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

Are you having fun?
Nope (see below)

If so, how?
N/A

If not, why not?
Too many changes at once, too many unnecessary changes, too many bugs.

What do you like/dislike about the update?
See above.

On a scale of 1 to 10, where would you currently rate things on the personal fun-o-meter?
0

I may log on again when all has settled down, but I may not. I'm not keen on many of the additions, which just add unnecessary complication to the mechanical side of things. Time that I spend worrying about the mechanicals is not time I'm having fun.

Playing Divinity Original Sin at the moment, which is much more fun.

grymhild wrote: Can I give a zero?

I'd hope so... we shouldn't have to be coerced into not speaking up, and when questions are raised usually there is more than one answer. Limiting people's ability to think outside of the box or see things contrarily is limited by words like "negativity" and "positivity".

Thids wrote:Since you mentioned metaplot, I might as well chime in on that one as well. It's March 11th, ~90% of the 1352 campaign subforum is kindergarten RP. We need to step it up, both player side and DM side. Using those few dedicated RPers and DM Arakeen as a crutch to maintain an illusion that things are actually happening in our world is not a good thing. At the moment I'm actually scared to scratch below the surface, because I'm fairly certain that without the curtain the entire idea of a busy, living world will crumble hard. I'm sure things in regard to this will change soon, but at the moment it is how it is. I also feel as if we have a genuine lack of characters vying for GREATNESS on the server. I like being modest and mundane with my characters, but I never shy away from the desire for eventual GREATNESS. It's come to a point where it feels like the server has turned into a social network more than an emulation of a D&D game. I swear at this point people just roll their eyes and say "oh look, that guy wants to become a demigod some day. What a nerd.", making any sort of idea of GREATNESS in this kind of environment seem unattractive. People seem to have stopped playing challenging, willful and overall interesting characters, or they do so very rarely. This kind of ruins immersion for me.

//The 1352 metaplot is very sandbox. So, if you have a player character initiative for "greatness IC", we strongly encourage you to send it in to the DM team for us to review and potentially work with IC!

As far as RP that has been going on so far in the 1352 metaplot, I hope that the below is helpful in offering some more information on how to get involved and what has happened so far.

Thids, above you mentioned that there is a lot of public orphans RP in the 1352 metaplot forum. Why? This RP theme has by player choice been the most popular to publicly forum RP about, which is absolutely fine and DM Arrakeen and the PCs involved have created some great RP with this theme. Runner up to most popular player character choice to publicly RP about on the 1352 forums would be rebuilding/recovery in and near Baldur's Gate.

There have been many other 1352 metaplot events and areas developing in 1352, but most of the players involved in these events have chosen to leave their player character's RP on the forums largely to private guild forums or PMs. Instead, most of the public forum rumor posts on other lines of RP events in the 1352 metaplot have come from the CC DMs, which is typically for CC DMing, or others on the team as DMs as opposed to the PCs involved IC. A lot of players do not enjoy public forum RP, so I don't want to say this is bad or good, since if players do not want to publicly RP on the metaplot on the forums, the DM team is happy to post appropriate IC rumors to give general hints as to what is going on in the world based on player character actions. If players did this work for the DM team more though, this of course would be great as well!

As an aside, I am going to mention every area of metaplot theme RP on the surface that has seen DM events so far in 1352 below. Many of these areas have public mention on the 1352 forums and are in the mold of the general campaign structure themes posted on the 1352 metaplot forums (http://bgtscc.net/viewforum.php?f=399). For all players, if any of these thematic areas would be something of interest IC and be fun for you as a player, please forum RP about it IC in the relevant thread or shoot us a player request (http://bgtscc.net/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=48188) trying to get involved IC! We look forward to your great continued RP in the 1352 metaplot!

