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

That's nobody !

Valefort wrote:The person with the best weapon.

Valefort wrote: That's nobody !

Maecius has the best weapon...though I suppose he shares it with Endelyon, AoS and HDM's.

aaron22 wrote:dont RcR... Roll 12 Alts. it will take you so long to get them all to 30 it is un-achievable. and you have an amazing gold sink so you are never ever wealthy.

I tried this.

Now, besides my main, I have four other level 30's I don't play, a level 22 I occasionally log on(once per week? Or is it per month...), and seven other alts I also dont play. Good times!

Snarfy wrote:

aaron22 wrote:dont RcR... Roll 12 Alts. it will take you so long to get them all to 30 it is un-achievable. and you have an amazing gold sink so you are never ever wealthy.

I tried this.

Now, besides my main, I have four other level 30's I don't play, a level 22 I occasionally log on(once per week? Or is it per month...), and seven other alts I also dont play. Good times!

I also am a victim of this. Don't repeat our mistake. Save yourself. D:

Nexus is the true endgame dungeon and Maecius is the final boss.

^ Unfortunately, if you beat me, I grow wings and you have to beat me again. Three more times.

On a more serious note, "life after level 30" is a design-level quandary too. We're often trying to figure out how to keep level 30 characters engaged.

Personally, I always just become political. On my first level 30, I ran a guild. On my second, I went for nobility. But I know these goals aren't for everyone -- and I ended up retiring both characters once their goals had been achieved.

So if anyone has any design ideas for making life after level 30 more enjoyable for folks, do shoot me a PM. That's definitely something we're always interested in considering!

Arn wrote:RP, which could include joining or establishing a guild, forum RP, helping out lowbies, etc.

I have joined guilds and DMs killed those guilds. I have done forum RP, DMs wanted me to become a DM, I didn't and I ran out of polite ways to refuse their requests. One of the killed guilds was actually about helping lowbies.

Arn wrote:You could do cyclical loot grinding and build up your hoard of gold and items.

How do you think I got a character to 30?

Arn wrote:Try to start a player-driven plot initiative, or see if a DM will help you out with it.

Yes, I have burned down many guild houses and bases with such 'initiatives' in the past... Maybe I should not rub that fact in... But it is what it is. Accuse me of being a bad role-player, and I will role-play your guild into fire!

Arn wrote:PvP tournaments.

I once beat a QC member's gishy PvP build in one of those and the guy wouldn't post in the same thread as me for over a year and a half! Among other similar incidents. But the one I mention was done with a Barbarian before most of the current barbarian perks.

Arn wrote:I dunno, just some things that came to mind; you said there is no bad suggestion!

I am willing to admit that I was wrong, there are bad suggestions! HORRIBLE SUGGESTIONS!

Those are actually good suggestions, it is just that when you can say: 'been there, done that' it is easy to paint something in negative light, or positive.

Steve wrote:RCR...into a negative charisma modifier elf!

Now let's see what 'insert elven player's name' has to say!

Fixed it for you.

I actually already got a HALF-orc alt. Had one for a long time. But as I said, HALF-orc, not an orc.

Maecius wrote:^ Unfortunately, if you beat me, I grow wings and you have to beat me again. Three more times.

^ Gets reminded when Maecius was an active DM, and had to cast Damnation three times to fugue one of my characters.

Edit: Spirit Shaman. First I got a 20 with a reroll due to abilities. Then I got the contingency heal bringing me back to life. And finally, dead.

So if anyone has any design ideas for making life after level 30 more enjoyable for folk...

My thought in this is establishing paths where Levels 1—29 can be more influential, more appropriately challenged based on Character Level over Player Knowledge, and generally more Rewarding-with-a-capitol-R for taking the long road a bit slower.

What I am also saying is that it is both a shame and a PITA to get to Level 30 before your Character has a chance to become these “politicians,” “nobles,” guild leaders. Because all the Others are Level 30, it becomes a crappy requirement because you can’t mechanically compete, at that Level.

Plus, grind-looting for better gear is the #1 RP killer. It really is—Players end up making such OOC considerations around this “mission.”

Maecius wrote:^ Unfortunately, if you beat me, I grow wings and you have to beat me again. Three more times.

That is so anime of you.

I'm not sure how to change the culture there, Steve. That may not be something we can design out of the server, though, since it's more of a player mentality thing than anything else.

I know I have led guilds with low-level characters. Most of my characters get involved in some sort of intrigue, or politicking, from as low as level 1.

