Okay, this is a complete whine, and I know it. Please forgive me in advance, but I do need to get this off my chest.
Letting an invading army (much less moderately sized raiding party) to just waltz into a city and slaughter everyone in the market, is a major failure of Medieval 101.
The whole point of having castles and fortified cities - big stone walls, high parapets, built on hills, chasms, on an ocean isle, and other picturesque (though often terribly inconvenient to live in) settings - was not to be some Disneyesque setting for a pretty Americanized princess movie, but to keep enemy armies out. Among other things, that meant that the city walls had gates, portcullises, and even drawbridges. Furthermore, their walls went all the way around, not halfway and petering out, as it does in Mistlocke.
Medieval walled cities also didn't have open back doors by which an enemy could stage a surprise attack, like the Old Stones door.
I mean, this is about the only thing that bugs me in this otherwise fantastic setting. (I mean I can easily see why EFU has kept its player base while other servers have... ahem... withered.) But there should be an explanation for the way the Mistlocke map is set up, especially if it is going to remain that way.
Well, to be fair, the walls are rather crumbling and dilapidated.
And the muster incompetent and lazy.
It's all IC. The walls have always been broken and terrible. The town never before had so much attention in the setting (While it did exist, scores of new people weren't flocking to it and there wasn't a withering curse to make it such a prime place to live)
Want to fix the walls? Make a mason, find usable stone ect.
Want the muster to stop being lazy/useless? Make some waves at them.
Mistlocke wasnt built for normal reasons, nor do I imagine conventional wisdom has much hold in it's basic design. This is obviously NOT a medieval city, lacking in anything which could be called a city.
As for the condition of the Last Keep and Mistlocke's Fortress like appearance... It may have been destroyed partly before the mist took the place, or perhaps it was never finished.
StevenMaurer, there is an obvious discrepancy here between what and why something was designed conceptually and how it could be implemented in-game in such a way as to minimise headaches for all involved.
I think there is nothing inherently wrong in venting about this, especially since you have been polite about it. I think the others have already addressed the main concern, although I have a few points to add.
- Does it make sense to implement an invasion script so that it resolves itself without player contribution?
- Server lag issues and NWN mechanics limitations may prevent developing extensive details. We have already seen invasions suffering from severe lag during mid to high population.
- Players are at liberty to shape the game world if they put significant effort into it by involving others and proactively pursuing such goals. Though DM counsel is also required. (They're the ones implementing the changes, after all.)
- Most importantly: Discovery of the game world is better pursued in-game and in-character first. It is far more rewarding for all involved, and to me this issue seems to be something your character could achieve by asking around, delving into tomes, or seeking lorekeepers (often fellow players!) about why and how the village is as it is.
The market fiasco was actually a DM event, not an invasion event by and by. And those who did that were already inside the town anyway.
The dilapidated, crumbling appearance is both deliberate IC and OOC (in terms of an aesthetic) but also has to do with significant toolset limitations involving spacing.
Quote from: Vlaid;274547And the muster incompetent and lazy.
Yeah, how dare the Muster players go offline to live in RL.
Mistlocke tbh, was more defensiveable then the last place we were. A giant ziggurat, that's gate was blown open. And the the colonial militia was about as useful as a turnip when it came to issues.
Tbh, mistlocke is just like the old setting, we dont have a gate, and we have two lazy gaurds at the front. Exception is that this turnip can take a beating and let the adventuers hold off any threat.
So all and all, Money = better town, want mistlocke to not look terrible make it your IC goal to fix up areas.
Quote from: The Old Hack;274558Yeah, how dare the Muster players go offline to live in RL.
I'm not sure what you're talking about, but it wasn't a dig at players not being present at all hours of the day.
I was referring to the purely IC aspect of the Muster faction itself being often portraryed as being mostly made up of ill-trained, ill-equipped, hastily armed farmers, citizens and craftsmen who aren't likely to have a lot of zeal in their town-defending duties.
Ah, got it, Vlaid. Sorry.
Quote from: Vlaid;274564I'm not sure what you're talking about, but it wasn't a dig at players not being present at all hours of the day.
I was referring to the purely IC aspect of the Muster faction itself being often portraryed as being mostly made up of ill-trained, ill-equipped, hastily armed farmers, citizens and craftsmen who aren't likely to have a lot of zeal in their town-defending duties.
They're volunteers, though. If they didn't want to do it, they wouldn't volunteer.
So maybe incompetent, but not unmotivated.
Mistlocke has no major settlements around it, it's both protected in and hidden by the Mists, and the only threats are from small marauding bands of goblins and orcs. It might once have had big walls and scary protections but it's completely IC that Mistlocke is, in its current state, a crumbling, indefensible hamlet protected by pitchfork wielding yokels!
That Yokel, with the pitchfork- Is very very scary I heard. Plowmanpicker or something.
Not to mention that a village pop. 200 could hardly qualify as a city even if it wanted to.
What we need is to give every NPC huge machine guns to get rid of the Disneyesque setting for a pretty Americanized princess movie, obviously.
Mistlocke should be tougher, but it should get there mostly through pc contributions. And it seems like trying to make those is useless given the sheer difficulty of it. Any gang of pcs who have some masonry and mining points and are willing to go and mine stones in the mountain should be able to make a difference (ideally), but unfortunately it doesn't work that way.
It would be nice to see clear guidelines on exactly what the dm team expects for certain simple things that affect the game world, like building more walls around Mistlocke. What's required in terms of skill points, gold, labor, etc. I'm sure many engineer or mason type pcs would contribute something if they felt they had the freedom to.
I prefer it like this over the super powered Stygians we had prior ;P.... at least for now!
We have companing citizens, and we have a mayor. Ask him IG
Quote from: Nihm;274580Mistlocke should be tougher, but it should get there mostly through pc contributions. And it seems like trying to make those is useless given the sheer difficulty of it. Any gang of pcs who have some masonry and mining points and are willing to go and mine stones in the mountain should be able to make a difference (ideally), but unfortunately it doesn't work that way.
It would be nice to see clear guidelines on exactly what the dm team expects for certain simple things that affect the game world, like building more walls around Mistlocke. What's required in terms of skill points, gold, labor, etc. I'm sure many engineer or mason type pcs would contribute something if they felt they had the freedom to.
This is purely speculation but:
I suspect they want people to go through the government, working with the mayor and townsfolk through official channels. Possibly working with another faction to gain the resources needed to repair the walls so that the result is something of a collaboration that involved more than a small handful of people standing by the wall RPing [Moves rubble one stone at a time].
I imagine you can accomplish anything with regards to the towns defensible state if you do it through interesting, meaningful RP that involves more than a couple people.
Given the village size and the keep, a palisade is probably more fitting and far more feasible than a stone wall. Even small, stone age tech villages can manage a palisade to slow advances.
Anyway, there are already PCs pursuing improving the wall IG, if you're interested in this sort of thing, why not get behind their efforts?
(http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/IroquoisVillage/images/print1lg.jpg)