Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

Status: Phoenix Company.
created: December 31, 2014
Private guild forum created: February 15, 2014

Letter sent: Tue May 05, 2015 12:56 pm

*letter addressed to the Dukes of Baldors Gate*
Greetings my Lords and Ladies,
As the Administrator of Phoenix Company I, Terri Lalani, am formally requesting permission to purchase land along the trade way south of Baldur's Gate. The purpose of this land acquisition is to build Our Company Lodge. The site is overrun with bandits and a stronghold at this site will help to insure safe travel for Merchants. We are prepared to meet any requirements you deem essential and will continue to support and uphold fair and upstanding laws of the Dukes. With much hope we await your decision in this matter.
Sincerely,
Terri Lalani (Administrator of Phoenix Company

)
requirement to build a guild hall: http://bgtscc.net/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=19110

A letter is sent out to all members of Phoenix company
Social event Planned!
Where? The Friendly Arms Inn

I would like for us all to get together if possible to meet and socialize with each other. in addition to the fun of the social I would like us to formulate a plan to raise money for the creation of our guild lodge! I look forward to seeing everyone who can make it!
Sent: Mon Aug 03, 2015 2:19 pm

DM assigned to promote role play towards building the guild hall: Approximately August 29th.
Documented role play that is public and not in our private forum: http://bgtscc.net/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=396&start=180

Documented Role play that is in our private forum: (sorry guys unless your a DM you will not have access to the link so I will not post it, HOWEVER, DM's your welcome to come to our forum and have a look.)

You might ask what is the point I am trying to make here? Well I will tell you that Metaquad4 mentioned several months of role play is required. That is already in effect and is being implemented.

As of today's date we still have no guild hall, but our very very active guild will soon (I hope). All the requirements have been met and the guild hall is slowly being build by an area Designer.

When it is complete it will NOT be a walled fortress. In fact it will have an open common area where hopefully the caravan NPC's and Player base can come inside and Legitimately Role play all day and night long! When complete and operational by all means come by and bring all the role-play you want or desire with you to the place.
(spoiler alert!) (outside view of the Phoenix Company)

Personally I think thids are onto something here.


Too many of the guilds grow stagnant because of the simple fact that there are too many guilds.
All wanting DM and builder attention.

Why not have the Dukes commission chartered adventuring bands and Orders after some bureacratic process?
When the band falls apart (as most do, lets be realistic here) the leader can sell on the charter to an aspiring adventuring group and so forth.
We need an adventuring foundation for roleplay too.
Not everyone wants at the heart of their toon to be part of wizardry orders, assassin guilds, merchant organisations or exploring the divine at length.


Meanwhile the guilds that exist today should be kept under watch such as the OP suggested.
As well as the creation of new actual guilds being heavily restricted.

Perhaps a guild leader should not be applicable unless a full year of active roleplay has been completed (giving allowances for modest periods disappearance)?

Perhaps a guild leader toon should be realized to at heart be a rather stationary object in the most instances as well?
Too many guilds have lost their heart at FAI in my humble opinion.
We need Cecilia(hidennka) toons in guild leader positions as opposed to guildleader toons being everywhere but at home when online.

A caveat there as a former guildleader, and runner of too many toons by far, if you want to see a certain toon for the love of roleplaying do tell so or do something about it.
A toon sitting alone for hours is not fun nor giving that cosy feeling of actually making a difference.
If you see Cecilia's around and arent in the guild, why not stop by with your toon for a suitable reason just to keep things alive for these brave souls.


As others suggested at least some halls (probably most) can be opened up and used for public consumtion after some map editing.
As much as I love the Hellstorm's Sea Wolf for instance it also gladens me everytime a DM use it for events with other parties in other directions.
Much like having NPC Valshar around in Sshamath is a constant reminder of some pretty wild and rather naughty times in server history.

Others should simply be utterly destroyed or moved on to a fresh band of heroes/villains with a similar agenda.
A drow House falls out of fashion?
Move it over to another active group with similar roleplay.