Physical Rebuilding

Rebuilding of Baldur's Gate
Rebuilding and reclaiming of Kheldrivver

Poverty

Refugees of Kheldrivver
Plague Inflicted Docks Inhabitants
Nobles of the Palace District
Farmers of Baldur's Gate - Destruction of Farmland in the Seige

Economics

Recovering Trade in Baldur's Gate
Reopening the Northern Tradeway
Trade in the Western Heartlands, on the Sword Coast, and in Amn
Trade and economic development opportunities created as a result of the Year of the Crown Wars in general

Politics

Duchal Court and Courtiers of the Realm
Fate of the War Council
Baldurain-Lords' Alliance Relations
Political effects in the Woods of Sharpteeth of the undead wars of the past year
Religion in Baldur's Gate
The fate of Beregost
Baldurian-Amnian relations
Zhentarim-Baldurian relations
The politics of Darkhold and its nearby surroundings
The politics of Thay and Baldur's Gate//

Lots of use of the word politics there. And economics, poverty and probably ergonomics as well (in effect).

Some of us play games to escape such considerations. It seems that BGTSCC no longer caters for players who want to adventure (which was always what D&D was about).

Thorsson wrote:Lots of use of the word politics there. And economics, poverty and probably ergonomics as well (in effect).

Some of us play games to escape such considerations. It seems that BGTSCC no longer caters for players who want to adventure (which was always what D&D was about).

//There have been many DM adventure events in the 1352 metaplot within the various themes mentioned (as well as outside the metaplot as one-off events), but the commentary earlier was about 1352 metaplot DM events, not one-off DM adventure events outside of the metaplot. If we define "adventure" in an event as a classic type of D&D hack and slash or exploration event, there have been quite a few of these this year both in and out of the DM metaplot. A few examples immediately come to mind: an expedition into a wild area or old ruins or fighting off bandit or goblin raiders or retaking a structure occupied with hostile NPCs with force. If such an event is desired by a player IC, we strongly encourage them to please send in a player requests to the DM team requesting as much IC!

If I am not properly grasping your meaning though in terms of D&D adventure in a D&D event, please say so!

As far as "was always what D&D was about": D&D is about many things to many people, with diverse play-styles and interests. Some enjoy intrigue RP, some adventure, some RPing about orphans, etc. We try to cater to this playstyle diversity on our server and believe that it is part of what makes this server great, but if a player thinks something would be fun and make sense IC that is not currently happening IC, we strongly encourage them to send in a player request to the DM team IC on this (http://bgtscc.net/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=48188)!//

DM Dialectic wrote: If I am not properly grasping your meaning though in terms of D&D adventure in a D&D event, please say so!

From my experience past year, long term overarching events have that problem that it is very easy to end up in situation when something somewhere is going on but you can't and won't be a part of it, because you're at wrong time, at the wrong place, or not acquainted to the right people.

So, you walk around trying to find anyone to interact with and in the scry you see 15 elves discussing something that is probably bloody interesting in their completely unreachable location that is elf-only.

Some days you just want to go to a dungeon, loot some boxes, summon a fiend and get killed by a paladin. You know, simple life's pleasures.

NegInfinity wrote:

DM Dialectic wrote: If I am not properly grasping your meaning though in terms of D&D adventure in a D&D event, please say so!

From my experience past year, long term overarching events have that problem that it is very easy to end up in situation when something somewhere is going on but you can't and won't be a part of it, because you're at wrong time, at the wrong place, or not acquainted to the right people.

So, you walk around trying to find anyone to interact with and in the scry you see 15 elves discussing something that is probably bloody interesting in their completely unreachable location that is elf-only.

Some days you just want to go to a dungeon, loot some boxes, summon a fiend and get killed by a paladin. You know, simple life's pleasures.

Doron Amar is an open elf-only place. As long as your character is not an enemy of elves, *almost everyone is welcome in the rather sizeable public region. We've often had halflings, humans, genasi and gnomes visit and spend their times long term. There were even a few fairs that invited people from all over to visit!

En Dharasha Everae is more xenophobic and hidden. Sometimes I get lost myself trying to get to the bloody village.

