EFUPW Forums

Over the past couple of months I've observed an increase in the following:

• Taking only 1 level of rogue, barbarian, bard or sorcerer in a manner that is extremely convenient for your build. While this is not against the rules it is cheese, especially if there is NO conceptual rationalisation for doing this, and with astounding regularity (every single case) I have found that there is no discernible IC reason for doing so.


• Obtaining level 7 under 24 hours, and level 8 shortly thereafter (yes, it happens).


• Playing the same character/build over and over, or having alts with the same build as your main, with no discernible difference in concept or character or the manner in which you roleplay them. This also ties in with groups of OOC friends whose many different PCs all somehow know each other ICly and help one another out.


• Doing the same quest every reset/tirelessly grinding with no real purpose.


• While I've not personally witnessed this one, I'm reliably informed that people now say "Let's do ". e.g. "Let's do Shagga", in character. This also ties in with the increasingly brazen manner in which people organise quest parties ICly, with tanks telling mages what spells to prepare, as if they're some arcane genius themselves, when they usually have stats as mentioned below, which I definitely have witnessed.


• Creating characters with 8 INT, 8 WIS and 8 CHA (yes, this happens), and then not roleplaying those stats in a satisfactory manner.

Now, I'm more than happy to entertain the idea that certain aspects of the server have contributed to encouraging this behaviour.

Perhaps the drop in activity from the DM team as a whole has given you all less meaningful stuff to do and so you resort to grinding quests. I am launching a server-wide plot shortly to try to remedy this.

Perhaps it's because you want to get ahead of the harsh death penalty and you get a blinkered with the objective of beating it.

Perhaps it's because PvP has become overly competitive and you want to insulate yourself against losing your PC to someone else who decided to give themselves 2 more STR rather than 2 more CHA on their fighter.

Whatever has caused it, it has to stop. If anyone has any insight into why this is happening, please do let me know, especially if you have solutions for it.

If not, then it must be down to player choice, in which case I would like everyone to choose to stop doing this.

Thanks.

QuoteTaking only 1 level of rogue, barbarian, bard or sorcerer in a manner that is extremely convenient for your build. While this is not against the rules it is cheese, especially if there is NO conceptual rationalisation for doing this, and with astounding regularity (every single case) I have found that there is no discernible IC reason for doing so.

I can't think of any good builds that only use only one level of rogue, barbarian, bard, or sorcerer.  It might infer a few minor benefits, but it doesn't pay off in the long term.   Two rogue/ranger and Two rogue/fighter or 1-2 fighter/bard are fairly common "power" builds but these are easily justifiable in game.  

QuoteObtaining level 7 under 24 hours, and level 8 shortly thereafter (yes, it happens).

This would require a great deal of time and a sturdy, well rounded group.  If people are doing it to nefarious ends, I can see the problem.  Otherwise people have lives outside of the game and sometimes need to jumpstart their guys when they've the time to do it.  Even if that means binging for 8 hours straight.  

QuotePlaying the same character/build over and over, or having alts with the same build as your main, with no discernible difference in concept or character or the manner in which you roleplay them. This also ties in with groups of OOC friends whose many different PCs all somehow know each other ICly and help one another out.

Some people have specific playing styles and like how one build feels.  As for OOC ties, yeah that's lame.  But if it's a group concept that started out together, I don't see how this is a problem.

QuoteDoing the same quest every reset/tirelessly grinding with no real purpose.

This is just part of the game.  There really isn't much else to do in the off-hours.  I suppose people can just not play, but that really doesn't help anything?  There's always the possibility of something going wrong and the party folds, having to restart.  Can be solved by adding more randomness to scripted quests.  

QuoteWhile I've not personally witnessed this one, I'm reliably informed that people now say "Let's do ". e.g. "Let's do Shagga", in character. This also ties in with the increasingly brazen manner in which people organise quest parties ICly, with tanks telling mages what spells to prepare, as if they're some arcane genius themselves, when they usually have stats as mentioned below, which I definitely have witnessed.

Some times these "tanks" have learned the nature of a few spells through having adventured in the past.  But if it were say, a 8 wisdom, 8 int half-orc - then yes, that's definitely something they shouldn't be doing irregardless.

QuoteCreating characters with 8 INT, 8 WIS and 8 CHA (yes, this happens), and then not roleplaying those stats in a satisfactory manner.

In the past DMs have appropriately punished these sorts of characters.  Someone with 8 charisma isn't going to go far in a faction.  Someone with low wisdom might have to make a roll in a quest, then die horribly when they fail.  These sorts of things sort themselves out in the long term.  When people realize that, they'll stop.

Quote from: manyscruples;419249I can't think of any good builds that only use only one level of rogue, barbarian, bard, or sorcerer.  It might infer a few minor benefits, but it doesn't pay off in the long term.   Two rogue/ranger and Two rogue/fighter or 1-2 fighter/bard are fairly common "power" builds but these are easily justifiable in game.

Roguebarian, Rogue/fighter, Bardarian, Barbaranger, Bardranger, the list goes on. All powerful builds, which I won't go into in detail since I think it'd be inimical to the point of this thread.

Quote from: manyscruples;419249This would require a great deal of time and a sturdy, well rounded group.  If people are doing it to nefarious ends, I can see the problem.  Otherwise people have lives outside of the game and sometimes need to jumpstart their guys when they've the time to do it.  Even if that means binging for 8 hours straight.  

Some people have specific playing styles and like how one build feels.  As for OOC ties, yeah that's lame.  But if it's a group concept that started out together, I don't see how this is a problem.

I don't think the identicality of the builds is the issue. It's the identicality of the personalities. Without naming any names, I can definitely concur there are people out there who send out wave after wave of same-faced alts that are more or less the same person under a different fore and surname.

Quote from: manyscruples;419249This is just part of the game.  There really isn't much else to do in the off-hours.  I suppose people can just not play, but that really doesn't help anything?  There's always the possibility of something going wrong and the party folds, having to restart.  Can be solved by adding more randomness to scripted quests.

It depends on your class. Alchemists, for example, have loads to do during the off-hours. Perhaps it might be worth introducing something similar for other classes to do? Metallurgy or something, where smiths use different recipes to try and create good equipment or useful items.

Quote from: manyscruples;419249Some times these "tanks" have learned the nature of a few spells through having adventured in the past.  But if it were say, a 8 wisdom, 8 int half-orc - then yes, that's definitely something they shouldn't be doing irregardless.

This is kind of ridiculous, in my opinion. No sorcerer is the same, and wizards take literally years upon years of difficult, tasking and esoteric study to understand the nature of the forces with which they deal. I appreciate many wizards underplay this fact and cheapen their own sense of expertise, but most warriors in this regard are just saying "Mage ready strength for me", or something along such lines, instead of at least trying to make it interesting - or even prompting the mage to provide his own 'theme' or 'flair' on the spell by inquiring as to what he can do to help the group. It's little things like this that improve the server's atmosphere tremendously.

Quote from: manyscruples;419249In the past DMs have appropriately punished these sorts of characters.  Someone with 8 charisma isn't going to go far in a faction.  Someone with low wisdom might have to make a roll in a quest, then die horribly when they fail.  These sorts of things sort themselves out in the long term.  When people realize that, they'll stop.

Not so much recently from my point of view. I'm of the line of thinking that a sterner hand will lead to better results, but that's just me.

DMs should bear in mind that rewarding such players, regardless of the specific reason for doing so at the time, who conduct said behaviour will only be encouraged to perpetuate it through such accolades.

Please note we're not asking you if you believe this is happening or not, but telling you to please slow down on the MMO and lack of RP that we see is happening.

If you have any ideas why this may be happening nowadays more than before, feel free to give us your opinion.

I feel the answer is fairly simple. Those PCs and players who are playing interesting, involving, and fun PCs over those who are simply "gaming" aren't being rewarded like they have been in the past. As a result those gaming are the ones reaping the scripted rewards of the module, while those who are not lag behind.

Finding ways to reward those PCs and players who are doing it right will cause those who are gaming the mechanics to look up and realize that if they want the true rewards EfU brings (whether that's loot, attention, plots - the big one, or simply some for of recognition for their character) they will need to do more than just hunt around for stuff and XPs through the scripted systems.

If you want an honest opinion, I think its because our player base is getting "younger". There are no games out there like efu, the closest experience is PnP D&D which I don't know how many players have actually done.

Players have been "trained" from other games like WoW or other MMO's to do these kind of things because they work. They work in EFU as well, as suddenly a powerful build with loads of supply wins that key PvP and is further rewarded with fame or more supply.

I think its really on the DM's here. Find these behaviors and have an OOC discussion with those players on a personal basis through pms, or IG ports to the DM area. They need to be taught that EFU is not an MMO by the people in charge. Because when they are not, all the things you mention, are only rewarded IG when there is no supervision.

Edit: Also agree with Gear Head. Rewarding players who put additional challenges on themselves and play out their weaknesses can put them in a position to win when it counts. Otherwise, weaknesses simply make you weaker then the other guy.

I feel like there's a few factors contributing to this. First though I think every PC on EFU needs to be familiarized with Ths Howland Post (http://www.efupw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=81338) which was raised on #EFU just now this morning . As far as a few things I've noticed:

A) [indent]From the PC and DM plot perspective I can say without doubt that over the last 4-5 months there's been a huge upswing in keeping plots close to the vest. DM faction PCss used to regularly pursue adventurers for recruitment, minor factional aid, and pull people away from the adventurer life. Equally there was more emphasis on PC factions pushing to recruit adventurers and make moves and ultimately lure people away from the adventurer life.

I would love to get "We're making moves, don't worry ;)" banished from the EFU vocabulary because I always see this response when I ask people OOCly what their PC is up to, what they're doing, what plots they are pushing, and similar. It creates two castes.

The Involved PC Schemers caste and the unaffiliated adventurers cast. And if people aren't involved in plots they don't have so much to do and they're just gonna end up questing and viewing EFU as more of an MMO. If people don't OOCly have even a hint of what is going on they can't try to find those factions and get involved and if ICly every faction is trying to be like the illuminati and top-secret with their plots then there's a huge number of PCs who are left out and just not involved in the best part of the EFU experience.[/indent]

B)[indent]In regards to the EFUR arms race that is levels there's been a huge boost in "I need level 8 before I can do x" feeling by many people depending upon the concept in question.  Questing was always the best way to get XP on EFU but now it's -really- the best way. There's been encounters where DMs drop 150, 200, even down to 50 XP for good RP for pretty complicated events or consistent character play while questing nets you 500, 1000, 2000  XP depending upon your level and quest for one quest. String them together and you've got heaps of XP swiftly. A steady XP wage would just create a more relaxed atmosphere in my opinion and remove the nessecity.

Your post though Lado about expanding that has me optimistic if it can be pursued steadily but not all PCs at all times can be seen for their good XP and I'd rather err on the side of reward everyone than spoil the batch for a few rotten eggs. It can't be denied that the beginning rush of a new character is ignored on almost every level by PCs as an MMO style grind. There's just not much RP. Log in, take portal, talk to ring-giver, HoG, Spellguard, Workmill, etc. etc. etc. then grind solo quests that no one ever takes extra people with. Kill 2-3 hours to get level 5 ASAP.

Frankly I'd be more open to a Character Advancement expansion Myconid type of "Steady XP to level 6" or further.

Since we have the Warrior Lockers/Scout's Bag/etc. I'd almost think matters would improve if you had an option to start at Level 6 with one of those if people are grinding up to level 7/8 so quickly anyway. It would help concepts for bandits, learned adventurers, and etc. hit the ground running at a decent level with supplies where Questing isn't the dominant focus of the PC to "Catch up" with the rest of EFU.[/indent]

C)[indent]Without being too disparaging I'm really looking forward to your server wide plot because there has been an almost obscene emphasis on DM efforts that seem to focus solely on App-only, unique, prelude-based factions with loads of perks. In the last X number of month's theres The Eyeball Cult, Talir's Rot Plot, D_I's dwarves, D_I's current plot, Nuke's Hobgoblins, Caster's Ruby Plot started with a group. There may have even been a few I've missed.

This was just in a span of a last few months and there's just not been what I like to call traditional EFU DM Plots. The kind of things that may make the Spellguard and Society quarrel on a Political or potential PvP between the Red and the Black Guild on levels like the Conclave and Stygians did in EFU:A or the Seekers and Spellguard did in EFU:1 or even to a lesser degree the Caermynn and Aberdeen in EFU:M.

When DM factions aren't competing, aren't making big moves, etc. there's a contribution to the point of ad nauseum of "We aren't foes but we're going to be terse unless there's a one off DM quest then we'll team up to go investigate that weird noise in the in-between".[/indent]

There's just things on both PC and DM side that can be fixed. PCs need to start pushing higher standards of interaction and making up PC plots beyond "I'm bored lets quest", pushing things not just for the sake of "What's best for them', and considering that their play can influence the community.

Honestly I have been saying this in IRC quite a few times that the absurd MMO mentality is there. To the point someone  ICLY pressuring me to break an OOC rule about resting and returning to a quest in the name of XPS and Golds. I was glad a certain DM saw this going on and stopped it from happening. Because it was hard for me to IC come up with an excuse to not do it.  



Also I have seen quite a few chars that just quest and pursue no other alternative character goals. Here is my advice on how to change PCS and player conduct. As well as to quite honestly get people with an MMO mindset out of the server. Also while I think OOC talking about mechanics is healthy I am sick of people sending me tells about a quest and its mechanics. Or even "OH THAT ONES TOO HARD!"  

I despise MMORPGS and feel steps need to be taken to prevent the server from becoming this.  Here is some suggestions that come to mind.


1 Get rid of non app associations.

Nothing devalues factions more than having them automated and open to outright absurd concepts. I have seen plenty of PCS in the Watch and Auxilary that seemed to only be pursuing scripted quests way more than the goals of that faction/spreading propaganda. Also the Wayfinders with their lack of an actual faction goal besides "exploring" facilitated this problem and made it worse. I say return EFU's factions into all being app only. This has contributed to lame concepts in associations that do nothing but quest.  I feel this has set a bad example to plenty of new PCS.

2 Outright set a precedent and punish PCS with lame builds/ask them to justify it. Hell even retire PCS that are clearly not being played properly. I have also seen Clerics buff and quest while never ever preaching or doing anything towards their god's dogma.

3 Have NPCS not afraid to beat up characters/suspend pay. I remember when in the Watch on EFU 1 Azzam would basically make scary death threats and threats to fire people when criminals were making fools of the Watch. J

4 Harsh environment....Dms need to encourage FD more than discourage it especially when PCS are being absurd when subdued. Villain pcs should kill people and become more scary/taken more seriously.  

5 More DM activity.

6 New factions

I feel like the majority of factions all have a very lawful/pro authority feel. Even the only Lower faction is a lawful group of Hoarans. I say add a gangster faction. I feel a Ledskir/Tigereye faction needs to shake things up once more in Lower.

7 Insert new rules against your following points and against lame build concepts.

I disagree with the point of DM's having to reward individually chosen "flaws" or "weaknesses". And I tend to have -plenty- of those.

I haven't been playing all that much, this past couple of months, so I'm hardly the expert voice on these matters. But if it truly is such a big concern- I think both Lado and RWG get the message across pretty well.
In the end- It's up to the players, and their own sense of integrity.
DMs can punish everyone they come across- But barring less-than-amazingly-high activity, that's likely to still leave out a good deal of them. So that's not -really- a viable option.
That's not to say DMs -shouldn't- take action, if they feel like it, but personally, I'd much rather their efforts were directed towards things they enjoy, rather than being forced to play "RP Police".

This said- I've been guilty of some few of those points. Still am, I suppose. I have a serious weaknesses for stealthy manipulators, as some of you may have noticed, and it rarely comes as a surprise when they turn out to be Sharran, too.
That's just a combination I -thoroughly- enjoy. And, honestly, wasn't seriously aware I was repeating so closely, untill it was brought to my attention.
After that, I struggled to find a new concept. Something -different-.
And it kept me away for a while.
I get that repetition is bad, but like in my case, it's just something you have to get out of your system.
And if the characters go on to do "good" things, push some plots, start some intrigue, change up the server abit, is it really such a bad thing?

I also tend to solo-rush the low-level quests, whenever I can. Reason for that is far simpler, though- I really, -really- enjoy them. With other players, without- It doesn't really matter. I'm not talking about the delivery quests, obviously- But some of them are -fun-, to me, at least, and I look forward to running them. To seeing what treasures I might find amongst the garbage. Literally, in some cases.

On my current PC, however, it's not -just- because of that, but also a touch of idiocy on my own part, having left two rather core feats to the concept, to be grabbed at level 6.
I still don't avoid RP or interactions- But it doesn't feel right actively seeking it out, either, before the concepts in it's right place.
That said, I'm usually an opponent to things like that. And I kind'a hate that I've made that mistake, to the point of having seriously considered starting over.
Then I'd have to save up for that sweet, sweet custom made fullplate again, though.

I guess my point is- I think Lado's got it right. If players are knowingly doing these things, the best thing would be for them to just stop. And I'm a firm believer in asking nicely, before introducing steps towards a heavily policed server.
Nor do I think any "weak" build should ever have the right to "assume" they'll be rewarded for being weaker. Not by DMs, at least. I've found the experience itself to be pretty fun. To find ways other than mechanical power to "win". And highly rewarding, in itself.

We all make mistakes, and sometimes we don't realise we're making them.
Enlighten, show, lead by example- Or as RWG likes to say- Be the Change you want to see on EfU.

