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

Maecius wrote: Or introduce new, never-before-seen maps. Whichever people think would be the most fun for them.

Steve wrote:So...did I just miss the pre-removal memo about WHY areas were being removed?

I mean, I TOTALLY understand doing this, especially in the context of Server stability. However, maybe it was just me, but I did not see a public "this is coming up" post, which allowed the general Community to prepare to maybe see one or two or even three of their favorite Areas removed.

chad878262 wrote:It has been stated in many threads over the past several months that staff was looking in to areas to be removed for improved server stability.

chad878262 wrote:However, it was never posted which areas, nor was it stated in advance that the most recent update would remove areas. A shock to all of us for sure, but not one that hasn't been indicated was coming. The specifics weren't released to my knowledge as this was wholly an admin/dev task, but I don't think community input would have changed anything, since it was really just a matter of which areas were most resource intensive.

Steve wrote:

chad878262 wrote:It has been stated in many threads over the past several months that staff was looking in to areas to be removed for improved server stability.

It has? Non-QC or Dev sections of the Forums?

Endelyon wrote:

Planehopper wrote:So is the entire back-way from BG to Nashkel gone, then?

Are there any areas that allow foraging, especially for bait, now that the east river map was removed?

Are new areas replacing these, especially the one in the OP, being a relatively necessary leveling area?

I realize this will never be a democracy, but how were these areas chosen? It seems to me that if areas are to be cut they could be less impactful to the majority if UD areas were removed, or unused guild areas, or some of DM only maps.

DM maps were already removed in the first cut--Almost half of them. They've already made all the sacrifice I can feasibly ask them to make if we plan to keep any DM maps at all.

We can try to add some foraging spots to other places, but the areas were chosen based on too many factors to feasibly even try to explain at this point, and definitely not based on "the most used maps are the ones that get kept." Factors included a handful of internal discussions regarding how many players would be disenfranchised the least by the removal of a given map, what effected the ease of leveling the least, which maps were needless because everything on them can be moved to other places, and the list goes on.

At the end of the day I had to weigh feedback from multiple dozens of different sources and just had to pretty much use that feedback to wing the decision and do what I thought was best. One thing I've learned about this issue after spending the last months preparing is that there's no one that agrees on anything about which maps are the most important ones to keep. For every group that wants one map removed there's another group of players who feel like it's literally the worst map you could possibly remove from the game.

We were able to turn the reset timer back up to 9 hours thanks to the stability this trim has provided the module and we've been 16 hours total now without a crash of any kind. Once we get all the transitions reworked and everything finalized we can focus on what is missing as a result and how we can work that in at other places.

As an example, the lighthouse, the boat, and the cave from the Coast South of CK can just be added to a small beach at the bottom of the Lion's Way map and provide literally exactly the same function that the entire coastal map did (minus the Fire Beetles, which can again, be put literally anywhere in the entire module).

The Chionthar river map was taken out in favor of keeping the newer map with the wolves/bandits and the goblin ruins because it's the de facto "level 1" hunting ground now if your starting PC isn't strong enough to go straight to the graveyard and because all the map served to do was provide a means to travel between areas that are actually relevant. The one exception is that occasionally people will use area as a secluded place to RP in the wilderness, and again, this can be accomplished with the addition of small spawn-free forested areas added to Uldoon's Trail or even the Goblin Ruin map, rather than having a big huge empty space to facilitate the RP of 2 (or a small group) players.

Though I get where you're coming from with the foraging spots, as this adds to the RP of characters who live in the wild as opposed to an urban setting, and we will definitely try to work these and some alchemy spots into another map instead (perhaps the river area leading up into Ulgoth's Beard?).