Cranston visits Doron Amar often (though sadly it is usually a lonely place) and has even been to EDE a few times for RP purposes. So I don't think our many elf players are in any way (advertently or inadvertently) hoarding their RP stories.

that said I think that many of the issues listed in NegInfinity's post are more an issue of personal RP'ing a reason to be there and not any sort of exclusionary issue. If you see on SCRY that there is a large group in a public location and want to be involved, come up with a reason to go be involved! (just my opinion, but you can never get completely away from the OOC mechanic if you want to progress stories and find RP, you just have to find people and the server is too big to come upon folks you are looking for completely by accident.) The way I see it, if a person or group doesn't want to be found, well, that is what the hide location feature is for.

If anyone feels there's an area that the DM team isn't quite hitting on -- traditional dungeon crawls, one-shot events, etc. -- then I would encourage them to apply for a DM position during the next quarterly recruitment.

DMs run events largely based on what they think will be fun for players, but not everyone has the same tastes. Some people want to see a story that ties everything together, some people like intrigue plots where nobody (outside the DMs) ever sees the whole picture, and some people just want to raid a bugbear village and not have to think too hard about the ins and outs of Sword Coast economics. That's why it's nice to have a varied selection of active DMs!

Just food for thought. "Be the change you want to see in the world."

That's a little harder to do for updates, I know. But if you keep reporting bugs and unbalanced items, our dev team will continue working hard to fix them. Big updates are usually better when rolled out piece by piece, but that was impossible in this case -- so we have to fix it piece by piece instead. Please exercise patience there, and continue to help the devs figure out what's broken. As kindly as possible, please, as they are doing their part for free, and it's not easy staring at code all day. Most people who do that get paid good money to do that.

EDIT: OK, I was told that not all developers get paid good money. But they usually do get paid for their work!

Hoihe wrote: Doron Amar is an open elf-only place. As long as your character is not an enemy of elves, *almost everyone is welcome in the rather sizeable public region. We've often had halflings, humans, genasi and gnomes visit and spend their times long term. There were even a few fairs that invited people from all over to visit!

This happened at least half of a year ago. Also, I tend to play tieflings or evil aligned characters. Meaning that you guys would have quite a lot of reasons to not any of those characters anywhere close to the village to begin with.

There are exclusive locations, though. They're usually guild headquarters.

I'm not sure I understand your issue NegInfinity... You stated you can't / won't be a part of RP going on even though something sounds interesting, but you play PC's that IC'ly don't belong there. Why not work to get involved with the Zhents or some other Neutral / evil group that you would be able to IC'ly be around and get involved in events that way?

chambordini wrote:Doron Amar isn't really open hoihe, first thing you see when you enter the area is a big sign that oocly "warns" everyone that going in without the escort of a citizen is metagaming and godmoding and a series of other uncouth things.
So really.

Read it more thoroughly.

Doron Amar is split into two sections, divided by the river.

The side opposite of the tower (Northern bank, right side of the river, left side of the map as you enter) is open to everyone.

The side the same as the tower (southern bank, left side of the river, right side of the map as you enter) is for citizens only. ICly this is because children and non-adventurer NPCs are found on this side, and in elven lore children are the most valuable thing... ever.., so putting them to risk is... quite unelven.

The reason the Gate is there is that it scans for monster races (drow, grey orcs) and prevents their entry. The reason there is no guild-only gate on the second bridge is because of aesthethics and because some non-citizens have earned rights to visit the tower in the past before, and would make it troublesome to grant them guild membership tokens just because they have rights to visit due to trust.

NegInfinity wrote:

Hoihe wrote: Doron Amar is an open elf-only place. As long as your character is not an enemy of elves, *almost everyone is welcome in the rather sizeable public region. We've often had halflings, humans, genasi and gnomes visit and spend their times long term. There were even a few fairs that invited people from all over to visit!