Those are just my two cents.

At the risk of sounding blunt/rude/crass I don't think any one aspect of EfU is responsible for this; rather it is primarily a player issue.  

To put it really simply, there has been an influx of new players on the server in the last nine months or so that simply don't seem to "get" EfU.  

Grinding up to high levels by smashing quests and then idling around being friends to all (save those PCs who upset the status quo) and mobbing together in a ridiculous group of like - Watchers, Auxiliary, and Ordinants ready to "fight the other guys".  There is this really toxic mindset that we need to all band together and "win" efu as this cohesive and conflict-less friendly mass triumphing over NPC threats.

Players downright refusing conflict when it doesn't go their way or they don't have the immediate advantage, etc.  Players just generally being afraid to make "big plays" IC'ly out of OOC fear of loss or the conflict itself being seen as "bad".

There is probably some merit to the idea that more DM activity in Sanctuary would help curtail this and aid in re-aligning the focus of these newer players toward interesting and dynamic role-play-oriented play-styles, but it has become increasingly clear to me as a player that some players will just always do this.

(It's of course possible/probable that I may not have a  complete understanding of the state of efu simply by virtue of being a  player and not seeing everything that goes on)

Just have an agenda, and push it from day one. That's really all that your average PC needs to 'improve.' It'd give them something more to do than just crush quests mindlessly. The DMs will eventually recognize your efforts and reward you, but moreso the bigger reward itself is that you're contributing to the server climate as a whole.

One of my favorite examples was Aracknar Blackgem. That dude was just a really greedy dwarf from day one. And the longer he went on, the greedier he got. His agenda was getting rich and opening his own tavern to compete with the House of Heroes.

He stuck on that Agenda, and when Sanctuary wouldn't let him rent a building to open his own tavern, he opened it in the Inbetween instead and started interacting with Lower a lot more. Interacting with Lower gave him more opportunities to be a criminal, which lead to him getting richer and richer.

Eventually he became a hated enemy and outlaw. All with that one simple goal!

@ Ironside. I think he's hit the mark.

Unfortunately, I see a lot of this. It might be that a lot of characters do not want to interact with my character Duke Laverne. It feels like the general attitude of characters in Sanctuary has been to stay logged on for quests and exciting events. Chatting and other forms of RP are very scarce meanwhile in the Square. Making conversation, and not for lack of trying, has proven difficult.

One thing that bothers me a lot is that people use the dreaded Town Square to AFK. If I see a potentially AFK player(s) who stand still and say nothing, I instantly feel discouraged to interact.

--

We're lacking a healthy dose of faction conflict. All factions these days seem to be each other's buddies. If this could somehow change then I think it'd be for the better. Some healthy aggression between factions has led to a lot of good things in the past. Nowadays, it feels a lot harder to mobilize these kind of initiatives.

--

Other than that, it is all up to the players. We have to realize our place in the server. Things are happening. Or people are trying to, anyway. I know this from first hand interaction. The 'quest to success' mindset deteriorates from this magnificent server.

http://www.efupw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=98316

 I detailed a few notable issues here that bring this type of play into the frontlines of EFU, but there are some other issues obviously. At some point along the way since I was last playing in EFU:M and returned here, I have noticed that -

- "Spice" has become punishment rather than reward. Often times there is zero role-play or interaction from the DM, so perhaps they are just following the set example? (why waste time and energy on it at this point?)

- Quest rewards have diminished greatly, and thus people spam them to simply survive

- Item sets were put in game and, for the most part, drop on a singular quest. The result is obvious

- There are large dead zones of "anything to do" besides take part in what is available, thus scripted content becomes the prominent choice.

- Overall, it is not innately bad to play with your friends and people you share a timezone with, but it is horribly bad to see it done in the way it is so often in this setting. You mentioned why for the most part, and I have seen it as a player many times over. The lack of these groups to conflict with one another  internally is massively annoying to someone like myself that tries to play antagonists all he time, and I feel like the "mob" has grown into something less of an IRC joke and more into something tangible and real.

Players need to overall focus more on establishing agendas (with your clique friends is just fine) and pushing them, not just rolling along in the cart behind the other group and them behind the first like some sort of dull train ride. On the flip side, these very people the thread creator mentions also appear to be, from what I can view rarely, the ones carrying around pieces of DM loot.

Quote from: VanillaPudding;419276- Overall, it is not innately bad to play with your friends and people you share a timezone with, but it is horribly bad to see it done in the way it is so often in this setting. You mentioned why for the most part, and I have seen it as a player many times over. The lack of these groups to conflict with one another  internally is massively annoying to someone like myself that tries to play antagonists all he time, and I feel like the "mob" has grown into something less of an IRC joke and more into something tangible and real.

Players need to overall focus more on establishing agendas (with your clique friends is just fine) and pushing them, not just rolling along in the cart behind the other group and them behind the first like some sort of dull train ride. On the flip side, these very people the thread creator mentions also appear to be, from what I can view rarely, the ones carrying around pieces of DM loot.

This part stuck out to me and to kind of spin-off this point:

Having created and being involved with a few PC factions since EFU:R has begun, it seems to me like recruitment for factions has become less of a goal to be achieved ICly compared to OOCly. PC's open to being recruited to the Watchers, or the Society, or the Harbingers or whatever based on how things proceed for them in-game seem to be a rarity- instead you see fully-formed PC groups pop up overnight as an idea is formed, a clique is brought on board and it is put into action. And there's nothing wrong with reaching out to people you enjoy playing with about your cool idea for what you can bring to efu, but those groups also tend to not draw in any new players, because everyone else around them has also OOCly decided that they either will be in a faction or not- and if they do, it's not yours.

There is a tangible bonus to being one of the unaffiliated adventurers that Upper always has in spades- you can sell to/quest with/follow whomever you wish and reap the benefits without having to deal with any of the conflict that membership in a faction would bring you. And if there's enough people around that decide that they want to avoid internal or external conflict and just want to rake in the benefits, you can OOCly approach them and form a mercenary company or adventuring group. And for the few people who are open to being ICly recruited, given a choice between a PC faction abundant with supplies/gold and a DM faction struggling to maintain a presence, which is more attractive?

Maybe this has always been happening and it's taken the server becoming a little bit smaller than before for me to really notice it- if so, it's to EFU's detriment. DM factions should always be filling up, because when they didn't, it was usually their time to go.

I'm probably not a good person to be commenting on this topic but:

The tone of this thread is really really really harsh towards the newer players we've had. Perhaps tone it down a bit, considering that there were months of this chapter before the influx when nobody was online, so nobody was logging in, which meant nobody was achieving anything, etc, etc.

Quote from: Ironside;419267To put it really simply, there has been an influx of new players on the server in the last nine months or so that simply don't seem to "get" EfU.  

I wouldn't say that. From what I've perceived, it's peculiarly influential players with the MMO mindset that are passing down their way of doing things to the new and old accounts who interact with them. This starts to spread virally. The most powerful, visible, and effective questing machines are those who propagate the behavior Ladocicea described. It is extremely rewarding to fall in with them. They are more available and accessible than the traditional characters of EFU.

The easiest way to resolve this is the most direct one. Step civilly out of the hands-off enforcement role of the dungeon master. Pull players aside, explaining what they are doing in stark conflict with the principles of EFU. Once they're warned, OOC measures like deducting experience can be instituted if they continue the inappropriate behavior.

Approached courteously and made to understand, they can only be expected to stop. The indirect corrections historically used by this server may not be the best choice in this case.

It would be nice to see DM factions more full, this could spur conflict and interactions.  Perhaps if it wasn't so hard to get into them?  Not everyone is an app expert or good at writing / explaining goals?  Or they have a rep that instead of giving the players a chance to show / prove a change it's denial fest on apps?  I don't know.

I do agree with some of what Lado says, some I don't.  Bottom line is just look to this as a game.  Enjoy it!!  Don't worry too much about if you're pleasing a DM or player 'X'.  Don't make PCs just to PvP or PCs just to crush quests endlessly.  In the end this is a RP server.  Try and mix it up, think about your PC when you are creating it, your build, your stats, if it makes sense or not.

EFU is about playing a game with a community which hopefully are somewhat your friends.  Make a story, play out your story, make it fun for you and others.  This includes PvP, RP, Quests, everything.  If you think it could be 'lame' it just might be.

You know I think StoneJam you make some fine points - if select older players aren't taking steps to acclimate newer players into the real meat of EfU and instead opting to crush up to whatever mechanical level they need to rake in the rewards/loot/prestige that comes with that, then they are contributing to the "MMOisation" just as well.

It falls on all of us to do a bit of self-critique and make the adjustments that need to be made - and maybe direct DM one-to-one conversations are desirable in regards to achieving that.  Though I will say this puts a lot on the DMs and some people will not take kindly to this sort of direct criticism; but on the flip-side maybe those people aren't a good fit for EfU.  "EfU is not for everyone" after all.

The fault can be shared fairly equally.

As a ranking Watcher, I don't think I've been spending enough time molding our "recruits" into being proper Watchers - although some have been excellent of their own merits.  The Watch is an excellent way for new players to learn about the server, and being a Watch officer is great chance to show them how EFU can be played actively without constant questing - if we're doing our jobs right.  I myself should probably be implementing quotas or asking people why they haven't turned in a single fine in weeks, or asking them what the last charge they handed out was.

For you newer players, reading this thread, I'd love to have you in the Watch.  Give it a shot.  It's actually a lot of fun walking around Sanctuary with an air of authority, and busting people's balls.  If the Watch isn't for you, try another faction.  Roll an Auxiliary and have HDM's Skalarius show you the ropes.

-Gracken/Goate/Whiterabbit

EFU and its established scripts and systems seem to reward the unfortunate practices that Lado describes more than they don't.

• Powerful item sets require multiple items to drop from a single quest.



• Questing isn't rewarding without an optimized group with a proper distribution of tanks, damagers, and buffers to take on the content with the least amount of supplies used.



• Anyone who understands how to powerbuild their character is going to play a fighter/rogue that handily outshines pure fighters and pure rogues simultaneously.



• Spice is difficult and requires mechanical know-how; smart thinking and good roleplay rarely outweigh a good build and strong supply of useables when you're faced with a scythe-wielding maniac who has a 3d6 sneak attack.



• PvP has become especially prevalent in EFU:R and is usually the first answer people resort to when any kind of conflict emerges. People who understand how to game EFU have higher levels, more supplies, and typically a slew of IC and OOC friends who they helped get to level 8+ that are always willing to take their side no matter the circumstances. They are inevitably going to win most PvP.

This is understandable, of course -- nobody wants to run boring spice or easy content that isn't challenging. But NWN is ultimately a mechanical game and the people that Lado describes focus solely on mechanics, which puts them ahead of the curve more often than not. This creates a chain effect that surges throughout the player base. People want to get to the highest level possible to assert their strength on the server when PvP or DM content occurs. They have to compete with mechanically proficient people with OOC friends that are outright better than them at getting higher levels and more supplies. It's cyclical. And while you might argue that if you're not good at PvP conflict then you should make a concept that doesn't focus too much on fighting, the fact of the matter is that most server-wide events are usually related to PvP or DM content and the amount of conflict that is resolved through PvP appears to have increased drastically in EFU:R.

The flagrant power builds that we've all been guilty of utilizing from time to time diminish the prestige of PRC's that are less mechanically ideal. If people want to excel, they can do so by creating some combination of fighter, rogue, bard, barbarian, and ranger -- and probably be much better than a pure fighter who spends months struggling to become a weapon master, even after he's achieved his goals and gained the PRC. Perhaps it's time for multiclasses to be app only, because they vastly out shine their pure counterparts.

Sanctuary is also stagnating in its safety and seems to promote a friendly man atmosphere. It's everybody against the Dread, which is a threat that is rarely actually felt by the denizens of Sanctuary despite the fact that it is supposed to be an overwhelming and indeed dreadful aspect of the world we live in. Inter-faction conflict seems sparse at best and limited to political red taping and harsh words. People just band together, hold hands, do their quests, and collectively fight whatever threats spring up in a very "us versus them" witch hunting mentality.

Sometimes it feels like there's nothing to do but quest, which is a troubling predicament that leads to the dreaded town square afkers. Players don't seem to be doing much, don't appear to have personal agendas that they're trying to achieve. And even when some opportunistic fellow springs up in Sanctuary or Lower or even the wilds, the response that people offer feels lukewarm at best and outright belligerent and hostile at worst. Nobody has been particularly receptive to new ideas that go against the grain and this has arguably discouraged the efforts of people who might normally be interested in stirring up the pot.

This is obviously a large issue that the players themselves have to learn to deal with and adapt from, both old and new, but I will say this of the DM team -- if you want players to do something other than quest, give them an incentive to do it and a reward for sticking with it. Questing is just better. Make it so that isn't the case anymore.

A couple (hopefully constructive) comments to the DM team:

• There are a lot of DM-driven plotlines that have been going on lately, and while that's awesome to see, these are typically things that can't be pursued with much vigor unless a DM is online or participating. I obviously don't have the capacity to see what's going on behind the scenes and under the hood, but from my perspective, seeing more player inspired plots and conflicts that are making the server more interesting be supported more heavily would be nice.



• From a player's perspective, wordless spice sucks. It feels like a punishment, especially if someone dies, because then the grind to quest starts all over again. Receiving a reward that supersedes lost levels or missing supplies is almost always more exciting to receive than an extra stack of CSW. Having spice with a story or some interaction with the player characters is usually better than an extra dozen kobolds or what have you.



• I think someone mentioned this earlier in the thread, but: Getting 50, 100, 250, or even just 500 xp ticks for DM content or good roleplaying or whatever else is generally underwhelming compared to snagging a smooth 2k+ from doing all the quests relevant to your level. Again, if you're genuinely not content with the amount of questing crushing that's being done, you need to give incentives to the people who are making an effort to do something else to continue to stir things up for the other players.
  

If quest-grinding's so rampant, why don't we simply put a limit on those highly-rewarding ones? Say, only once per every seven resets for Sahuagins', once per every eleven resets for Shaggaland's, and once per every thirteen resets for Seer's?

Also, it might help label characters based on their based hub. And limit the quest they can do based on the label. This can prevent people rushing through all upper/lower quests in a single run. However, a system should also be in place to add more labels to the characters so that as they complete some of those low-level quests, opportunities would then be then open for some other quests. In this way, we've got a real quest train, not in the sense that people can rush it through, but the upstream of the chain authorizes the down stream in a gradual and acceptable manner.

This would then mean, you will have to build a database for such labels, and counters for per-character quest completion, which I assume is already in place for quests like Bilby's.

And on multi-classing, being rather long on the server, I found no incentive in multi-classing myself. However, I remember back in Mistlocke days, we have special quests for classes, and even now. Tighten up class restriction in quests would also be an incentive towards such. Maybe, something like, allow ONLY pure rogues for Bilby's? You would then have to apply a label to those Bilby questers resetting their experience points when they try to multi-class. For a quest like Bilby's, upping the required level for the quest should also help.

And plot-wise, remember how Owain's managed to stir up inter-character conflicts again when he proved himself just to be another madman? Maybe something can happen to the Society to stir us up...

Another idea is, probably sticking more quests to dangerous places like, near Ysinode? People won't power-quest a quest that requires you to go through ten bloated undead beholder in the way, say. Or in other words, this can also translate into, "the current wilds are not dangerous enough." Of cource, it won't be realistic setting up beholder spawns everywhere, and so close to the main hub, but we have driders, undead giants, super-duper spirits! The quest bubbles need better guardians, hahahah.

Also, since quests might reward a well-coordinated group, how about breaking them up with small, random, once-per-player-per-reset only explorables? Give them incentive for solo-once-in-a-lifetime experience in walking alone in the wilds will break the grouping up somewhat.

If people get less reward from quests, they would have to seek it elsewhere, such as real inter-character conflicts.

I'll just put in my two cents.  A lot of you all talk about no inter faction conflict as a problem here.  I'd just like to say that given the setting competing factions in Upper makes no IC sense.  Just about every humanoid race is on the brink of extinction and most of us think of Sanctuary as our last stronghold for survival.  Why would people want to destroy their last hope for the survival of their species other than for "the evuls"?  There's just no need or reason for the factions to not cooperate.  But EFU has always been a " times are grim right now... better start killing everyone " kind of server.  The setting has always been getting progressively darker and more dire in tone.  Now though I get a strong feeling that the setting's message is "unite or die".  I just feel that we need reasons and rewards for fostering conflict and player initiative IC as well as OCC.

Nice to see some people pointing out the influence the setting itself has.  Being post-apocalyptic, EfU absolutely has an us versus the world  feeling to it. With the possibility that the Dread could come knocking  any time, it just makes sense that all the main institutions of  Sanctuary would remain on at least a cooperative, professional  relationship. Maybe even civil. Even the denizens of Lower wouldn't be  blind to their danger. Throw in a stable two party elective government  split liberal/conservative, and yeah, I can see Sanctuary-based faction  conflict being difficult to stir up and impossible to keep going beyond a  very low simmer. Personally I don't mind it, it's an interesting  atmosphere. I can see how it might get stale to someone who's played  more though.

Regarding the original points, I'd like to address  quest grinding, as I've done it a lot. If you randomly picked one of the  mighty upper Sanctuary daily-running quest crushing freight trains of  the past six months, odds are fairly decent one of my PCs was a regular.  Confessions of an EfU grind-a-holic if you will.

