vbaddict wrote:ShortRedandLoud wrote:I'm confused.
This change is so minor as to be almost pointless, but people are... upset?
Good point! For a small portion of the player base, this seems to matter more than you'd expect. I rarely post in the forums, yet I'm spending time thinking of ideas that will accomplish the staff's goal while preserving level requirements. Why do I care? I actually could not answer this at first. Then a childhood memory put things into focus.
My grandparents would play card games with me and my cousins. Occasionally my uncle would join us. A favorite was a game called Elimination. It was a trumps type of game where players collected tricks. Inevitably toward the end of a round a grandchild would be down to 2 or 3 cards with no tricks. My loving Tutu would often feed an easy card to this grandchild allowing him to continue to the next round. After one such sequence I remember my uncle slamming his cards on the table, shouting "the name of the game is ELIMINATION!" while storming off in frustration.
There are those in this thread (myself included) that are like my uncle. The mechanics of D&D and NWN2 is one of progression. The game is just a vehicle to tell our stories, but to some it's mechanics also add a dimension of enjoyment as well. I'm just hoping that for those who don't see a downside, they might see this group's point of view.
Kauaiian wrote:I personally enjoyed finding something with an ILR..just another goal for me as a player to look forward to.
Nyeleni wrote:They always could give nice things to lowbies. The only thing was, that they couldn't use it right away. Which was a good motivator imo.
Ithilan wrote:I am of a mind to agree with Nyel here, it was a minor thing, a bit of a charm element and something you were quite used to, it even served as motivation often to aquire that wonderful level where you could utilize a new axe or armor etc.
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On the personal front I associate games in the FR setting with this gradual rise to power through both items and build progression, removing one of the factors does take something away from that and I agree with Thorsson that it is dumbing down the server.
Steve wrote:For me, ease of play is not fun—I prefer challenged and attaining value or possibility through investment. With this change, an aspect of that is gone.
On the flip side, I think it was easy to initially misunderstand the staff's point of view. There was a lot of back and forth about making the trip from level 1 to 15 friendlier, especially for players new to the server. Debating item requirements from a rp sense just convinced me that it was a subjective matter. When discussed in these terms, altering something fundamental to the mechanics of the game (in my eyes) bothered me greatly.
But towards the end of this thread it was clear that this was not what removing item level requirements was about. BGTSCC runs on the sweat of hardworking volunteers. If my time in BG is slightly less enjoyable because one aspect of progression is removed, it's a small price to pay for entry into such an amazing place.
I'm locking this thread on request. A player felt that this discussion had run its course, and I am prone to agree with them: At this time, I am not really seeing any new arguments or new opinions being brought forward (aside from Lanzlo's, which was another "pro" opinion).
If the requirement needs to be turned on, it'll be turned back on. I have no reason to fight public opinion, except for the fact that it'd take me a bunch of hours to undo. But as I already put in a bunch of hours here either way, that changes little with regards to my day-to-day.
That being said, the last time I did a full review of this thread (after it simmered down the first time), I saw five people who felt like this was the worst idea ever, nine people who thought it was a great idea (not counting QC opinions, or Lanzlo's opinion, above, both of which would increase this pool), and ten people who mostly didn't care. The rest of the posts in this thread were either back-and-forths between a small group of players, or peanut gallery type comments that didn't really add any weight to the discussion.
If enough individual people tell me that they feel this was a bad move, and make it clear to me why, we'll reopen the discussion and maybe change it back. But right now the idea seems to be generating more positive feelings than negative feelings from the community at large.
The thread, however, just seems to be making people unhappy (on both sides of the issue). So I'll go ahead and put it to bed until it's useful to us.
EDIT: I am editing in a post by vbaddict (in the spoiler above my original post), as he was working on the post when I locked the thread, it offers a new opinion, and is well written and well argued. If I need to come back to this thread later, it will remain an opinion for consideration.