Which is to say, there's no "roadblock" against doing these things at low levels. Except the mental roadblock that some people seem to have, where they seem to genuinely believe that meaningful RP doesn't start until level 30. Which, to me, is more of a collective, agreed-upon culture issue than a design issue.

I know, for example, that the DMs prefer to DM for characters who are not already level 30. So I don't feel it's even being pushed from the DM or development level. Just from players onto players.

So it's just become this inherent goal that people, as players, seem to expect for themselves. As though you can't be an important or influential character until you're un-killable.

The only way to stop that is to stop believing it.

c2k wrote:That is so anime of you.

I hear ya, Big Mac.

Which it's great to see different options once and a while, like DM Ghost's initiative.

Steve wrote:Plus, grind-looting for better gear is the #1 RP killer. It really is—Players end up making such OOC considerations around this “mission.”

Yes, I am aware that zerg parties exist. Heck, I have probably been banned from this server for calling a zerg party a zerg party, in addition to refusing to join up their mad dash for loot and experience points.

Yet, I have to disagree. I think the party size plays a far greater role in pushing active player interaction to the background. The more players there are, the longer you have to wait in order to make sure you do not 'speak over' someone else. A fact that slows down interaction to a point where it might end altogether.

Also, with bigger party the mobs tend to go down faster while the rate of spawns also goes up, which means that the amount of focus required to battle mobs increases at the expsense of active player to player interaction. After all, if one player rushes towards a mob, the others tend to follow like a flock of hen. Hence, if you type something, it might not even appear in the chat log of others.

Moreover, it is perfectly fine to have a low wisdom characters. I myself have several. But bigger party sizes also throw away all in character consideration towards how the party's actions might appear to someone else.

For example, I had a half-elf character that ages ago went for a little trip into the underdark. Since the player behind the character got lost, I suppose it is fair to say that so did the character. Now, I did find a way back to the surface without a server reset, but on my way I did encounter a party of three. A party that kept their weapons drawn, a party that was buffed with magical wards and then had some more on top, a party whose members split in the room to flank the sides of my character. One remained in the middle, the other two took positions at both sides of my character. One of them kept rebuffing with warlock invocations, the one to my character's left. Finally, my own character was fresh out of a fight with less than half his full hitpoints. One of the party members threw a generic greeting. I waited for a while longer, toggled them all hostile and got hit with some spell while I was still typing some generic battle taunts. After their obvious victory the party gawked around in the room for a while until they moved on in the dungeon.

But, unfortunatately one of the players in that group was rather upset about the PvP encounter and kept sending tells for about 45 minutes, and there really was no point trying to explain how my different characters would have reacted differently to the behaviour of that party. One of my other characters at the time would have simply cast Gaseous Form and fled the party in order to escape the cursed dungeon - but they encountered the character that they encountered. The character in question has been RCR-ed ages ag, therefore, I suppose I can now reveal that he was a bloodthirsty Bhaalite barbarian and polite dinner party murders were not exactly his style. In fact, he was more into the 'Ogre' approach when it came to murders he committed, especially when driven to the point of exhaustion.

Now, lets have a look at two other more recent encounters. In the first one, one of the party members rolled intimidate. Some might find it hard to believe, but I do not always remember the PnP D&D skill rolls from the top of my head. Also, I had moved cities and therefore lost the handy piece of paper that had 'common counter rolls' listed for each of my characters. Thus I had to searc for the skill description and go through my character's inventory and character sheet in order to determine what would be added to my d20 roll. By the time I was done, the party in question had already left the area. I cought a glimpse of one their summons as it vanished through the entrance and then read the OOC interaction that had transpired and left it at that. Apparently some reputation had preceeded me.

Then later, it might have been the same party, but this time I encountered them on the otherside of an area transition point. They were silent. I was silent. After a while I decided to have character cast 'teleportation' and off my character went. I did get one OOC tell about the previous reputation, and I was tempted to reply that they were free to pursue my character... All the way to the literal end of the world and into one of the locations of certain doom, but I decided against it.

Thus, while player character parties do give a chance to interact with other player characters, the party size is a bit of a double edged sword. Perhaps these are things you consider to be OOC considerations, but when I read the 'OOC considerations' I thought more about teaming up with your character's sworn enemy in order level up or something along those lines.



Oh, here is another thing to do at level 30. See every corner of the server.

Get married!

Also look here and here.

Also there will be reputation system.

It's already there

Just count the xp after 30 and grant a feat when the character would reach lvl 33, 36,39,42,45.

This could be done via character dialogue and the feats limited to whatever.