The reason I  did it was twofold. First, for the longest time I just didn't know what  else to do. Just like reality, it can be a very cliquish place, and it's  not the easiest thing to break into. Scripted quests on the other hand  are very accessible, and doing them en masse is a really fast way for my  PC to make friends.

Second, it was always the most rewarding  thing I could spend my time doing, both IC and OOC. My character was  intentionally practicing his skills, making money, and if he was a hero  type, helping people at every available opportunity. It's just what he  would do. There is that OOC aspect, though, difficult to escape. If you  want to have a strong character, a character that can personally  influence the course of EfU events /on the battlefield/, it seems to me  that you have to quest relentlessly. You need to be high level, but more  importantly, you need good gear. And the only way to get good gear is  to make enough money to buy it, or to quest enough to get it the good  stuff when it drops.

I don't do it so much anymore, as I no  longer really desire a battlefield hero type character. But I suppose  there's a third reason. When you get that really perfect group together,  the innate, constantly threatening, brimming-with-danger atmosphere  that EfU has makes it so unbelievably satisfying to just steamroll half  of it. And you'll draw the attention of a dm more often than usual,  which makes the fun quotient skyrocket. (for me at least, some quest  grinders understandably dislike spice) And if you all had so much fun  with it on whatever night, may as well do it again every night you can,  until the party eventually falls apart.

I think the best way to  combat the grinding mentality is to reward other activities more  heavily. And not just plot centric ones or events of great import, as  that stuff is hard to break into. Modest rewards for small acts of RP  like drinking in the tavern as you reminisce with your buddies,  explaining things to a bewildered orange cloak or heckling an elf in the  square with your dwarf would help soften the drive to constantly quest  for gain by giving the impression that xp can come from anything and at  any time, so long as it's played well.

I'm also under the  impression that PC storage is prohibitively expensive. I think more  accessible storage for PC merchants would help them have more fun and do  a little better, leading to increased flow of gold and usable gear and  thus indirectly reducing the need to quest. Especially if the gold  couldn't be stored and had to be carried. Once a few PC merchants are  thoroughly established, profitable and having fun with their characters,  it'd be cool to see a greater economic side emerge to the game, with  merchants acting as middlemen between adventurers bringing alchemical  ingredients and PC alchemists turning them into products. Now your  alchemist's super secret recipe that almost killed him five times to  discover becomes a real goldmine that doesn't require financial acumen  and entrepreneurial spirit to take advantage of.

Regarding people now say "Let's do ". e.g. "Let's do Shagga", in character ...

I  think it's the job of the playerbase to police this one. I've sent  tells reminding people of server rules before, and I've been sent tells  reminding me of others. A lot of times it's a newbie who actually  doesn't know them yet. This is a particularly important rule for  maintaining immersion though, and I think it falls on all of us to  gently encourage people to rein in this kind of behavior.

That was a lot longer than I thought it would be...

Alright, I have more time now so I'll give a proper response to the directly stated issues at hand.

QuoteTaking only 1 level of rogue, barbarian, bard or sorcerer in a manner that is extremely convenient for your build. While this is not against the rules it is cheese, especially if there is NO conceptual rationalisation for doing this, and with astounding regularity (every single case) I have found that there is no discernible IC reason for doing so.
Obtaining level 7 under 24 hours, and level 8 shortly thereafter (yes, it happens).

I like to think of myself as rather mechanically sound, and thus the mentioned THING of taking one level in a class to benefit a person is oddly ironic to me. In fact, in most cases I would actually see this is detrimental when compared to staying pure and receiving a level 8 perk (we'll get to level 8 shortly). However, with a recent comment of your own in a less public place stating your dislike for "cheesey" bard builds, I can only assume that the hatred stems from the Drayden/Nuberius build (lol that they are "famous"). Effectively, even in that case, you have a 4/1 ratio on class building, which is a bit off in terms of the EFU level range but not terribly absurd really.

Instead of placing blame, let's ask ourselves what induces the idea of "power builds" and makes people feel as if they need to utilize them. You have massively dangerous settings for the level range, utilize what are effectively immortal NPCs -everywhere- in the module to drive your own story, and have implemented a series of quests that are rather dangerous to not "optimal" groups and reward little. All the while you are asking players to be proactive and antagonistic, and yet even the setting design does not support general play beyond Upper Sanctuary / Stewards. Instead of complaining that people are adapting, I would propose a few changes -

- Adjust lower sanctuary to actually support some of the player base. Moving a rock and having a quest to help random Ibrandul church just doesn't quite cut it, and leads to another issue in this realm of thought, which is the old complaint of "antagonists get to 8 before they pvp". Well, they have to.

- Make the lower end quests a little more rewarding, and reduce the trash(to be blunt) drops in all quests. No one is going to use half of the toolset bloat that is dropping on the quests. That isn't "powergaming" or anything negative, it's just logic.

- Smooth out the transition to the "high end" quests so that people don't NEED to be so supplied just to witness what I personally believe to be the highest quality quest designs on the server. No one is running off to kill Sahuagin with cure minor wound trinkets and one blur potion. This leads to >

- stop nerfing the fun shit that people gravitate towards. As the whole theme of this post suggests, just because a large amount of people are doing it does not mean that it is bad (in some cases it is, and those I agreed with!), it means that it is attractive. Build off of that rather than stifle it. It won't hurt your setting to let people enjoy more scripted content more EASILY, but it obviously does hurt it to enforce this grind mentality that is complete your own choice and not the players.

- You have your ooc checks in place, you have your big NPCs that truly can't be replaced by the mob or even a player, and that is just how it should be, but to expand the "sand box" feel is not a bad thing and would only promote what you want to see. We don't want to be just agents in the reformed spellguard, we want to strive to be operatives and, even more, and SHAPE what the agents below us do or can do(for example) We want to be able to claim turf and expand on that as groups (grow that lair system, it's fucking amazing!), we want to be able to accomplish shit without bothering you too much, but we have what you give when it's all said and done.

QuotePlaying the same character/build over and over, or having alts with the same build as your main, with no discernible difference in concept or character or the manner in which you roleplay them. This also ties in with groups of OOC friends whose many different PCs all somehow know each other ICly and help one another out.

The first part I can't really comment on as I don't see builds or who is playing what secret account today. That is indeed an issue though. The second portion is just kind of silly. This is a video game and community, we are here to have fun and play with what friends we've made and those whom we can play with. I can understand it being an issue if entire groups are just recycling characters as they die and effectively doing the same thing, but I don't believe that I have witnessed that.

If you are asking me/EFU to stop playing with people we enjoy playing with, or people who we share playtime with, then the answer is a "no".

QuoteDoing the same quest every reset/tirelessly grinding with no real purpose.
While I've not personally witnessed this one, I'm reliably informed that people now say "Let's do ". e.g. "Let's do Shagga", in character. This also ties in with the increasingly brazen manner in which people organise quest parties ICly, with tanks telling mages what spells to prepare, as if they're some arcane genius themselves, when they usually have stats as mentioned below, which I definitely have witnessed.

Disturbing indeed, but if we dig deeper we will often find the issue of players lacking mechanical ability trying to play a new class. Instead of utilizing tells or OOC chatter, I have witnessed many ASK what they might prepare to help out the group or whatnot. Responding to that ICly is great because we are, after all, supposed to be playing rather adventurous characters that have EXPERIENCE in said circumstances.

  I trust that even you, as an average person lets say, learned a few things in your life beyond your chosen field of study. I assume that you sometimes cook food and aren't a chef, and learned from watching a others do it perhaps? I assume that you know mixing baking soda and vinegar can make a really cool volcano, even though you aren't a chemist? It's the same shit, and my fighter probably KNOWS about the existence of magical flame on his sword and that it benefits him swinging it, even if he's mouth breathing the whole time.

QuoteCreating characters with 8 INT, 8 WIS and 8 CHA (yes, this happens), and then not roleplaying those stats in a satisfactory manner.

Punish them then. You have the ability to REDUCE XP with some wand for poor role play, utilize it for 3 seconds and then spend your energy on shit you actually enjoy. Instead, as I mentioned earlier, it appears as if a lot of time and energy is being spent on otherwise shitty "spice" a a punishment, and things like that are sure to leave a terrible taste in the mouth of players. I guess the choice is up to you on how you want to spend your time, but it seems inefficient to waste effort on creating "evil wizards" and slinging around level 8 spells while trying to conceal the real agenda. Add in the irony of not roleplaying and you can't help but wonder why the very things you are complaining about have become the status-quo.







In summary, if you want more players to "get it" and more players to break the mold then you have to start supporting the ones that do and teaching the ones that do not. ShadowCharlatan loves to tell everyone that EFU is not a democracy, and that is great and just how it should be, but that also leaves more of the responsibility in your own hands. You can't just ignore the fact that the setting you created has caused this shift in behavior from people, and while I suppose you can just stomp your feet and be bitter like the old me, well, we all learned that doing that shit doesn't get anyone anywhere good.

Support players and player groups beyond the normal, support your movers and shakers, assign some more hotkeys into giving out chunks of XP for roleplay (EVEN ON QUESTS, and ESPECIALLY ON PVP) and you'll find that this whole situation reverses itself rather swiftly, as the "flock" will begin to follow the people having the most fun and success.

Communicate with players.

Call-out threads and irc tirades just make people defensive, and rightly so. If you are seeing things that you consider negative then talk to the players, one on one. Be polite, be constructive. Then incentivise what you would like to see. Maybe some people won't get it, but most will, and it will work a hell of a lot better than harboring secret shit-lists or 'spice' that has no purpose other than FDing people.

IMHO-Quests, and doing quests, is not a bad thing. They are there to be done.  Every reset, if your heart desires. Grind til you drop. IT is part of the game. A fun part. IT is a video game, not an improv group or theater troupe.. IT is not the entire game., and it could be a hell of an improv group or theater troupe, perhaps should be to some extent.(That is sarcasm, it must be, part of what makes this place special)

Meta gaming quests, not rping while running them, optimizing parties, spells, etc for each specific quest, without any ic reason to it, min/maxing stats with no other reason then it is strongest, taking multiclass levels with no back story that makes no sense other then I can crush now, and so on. These are the things I think lado's post spoke most too. I have been at one time or another , guilty of all of them. Hopefully alot less last few years.

But.. A prime example, and easy to illustrate- The Maze quest.  Without being spoilrific (thou I doubt at this point it is, as all seem to know of X) do NOT insist on bringing X, do not mention bringing X, as you have never done the quest (per the standards of the server regarding meta gaming), you have no idea that X is needed.   Now, if you have X because your a well prepared tunnel crawler survivalist, grand. IF you use the spell of whatever regardless because it is simply wise, fabulous!!!    Hell, if you have 5 of x for the same reason..fantastic.  Once the proverbial shit hits the fan, help your party out! But for all that is good and righteous in the world, RP while you do it!  Now substitute X for whatever defeats Quest blah blah..and you have the idea. Honestly, we all forget sometimes IC that we have not done quest whatever- so a simple IC conversation before a party heads out, about basic needs on ANY expedition might alleviate a lot of the angst? I do not think being prepared is wrong or bad form. This is a RP server, though, so reaching that point of preparedness should be part of the process, rather then a TS server FPS style chat in the text window. Rather then " Lets go do Shaga, and hit spiders on the way back, get alot of herbs tho, k, cause magick ain't worth shit on that island". That was heard  in character. That is almost a quote.

DM involvement is cyclical. Player involvement is cyclical. PVP is cyclical. It comes and goes. Faction vs Faction conflict is cyclical.  The things in this post http://www.efupw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=81338  are not, and should never be cyclical...Or whatever VP says..you still owe me PVP lessons!

Full disclosure. I complained to the DM staff,  about alot of the things in Lados post. Last week. I am a casual player, as in work dictates my play. I am average? to Mediocre at roleplay., and horrible at mechanics.  I never plan beyond level 6, because level 7 is nirvana, and 8 unobtanium.  I try to always take the game in stride, it is a game, in the end.  Ask any DM if you want a good laugh, to look at my xp chart. Looks like the grand canyon most months.  But if these issues got to me enough that I took the time to write to the  DMS, and again take time out to post here... There is definitely a challenge to be overcome.  This forum seems like a fine way to do it.

I really hope to god this isn't happening on EFU, already happened on CoA essentially and it pretty much effectively killed the server.

"Play your sheet" goes in several directions. A character with CHA 8 or INT 8 can learn to function properly in fields they do not have an aptitude for. This is represented by skill ranks.

 CHA 8 is an especially hard case to judge there, because it is only a -1 modifier on diplomacy tests. The utterly uncouth and horrid depictions of social outcasts that people sometimes seem to expect fit more with a CHA score of 4-6, which is reminiscent of a goblin or kobold, and only if they have zero ranks in social skills to compensate. For example, if one watches the character of, say, Richard Woolsey in Stargate, one has a decent depiction of CHA 8, who got fairly far in his respective organisation. Not because he was naturally gifted and personable, but because of hard work and training in the skillsets necessary to do his job. The same is true for any other stat. It's basically nature vs. nurture.

As for the dungeon train, I avoid it. It seems a bit hard to get into RP by doing so, because folks tend to walk away before I'm done typing an emote, but my characters who aren't evil aligned don't murderhobo without a reason or a plan and I don't feel like bending that. Some dungeons they will do over and over again. It makes sense, for example, to pick up healing herbs periodically, when they bloom, or delve into the worm tunnels to gather food for the poor. Why would they -not- do that? Other stuff, like a spider-infested mine,t hough? Eh, no real reason, tbh. Doesn't mean other characters don't have a sound reason, though. Dwarves, perhaps, wish to keep "their mines" safe.

When EFU:R started I displaced myself from the server and took some time away to do some soul searching (college) and recover myself. Now after a good amount of time I have come back into what feels like a deadzone and a lot of it comes down to:

(1): Unspirited players are not being penalized for their actions and OOC actions
(2): Conditioned to level for Upper
(3): Preparing for the "big stuff"

1. I don't like calling people bad RPers or bad players in general and instead would like to refer to the people saying "Shagga", not roleplaying low ability scores, and not engaging with the server as unspirited players. I have in time past actually lost XP for doing things out of character, and been penalized. EFU does have high standards, and a small tickle of 100 XP for doing something unfitting while not crippling, can leave a reminder when it is taken constantly.

2. I notice this RP happening most in the Upper Sanctuary Square, the number one place I have frequented as a town-square preacher character. There have been characters who just go //AFK phone or drink // and that is okay sometimes as they need to get something, but when I see people who have stood there for 5-20 minutes saying nothing and just watching when I try interacting with them. I have noticed ten factionless PCs that adventure and quest around often, and many of them leave me with interactions that make me want more. So far I have not seen these PCs make any attempts to create deals with other characters/NPCs and it concerns me of what those characters want.

3. Preparing for the big stuff has been a long term EFU problem that has circulated now especially. Players are waiting for DM events/want to get as much as they can and use it for superiority. What I don't understand is that even when they have obtained a high level and high loot, they retire, switch to a new PC, or decide to wait for the "big stuff" like a DM event or Mob Event. Truth is, why do you seek the big stuff when you can make little things such as patrolling the machine and the lowerdark for answers into big things like a raid against Traensyr, the exploring of Chazbah, or a new pacification campaign in Lower.

The thing about these problems is that it is a player mentality causing these problems mixed with the safety of Upper Sanctuary and the current stagnation within it. Each person thinks differently, and how they act with others and react is different.

But as players on EFU you need to be willing to be patient, open with others, and seek to push the envelope. Players need to be quick thinking and devote to the overall story on EFU. DMs have a job in aiding the players while telling the main story.

It takes only a couple words to cause conflict between two characters, so embrace it! If you want DM attention I was taught that you have to be communicative and ask, then afterwards if you want more, cause some conflict and the DM will want to come along. It comes down to players developing characters (I see those 10 PCs and I see some that have done so and some that have not) and pushing for things around the server.

I see a lot of potential. Players should not be waiting for the DMs to do something cool because then you find yourself waiting for the big stuff, for the big thing to come. What players should be the doing is getting conflict started on their own, making fun unique characters, and pushing things on their own so that DMs want to come and play with us again.

Just a few points to make here about what I feel is going on. Your mileage may vary.

Low Level Experience: For both new and old players alike the initial experience to the server is very MMO-like and frankly boring. It's good maybe to introduce someone brand new to the server to the different areas of the city, but it still ends up feeling a bit like a MMO. Go talk to this guy, get some xp+gold, go to another NPC do the same, repeat 5 times before you can finally start playing and "starting" for real. I'm sure people have rattled off plenty of times potential solutions/replacements to these delivery quests so I don't need to mention them here.

Worm Pit/Rat Hunting: To a new player, and someone who is low level (or just died) the worm pit/rat hunting basically says to someone "grind away, that's what this server is". I know why it exists, but I feel the XP/rewards should just be upped+level capped off more swiftly so people can get into it and out of it a lot faster rather than grinding through it repeatedly to get what they need out of it (I'm guilty of this on occasion). Nothing says "MMO experience" like waiting for respawns to make another sweep of an area.

