate then suddenly stop playing – you will be deposed. If the DM's decide you are not doing a satisfactory job they will find an IC reason to try and remove you. Will this hurt your feelings?

"This is what will bring players back to BGTSCC" I wish to know what basis does this come from? With 12,000 forum accounts was positions of power the reasons players left, or is this reflective of one or two complaint posts with a handful of players? I'm an advocate of that additional player freedom of accessibility, but I feel this statement caters to a very specific minority.

3) Current staff, have to loosen up the control and let players take control. If players are to be given positions of power this will be a must. Let the ooc drama happen if it does. Its not going to turn into some wild west pvp hellscape. There will be a whole DM Admin department created and organized for it. Stop looking at all conflict simply as future OOC Drama and more like RP opportunities. Let the players try crazy (#2) – give them a chance to succeed – that's what dice are for!

You state that letting players take control with loosened regulation is then regulated by another set of individuals who may have an investment in repelling the efforts of the former. There's a lot of complexities being overlooked, avoidance of OOC drama is one thing but this sets up precedent for another's existence, as well as additional needless monitoring by a player group whose activity and responses will not be consistent.

-You can 'PVP out' if you want but that doesnt mean you can do what every you want. You are not automatically losing but you are backing down.

What's gained over today?

-Keep RP as the priority, but allow players to add an element of danger to each other. If it gets abused, complain. The abuser will be dealt with – not a big change here.

As mentioned, not a big change, though I don't see what's gained.

-Balance the new player freedoms by handing out more permastrikes.

I favor permanent death strikes, but what's gained? Players able to open season other players until they can mechanically force them into corners and cost the server the activity of those individuals?

-Stop using PG13 as an excuse.

The easiest response to this is to stop treating elevated PG13 storytelling as an excuse for RP / behavior.

-Stop using Lore as an excuse – let in game player achievements, trump canon.

There's already evidence of this, but the server diverging so far off the tracks to incite retcons isn't valuable to anyone's time.

-Give us more to do than leveling and grinding. If we can free up Actual DM's to get in game that would be amazing.

A thousand times agreed. We have twelve thousand forum accounts, and we can barely sell the server to those who stopped through let alone newcomers.

[Hullack]

Tekill wrote: ↑Sun Oct 08, 2023 8:52 pm-Stop using Lore as an excuse – let in game player achievements, trump canon.
There's already evidence of this, but the server diverging so far off the tracks to incite retcons isn't valuable to anyone's time.

If I can add a small example of this that's stuck in my craw for a bit -- the message boards in and around the Gate. I suggested moving them to a place where people will actually see and interact with them and was told that they're placed where they are because canonically that's where information is shared in Baldur's Gate in the lore.

I mean great... but the result is that they never get used and people constantly place crossbow bolts renamed like flyers to the same 4 places in the city so that people actually see them. There's literally continuous in game character actions about where messages are actually posted and still we can't have an actual message board in these places because lore says so.

I mean I don't think moving the message boards in going to bring people flooding back to the server, but it was a very obvious example of lore stomping on in-game actions for no real reason.

[JustAnotherGuy]

I'm not sure where to begin on this topic, so I'll begin with numbers. Currently, as I'm typing this, there are 24 people on BGTSCC. The next highest server is Haven, with 22. The next highest is 3.

This may or may not be an unpopular opinion, but while Haven has many good things I wish we could bring over to BGTSCC, people are there for sex. It's even in the Server's description on their forums. "This server was made so that people could explore ERP without fear of judgment." And after myself having played there for over a month (with my typical online play time of 8+ hours per day that I play) I was unable to find any good story. I was, however, at least once per week asked for ERP without any prior RP. Literally people sending me a /t and asking, "Want to play?"

So, despite the threads that have many complaints about BGTSCC, when it comes to NWN2 PWs, we are at the top. We are doing something right.

Does this mean we're doing everything perfectly? Not at all. I agree that there's some things we need to change. However, I vehemently disagree that allowing players to be dukes and such is the right way to go. For one, this would immediately lead to claims of favoritism and bias, whether true or not. For two, this immediately splits the server into IC social groups, dividing RP even further. For three, this gives players the power to control other players' RP through the use of laws and such.

I noticed the comparison to Candlekeep. And I actually agree that the rest of the server could be like Candlekeep. And that's because a player CANNOT be in charge of Candlekeep. They can be the guildmaster of the players of Candlekeep, but they still answer to the DMs/Admin.

Someone mentioned those that enjoy the fact that we stick to lore. I hope that those whom I've talked to will speak up in here. But I've spoken to people and can think of three of them off the top of my head (plus myself) who do not want to leave BGTSCC because we stick with lore.

Should there be IC consequences for our actions? Absolutely. I agree 100% with this. Should we be able to diverge a bit from lore? Again, I think we should. Should we throw out the lore and diverge completely? Absolutely not. That is one of the things this server has going for it.

[Empoweredfan]

I'm going to be the worrywart here for a moment, so apologies in advanced. While having some say in what is happening on the server always sounds like a great thing, there is always the downside. Where the most driven, ambitious, active and/or set people that take the most advantage to make their opinions and views a reality. And if there are no checks in place, the changes that might be brought on could be very undesierable for people that have other notions and less drive and/or time. . .and thus drive them away. Something that could spell the end for the server all together at this point in time.