Some guilds are simply too established in lore to be ransacked at hand however.
Candlekeep itself cant just implode one day for instance, same with Darkhold and a choice few others.
The strength with those sitecentered guilds by the way are also their weakness, since you cannot go just anywhere with the roleplay.


All this being said I believe a censur of the guilds should perhaps be kept at a quarterly schedule rather than monthly.
Coinciding with possible patches perhaps and thus giving the dead ones three months to address the situation?
Every month are too tight a schedule in my view since it does not take into account absence for studies, vacation and so on.
Not all players play every day or week for that matter.

It make total sense for guild halls and whatnot to be moved out of the server envelope when they are no longer making a contribution.
Should matters change they can always be reentered again from an offline source.


Are we about to give the admins more to do?
Sorry, we do love and appreciate you all.

/M

PS:
As for guild halls they really rely on active builders rather than active toons looking down server history.
Dead birds got a guild hall within a few months, House Dev'lin six months?
Whereas the Seventh Circle, which in all fairness was the underdark for two years, got the guild hall a year or two after most toons in the guild had ceased to be around.
Despite two longstanding active periods for the Temple of Lolth it never had a guildhall (not from lack of want or funds).
If you want it bad enough it will come, one day.
Maybe not so soon.

Yeah, regarding guilds with a place in lore, such as the aforementioned examples (Candlekeep and Darkhold), those kinds of places should be given exemption/leeway for this matter, for fairly obvious reasons. Naturally, as you mentioned, it would be difficult to have a place deeply rooted in lore just "vanish".

I dont like wasting anyone's time - as much as I can. More importantly i dont like wasting my time. Having to include a guild in an RP because it would be the thing to do, only to have that RP stalled because of inactivity, is very annoying.

I dont care if the guilds are destroyed, deleted or used for something else but do something. If there is the possibility of losing the guild because of inactivity, a guild leader would pass his position to someone else more easily or try to generate some RP harder.

metaquad4 wrote:Yeah, regarding guilds with a place in lore, such as the aforementioned examples (Candlekeep and Darkhold), those kinds of places should be given exemption/leeway for this matter, for fairly obvious reasons. Naturally, as you mentioned, it would be difficult to have a place deeply rooted in lore just "vanish".

If by leeway you mean the guild is stripped from them and given to the DM's then sure, I agree.

mrm3ntalist wrote:I dont like wasting anyone's time - as much as I can. More importantly i dont like wasting my time. Having to include a guild in an RP because it would be the thing to do, only to have that RP stalled because of inactivity, is very annoying.

I dont care if the guilds are destroyed, deleted or used for something else but do something. If there is the possibility of losing the guild because of inactivity, a guild leader would pass his position to someone else more easily or try to generate some RP harder.

My thoughts exactly

metaquad4 wrote:

DM Bloodlust wrote:If given the choice, I would rather see old guildhalls updated. Make them appear looted and deserted, add a few hostile spawns, and then we turn an empty area into one that everyone can enjoy. The area even has some history to it, which makes it interesting.

This idea, I like. Maybe it wouldn't work for all the guild halls, but, for the guild halls where it could work, it would provide nice new dungeons.

Hey, not a bad idea. Keeps the continuity intact, and guilds can still add to the server lore this way, even after they become inactive.

I do agree that we have a bit of clutter from old guilds.

mrm3ntalist wrote:I dont like wasting anyone's time - as much as I can. More importantly i dont like wasting my time. Having to include a guild in an RP because it would be the thing to do, only to have that RP stalled because of inactivity, is very annoying.

I dont care if the guilds are destroyed, deleted or used for something else but do something. If there is the possibility of losing the guild because of inactivity, a guild leader would pass his position to someone else more easily or try to generate some RP harder.