Reward Incentives: I really feel like the rewards for doing cool/risky stuff compared to just lounging around questing without any affiliation/alliances/enemies and waiting for the next big DM event aren't as good as they used to be or could be today. In a perfect world everyone would just RP to the max all the time without need for rewards or incentives. But people see unfairness and adjust their playstyle accordingly. OOC recruitment for factions, clique groups forming pre-start with complimentary builds with minimal to no conflict within (at least nothing more than occasional tension, no real risks), sprinting around questing with your preformed groups to hit all the quests as fast as possible. Surprisingly I've seen it more commonly from the "Vets" of EFU than I have from the new players. The new players EFU has accumulated over the last year or so are actually putting a lot of us old, tired, bitter, nostalgic vets to shame in their enthusiasm and "sticking to it"-ness. It's easy to get sucked along with these poor practices because it's easy and VERY rewarding compared to the other paths available in the module when there isn't a lot of consistent DM activity. If I had my way I would put a much stronger emphasis on rewarding IC recruitment and do more to not reward people who roll around with essentially the same group of people or won't play a PC without a premade OOC group of friends to romp around and do all the quests with ideal setups of melee/buffs/ect. A lot of the DM plots lately have been of this "group start" fashion as well which seem to encourage the building to complimentary fashion for good or ill. Not all, but most certainly seem to encourage it.

DM Factions, DM Plots and Story Continuity: I've felt that over the course of EFUR it has felt like the DM Factions really aren't in it or as involved as they used to be in previous chapters. I'm not sure why it feels that way; player issue or not enough push from DM plots linked into those DM factions maybe. I'm a bit confused why that is as the DM factions seem like the perfect platform to tell more lasting stories. Stories that can transition to the next PC more easily when important/prominent PCs die by passing along the story through the factional NPCs and the faction forums.
Related to that, it feels like the plots and general storylines of EFUR have been more microsized self-encapsulated things that have no relation to anything. Similar to a sitcom episode. Stuff happens, people die/survive/whatever, but then none of that transitions beyond that "episode" or follows into the future to leave any kind of lasting, MEANINGFUL change on anything (some notable exceptions). There doesn't feel to be a great continuity of a story being told anymore (both from player and DM side). Just things happen and then everything goes back to the way it was before to setup for the next "episode" of the sitcom. It's hard to really get excited and engaged to RP in a setting that has stopped moving from both sides of the server. This goes both ways though. I'm sure it's just as frustrating from the DM side to see players not really engaging in what they are doing as it is from the player side.

Negativity/Bitterness: This last one is just purely my own opinion and probably more than a little biased. But I feel like EFU has really developed a very negative and bitter vibe that has slowly started becoming toxic. There's just plain a lot more mean spirited, elitist and hateful things being said either openly or privately about people within the community. I think this may, in some way, be contributing to this "ugh screw this, I'm just going to put together a TEAM and quest the shit out of this place and do whatever I want!"....sentiment I've heard here and there. I think we all owe it to each other to try and be a bit more tolerant, understanding and supportive of our community if we want to keep EFU going into the future.

Just my opinion as someone who's found it harder and harder to really get into EFU with each consecutive character I've played in EFUR.

Sincere thanks to those of you that have offered valuable insight into this. Some very interesting points.

Quote from: Maximum Xas;419353"Play your sheet" goes in several directions. A character with CHA 8 or INT 8 can learn to function properly in fields they do not have an aptitude for. This is represented by skill ranks.

 CHA 8 is an especially hard case to judge there, because it is only a -1 modifier on diplomacy tests. The utterly uncouth and horrid depictions of social outcasts that people sometimes seem to expect fit more with a CHA score of 4-6, which is reminiscent of a goblin or kobold, and only if they have zero ranks in social skills to compensate. For example, if one watches the character of, say, Richard Woolsey in Stargate, one has a decent depiction of CHA 8, who got fairly far in his respective organisation. Not because he was naturally gifted and personable, but because of hard work and training in the skillsets necessary to do his job. The same is true for any other stat. It's basically nature vs. nurture.

I absolutely love this.  I feel like you hit it spot on here, the things people expect from CHA 8, I do honestly believe are more appropriate of 4-6 considering 8 really is only a -1 penalty which would be described as "Slightly Below Average."  Also I am a massive SG fan so your comparison to Woolsey just struck a serious chord with me haha.  Thanks for that

In regard to stats, EFU's position is well outlined by Mort here:

http://www.efupw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22883

8 on an attribute is = "Very Poor"

So as long as you are RP'ing that, its all good. And further outlined by Paha as:

Quote... if you go below 10, it demands that you play it out some way. There is no excuse to just cut points and ignore them afterwards completely.

To address two of the most prevalent and oft repeated misconceptions, you do not need to spend all your time "preparing" for the next "big thing" and losing levels/loot is not really the end of the world.  I am sure many people will roll their eyes at this and say "Oh that's naive I need huge supplies or I risk dying to something, so I must quest all the time!!!".  As a player pretty much all of my most successful and incidentally high level characters died dozens of times doing risky stuff, yes it's annoying but spending all your time obsessively preparing to the extent of some crazy mountain man survivalist and draining any semblance of IC rationale or story progression in favour of this almost OCD level hoarding it is just counterproductive.  

Really losing experience/gold/loot as a consequence or being involved in dangerous things should only be a crushing experience if you define your character by these things as an end goal.

Alrighty, i'll leave my two cents.

As to people saying "Lets go do shagga", this is, in this wording, unacceptable. "lets go to shaggaland", or "lets go to the spider caverns" are OKAY in my opinion.

as to the Builds, i only know one person who is anything close to this, usually, there are completely different or at least have a few noticable changes. as to taking like, 1 level of X? I see no reason for this, as someone who deems himself mechanically proficiant, with the exception of MONK, for any other reason than IC background or development.  I personally do not, to my knowledge share in this with the possible exception of one app pc.

As to the "need" for questing, i'm frequently guilty of running and being a active part of the upper quest trains. Why? because, unless your a imp expertise fighter, being less than level five or six is really not a viable option for someone who is frequently outside of sanctuary, with its bubble of safety that a level 1 is safe in. Your going to run into a lot of deadly monsters, pvp is frequent, and a lot of class' just arent sustainable or "good" mechanically until five or six, this being said, if you want people to quest less, regardless of the Rp involved, i have a solution.

Eliminate, or vastly reduce, xp gained in quests. Instead, give a steady Xp tick until like level six, and have a lot of non-farming options to get to eight, ( like, say, more patrol spots for auxiliarys / agents, and for others, having simular things spread out everywhere?) so that is is viable to not have to quest to get a good level, or ever, if you've other methods to gain gear and gold.

instead, pc's would be going around the underdark / machine a lot more frequently, quest trains would be a lot less, xp wise, beneficial, and would generally be taking more time to do things other than quest.

Now, in regards to getting 7-8 in 1-2 days, this is not common, and if you do do it, its an impressive job, unless you have like 15 hours, a good quest group, and nothing else to do. It takes a lot lf effort to get into this, and hell, your probably going to die pretty quickly due to lack of gear, regardless.

As to wordless quest runs or generally not ryping a lot during a quest? well, i'm sorry, but i find it near immpossible to fight well and type complex setences at the same time. this goes for pvp, to. You cannot be clicking off the tool bar, moving around, aware of the situation and able to respond ina timely fashion, ( a few seconds at most, or it usually dosint matter), if your typing out [thrusts her sword into the gut of he beast, turning and hacking down!] or "watch out, there's a half a dozen coming!". While i might, and frequently do, risk dieing to type stuff out in quests, this is even more important in pvp.

For example, most often in my exerience, pvp is decided in a few rounds, if the opponents are not evenly matched. Each and every action counts, and not taking actions due to, usually, worthless ( mechanically) emotes is not an option when your pc's life / livelyhood is on the line. As such, I frequently work to subdue my opponents as fast as possible, then take the time, once i'm safe ( usually by blacking out and dragging to the nearest defendable place), to Rp out the consequences.

If you don't find this acceptable as a player, feel free to complain about it the next time your subdued, being full looted, or perma-killed.

Now, disclaimer!: I personally do not mind fighting and loosing pvp, and suffering the consequences in the form of loosing life or supplies. Thats how things work, just remember, /pvp karma does exist/.

Thats my two cents.

There has been a dozen valid points made here that I will not repeat (and admittedly - I haven't read through this all as my time is scarce these days so I actually might repeat some of them:)).

Nonetheless, here's my impression / root causes of this behavior:

• Compared to EFU:A/M where I've spent a lot of time (life?) enjoying it, EFU:R is (feels?) cramped and extremely tiny. Doing a 'patrol' of non-city areas in EFU:R takes approximately an hour. While when you wanted to organize a 'trek' through EFU:A/M areas, it could take a couple hours. There's just really not that much to do on your own. Especially that with the very small amount of hostile spawns in areas, you just blaze through them.

I remember some of my upperdark/lowerdark treks with my druid on my own took me no longer than 20 minutes as there was literally nothing to interact with/kill/struggle against.

• EFU:R has intangible antagonist NPC's. H'bala/Barakat was something you could 'touch', they had this vibe of being alive. And you had the (illusion of) power of being able to change the course of things.

The Dread seem distant, something you can not touch/interact with without having your brain pour out of your nose ... and worse - they feel absolutely omnipotent and omniscient. I remember going through the screenshot thread of Sru Syishodel (//%22http://www.efupw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=97115%22) and their trek through Traensyr when the group met one of the Dread Masters. It felt absolutely hopeless - I can't think of almost any character that wouldn't just lay down and give up and have the illithid destroy them seeing the power.

Further on this point, there's no personalization of the antagonists. They are the Dread. They seem an undefined, vast group of extra-terrestrial, omnipotent villains, that eventhough being so close, they are just so far away that people just ignore them as they really aren't given another option.

Even when Withering was implemented in EFU:M and Mistlocke and the surrounding areas where the only safe one from the curse, it did not stop people from both being terrified and venturing out to struggle against the inevitable. And you could touch the 'minions' of the main antagonists there, too - you could go out and crush the endless hordes of H'bala's undead, you could descend underneath Nebezzdos and crush the Nightrisers and it created an illusion of actually doing something worthwhile / damaging to the antagonists. And without a need for DM attention too. In EFU:R, bar the occasional Dread-related spawns in the Lowerdark, there's really not much of the personalized 'enemy' anywhere.

• Safety - while admittedly I haven't spent much time playing Sanctuary PC's in EFU:R, the idea of the ultra-safe place where PC's can retreat to (the Shield) is - IMHO - immersion breaking. On one hand, the aim is to play in an apocalyptic, Lovecraftian setting.. and actually feel that TERROR... yet there can be no real TERROR if you can just retreat to Safety into this massive, ultra-safe agglomeration. It just kills the whole point of the struggle to survive, IMHO.

And then you have the Lower vs Upper conflict, where ‘Upper’ is again â€" the omnipotent entity with an army of Mech warriors and ability to gas the denizens of Lower.

And then you have the illusion rings â€" if PvP ensues and someone escapes to safety of Upper, it’s beyond the reach of 90% antagonist PC’s. Due to the power-level of Upper, due to not having the ring etc. In EFU:A during the massive PvP’s that happened between Docks/Ziggurat, those PvP’s often escalated into the streets of either of the ‘factions’.
In EFU:M, it happened VERY often that the PvP spread into Mistlocke. People didn’t feel the ultimate safety as they could have been snatched from the ‘square’ easily. Again, it’s not as simple in EFU;R as there are too many factors preventing that.

• Influx of new players - this is absolutely great and fantastic, but you have to keep in mind many of our new folks come from servers/places which aren't as heavily focused on the STORY (show me one that actually is..).

So they need guidance. From both players and the DM's. And it's not an attempt to put the blame on the new players - as they simply need to discover EFU on their own, find the mystery, find the DEPTH of the plot and fall in love with it.

• Supplies level - while limiting the number of supplies on quests was an intent to reduce the supplies level overall, it kind of didn't work out as it should.

First of all, being forced to 'trade' more through higher GP levels and lower consumable levels does not add to the immersion at all. 'Oh hey random brewer, get me 20 haste potions pls, i'll give you 4k gp'.

It reminds me of something I read a long time ago when I started to run PnP adventures - don't make your Players roll a dice if that roll is totally insignificant to affecting the story. Having to buy 'resources to survive' from other players is just that insignificant roll, IMHO. While it add to the sandboxiness of the server, it doesn't add to the story.

What I truly loved about EFU:A/M is that by going through several scripted quests, you got to L6/7 with ease and accumulated enough supplies in order to do what most PC's want to do - be the HERO. Once you had enough 'resources' in order to act as a Hero, then you did so - you held off hundreds of Orcs by chugging those cure serious/haste/displacement potions and actually had the time to emote being Heroic. And people will always want to be heroes, that's why they escape to the realm of roleplaying games, to be something that they aren't in real life (mind you, I can hold off a horde of wild orcs in real life too).

And then once you depleted those resources, you went out, crushed a bunch of quests, resupplied quick and could continue being all epic and heroic.

Now? It's a struggle. You have to calculate every decision in combat as a single bad decision is going to cost you dearly in terms of 'resources' - those 'rare' resources you been accumulating for a couple weeks can be gone with one bad decision. And then you have to go through that whole sandboxish feel again for several days/weeks to re-stock on your resources. Crushing quests that give you a couple moderate healing brews and maybe an occasional stat-boosting one or two .. and not that much XP either.

So it basically forces you to grind and grind and grind and grind and grind to be able to restock to the level with which most people feel comfortable when going on let's say - a heavy-combat oriented DM quest. Or those more difficult ones with bigger rewards.

In the end, people will chose those which are easy and give a decent reward - that is probably why you see those done repeatedly and repeatedly.

And while most if not all DM’s consider this a misconception â€" I disagree. People are not going to go out and fight a single hulk behemoth if they do not have the resources to do so. People are not going to stroll into the Lowerdark and fight beholders if they do not have resources to do so, period.

And LOSING XP/resources shouldnot be a big thing, however â€" it has been made into a big thing on EFU:R compared to the previous two chapters. Because it hurts so much more than it did previously.

IMHO â€" the setting’s settings enforce this behavior on people and that is what makes it counterproductive.

To use a an actual example â€" with the end-run of the Tulathek plot where the event was heavily focused on fighting Red Caps or whatever those Fey were â€" I was playing a character that was expected to be at the front of the advancing party â€" after first 5 minutes, I simply couldn’t anymore because I didn’t have the ‘resources’ to do so anymore.

• Risk-taking. With all the above points made, about safety and about the supply level and about the endless ‘grind’ with little/no reward, people are much less inclined to take risk.

Everyone gets attached to their characters and they don’t want to lose them.
Especially if they were ‘forced’ to grind for weeks to achieve a certain level of XP/’resources’.

• DM interaction â€" what I have witnessed lately (and this is not pointing fingers at anyone in particular, mind you â€" this is food for thought) is what VP mentioned. There seems to be little/no reward lately for what is commonly known as ‘DM spice’ and this â€" for me â€" combined with being forced to grind for days to achieve a certain level of supply â€" is extremely discouraging. If parties are undertaking large risks, pursuing the high end scripted quests even, and that quest already has a super-high challenge rating â€" then cranking up the difficult on it without giving the PC’s a reward at all is bad. Very bad. Because it results in the “The DM’s are trying to kill me” mindset and leaves a bitter and sour taste for days or weeks.
  
  
  
  
• Meta-plot(s) â€" there seems to be an extreme stagnancy with the ‘main’ plot which are the Dread. Again, Ysinode is so close but it seems so, so far away that you can’t even touch it. And players just begin to simply ignore it â€" and you can’t blame them for that either. So they fall into a different stagnancy â€" stagnancy of not having much to do other than just grind the quests endlessly.

Players need to pursue the meta-plots somehow. In EFU:A, not to look far â€" keys to H’bala’s tower. It was there, you knew it’s out there, you could go look for them for whatever reasons your PC might have had to collect them.

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All the above is food for thought, not an attack so please do not get on the defensive mode â€" read it and chew through it. I realize the VAST amount of time/effort being put into creating EFU and I do not discard all the sweat put into creating this.

What’s interesting is â€" over the past couple weeks I’ve spoken with numerous people, some newer players and some veterans and they all shared those notions/perceptions of what EFU began to become.

Hope this helps some :)

EFU4Lyfe.

While a lot of good points have been made I feel like there's one aspect that people have been overlooking.

We've talked often about the PC and DM aspects of mechanics changes and otherwise but I'd like to take a moment to talk about my favorite part of EFU: The Story.

PC plots matter. In many posts people talk about how there's nothing to do at times so the best option is questing but these are the times when PC plots shine. Bored PCs create avenues and adventures and experiences in which PC plots develop and grow. Wandering the Underdark is dangerous but there's something visceral about a 3-man party of people scouting the badlands for "Signs of dread influence". The Machine is tedious at times but there's something amazing about wandering with a few PCs into the darkest corners and sharing thoughts, ideas, looking for scrap, and similar.

At the risk of sounding horribly cliche and lame a lot of the way to beat the MMOisation of EFU in my honest opinion is the suspension of disbelief. Stepping away from the fact we're playing a videogame and trying to lose yourself in the story like a good book. So many people get caught up on what 'Makes sense", what "Doesn't make sense", what would be viable for their character to do and similar.

EFU I have always thought thrived because I viewed it as a play. It's a spectacle. Bread and Circus. PCs get bored of questing so you go out of your way to craft something for them to put on display. This means your PC doesn't always make the "Best move". It's always viable to be friends with everyone but sometimes you're a horrible racist. Sometimes you cast off the idea of a pleasant deity for something twisted and disgusting like a Talonite to tell a story.