I honestly don't think it is impossible to create change on the server as we are today, if enough people want it and roleplay towards it. It just takes time, effort and getting both DM's and Builders on board with the idea.

[Tekill]

For one, this would immediately lead to claims of favoritism and bias, whether true or not. For two, this immediately splits the server into IC social groups, dividing RP even further. For three, this gives players the power to control other players' RP through the use of laws and such.

1) More fear about hurt feelings.
2) More fear about hurt feelings - why cant we all just get along? - Answer - because we don't want to- getting along is bad RP. More conflict is required.
3) More fear about hurt feelings. - The power to control other players' RP - My LE Blackguard is like, "Yes, so!"
- My LG paladin is like, "Yes, so!"

I will try to avoid going back and forth over any detailed debate regarding any suggestions being made. The reason being, we have argued the finer points over and over ad nauseam. A decade of debate all we have accomplished is more bickering? F -that!

My suggestions are fine, probably because they are not originally really mine.
Are they perfect- no. Have they been flushed out - no. Are your arguments against these suggestions valid and reliable -yes.

We can argue over anything and you are quite welcome to do so- I just will not be doing that anymore. How about we agree that you are 50.1% right and I am 49.9% right. Or should we go back on forth all day on this too?

@JustAnotherGuy - I am one of those people that think sticking to lore is very important. But I also do not believe in absolutes. There is a bit of gray area wiggle room anywhere. Hullacks, example proves this.

After ten years of bickering and establishing there is a problem(s) the one thing we have not done enough of is to try and solve the problem(s). The changes that have been implemented so have not been perfect, they often needed adjustments but have overall made a big difference. I do not want to list these suggestions because we will just bicker over them and that is missing the point. These changes make me hopeful that other changes will also make a difference.

The title of this thread is Restructure or Status Quo. Do we restructure or do we keep things going as they are?
The status quo is fine. But list of retired DM's is way too long, DM requests often take too long, and many people feel their efforts to make an impact on the server are in vain.
Lets decide to change or not. Lets decide if we are going to change then what changes we can should make
Do you have better suggestions?
If not, why not?
Once we decide - lets implement the changes then initiate a sort of Session 0 to start it off.

[Aspect of Sorrow]

Status quo until there's an actual definition of roles and duties, an actionable itinerary, rather than a rally cry to vague, undeserved entitlements with poor optics.

[BloodRiot]

I think there needs to be a restructure on some matters that actually do not require a total tear down and cleansing by fire of the entire server.
I will elaborate on what I personally think is both simple changes that would do a lot.

First off Expectations from any DM, both would be and current:
Like many of us on staff, DM is voluntary work and we cannot treat it like a second job you are not paid to do. However DMs, like the rest of the staff are required to abide by a code of conduct which by definition and necessity includes some rules that are pretty common sense. I am fairly sure a DM cannot simply award a player they particularly like just any piece of gear that is not in line with balance guidelines and this is a good thing. In addition to these rules I propose the following guidelines:
- Outside of special year/server wide metaplot type events, events should complete no longer than 2 months real time after the initial session
- Events should target a manageable group of preferably no more than 6 players with 1 pc per player allowed
- Keep a record of events and their participants with dates, so you can see if some players had attention/an event recently and if others have been neglected for some time.
- While understandable that DMs, have preferences on which subject matters to tackle, it should be required of them that they also engage in other areas, with other players, with different themes to ensure no player is forever forgotten because they are playing something specific (but legit) that no DM cares about
- It's cool to play important NPC characters, however the PCs should be the stars of the show, not simply be audience to said super cool npcs of greatness doing and saying cool stuff. We can read the books for that. Less passive social events, more let's go on an adventure and kill the bad guy / bastard that is opposing our plans

The above is focused on PVE, but PVP can also be a focus. In real life uneasy truces are a smart thing to do and preferable to an all out war. IRL, the cold war was universes better than what a hot war could devolve into at the time. In our fantasy world it's just boring. The zhents/LA are locked behind their treaty and that just locks any flashpoints of interesting for players of different factions and alignments to engage. The sshamath bureaucracy is as the name explicitly says, a bureaucracy. Stuff like these two examples are BORING. Have some dumb zhent captain and Paladin meet up in a road along the edge of the treaty borders and both having axes to grind they create a flashpoint that triggers new interesting wars to take part in. Anything but stagnation. RL boring is good, in gameplay and RP it's the worst, least interesting thing that can happen.

Speaking of bureaucracy, reduce the amount the DMs we have, have to deal with. It doesn't work. request system is getting everything bogged down. Stop taking requests, and go out to players in the world and spring events on them. Herd the players into fighting for the common goals you offer them instead of having everyone trying to pull in different directions that only servers to isolate them in their own pockets of super specific contained RP.

Don't take any of the above as anything super well thought out, mostly just following my streams of thought of what I believe truly to be what needs doing. Finer points are up for debate.

[Tekill]

Status quo until there's an actual definition of roles and duties, an actionable itinerary, rather than a rally cry to vague, undeserved entitlements with poor optics.

So status quo until its restructured. Got it.
Aspect of Sorrow, I would like to hear your constructive input on what you personally think would make this server the best of the best. Use any kind of optics you desire.

Edit: Great points BloodRiot. The stop taking DM request point makes sense, not ideal, but prudent. I suggested having a special Admin team assigned to requests so that it frees the DM's up but I guess you cant just pluck "Admin Teams" out of thin air.