That's a bit harsh. Generating RP is not equally easy/difficult for all guilds. Some have it easier, some have it more difficult. There are quite a few things that play a factor in such things, such as: Server wide plots, current playing population preference, guild's dependence on DM involvement etc. It's quite easy to boast great activity when there's a bunch of active players in a guild with all of them coming forward with ideas, opposed to a guild which depends on a single figure to do most of the work (the leader in most cases).

Another question to be asked is, if RP is generated under duress and threat of losing a guild hall or even the disbandment of the entire guild, is that kind of RP even desirable?

To date, I've attempted (both with success and failure) four guilds/factions that existed without ever requiring their own Guild Hall or Area.

There are plenty of fantastic EXISTING maps from which to Role-play, and 90% of them go unused, continue to be unused.

For sake of this discussion, opening up abandoned Guild Halls would be the most in-character thing—hellz, a DM could even run a dungeon/discovery event about it. Then, if new Players stepped up to reform the Guild, the "doors" could get locked back.

There could be a lot of creative use regarding abandoned Guild Halls and Areas, however, it would require some Dev support, which is currently in short order.

What about the possibility of actually, IC-ly, destroying Guild Halls?!?

Thids wrote: That's a bit harsh. Generating RP is not equally easy/difficult for all guilds. Some have it easier, some have it more difficult. There are quite a few things that play a factor in such things, such as: Server wide plots, current playing population preference, guild's dependence on DM involvement etc. It's quite easy to boast great activity when there's a bunch of active players in a guild with all of them coming forward with ideas, opposed to a guild which depends on a single figure to do most of the work (the leader in most cases).

Another question to be asked is, if RP is generated under duress and threat of losing a guild hall or even the disbandment of the entire guild, is that kind of RP even desirable?

Lets not bury our heads in the sand now. No one ever said you needed "great activity" to not get deleted. We are simply asking that guild leaders stay decently active on the appropriate character or pass it down to someone that is. Being a "single figure that does all the work" just goes with the territory and if the player can't accept that they don't deserve to lead their own guild.

The same person leading multiple guilds through different characters should also be forbidden. And a record of every guild leader that abandoned a guild should be taken so they aren't allowed to waste more players time in the future(neither is the case atm).

Even if you made a rule as simple as "guild leaders must RP on their main for one hour every week." Half the guilds on the server would get deleted in a month lol. I'm not serious about that rule, just giving you an idea of how little effort is being put into some of these guilds atm.

The core of almost all problems and disappointments with the way things work out are twofold: One, At the core, this is a mechanically driven game. People can talk RP all day... ..but secretly they are all lusting after power-items and XP. I have seen it at almost every event I have participated it, and the hottest debates here are almost always about items and XP. Two, this server only can have 75 players at a time.

If guilds are to be successful, they are going to need mechanical assistance and rewards.

I would propose each guild have a weekly quest that requires a team, and once a guild is joined, no other can be by that character except with DM mechanical assistance.

The best way to keep a guild leader "active" is to make it an NPC.

Another neat idea, I think, would be the guild hall would have a closed KEMO auction script, where guild members would put their stuff up for sale for a week, exclusively for other guild members. I don;t know if it can mechanically be done, but it would be nice if those items once put up for sale were given a "guild" restriction, much like the alignment and class restrictions, but with better UMD.

maulofthetitans55 wrote:

Thids wrote: That's a bit harsh. Generating RP is not equally easy/difficult for all guilds. Some have it easier, some have it more difficult. There are quite a few things that play a factor in such things, such as: Server wide plots, current playing population preference, guild's dependence on DM involvement etc. It's quite easy to boast great activity when there's a bunch of active players in a guild with all of them coming forward with ideas, opposed to a guild which depends on a single figure to do most of the work (the leader in most cases).

Another question to be asked is, if RP is generated under duress and threat of losing a guild hall or even the disbandment of the entire guild, is that kind of RP even desirable?

Lets not bury our heads in the sand now. No one ever said you needed "great activity" to not get deleted. We are simply asking that guild leaders stay decently active on the appropriate character or pass it down to someone that is. Being a "single figure that does all the work" just goes with the territory and if the player can't accept that they don't deserve to lead their own guild.