I'm not saying this is for everyone to pursue but there's PCs like Granny, like Necronomicon, and numerous others who go to great lengths to bring "Lfie" to the server through various villains and overtures of conflict. If you want to improve EFU stop doing what "Makes sense" and consider perhaps what could be fun for other individiuals. Play the greasy old hag. Play the obsessed necromancer. Play the Archaeologist who just so happens to spend most of his time collecting artifacts to woo fat women PCs and NPCs.

Don't have a PC who "Knows everything". Ask questions. Don't act like you've been there before. Suspend the fact you're on your 90th PC and enter the world with fresh eyes. Try and lose yourself in a character with the story telling aspect of the end of the world and one lone place of strange magics and odd people who prefer fight one another from the illusion of security against the notion of the end of the world.

Play a Worminger who decides it's time to get rich by becoming a merchant. Play a Swordsman who has realized unlike his wars on Orcs you can't beat the Dread by carving and becomes a hopeless alcoholic until his friends rally around him and encourage him to try the Society.

We can only bring to life to this server how much you bring to your character. Don't be afraid to get weird and don't be afraid to play something that gives people pause and makes them wonder what the fuck you're doing.

EFU is a show and we're all actors in my opinion. If you want to remove the MMOisation fo EFU then do what MMO's can't.

Craft and develop and tell the best and most amazing story you can, to as many people as possible, and matters will improve with or without DM assistance. It doesn't matter if that story leaves you beaten, robbed, dead, or broke. Roll a new PC and move on to a new story, for a different PC, for a different faction.

Quote from: SN;419416

• EFU:R has intangible antagonist NPC's. H'bala/Barakat was something you could 'touch', they had this vibe of being alive. And you had the (illusion of) power of being able to change the course of things.

The Dread seem distant, something you can not touch/interact with without having your brain pour out of your nose ... and worse - they feel absolutely omnipotent and omniscient. I remember going through the screenshot thread of Sru Syishodel (//%22http://www.efupw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=97115%22) and their trek through Traensyr when the group met one of the Dread Masters. It felt absolutely hopeless - I can't think of almost any character that wouldn't just lay down and give up and have the illithid destroy them seeing the power.

• Safety - while admittedly I haven't spent much time playing Sanctuary PC's in EFU:R, the idea of the ultra-safe place where PC's can retreat to (the Shield) is - IMHO - immersion breaking. On one hand, the aim is to play in an apocalyptic, Lovecraftian setting.. and actually feel that TERROR... yet there can be no real TERROR if you can just retreat to Safety into this massive, ultra-safe agglomeration. It just kills the whole point of the struggle to survive, IMHO.

And then you have the Lower vs Upper conflict, where ‘Upper’ is again – the omnipotent entity with an army of Mech warriors and ability to gas the denizens of Lower.

And then you have the illusion rings – if PvP ensues and someone escapes to safety of Upper, it’s beyond the reach of 90% antagonist PC’s. Due to the power-level of Upper, due to not having the ring etc. In EFU:A during the massive PvP’s that happened between Docks/Ziggurat, those PvP’s often escalated into the streets of either of the ‘factions’.
In EFU:M, it happened VERY often that the PvP spread into Mistlocke. People didn’t feel the ultimate safety as they could have been snatched from the ‘square’ easily. Again, it’s not as simple in EFU;R as there are too many factors preventing that.
[/LIST]

I actually think these two points are kind of important to address. The way the module is currently designed, one has to go out of their way to draw the ire of the Dread. If you encounter enthralled drow, you're either ballsy or stupid. You've fucked up. You're probably going to die. There are no dread patrols outside of their various strongholds. And yeah, I understand there's some IC reasons for why the Dread isn't so close to Sanctuary.

But I'm referring to areas where the Dread would have an influence. Traenysr is just a few miles (I think? that's what the emote says when you click the transition) away from the Badlands, but the Dread have no influence there. There are drow patrols, and orogs, and aberrants, but they're never Dread Empire brand drow or Dread Empire brand aberrants or even Dread Empire brand orogs. (true terror) I just remembered the Driders, but thematically they could probably use an 'enthralled' infront of their name for effect. When I see 'enthralled' anything my first response is to scream like a little girl and run far away.

If the Dread even had a slight bit more of a presence, harrowing bands of patrolling thralls and awful mind-boggling experiments roaming the landside looking for flesh to bring back to their masters, then the Shield would feel all the more necessary. Give people a reason to want to be safe. As it is, there's no reason to ever need the Shield to protect you from the Dread as you're not going to see any influence that they even exist unless you're really asking for it.

I'm not asking for players to run into/kill Mindflayers. That'd be stupid. I understand their importance as a storytelling device that killing them be largely left off the table for now, and encountering them equaling death and despair but their minions are quite numerous and expendable.

Occasionally just make it so the Dread peek their head around and make everyone shit themselves a little bit without necessarily the need for a DM to possess them as the NPCs are super tough as it is.

Also, the Shield can be a pretty large liability, as much so as it is a boon. If you're hostile to Sanctuary and you have a ring you can enter from the Illusion into any point in the City and do foul, evil deeds. The issue is that people need to actually sack up and do it, as it's a very intimidating proposal.

This need for bravery also goes with the Upper vs Lower 'Upper is too strong!' mindset, as well. I've been there. I've felt that. It's actually not the case, you can fight these guys. Now moreso than ever, I'd think. It's a risky proposition to do so, but the Refinery, House of Heroes, and Wayfinder Hall didn't bomb themselves so clearly it's been done and the DMs are more than willing to accommodate for it.

EDIT: I forgot that it'd make going outside the Shield period a more risky proposition, possibly encountering some fatal murderous Dreadband, and it'd likely make Entrallment Testing a more common procedure which is always a cool thing because it plays into the thematic paranoia involved in the setting that most people tend to disregard.

Totally irrelevant point here, but concerning the Maze quest;

Howland actually said in 2013 it was fine to recall prior knowledge from doing that quest.

SN's post is everything I want to say and more right now

I will add a few things, with the premise that I -do- like EFU, mainly because of how merciless it is and how much actions and achievements matter, leading to pretty dramatic storytelling. I have also noticed a consistent attempt on behalf of DMs to try and help RP oriented "builds" gain some sort of edge.

My premise is that d&d and the d20 system is essentially flawed in itself, and oftentimes leading to factors that cripple RP by shutting it behind the constrictive cage of stats and mechanics. It is an excellent system if you want to play a strategic game (which is precisely where d&d comes from, folks!) but not so much if you enter a canovaccio or theatrical mindset, where the main focus is the play or story and not whether you hit or miss that hobgoblin.

If d&d rules were employed in good stories, imperial stormtroopers would statistically hit Luke and kill him, Indiana Jones would take 4d20 dmg on a failed tumble roll for hopping out of the cafe's window in the temple of doom, Long John Silver would die due to AC/dex penalties and reduced movement speed, Ulysses would most likely have to PVE Polyphemus and get a cool pair of giant's strength gloves.

NWN -is- mechanical. Very much so. While I agree with RwG in employing the Rule of Cool, there are several reasons why this can't be applied most of the time:
# 1 monsters (and DM spawns as far as I've seen) do not care and will just crush you to bits.
# 2 there's a strong focus on conflict, even when forcing conflict does absolutely not pertain that character or situation.
# 3 conflict on EFU is largely (exclusively?) handled through pvp, be it direct or indirect, soon or late. I have been on extremely harsh and unforgiving servers where death was handed like candy without a need for overseeing DMs. You could poison your enemies, and a puny, unequipped lvl 4 could trick a lvl 8 badass loaded with gear, stab his back through emoting and summary rolls when his guard was down and circumstances allowed it and steal all his stuff. I was somehow disappointed to apprehend that you can't poison targets on EFU and kill them that way.

The chain works this way: conflict is seen as the most important element of the story, but it makes little sense in this setting to promote inter-character conflict as every character with at least 10 int would eventually wonder whether it's smart to kill what little is left of humanity and then die to the dread. Aside from being somehow immersion breaking, conflict and killing on EFU will very often encompass pvp, expecially if you are a villain. PVP 100% relies on mechanics on EFU. To achieve mechanical power, you need a good build and good supplies. To achieve both you need to powerbuild/minmax to an extent and quest to gather XP, gold and supplies. To do so, since you can't quest on your own past a certain level due to OOC mechanics, you need to gather a party. It is almost impossible to gather a hunting party on EFU without being somewhat inclusive, or very hard if you play characters that are loners by their very nature/circumstances.

Summing up, conflict is the focus of efu, and to further conflict you will have soon or late to be involved in PVP. If you do not possess enough mechanical prowess, it will be hard if not impossible for you to play the cool, conflict based characters everyone loves and praises, and thus involve others in what on EFU seems to be largely perceived as interesting roleplay. It is an unpleasant tendency, but leaders are very often leaders because they possess a certain degree of combat prowess, empowered by RP. Not very often people will follow a smart but weake leader when there's an average but strong leader around, no matter how high your cha score is and how well it's roleplayed.

A possible solution would be to somehow even out the chances of survival between levels/different degrees of gear. As it is, a powerbuilt/high level/well equipped character will always have the upper hand and always win the fight against its RP build, badly equipped counterpart. Push to make conflict a matter of RP rather than rolling dices and how awesome my build is, and you probably don't want to join us because your stats aren't any good and you should roll another PC.

This is precisely what I lamented while playing Sumah (and I was wrong). Like it or not, while EFU has its great sides and whenever things start rolling they feel extremely entertaining, it is a server that strongly encourages repetitive grinding/resources hoarding, gathering large parties, conflict by pvp, a degree of OOC organization (just look at all the guilds that are born through OOC discussion, there's even a section about it... IRC channels and all that jazz) strength by knowledge of often obscure mechanics such as alchemy and down to basic things like swimming and tactics etc.

Of course there are ways around it. Of course, if you hate spending three hours killing spiders and chugging potions you can push plots and even turn into a villain while being a puny level four, but it takes somewhat crafty players and a much greater effort than simply rolling a cheesebuild and adding good roleplay on top of it.

Suggestions:
- promote/allow/suggest other ways to resolve conflict (PVP or PVE) that do not rely exclusively on direct mechanical combat. It doesn't always add to the story.
- even the gaps between PCs in a way that doesn't rely on DM loot, so that the hoarder/powerbuilder/grinder will not have such a huge edge/larger field of RP choice over "vanilla" roleplayers
- promote conflict wisely, as the current setting calls for an "us vs them" kind of behaviour, us being [insert sentient beings trustable enough to forge an alliance] vs the Dread/Dendar/Red Star/Global cataclysm. It's fine if you think mass murder will resurrect your god and save us all, stops making sense when it turns into "let's kill them for the lulz".
- JUST DON'T CARE. Stories where the main character always wins are simply not fun. Stories where the main character always loses are entertaining in a sort of poetic way. Stories where a bit of both happens are great. Give it a try.

Oh, and...

Schooling new players: Yes please. It's often hard to understand what exactly is important to do on EFU, or even how things work. Everyone seems to know everyone else and to know all the secrets concerning how to get by, or which pals to bump to to this or that. As far as I see pushing conflict between players OOCly is one thing, making a story interesting, intriguing and coherent another. IMHO the former is one of the possible tools of the latter, but the making of a good story does not exclusively pivot or flatten on conflict. Also, conflict tends to happen spontaneously for IG reasons even in "let's be FRIENDS" kind of settings.

Also the general tone of the discussion seems to suggest it's a given that "new players" are somehow coming from a tradition of WoW or similar grind oriented games who suddenly decided to move on to RP instead of sticking to MMOs. I'm brand new and I come from a decennial tradition of NWN, and a lifetime or roleplay and storytelling in every form and shape, including the creation of a story oriented roleplay system. Seeing new players as game-ruining brats who don't know what's what doesn't create a very welcoming atmosphere.

I thoroughly agree with SN (inconsistent dread), RwG's Rule of Cool, Vlaid, Pandip (everything you said, really).

Honestly-

Lots of people complaining about the immersion issues of villainy in this thread seem to indicate that it is some sort of innate common sense to not murder each other on the brink of extinction.

Judging from human history alone, this is the opposite of the case. Desperation begets violence, because people no longer feel they have the time or luxury of trying to persuade others to follow their point of view.

Quote# 3 conflict on EFU is largely (exclusively?) handled through pvp, be it  direct or indirect, soon or late. I have been on extremely harsh and  unforgiving servers where death was handed like candy without a need for  overseeing DMs. You could poison your enemies, and a puny, unequipped  lvl 4 could trick a lvl 8 badass loaded with gear, stab his back through  emoting and summary rolls when his guard was down and circumstances  allowed it and steal all his stuff. I was somehow disappointed to  apprehend that you can't poison targets on EFU and kill them that way.

The chain works this way: conflict is seen as the most important element  of the story, but it makes little sense in this setting to promote  inter-character conflict as every character with at least 10 int would  eventually wonder whether it's smart to kill what little is left of  humanity and then die to the dread.

Both points are pretty big. If you look closely, the Spellguard are basically the Zhentarim under Manshoon to a T, but without a viable IC reason to oppose them that cannot be countered by "You're insane, you're going to kill us all", because they have a monopoly on the safety MacGuffin. So while you have only one monopoly on not dying to the Dread Empire, you're basically forced on a very narrow path. How to fix it is by, somehow, breaking that monopoly.

So I'm just going to toss this out there, since I'm new and have no clue if it's a viable thing or not:

Is it possible to re-engineer or steal the Shield technology and create your own?

I'll add something that might sound possibly controversial/ungrateful but it's not meant to sound this way:

Less scripted content, more DM-ran plot-related content.. plots.. you know what I mean.

While I know it's convenient to have the content scripted, in turn - scripted content takes away the soul.

What I had a crush on during the previous EFU chapters was simply going around the server and suddenly encountering something random - a 10-15 minute long DM encounter (whether it was possession of an NPC or just some ambient messages) that kind of played on my current character's alignment/class/perception of the world yadda yadda.

Quote from: Hound;419449Honestly-

Lots of people complaining about the immersion issues of villainy in this thread seem to indicate that it is some sort of innate common sense to not murder each other on the brink of extinction.

Judging from human history alone, this is the opposite of the case. Desperation begets violence, because people no longer feel they have the time or luxury of trying to persuade others to follow their point of view.

Not to derail the thread, but this is a topic of great interest to me.

Our history books are filled with violence because it's the exception to the norm, and thus worthy note, rather than something endemic to our race. I agree that desperation does tend to further it, but I don't think you're taking into account all the countless people that have just quietly starved to death in history's many famines. While PCs are certainly not peasants, the point remains.

Especially in our setting, where even the gods are dying, I think you're going to find a larger number of people abandoning their own dogmas and egos in favor of the adaptations necessary for their survival. I would expect to see the vast majority of non-CE characters operating in a more cooperative sense by necessity. After all, if there's one thing about humans, is that they're capable of very rapid change in behavior on both an individual and a social level.

Our setting is extremely similar to the setting of the "real world" in  the Matrix movies. And just like in Zion, while everyone didn't  necessarily all get along and agree with each other, when faced with a sentinel for every man, woman and child, they did what they had to do.

Most exceptions, I think, are going to stem from the multiracial nature of Sanctuary. Humans are renowned for adaptability, dwarves and elves, not so much.

Wasn't sure at first I want to write something, but here goes, I guess:

Quote from: Ladocicea;419246Taking only 1 level of rogue, barbarian, bard or sorcerer in a manner that is extremely convenient for your build. While this is not against the rules it is cheese, especially if there is NO conceptual rationalisation for doing this, and with astounding regularity (every single case) I have found that there is no discernible IC reason for doing so.

To be honest, I was sure I saw a rule regarding not multi-classing and taking only 1 or 2 levels in another class, but it turns out I was wrong (I guess it was on another forum I looked at or something). But I don't see a reason why there shouldn't be a rule regarding that. To be a warrior who is able to just use wands and scrolls because you took a level of bard/rogue for UMD or a sorcerer to gain access to arcane spells and it really doesn't fit the build or the PC, yeah, that's lame.

So maybe (if it's desired) make such a rule, and of course, if one wishes to take such a level in another class for flavor or because it fits the character, he can go over it with a DM / app for it?

Quote from: Ladocicea;419246Obtaining level 7 under 24 hours, and level 8 shortly thereafter (yes, it happens).

This usually happens, from what I've seen, when new arrival PCs tag along to the high level quest trains straight away. And the high level PCs just take them, because "whatever" or "need to level up that PC so he can be more use in the future" and of course "Oh, it's XXX player, he's cool, yes". And high level quests will reward an absurd amount of XP to those low level PCs.

I hate this kind of behavior, and even more, I hate that it's in the status quo now. But I can't really blame people in doing this as being low level is more likely less fun, and delivery/starter quests/grinding worms/solo quests can be really boring.

Also, I've witnessed people boasting how fast they level up on #EFU like it's some sort of achievement. It's not and even more, it's annoying. People should probably stop that.

Quote from: Ladocicea;419246Doing the same quest every reset/tirelessly grinding with no real purpose.

Well, I'll be honest, EfU quests are awesome, and some more than others. I don't think it's quite fair to say "no real purpose" if someone is having fun doing that quest, and if someone isn't getting bored from doing that reset after reset, good for him, I guess.

But regarding "grinding quests" I've witnessed two phenomenons:

• The "Upper Quest Trains" does seem from time to time being only on getting XP and gold and hoard hoard hoard items and consumables until that dangerous DM event or that PVP which might come along the way, and for that, people prefer to be the best. And they don't do anything more than the quests as well when they're playing.
  