This happened at least half of a year ago. Also, I tend to play tieflings or evil aligned characters. Meaning that you guys would have quite a lot of reasons to not any of those characters anywhere close to the village to begin with.

There are exclusive locations, though. They're usually guild headquarters.

//To your point, this is partially why we have had many shorter plots (with not that many events) within all of the aforementioned metaplot themes this year, so the ability to enter the RP is easier than in a very long and highly developed plot for the reasons that you mentioned. If you do want to get involved within an existing IC player group or to start a new group player character initiative within the metaplot, we encourage you to send in a player request to the DM team!//

Karond wrote:Are you having fun?

Somewhat. I've been drifting away in playing time a bit with RL and interest elsewhere, but NWN2 is "my game". I always come back to it.

If so, how?

I like trying to immerse myself into the world. It's tough, in a way, since I find one doesn't meet the same characters often so continuity takes a hit. However, I've tried to design my latest character with that in mind.

If not, why not?

Sometimes, the world feels a bit stale. Personally, I thrive more on action, conflict and that kind of stuff, rather than social roleplay with festivals, campfires and theatre visits.

What do you like/dislike about the update?

Hierophant. The class is sorely needed, and does a lot for diversity. I only wish that the spell expansion of the domains comes live soon, as that will help even more in divine roleplay. Some spells are fun and imaginative too.

I don't dislike much. Some of these new things do need to change or be removed sooner or later, for balance or theme.

On a scale of 1 to 10, where would you currently rate things on the personal fun-o-meter?

6

I didn't get to go to a million of your events; but from watching you from the long-view, and hearing the overwhelming support about Bloodlust. You definitely did a better job than the other DMs, as you initially thought you could.

Are you having fun?
I'm just gonna answer this with a yes and no.

If so, how?
I do like some of the new changes with the spells in addition to some of the cool new spells we get to play with. Plus I always enjoy casting and trying out new spells on my mage and finding spells is always fun. Also I've met and made cool new online friends on the server which was alot of fun.

If not, why not?
I don't see enough evil rp going on in this server. Most evil characters that I recognize usually just focus on power building, grinding, and not rping their characters at all. I have only been playing this game for a couple of months now and I have yet to see anything interesting going on for evil rp. The only kind of evil rp that I get is with my CoD buddies but hardly none outside of that.

Where are the highwaymen? Where are the murderers, kidnappers, and the robbers? Where are all the well-decorated player made villains that are trying to orchestrate a catastrophic event to befall on the coast? I mean surely I'm not the only one with an evil character that seeks to become a god right? The only real fun evil rp experience I've had so far was with the doll-faced killer or Araxina, whose character was actively murdering adventurers in the name of Shar and delivering their bodies and heads to the front of the friendly armed inn for people to rp over. Playing with that character on my assassin and my paladin has yielded some of the most memorable moments I've had on the server so far.

Also, I very rarely hear about any evil rp events with the dms. You never hear about some highly respected noble get assassinated or the baldur's gate bank getting robbed. I mean, the dms do cater to and try to start evil rp events of their own I hope?

What do you like/dislike about the update?
The one biggest thing I like: They keep bringing in more and more stuff. Just earlier today they introduced a new way for mages to learn and study spells which I think is really cool. As mentioned above, new spells and stuff is all cool and fun. The areas I have visited so far are really well-detailed and immersive as well. Greenfields so far is my favorite area in the new update mainly because its big and has an interesting village called 'greenest' which I hope will have life breathed into it soon with shops, the opening of the inn, etc.

I, so far, do not like the changes that are coming to some of the spells such as the changes to bigby. The way they have been redone makes them ineffective and useless against most enemies of CL 19+ at least and I feel these changes need to be redone or have the previous version returned.

On a scale of 1 to 10, where would you currently rate things on the personal fun-o-meter?
7 out of 10 so far. The server is fun and compared to most games I just love how you are capable of affecting the world around with even the slightest bit of rp, but I just feel there could be more done for players to interact with the world around them.