The same person leading multiple guilds through different characters should also be forbidden. And a record of every guild leader that abandoned a guild should be taken so they aren't allowed to waste more players time in the future(neither is the case atm).

Even if you made a rule as simple as "guild leaders must RP on their main for one hour every week." Half the guilds on the server would get deleted in a month lol. I'm not serious about that rule, just giving you an idea of how little effort is being put into some of these guilds atm.

Do you want guild leaders to generate RP under the threat of losing a guild hall/guild? I highly doubt that the RP generated will hold much value or quality for that matter. For that reason I don't think that handing out ultimatums is the solution here.

Passing down the reigns of an inactive guild isn't exactly an easy thing to do either. There is a reason why the guild is inactive. Also, I strongly disagree that it's the sole responsibility of the guild leader to generate RP. They should take the point on it, yes, but generating RP is the responsibility of every guild member. Joining a guild and expecting RP to be served to you by the guild leader is kind of selfish and is basically taking advantage of the guild you are joining.

Don't get me wrong, I know perfectly well what it's like to put in a lot of work and effort into a guild, organize things OOCly and spend your own time on getting people to do stuff while the leader doesn't log on for months at a time even though there's important RP waiting for their character. But I can also see the other side of the coin as well.

We are moving to a discussion about guild leaders now, which isn't the subject of this topic.

Bregan D'aerthe has had many periods of inactivity, at one point Kaltyra and her orc clan actually claimed ownership of the abandoned Bregan guild hall and took it over for, what 6-12 months??? It was a great solution to use current existing maps for RP and to continue the plot of events. It gave history to areas, as well as continuity and flavour. Bregan later went on to negotiate the hand over of keys when they were reformed. When Bregan's player base dropped to near zero again I did go into discussions with another guild about the possibility of handing over the keys to them to take over, but a sudden influx of recruits and old timers halted that.

Thids wrote:Also, I strongly disagree that it's the sole responsibility of the guild leader to generate RP. They should take the point on it, yes, but generating RP is the responsibility of every guild member. Joining a guild and expecting RP to be served to you by the guild leader is kind of selfish and is basically taking advantage of the guild you are joining.

I agree wholeheartedly

while i can understand the issue/concern here the same can be said about any area on the server that isnt used can it not?

and the server is massive, there are a -lot- of infrequently used areas, not just guildhalls

either way i think a dev or luna would need to chime in on the unloaded area theory because i know for sure each area has an amount it uses up and they are designed to be under a certain value for the total area size if possible to limit how much resources they eat up

but from past talks with luna the thing that eats up resources the most are actually properties/feats, which is why over half the server is environmental, because environmental has a fraction of the properties of actual objects and why mobs/summons are made with the minimum amount of feats required so they dont load as players basically

the greatest strain on the server is a lot of people or spawns in the same area, will definitely generate lag and has been known to simply crash the server

not tryin to deflect anything, just sayin it really needs a dev input on if its even a valid concern

Thids wrote:We are moving to a discussion about guild leaders now, which isn't the subject of this topic.

We shouldnt. I mentioned guild leaders as a part of the example/problem. We should not focus on them. Noone says that if the rest of the guild players are active, anything should happen.

I'm just making a general comment here, and that is that this thread will be more useful to us as staff in terms of understanding the feeling of the playerbase if we get multiple opinions from many players, rather than a discussion between a smaller group of players over specific details.

It might be better to open a thread on inactive guildhalls more generally, with a simple poll/question - "Should the DM team intervene in inactive guilds, passing them on to others or shutting them down?"

If we get a yes to that, we will need to define what constitutes inactivity.

If we get a yes to that, we will need to define what should be done.

Would any who have posted in this thread object to adopting a staged approach to this discussion, to get input from as wide a set of players as possible? If not I would open a thread in General discussion, with a poll in it.