  There are players who try to do something different, whether it's just explorations and focusing on the pacification campaigns, or even something more social like a concert (as quirky as NWN can be with some sort of thing) or a "Dating Auction" (I hope EfU can forgive me for doing such a thing >_>) but those things can only be fun and enjoyable if many PCs are involved. Most of the times, they yield no items/consumables, so the questing PCs don't really find any reason in participating, and will just go on another scripted quest that will provide them with more XP and GP.
  
  I'm not sure when, but until a few months ago, I think the level of involvement on the DM side in stuff like exploring for the sake of exploring, pacification campaign, social events was pretty large, but now I, personally, hardly feel it.
  
  
  
  
• The Lower Quest Trains: Lower tends to be the basing ground of most antagonist/villainous groups, and most of them focus on PvP, which is fine. But it sometimes feel like those groups grind quests in order to get better supplies and stand a chance against the main hub.
  
  I used to dislike it, but really, if those groups lose to the main hub, they'll most likely be executed or killed. I still don't like the grinding quests aspect, but if it helps in giving them a better chance to create more conflict, then I really can't complain. Most, if not all of those groups this chapter have been really classy, and while getting robbed by them, or losing to them in PvP can suck, they rarely turn to FD unless it helps the story.
  
  While Lower isn't really a place for lairs, I do think those groups that prove themselves (and the concept allows) should get one. It will provide with a base, and also resource gathering, which will replace the questing.
  

There's been some sort of "blame" on "new players to EfU" in this thread. But really, in terms like "grinding quests", vets do this the same as new players, there's really no difference here. Those who prefer to quest do that.

BUT, what I do think, is that being a new player to EfU is hard! Not only the settings on the Death penalties and the mechanics, but really, a sort of understanding what to do and how to contribute to the story in an interesting way. I really don't want to insult anyone, but recently, I had the feeling, that came mostly from new players, that they try to "win EfU", and the way they did that, was ignoring any sort of conflict and getting in positions IC that they could just block other PCs from trying to create conflict or doing things that, might upset the balance of friendship in Upper. (Talking mostly on Upper Factions here)

It got really frustrating to try to do anything, not because we would fail, mostly because we were simply ignored, and that is really the worst thing that could happen. I'm not saying people do that out of OOC issues or in purpose, but rather, it's really the best way they could think of.

This is really my personal feeling about it, and I think maybe the more experienced players in the same faction can help them adjust and offer advice, both OOC or IC.

Also, I think it took my a year to even slightly understand how to do interesting things in EfU and I'm still learning. New players like Abala and Moonlighter who just went in and put the server on fire (In the best way ever) are a rarity, so a good advice I can give new players is, be a supporter character at first. I learned a lot from just joining experienced players like Bonhomie, El_G and Blue41.


Sorry from glitching from the main topics of the discussion and probably repeating things that were said before.

I actually read through all of these posts (don't ask me why) and thought to add a few more thoughts/suggestions.

Firstly, I want to point out when I mentioned "newer" players it was not as any sort of attempt or knock them. Instead, I feel its important to remember that new players and returning vets alike are coming from other games with MMO type reward systems. They land in EFU, they see NPC quest givers, xp, gold, supply benefits from continuing that style of play. Hence, they continue to do it. Its not really their fault and its sort of on all of us to show them how its better when the MMO styles are left in the trash. Still its hard as PC to bring this up to another player, and more often then not, -showing- them is more effective. Otherwise, what does it matter to them when your PC who does nothing but political backroom deals ends up in PvP with theirs and they crush because of a superior build with superior supply? Looks like MMO wins.

Now then, a couple of suggestions which I hope don't sound to "in my day"

On NPCs

NPCs should be more then quest givers. Early on in my EFU experience, I would often send dm messages like, "Hey, I'd like to talk to such and such NPC." Then it would happen. After awhile this kind of thing sort of stopped. NPCs for the most part fell into the shadowy backgrounds. Sure, Gould is pulling the strings, but you won't get an invitation.

I think NPCs that hold certain notoriety should be more active in the lives of the PCs who align with them. NPCs can help characters create and realize goals beyond fetch my assistant down the well. I can tell you that a five minute conversation with an NPC for a new player who is used to just click on X for quest, can be eye opening to that player. It shows them that those long term, plot driven goals that NPCs have are more important then the grind and potentially can lead to my second point which is...

loot!

Earlier on in the discussion I mentioned rewarding players who have weaknesses etc, but I will admit that was poorly worded on my part. You don't reward weakness. You reward players [who play out their] weaknesses. Just a hypothetical here, maybe you have 8wis because you were never taught to speak proper common. In game, you make this clear in the way you struggle to express yourself and you seek out to better yourself getting lessons from other PCs actively. Bam! Here is some flavored loot, a decoder ring which gives you +2wis. Does nothing for your mechanics, everything for your story. Maybe you are a 8cha dwarf who loves to fart and despite complaints, thinks its funny and does it more. Bam! Here is a "fart trumpet" iron horn 3/day. This goes both ways too. Those players who don't play them out could get cursed items. How about a dunce cap from shagga which makes their 20str 8wis barb only as strong as he is wise for a day (until next reset). You bet that player would be RPing about how weak they felt with the cap on, and it serves as a subtle reminder.

Players in general, and especially those that come from MMO, often connect to their PCs through the loot they've earned. When its everyday drops, it becomes about who has the most quantity. When its a reward, or a punishment told through the story of a unique item, its a reminder about why EFU is about quality.

I didn't read the whole thread so sry if I'm repeating someone else's thoughts.
 
But I saw in the first page a lot of blame put on the players and to be quite frank, I say you couldn't be further from the truth. It's DEFINITLY NOT a new player issue. Look up the forums, here and on CoA and you'll see similar threads have been popping up over the past what... 10 years?
 
You can't blame players from powerbuilding. Gimping your character for the sake of RP is cool and all that, but let's face it, a lot of worthless feat or uneven attributes are only flashy to the most investigative DM. The other players don't see your stat sheets and the NPC don't care if you got Thug or Silver Palm feats, its a game in which you die if your HPs go down and your AC is too low.
 
So not only your get your ass beat in PvM, but a lot of conflicts PvP end up with a fight. For every player with a gimp build who get some assistance from a benevolent DM, how many gimped characters will get none of it?
 
Grinding is part of the game. It's even part of RP. Why would an adventurer stick in the middle of the streets wasting time talking trash about the local lord or whatever, and not get his purse fuller? If in real life you could drink a healing potion everytime you get hurt, I bet we'd have more people doing extreme sports and wild adventures.
 
You'll never stop grinding for loot and xp in this game unless dramatic changes are made. IE; Removing consumables/max level 2 everybody. And then you'll have other problems, what are people going to do?

I see too many people justifying xp and consumable grinding with pvp. Pvp is much more that just "fighting", and losing a fight is frequently an equally valid outcome than winning to foster one's story, and even more frequently leads to a spot where the character's life is given a new dimension. It's acceptable not to want to lose, but it's not a valid justification.

Nor is preparing for the next big DM event a valid reason for grinding. I personally don't think the high-level-fully-looted-basically-min-maxed character that can charge into wave after wave of monsters to be any cool or badass, simply because he faces no risks at all in doing so. The character/player who stays in character despite the consequences, the character/player who is not afraid to play his concept no matter the outcome, that's badass.

Quests are amazing, and it is totally legit to simply log in and do one after another until you knock yourself out, but if you find yourself wondering what to do when DM activity is low, when there are currently no plots, try doing this: ROLEPLAY.
Come up with a story instead of just a character and try to tell that very story. Interact with other characters, build meaningful relationships, introduce others to your deeply thought-out concept as they do the same with you. I'm pretty sure that if you find yourself spending hours speaking with other characters, discussing with them, working beyond and before the curtains, you'll have very little time or drive to grind quest after quest and amass meaningless consumables.

Quote from: Kandebyn Olar;419802I didn't read the whole thread so sry if I'm repeating someone else's thoughts.
 
But I saw in the first page a lot of blame put on the players and to be quite frank, I say you couldn't be further from the truth. It's DEFINITLY NOT a new player issue. Look up the forums, here and on CoA and you'll see similar threads have been popping up over the past what... 10 years?
 
You can't blame players from powerbuilding. Gimping your character for the sake of RP is cool and all that, but let's face it, a lot of worthless feat or uneven attributes are only flashy to the most investigative DM. The other players don't see your stat sheets and the NPC don't care if you got Thug or Silver Palm feats, its a game in which you die if your HPs go down and your AC is too low.
 
So not only your get your ass beat in PvM, but a lot of conflicts PvP end up with a fight. For every player with a gimp build who get some assistance from a benevolent DM, how many gimped characters will get none of it?
 
Grinding is part of the game. It's even part of RP. Why would an adventurer stick in the middle of the streets wasting time talking trash about the local lord or whatever, and not get his purse fuller? If in real life you could drink a healing potion everytime you get hurt, I bet we'd have more people doing extreme sports and wild adventures.
 
You'll never stop grinding for loot and xp in this game unless dramatic changes are made. IE; Removing consumables/max level 2 everybody. And then you'll have other problems, what are people going to do?

http://www.efupw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=81338

So what's your solution? You can't force folks to play gimp builds and not try to win fights.
 
Of course PvP is more than fighting. But I don't think I'm wrong when I say a whole lot of PvP ends up with one character losing a fight. I'm not trying to justify anything. Although I don't think we'll ever see change if we just criticize players for doing what they obviously think they need to do to succeed and/or have fun.
 
Everybody knows what RP is. It's playing your role, and if your role is crushing orcs and goblins and taking their loot is your role, do it. Players spending 5 hours an evening talking in taverns about who's god is best or scheming about assassinating the king ain't better roleplayers.

Quote from: efuincarnate;419813http://www.efupw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=81338

I agree with Howlands' post you linked. But I don't think lecturing players will do. I think we need to look at the source of the ''problem'' if there's such thing and maybe correct what's wrong, what's causing that kind of playstyle.

Tl:dr

It's a game.

You play games to have fun.

If you are not having fun because someone else has imposed some standard on you that you must play by, then you are doing something wrong.

In short, all the feedback posted here is great and all, but the dms set the rules and uphold the standards and each Dm has his own opinion on how things should be done.  Until something makes its way into the official rules post, it should probably be taken as a guideline; a blueprint that will see you find favor with a particular Dm or small selection of dms.

If you don't like a guideline and don't care about the favor of the aforementioned sampling of Dms, keep playing how you enjoy playing, I say. Just don't wonder aloud why they take no interest in your character or plots.

If you don't like a rule, efu probably isn't for you.

Everything else is just a bunch of typing that isn't getting read.

I don't think a lot of good will come from trying to stifle the conversation.

EfU is not a democracy, and nor should it be. But I don't think it's entirely fair to put everything onto the DMs shoulders and just shrug away attempts by players to analyze the situation. I understand that it's critical for the DMs and players to maintain a certain degree of separation, but the fact remains that this thread cracked open a lot of things that people (obviously) wanted to talk about. So let them. If the DMs wanted us to pipe down, they would have asked us to or locked the thread.

In the meanwhile, I like to think that some really cool new ideas might come out of this to make the game easier on DM nerves and more fun for everyone. Every once in awhile you need to have a meta-conversation, you know? It's good for your stress levels.

As someone said above grinding is an inevitable nature of the game, however I think that being said there is always room for improvement when it comes to the activities for which you get XP and gold. Instead of repeating the same quests over and over again maybe add more activities which feel like your having an impact on the world. Here's an example; caravans through the underdark to outposts which deliver supplies. Player's are tasked with delivering these supplies and defending them from attack. Should they be sucesssful Sanctuary as a whole will recieve gold which than can be treated as "resources" which can be used for political ends. Or a bounty system which has a different monster every month which encourages players to go out in groups to look for it. More dynamic content like the examples here make the game feel less mmoish and quest grindy because it makes players feel like they are actually doing something which has an impact on the world.

I like to play pretend in videos game. :)

I think the main point here should be that the main focus of EfU is a series of player driven (and DM supported) storylines. We provide the stage, what is lacking at the minute (though it certainly isn't non existent) are dynamic player characters. You say it is the fault of the system - and yet the fundamental concept of the system remains unchanged, and in the past people have still managed to tell awesome stories. You say it is the DMs and perhaps in part we can be blamed, but only because we have rewarded people that are acting completely contrary to the point of EFU.

No fancy systems will ever change the fact that EFU is a story. And no one has said that questing is bad. I enjoy it a lot. What is bad, and in fact I'd go so far as to say its fucking terrible, is that people ignore that EFU is about the story and turn it into some PVP I must win every interaction instead of focusing on the fact that this is a collaborative storyline and none of us are a main character.

Please let me start at level five. Low level is so dull and boring that I can't even handle the two hours of solo questing it requires to get there.

Thanks

As a small project I've been monitoring IC interactions and further since this post started from a more spectator perspective. Over the last five days there's been a noticeable shift in cool little gestures.

I've witnessed six PC's sitting around the Grotto talking about war stories in which they had traveled the Underdark discussing their best kill, which inspired me to start asking other people on the street what their best kill was.

I watched three people in Freedom Square get approached by someone asking what a lightstone was and one of the group  said "I've got a fair few if you want to see some more" and head into the House of Knowledge to observe them.

I witnessed two wizards during a scroll exchange, one PC which was fairly new to the character asking some very basic questions about the best way to use certain spells and the other wizard was sharing the information. After a while and not recognizing the account I sent a tell offering to help the PC get involved in anything or if they wanted any help getting a feel for things and they just said "Nah, not new, just playing a proper apprentice on an alt account :) " and they went on to have what seemed like a 30 minute conversation about the proper tactical usage of first circle evocations despite them being pretty weak compared to stronger spells.

A PC buying people food and drinks at the Grotto to come and make plans and just chat with him about upcoming jobs and potential research opportunities if they came and answered his sendings about potential work.

There's more examples but I don't want a ramble-post. It's easy to get caught up in the grueling situational problems but it's little gestures and encounters like that which make me really enjoy EFU and I feel like it's contagious.

The final thing I'll say is if you see things like this that you think are really fun or neat interactions don't be afraid to send a tell informing the PC that you enjoyed seeing it, that it was cool, etc. PC efforts of a smaller nature are often overlooked and ignored. Even if someone makes a really cool sending and just tries to break away from the normal algorithm of "Greetings Sanctuary I have and and we are seeking to go and //level to level".

If I see someone bringing their A+ game it makes me want to step things up more. It just makes the server feel more lively and fun.

Happy Holidays EFU.

Quote from: Halfbrood;420021I think the main point here should be that the main focus of EfU is a series of player driven (and DM supported) storylines. We provide the stage, what is lacking at the minute (though it certainly isn't non existent) are dynamic player characters. You say it is the fault of the system - and yet the fundamental concept of the system remains unchanged, and in the past people have still managed to tell awesome stories. You say it is the DMs and perhaps in part we can be blamed, but only because we have rewarded people that are acting completely contrary to the point of EFU.
 
No fancy systems will ever change the fact that EFU is a story. And no one has said that questing is bad. I enjoy it a lot. What is bad, and in fact I'd go so far as to say its fucking terrible, is that people ignore that EFU is about the story and turn it into some PVP I must win every interaction instead of focusing on the fact that this is a collaborative storyline and none of us are a main character.

I don't like blaming the DMs or the players. But I think players play a certain way for a reason and simply telling them what to do and what not to do is not going to work. You can't reward a playstyle then tell everyone not to play that way.
 
An other thing, which might be related. It's that there's not a wide variety of games you can RP on. So players who enjoy some stuff about EFU might play on EFU even thought they dislike other aspects of the server. I know that's my case. If I hated everything about EFU I wouldn't be here. But I can't say I like every rule and everything, it's just that I don't find that many competition out there.
 
Basically that's it for my opinion. I expect the same thread to pop up in 6 months or so.

If powerquesting is an issue than a viable solution is to make quests harder to survive and levels harder to gain. Seems like it would make a pretty effective deterent

Quote from: Wild Card;420156If powerquesting is an issue than a viable solution is to make quests harder to survive and levels harder to gain. Seems like it would make a pretty effective deterent

This actually accomplishes the opposite and creates more of the "spamming" previously discussed.

When a large chunk of the playerbase believes something is wrong, I don't think it can be so easily dismissed by blaming their "mentality".  This might come off as pretentious but we need to look closely at what's changed from previous settings to this one and try to fully comprehend what repercussions these changes have had.  Instead of simply listing the things we think are wrong, and this might be a misuse of the word, but we should approach this "scientifically".  

A comprehensive list of what has changed without rhetoric or supposition would be very helpful in doing this.

Fully agree

Quests are already harder in this setting by far than they were in EfU:M. There's been quite a lot of difficult spice lately too. This leads to lots of deaths, and lots of quest spamming in order to regain those lost levels. When you do these quests frequently enough, it becomes harder and harder to put in the effort to deploy good roleplay. This leads on to the MMOization, as DM's notice people just aren't putting in that effort. Which leads to DM's spicing them in order to induce some roleplay out of the players. Which in turns leads to death. Which leads to more quest grinding. And it quickly becomes a rather vicious circle I think.

Coupled with a much diminished tendency for DM's to liberally reward good RP / Plotting with XP and loot, it is tending to lead people to prefer spending a lot of time spamming quests in an attempt to get to their comfort level of XP and Supply, whilst not seeing plotting and conflict as a viable way to any material rewards.

The only sufficiently rewarding system in place right now seems to be the bounty system. Aggressively pursuing people who do cause conflict is by far the most rewarding occupation. While this is very much in-keeping with what one expects from a wealthy police state setting, it is still somewhat hampering to effective storytelling - and seems to teach new players that the path to riches and success is by not rocking the boat, and ganging up on those who do break from the norm.

Ultimately: players will only do what they're rewarded well for doing. If a player earns five times the XP he or she would get from another mindless run through Sahuagin for a decent bit of intrigue, they'll want to do that sort of thing more often. Arranging the assassination of political rivals / Catching notorious criminals / even writing an incendiary pamphlet on the forums should engender heftier rewards - especially if its done by a player known to shy away from such things normally - and perhaps a bit of custom loot in some circumstances.

Making progress on active DM plots should also ideally come with larger bonuses. I've found myself getting sprinkled with 20xp hits when making small contributions to such, and 200xp for earthshattering serverwide events that resulted in serious consequences. These numbers don't seem consummate with the gravity of what is going on. If people see this and think 'I could be earning three times as much exploring those abandoned duergar halls, and face much less danger', they would hardly be wrong, and may start to see DM plots and their attendant events as merely unrewarding things which will only increase their characters chance of dying.

In summary: The answer to this isn't quest take caps, or further reducing the already meagre rewards for questing - this are a recipe for misery. Merely greater DM attention and more liberal rewards for the behaviour they crave is all that is required.

HDM, a reason which is often cited for RP rewards being so small compared to quest rewards is that often RP activities do not involve the kind of immediate risk to a PC's life, use of consumables, expense, etc. as quests do.

Personally, I believe in roleplay being an effective way to level up, but this reason has long endured as a potential motivation to make it less rewarding than questing.

Lado the people in the hubs who are plotting, who are trying to put up events, arranging murders, gathering parts for a ritual, making new laws, and acting mainly in the hubs are the people that push the server most and deserve experience. The people who dont go out to quest and focus on the town may not always invoke the same risk as the questers, but they are pushing the server and as is the common efu phrase,
"Making things happen"

Questing, perhaps ironically, does not actually put a character's life at stake. True deaths on EFU are intrinsically connected to plot developments. Those who go out on scripted content are virtually guaranteed to be allowed to respawn. They are only risking the experience points they've presumably toiled to acquire... by doing other scripted content, most likely multiple times.

I sense an issue buried in this. I don't see a solution, however, and am doubtful there is one.

The problem has been exemplified by trying to "fix" it with ineffective measures.  Quests were made more difficult, supplies and drops were decreased and all it has done is encourage people to grind harder and longer rather than pursue the story.  The problem was never having too many supplies or having too much XP, it was players who were getting these supplies and XP and either doing nothing with them or breaking the game entirely.  Just an example how a few bad eggs spoiled the entire pot.  But instead of punishing these guys, everyone was punished in their stead.


I would say now that this problem is even worse!  Because a well thought out, optimized group can gather tons of supplies and completely crush everyone who isn't optimized and doesn't always have a group of reliable players they can quest with.  I say this from experience and I don't see how it can be healthy to encourage cliques.  But as it is, cliques have a huge advantage over individuals.

Almost all players like to see their PC's progress in levels and loot. Making quests harder/less rewarding just makes for more grinding.

I would 'up' the rewards for RP (loot and xp)

Particularly if that RP is risk taking (spying/betrayal etc.) but imo even if plotting, planning or hells even if it's just ruminating on a DM plot with a bunch of allies it should ideally be rewarded, and more so than is generally done at the minute.

Throwing rewards of +250xp around for RP more often would encourage it.

I would also perhaps be worth trialling RL time limits on quests. I've seen this done on other servers with some success. If a quest is limited to 24hrs RL it would stop the:

'Can we have a reset please so I can smash and grind some more please?'

From what I've seen the time limit system hurts more than it helps as people just don't log in at all since  they can't quest

I think the best way to promote good behaviour is to reward it either with increased xp rewards or even a vanity item occasionally

QuoteQuests are already harder in this setting by far than they were in EfU:M. There's been quite a lot of difficult spice lately too. This leads to lots of deaths, and lots of quest spamming in order to regain those lost levels. When you do these quests frequently enough, it becomes harder and harder to put in the effort to deploy good roleplay. This leads on to the MMOization, as DM's notice people just aren't putting in that effort. Which leads to DM's spicing them in order to induce some roleplay out of the players. Which in turns leads to death. Which leads to more quest grinding. And it quickly becomes a rather vicious circle I think.

Excellent analysis.

As mentionned above, the solution to this is to incentivize Story. I fully agree that a well-done pamphlet on the forum should be worth more XP than a Sahuguan run. The former takes, in fact, more effort and contributes positively to the narration/conflict.

I would furthermore argue that, doing quests (non-spiced) do not carry much risk at all for a significant portion of mechanically competent playerbase, while an incendiary pamphlet could pose more of a threat to your character in terms of meaningful conflict escalation.

The thing is people have been questing for years, its the nature of the game. However something has changed apperentaly the question is what that something is.

Quote from: Pentaxius;420257Excellent analysis.

As mentionned above, the solution to this is to incentivize Story. I fully agree that a well-done pamphlet on the forum should be worth more XP than a Sahuguan run. The former takes, in fact, more effort and contributes positively to the narration/conflict.

I would furthermore argue that, doing quests (non-spiced) do not carry much risk at all for a significant portion of mechanically competent playerbase, while an incendiary pamphlet could pose more of a threat to your character in terms of meaningful conflict escalation.

Questing is fun. Progress is fun. Making money, getting loot and EXP, these things are fun.

Dying is not fun, because you lose progress. The fun you previously had feels hollow and less fun, because you've lost what you had to show for it.

Natural inclination of people is going to be do more of the fun thing, so perhaps later they can do even more fun thing (plot, scheme, pvp, etc).

People are always going to minimize risk and power game from time to time, it's a human inclination. Max gain for min resistance. Now, INB4 a chorus of "but I-", yes, I should think we ALL strive to not power game, because we have a good community. However, we all have different definitions and tolerances, and sometimes even the most self-flagellant will splurge. I also urge against the inclination to lionize sado-maschism; we shouldn't be putting out "you should have less fun/be less optimal to truly be a good player and have fun," because then it becomes a contest of who can gimp themselves the most to appear the most RP-tastic.

IMO, if the balance of this occurrence is out of whack, we should brainstorm ways to make risk/dying less not-fun WITHOUT reducing difficulty/the prestige of success. Numbers will even themselves out over time.

Making DM EXP not vanish over death was an attempt at this, but as a result, DM's are now terrified of giving out large sums because it would skew the server balance - someone who has 1000 points of permanent exp that cannot be lost on re-spawn has a significant advantage, after all.

What about setting the base level to 5 to reflect the harshness of the world, should you lose a level you could go no lower than 5. Since someone mentioned the grind to 7 is difficult why not make that road less hard? Maybe increase the amount of XP people get automatically every 10 minutes as well.

Quote from: SatelliteMind;420309What about setting the base level to 5 to reflect the harshness of the world, should you lose a level you could go no lower than 5. Since someone mentioned the grind to 7 is difficult why not make that road less hard? Maybe increase the amount of XP people get automatically every 10 minutes as well.

Technically, if you know what you're doing/where to go lvl 4 is already the base level, as it can be achieved within an hour of creating a character. This may be different if you take the special hard-mode prelude.

I'm not sure this is the solution, though at the moment I do not have a counter-suggestion to make.

Jeez.  You could have just private messaged me, Lado.  Sheesh!  Talk about airing your dirty laundry.    

All kidding aside I have done the whole 'Let's do X quest' thing in a pm, the rest I'm not guilty of and I actually abhorr it.  I know Mort would personally fry everyone's bollocks in hot butter for it(inb4 deep frying/scottish Lado) but is it really that bad if we are practiced roleplayers and simply roleplay the interaction properly?

To be honest, I think I only do it when I know I am not with a stranger too.  It's definitely stale as hell rp.  I never ever organise a quest ooc in IRC nor by private messages but you've got to wonder...

Is IRC the real culprit of that behaviour?

(All the rest of what Lado mentioned shouldn't even have to be mentioned frankly and I'd be pissed too if I was him.  )

QuoteIs it possible/Feasible to script a mailing system? I know another server  had Messenger birds that you could send items to players online, but is  it possible to be able to send stuff to players offline? If so, then  DM's could send PC's rewards from NPC's. Example. Taryn leads a group of  adventurers to praise Talos through (Insert fun event here). The priest  of Talos, impressed with her initiative, sends her a special reward for  it. I understand this isn't gonna help with rewarding a full group but  it would be nice for people who do mostly just run PC explorations and  stuff. It also gives players more of an incentive to communicate  everything they do.

Taken from a thread from Efu's sister server CoA for a lack of a better word;   which is experiencing a similar problem. I really like the idea and wonder if this is something that adapted in Efu's own style that could facilitate player pushing plots without a DM online.

Honestly, the issue here is that questing is quite literally the only way to level up that is "uncapped" unlike various turn in systems which cap out at certain levels. Which I also find to be mind-numbing and boring. I feel players should get a EXP tick for rpling in taverns and other social places. You should get exp for every recipe found in alchemy and herbalism.

There needs to be more /paths/ to eight as opposed to keeping this talk so centric on quests, why don't we explore how to make proper exp/rp ways to get to eight that does not include killing a few thousand kobolds.

We are inherently dealing with a dungeons and dragons system. So killing monsters, adventuring, and questing are really are the core of the game mechanics and therefore the rewards system. What makes D&D not an MMO is that we are pretending that we're someone in the world for real, we are giving the world a sense of suspended realism. This means we are actually playing an MMO, but are trying to conceal and transcend that fact through Role Playing.

We are limited however. So it takes collective effort on all fronts to see beyond these limitations and really make something feel awesome. Notice that I said FEEL. Its extremely important.

1.) You need to break the Rules.[INDENT] What I mean is... You must to be able to defy the game limitations in some way. To achieve things that cannot be simply achieved by questing and fighting. This can be facilitated by a DM or cooperation with another player. A DM could give emotion to an otherwise immobile npc or red monster. A player can let another character's emotional or persuasive appeals change their behavior. If you could simply stab it and walk past, then the actions involved did not have enough consequence to matter. Either way, this is a two-way street and communication is essential here.  We have codified some of this into the Law enforcement of Sanctuary but it exists in all interactions. Outside of the game's combat rolls, if you do x, and person with y finds out, he has options that aren't simply click attack.

Since most of the time we are locked into a MMO, sometimes if you want  creativity, you have to prompt the other person out of their normal:  death defying glorious adventurer mindset. One of the biggest issues with maintaining the illusion of an alternative reality are when game mechanics become a descriptor of the world. Instead of focusing on what makes the world seem real or human, we embrace shit just cause.

Questing: Say you want to do something fun. "Lets Quest!" Then you know there are kobolds just outside, and you've time to do that today between after-work and dinner. So you go out and you kill all the kobolds in the mine. Yay. And you do it the next day and the next day and the next day. Maybe the first dozen you had really sweet roleplayed reasons to do it, but after you played through one narrative, it felt contrived to repeat it. Eventually, you'll just go "yo, lizards?" because it is at least Honest. The world regenerates the kobolds in the mines, that's a REAL event that happens and we're asked to pretend it doesn't. This means there was no consequence for doing it the first time, the second time, or any time following that. Its worse when it doesn't change. Now we can certainly spice this up, and DM spice is meant to break up this singular fact. But where it really counts is when it appears to the inherent logic of the world that your actions actually did something. There are things we can do.

• We should think of questing in ways that tell part of a story, one we can carry one afterwardsâ€"make obvious (advertise) to the DMs and Players (so they have the chance to embrace the color you add).  You are hunting the kobolds because they stole something from you on  the road... and some of these burrows is likely to have it! Tell  everyone what it is, harp on it constantly, make it matter, hunt kobolds  outside the quest! Maybe the kobolds hire the players to do something  for them, something against other humans.

• We should think of quests as an opportunity to have snowballing  consequences. Maybe we're given a choice, and that result of that choice  will come up again. Taking advantage of another PC. Taking a piece of  treasure by force. Pushing someone's buttons. Pushing an agenda despite  opposition. Opposing an action despite what is normally done. Maybe a DM  allows an unexpected choice, maybe that choice changes something or  creates another fun event later.
[/INDENT]2.) Description and Narrative
[INDENT] One of the biggest downsides to persistent questing is the idea of why the conflict is happening. If you have some starving kobolds out living off scraps from a cave... And the humans are storming in to slaughter then for the hell of it, then: THE HUMAN ARE THE EVIL ONES. So if you want to help maintain the idea that the kobolds are tricky evils, you should build a quest into the inherent logic of the world. Then build on that. This is difficult to implement backwards, I am aware. However maintaining a status quo should not be a priority for anyone.

I'm going to continue this example on kobolds. I am going to continue it because I know it wont happen, but it should present the argument well. Lets assume the following bit of information is true: There are many kobolds in and around Sanctuary and they are devious little lizards. That lends some interesting questions, such as, where are they found around sanctuary?

If • Some are enslaved and used as a labor force within some powerful and accepted faction within the city. Such as the Spellguard, maybe they use charms or chains to keep them in line.

Then • Sometimes these kobolds get out of hand and need put down, or sometimes they escape and get into the machine and start fucking things up. Quest opportunities, repeating quests are just a realistic assumption of the sheer quantities of small problems regarding the large population of kobolds creates.

Followup: What if the kobolds menial labor was essential to some function of the city... like the SHIELD? Can Kobold Pcs provide an opportunity or experiments or complicated interaction? Are there reasons not to just kill them all? Are they experimented on? Can PC kobolds be used for experiments? Do the Spellguard Quest to capture more of them? Do the auxiliary quest to clean them out of the machine? How might other factions interact with this dynamic in DIFFERENT ways?

If • Some other kobolds live surrounding the city, in dark corners and little caves. They'd feed mostly on fish and rothe, but are known sometimes to prey on people for food.

Then • The populations come into conflict when their territories cross. Maybe kobolds banditing a merchant route, and a merchant is paying for help to clear the road. Maybe the kobolds nabbed some children and other valuables (like drugs) out of lower and a group needs to raid them to get them back or prevent other important things from going missing (plus raid for drugs). Theme the quests and the monsters around the event in the narrative. Maybe the food resources of the kobolds need conquered to feed a growing population? Quest time. Maybe the food resources conquered need protection from raiding kobolds seeking their land back. Quest time.

Followup: You can continue to build on this by including kobold factions that players can be part of. Maybe a lower kobold-friendly faction that is trying to free their enslaved brethren / combat the spellguard's machine. If the kobolds are REAL and not random monster X Y and Z, then you should be able to have real interactions with them. If they're inherently evil? Sure, make them evil. But just like lawful good doesn't mean lawful stupid, neither does evil mean always uncooperatively stupid and self-destructive.

The above description rests on an inherent complication with the alignment system, monsters, and narrative. We tend to accept a simple gamey description (both players and DMs) and therefore never actually let it be part of a narrative. This could be reapplied to every monster, every faction, and every character. What makes your character tick, how are you part of the world, what do you want, and what do you do to get that. How do people react to you, and how does that inspire your next action. The buck does not stop in this, we're trying to make our pretend world in a real old MMO feel like believable reality, remember?

Point of Fact:

I cannot count the number of times I've been betrayed by an evil monster  at the end of a quest and killed it. Or the number of times a monster  clearly outmatched rushed in to die anyway. Or the number of times a monster watched everything it loved or needed to survive get smashed and did not care. If I kill everyone you ever knew, you should react appropriately. If I killed only one other thing, what if that thing was the monster's son, daughter, wife, enemy. How might he react?

The player characters are suppose to do this anyway, but if you want to see narrative taking place in more places, then bring it into those places inherently.

I've already taken this too far. I'll summarize the point of this: the monsters being part of the narrative and faction interplay is interesting because its complicated. There is no right answer, despite the black/white monster/human relations.
[/INDENT]                    3.) Trust and Consistency
[INDENT] That brings me to my next point. There are many assumptions about the narrative world that is Sanctuary. I've talked to different Dms and gotten drastically different imagery from them. I've talked to different players, and likewise. It is nearly impossible to maintain a narrative illusion if everyone is not seeing the same gameworld.

At some point, you just got to come right out and say it. What benefit does the society killer aberrant in the lowerdark actually have? I mean real "fictional" narrative logic here. What do people think the Spellguard are doing in that tower? How are kobold slaves essential to the inter-workings of the machine? Where does Ysinolde patrol, and how often do they get passed the Orogs and near sanctuary? What is the real risk of loud noises or flashing lights coming from the shield? Do these super intelligent mind flayers really not know about sanctuary? How far away is Lower from Upper really? If it's part of the inherent narrative, it should be known to everyone that is responsible for portraying it accurately.

We had an event some while ago. Someone did something dumb and posted a big sign outside of Sanctuary. And a patrol from the mind-flayers found it, and started looking around. And it was scary for people inside the illusion, but then, someone asked--what about lower? What if this patrol hears all the people and sees all the activity just below? And so they go to warn lower, and if there is a chance, to kill the patrol. These being people that fought the dread daily, doing quests like breaking into Traensyr and actually killing massive siege engines and what have yous. They were butchered just outside the illusion in the in-between. It was assumed they knew they were risking the city to fight an impossible battle, and that it was stupid for them to do that. As it happens, that was not what they expected.

Sometimes, it's not that clear to everyone what the status quo really is. This singular fact can isolate people from plots, and can make faction seems redundant. It can turn interesting groups into people that stand around and wait for direction. You must inspire in people the confidence to act on their own, thus give them the tools and information they need to do this in a believable way.

It is essential to the narrative that we all have a shared image of the world, and that the portrayals / risks / rewards align with our expectations. One of the biggest "reveals" to me as a player in EFUR was that upper sanctuary's law enforcement was not a titan, but a barely held together network that could actually be challenged or changed. (whether that's shared by all the dm team is unknown to me, but it certainly opened my eyes to what shouldve been obvious to a character living there.)

We must communicate to each other with descriptions of what is actually happening. We must trust each other to play following the same rules and with the same expectations. When we lack this trust, and when we lack respect for the narrative or our fellow players/dmsâ€"then we're making it very hard to maintain our world's internal logic.
[/INDENT] 4.) Conflict and the Alternatives
[INDENT]When there is only one way to do something, people will do that one way always. When other options present themselves, they'll still go with the way that's tried and true for them. If you want to prompt creativity, prompt it. Present opportunities and make sure the other players see's them as such.

When you are picking a fight, think about your options. When you are going after a monster, think about if you should be emoting fear. Or curiosity? Play up your character's emotions, pull them from the world and your fellow players. Do things that align with your agenda and emotional state. When everyone is playing the character first, you'll have much more believably stories, and more universally awesome experiences.

When you are creating a character, dont grab a sterotype, dont look at faerun for your group concept. Look at efu. Imagine how the parts fit together, tell your story in a way that makes those parts come alive. When everyone is doing that, when people start colouring the world together, we really will have transcended the limitations of our MMO server.
[/INDENT]

I wrote a post a few days ago regarding this, however it was removed and I was banned due to misunderstanding so I will rephrase.

I don't understand why efu was made to be so slow. While I cannot even muster enough motivation to even quest at low level, where you're forced to repeat the quests over and over not only because they give so little experience but you cripple yourself because of how few supplies there are ig, I understand others can.

But I've realised this isn't even restricted to low levels. From low levels to high levels people are forced to rinse and repeat quests, to meekly survive while gaining the ire of angry dms who kill them because they are questing too much.

What are people meant to do instead? Politics I find tends to just be SIMS rp unless a dm watches, so they are left to explore. Except for the fact due to lack of decent ig supplies and loot you die from exploring, and on top there is very little lore to be found. All incentive to explore has been removed.

Gold is boring. Repeating the same quests is boring. This is literally the main reason most people left a certain server so long ago.

Can we not just do what has happened to nearly every setting? Realise the failings and bump the experience, at the very least. That way I can still explore and not quit my character as soon as I die to beholder rays.

I think its important to note what that the MMO we are emulating is a specfic kind since its very easy to mistake WoW as the definition of MMOs with the majority of the industry trying to copy it. However, there are MMOs that aren't less focused on grinding peridoic content and more focused on living in the world itself. The most obvious example is EVE where players are essentially free to carve out whatever destiny they wish for themselves whether its being a trader, bounty hunter,or even a CEO of a massive player run corporation. There are quests in EVE but they are not the focus of the game which interaction between players. There is also no leveling system instead players can choose a series of skills to 'train'. This is commonly known as a sandbox MMO and there style is much more condusive to roleplaying because its inherently less geared towards themepark esque playstyles of Wow where you just grind the same quests over and over again to reach level X.

D&D may be prone to behaviors that lead to level grinding but it should be noted that the game Neverwinter Nights was developed by folks who were fans of one of the first MMOs to exist which was Ultima Online that was very much of the sandbox form. There aren't many PWs which have gone for this route the one that I think is the closest is Arelith which is probably the cloesst UO like experience you will get on NwN. There are no DM factions or quests of any sort almost everything everything is player run and they remain one of the servers which see's high numbers despite the age of the game. Now obviously there is a reasons why I don't play Arelith one of them being they have a very lenient death penalty and exborantly high levels but I will praise them in creating an eco system which is essentially non quest dependent.  I am not saying we should become like Arelith, for one our world has an overarching story and a disctinct theme that theirs does not. But I think we should try to find ways to make the server less themepark and more sandbox in a way which fits EfU. Sanctuary's Civil Service is already a good example of this; a faction dedicated to the inner workings of the city  and get players involved with its politics and functions. We need MORE of this not less. In another indie MMO ive played over the years called Face of Mankind missions aka quests are player generated; there are specific pre selected subtypes of missions but it goes back to making the world about the interactions of the players themselves versus with the content. I understand that we currently have a bounty system in place; why not expand a system like that not to just include PC contracts but also on items and creatures. Example; Mad Wizard wants koldbold ears for his expirement which he hopes to perform; he uses the bounty system to do this and than said players while doing a quest that in itself is repetive it is helping accomplish an objective of another PLAYER versus a static NPC. In short focus on making EfU less themepark where you can and dependent on player interaction and goals versus content and you will encourage an atmosphere with more roleplay.

Stop paying the players attention, that promote the behaviour you dislike.

Gut check time:

1.) EFU has always been vulnerable to falling into a dreaded "MMO State".

2.) As players - you are the guardians of this fragile balance between "amazing RPG world with great quests and player driven plots" and "SILENT MMO GRINDING".

3.) As players - you need to decide what kind of server you want to play on. Do you want to turn this beautiful, 10 year experiment into a shitty diablo clone, or do you want to make it the glorious bastion of creativity and player driven plotting that it is supposed to be?

Questions:

Is grinding to level 8 in a day something you will remember for the next few years?

Is making the same character and build over and over beneficial to your peers?

Is there anything exciting about the most intense power-build around that handily smashes any challenges it comes across?

Choose wisely friends.

Your DM's will serve as your guides to finding "the awesome" but ultimately we need your cooperation to make it happen.

If you've not experienced "the awesome" - you are missing out. EFU is here to make some cherished memories for you guys. Treat it with the love and respect it deserves.

Quote from: wcsherry;4207923.) As players - you need to decide what kind of server you want to play on. Do you want to turn this beautiful, 10 year experiment into a shitty diablo clone, or do you want to make it the glorious bastion of creativity and player driven plotting that it is supposed to be?

Of course we want the latter. I mean, we are playing this and not that, right?

Quote from: wcsherry;420792Questions:

Is grinding to level 8 in a day something you will remember for the next few years?

No, but enduring GRINDING to 4-6 and being unable to accomplish anything because of what the setting mechanics have become is something I'd rather FORGET.

Did the previous two settings not PROVE that players (and apparently DMs, if we base things upon population) enjoy being more productive and proactive earlier, and not later? Do we really need to GRIND out our repetitive (see: Dull) introduction to the story? Have we not asked for a "vet portal" for 4-5 years in order to prevent this very issue? Even some of you best roleplayers and former DMs HIGHLY promoted this idea. Does it matter if someone spends an hour sprinting around for level 4 and no supplies, or is just level 4 with no supplies?

The EFUM intro had this just right and it was abandoned!

I DO NOT want to run errands, I DO NOT want to roleplay that I am BRAND NEW to the server -every character-, I DO want to get into the action as protagonist, antagonist, or something otherwise important as fast as possible, however.

Quote from: wcsherry;420792Is making the same character and build over and over beneficial to your peers?

Is making us need to "build" so often beneficial to the server? Maybe it's more fun if the expanse directly beyond whatever "shield" (zigg, mist, magical, or otherwise) isn't so dangerous, but more GRADUALLY becomes dangerous? I mean, we do endorse realism right? It's why 1/5 climbers die instantly below level 5 or whatever ( : ) ) We can surely implant the same feeling that we have into people without making it a DICE ROLL every time low levels leave the "sanctuary". The constant low level struggle and lack of supplies only causes more and more spamming as we remain loyal to our story-based concepts  , but sadly we are forced to roll dice in order to allow these role-play based characters live on. The choice is your own, not ours.

Quote from: wcsherry;420792Is there anything exciting about the most intense power-build around that handily smashes any challenges it comes across?

1. See above

2. The most any of these builds are smashing are some sahuagin or formians. Last I checked, these things did not threaten the story of EFU, the Dread, or anything else of importance. If we are all here for story, why are you so worried about quest npcs?

Quote from: wcsherry;420792Choose wisely friends.

Your DM's will serve as your guides to finding "the awesome" but ultimately we need your cooperation to make it happen.

If you've not experienced "the awesome" - you are missing out. EFU is here to make some cherished memories for you guys. Treat it with the love and respect it deserves.

True, indeed

I quest because frankly there's either no one interesting to interact with, no one who'd interact with me, or no one my character would interact with. Quests are the impetus that force people together.

Perhaps inducing a soft level cap would help cut back on the questing some with DM
xp being the only way you could really get beyond whatever the capped level is which would encourage folks to do more than just grind.

I think people need to read wcsherry's post, as that's where the truth lies. Why do players need to be encouraged not to grind? If the players bring the story with them then this whole issue is no longer an issue. Waiting for DMs to give you story isn't the way you play EfU. The way to have fun is to tell stories yourself that include other players, and allow your character to be affected by their stories. When players are doing that then the DMs are eager to supplement and enable these stories, and the rest just falls into place.

What we should be doing, instead of telling others what they should do, is examining our own play habits and looking to better EfU through our own play, not waiting for someone else to fix things. This isn't to say that maybe some systems couldn't change to help, but the solution starts with how we look at and play EfU.

Fair point, however I am of the belief that structural design of a game world conditions how players will act in it. WoW is designed for players to grind and its hard to do anything else in it. So in addition to players looking at their own behavior I think its important to ask what game systems could be changed to facilitate player interaction versus content?

I actually took the time to read over every post in this forum and am again amazed/humbled by all the excellent points and perspectives offered.  All were excellent, however I –especially- concur with the posts by VanillaPudding, PanamaLane, and SN.  Their comments would do much to curtail the negative trends Ladocicea outlined.

A brief point I would make, in addition to what has been relayed by VanillaPudding, PanamaLane, and SN., I would like to raise a point about the feel of the server currently that may aid in reducing the creation of boring or powergaming characters.  With Dendar and the Dread conquering GODS and majority of FAERUN, the feel of Upper Sanctuary is way too secure and comfortable.  Shouldn't there be a more desperate feel that all living creatures (who are not thralls) are commodities that should be used to either secure Sanctuary and/or leverage in the War against the Dread?[/u]  Rather than PCs fully FDing players at the initial stages of conflict, shouldn't they think “what can I use you for?”  or “How will the forfeit of your life contribute my safety or interests, the security of Sanctuary, or some manner of victor against the Dread Threat?”

You step out of line…you will find your ass conscripted serving exiled time as an "Oathsworn" in some austere and hostle post, shoveling shite out of Rothe and Dung Pits, shackled and confined to hard labor, serve as a living cadaver for experimentation by Spellguard pertaining to Illithid devices, shackled to some room within the Machine to defend it for your life, and feed on rats, or otherwise doing something that furthers the cause of being able to exist.

When players feel to comfortable or secure, they get bored and do the scripted quest crushing.  Their boredom stifles their creativity to develop epic ideas, movements, and plots.  This is something that the Players can contribute towards, with minimal aid from the DM Team.

CoA had something called the penal legion at one point which was essentially a group of conscripted criminals who chose mandatory service instead of jail time. This is something that could work in EfU well and I think creative punishments like these should be phased out. I don't know the server still does this but in EfuM Mistlocke felt vulnerable not just because there was no shield but also because the town would be subject to sporadic raids. If Efu R still has these than perhaps upping the intensity of these could really jolt people out of the sense of complacey that they have reminding them that they are literally sorrounded by a number of powers that want to eat them alive.

Regarding the safety of the shield:
When something is too good to be true, it is usually a trap. And given the way Sanctuary is structured, it would be implausible for the Dread Empire not to know it exists. The real questions should be:

Why haven't they attacked yet? What are they getting from letting Sanctuary be?

Implementing a load of convoluted solutions a la the Dawes Plan is not going to fix what is ultimately a player issue.

If you want efu to change get in game and actually play out these suspicions/fears/whatever IC'ly instead of continuing to contribute to a thread that reached its peak relevancy three pages ago.

Quote from: Ironside;420898Implementing a load of convoluted solutions a la the Dawes Plan is not going to fix what is ultimately a player issue.

If you want efu to change get in game and actually play out these suspicions/fears/whatever IC'ly instead of continuing to contribute to a thread that reached its peak relevancy three pages ago.

What proof is there it's a player problem?  How does an entire playerbase begin to all at once exhibit a bad behaviour?  Does causality mean nothing?

Quote from: Ironside;420898If you want efu to change get in game and actually play out these suspicions/fears/whatever IC'ly instead of continuing to contribute to a thread that reached its peak relevancy three pages ago.

Perhaps folk are. But perhaps such suspicions are not voiced where the spellguard has ears? Who knows?

There is always a "surface" of questing, in any NWN server. The question really is, what is going on beneath it, and how does one get "in" on that.

Quote from: Knight Of Pentacles;420901What proof is there it's a player problem?  How does an entire playerbase all at once begin to exhibit a bad behaviour?  Does causality mean nothing?

Agreed, it seems like this has to do with the way the world is set up itself. I'd like to know when did folks start noticing this change and what could have been implemented at the time which could have caused it?

Quote from: Knight Of Pentacles;420901What proof is there it's a player problem?  How does an entire playerbase simultaneously begin exhibiting a bad behavior?  Does cause and effect mean nothing?

When you see players running around IC'ly saying things like "lets kill the prince", mobbing into big 8 man masses of various opposed factions and sailing boats around to rake in exp/loot and then sit on their asses until the next bounty goes up so they can flex their freshly level 9 dicks a bit, that is a player problem.

It isn't so much that people have "all at once" begun to exhibit this behavior so much as it is that: a poor example was set, newer players have followed suit, and we have now entered an age of boring middle-of-the-road PCs who just kind of sit around and do nothing while waiting for the story to come to them.

This has all been laid out more politely/eloquently in this thread already.

Yet its clear that folks don't believe that is the entire answer. If it is because an example from folks did awhile back what made them feel the need in the first place?

The only problem with the quest train is that often, it really is the only way to get any form of interaction whatsoever. Of the PCs I have played prior to Tarya, who was the first to hop on board the "MMOisation", none of them were major questers. The result was little to no interaction or connections. People (not regulars of the quest train) would, literally, completely ignore them. The high point of my last character was me deliberately losing a PvP (opponent emoted nicely, and I had fun, so I figured, why not? :D ) and then returning from vacation to find that my char's victor, and captor, was dead and I was fairly high and dry there due to bad timing.  Both counts were mildly frustrating, and in the latter, since I am rather disinclined to ask about OOC for info, I may as well figure the character got toiled to death in slavery.

On my next character, I found the folk who go hunting a lot far more willing to interact, and thus roleplay, with a few notable exceptions (I really am disinclined to flat out name the positive or the negative here, though). As for the rest, it might be noob syndrome (few folk like to babysit a newbie, I get that! 's no big deal) , it might simply be different RP customs or whatever, but for the moment, I do have to say, the quest train at least provides roleplay for those folk who cannot easily find some elsewhere, for whatever reason. If you kill it, you need to provide some easily accessable alternatives for RP for new players. Because I fully believe that is the main attraction of the quest train.

It is a group activity that folk can easily join in on.

Quote from: Unethical;420910the quest train at least provides roleplay for those folk who cannot easily find some elsewhere, for whatever reason. If you kill it, you need to provide some easily accessable alternatives for RP for new players. Because I fully believe that is the main attraction of the quest train.

It is a group activity that folk can easily join in on.

Which is why I think it would help if we added more activities on the server that were group oriented that weren't quest focused.

I totally agree. Brainstorming time?

The issue is both mechanical/dm/player, right we have narrowed the issue to be everything. Can we consider some solutions?

More importantly can we see some results of this seven page conversation?

The server seems to be set into certain factions of the following.

Its the DMs fault for being too hard, borderline abusive in some of the things they do.

Its the players fault for being too questy, ignorant of rp, and playing to win

Its the servers fault for being too brutal and hard, leading towards the first two issues.

I'd like to see something come out of this thread, as opposed to us running around in circles.
Can we consider a beneficial result that we can agree on?

Quote from: Zango_Unchained;420915The issue is both mechanical/dm/player, right we have narrowed the issue to be everything. Can we consider some solutions?

Music to my ears.

Quote from: Zango_Unchained;420915The issue is both mechanical/dm/player, right we have narrowed the issue to be everything. Can we consider some solutions?

More importantly can we see some results of this seven page conversation?

The server seems to be set into certain factions of the following.

Its the DMs fault for being too hard, borderline abusive in some of the things they do.

Its the players fault for being too questy, ignorant of rp, and playing to win

Its the servers fault for being too brutal and hard, leading towards the first two issues.

I'd like to see something come out of this thread, as opposed to us running around in circles.

Can we consider a beneficial result that we can agree on?

I have a few ideas, but first I need to know how and what is koscher in terms of player efforts here. What are the "don'ts" especially. They're different on literally every server.

I am locking this thread.

It has run its course, and it is beginning to descend to depths it perhaps shouldn't. The DM team will take on board the feedback within, and discuss solutions from our end.

I, however, must echo a lot of what has been said here, in that it is the players (you) that keep the server moving on. The DMs can do what we can, but you as players need to  continue to push your own varying agendas, continue to roleplay to an excellent degree, and continue to be creative in how to interact with the server/each other to really make the server shine.

Any specific suggestions can be PM'd to me and may be considered in the discussions.

Thank you for your honesty, and integrity throughout the discussion here.

The EFU DM Team