Messages

Gas explosion description references both d4 and d6 damage dice

Has a standard gold cost while item description implies favor cost.

[excellent]

Briefly put: the setting is excellent and the designers deserve SO MUCH CREDIT (you guys are really pros). The world reflects a decade's worth of experience with NWN and EFU's brand of roleplay from the DM team.

Having said that, I have almost completely bounced off the new setting. These days, I usually have 60-90 minutes at a time to play, maybe 2-3 times a week. I know the highest priority of EFU has always been engaging roleplay, but it'd be nice to create some accessible, simple, fun content for the rest of us who only have the time to play minor-league adventurers.

A few factors/examples:
* expensive sendings - make it harder to catch a quest group from Discord or even while ingame and not in a hub
* "bad luck" means characters are afraid to take novice adventurers into deeper rings (even to 95)
* lack of mid-level quests in Ring 99
* randomized quest locations means you have to scout them before you can take them

That's my feedback, but I do recognize that EFU is a "hardcore" environment and that compromising the vision for "casuals" might not be an option...

Skill bonuses seem to have applied after resting!

Will try the others.

   
• +1 non-magical AB VS Lawful.
• +2 Appraise and Search.
• Plunder: Enemies slain may yield a few gold pieces.
• Retrieve a flesh trophy from slain PC dwarves.

I'm not getting the skill bonuses to Appraise and Search. I'm not sure about the others.

The northwest merchant stall by the House of Trade seems to be bugged.

   
• I rented it
• Someone started viewing them and saw the correct items
• I finished putting my items in
• The next person to step up was viewing a completely different set of items

At the risk of beating a dead horse, even after Howlo has weighed in...

I can still see a few benefits here:

Although my working knowledge of EFU is a bit dated, there have always been a lot of PCs that tend not to get deeply involved in plots and conflict. Examples include: players without a lot of time to play, players with inconsistent playtimes, players trying out mini-concepts or fun builds that may not be viable for "serious" high-level player conflict. There are players just enjoy the atmosphere and difficulty of the game and server, and I believe EFU's stance was that kind of player was welcome too (even if the goal was to hook them into the "real" stuff eventually!) This kind of faction might create a deeper sense of welcome and belonging for those players - moreso than the typical "square RP" that they have typically fallen into.

I think it also might benefit new players - imagine if that, after running the intro quests, the first other character they run into invites them to join a guild, gives them a tour of a guildhall, helps them dye their rusty armor, invites them on a quest...

I understand and agree with the general sentiment that the ultimate goal is to get players involved in the server plots, whether or not they are in factions, but I think something like this - maybe even with an explicit OOC statement that its for primarily new and time-limited players - could be a boon to the server's player count.

All that being said, I know the DMs have a better sense of the way things work, and I respect their judgment!

I guess what I'm getting at is that you create the faction with the OOC expectation that "this is the off-hours or casual questing faction, an easy way to get people together. Make a relatively simple adventurer PC and join up."

[Problem:]

Problem:
There are periods when the player count is dipping pretty low, due in part to time zones.

Goal:
Make it easier for people to jump in, find other players, and do something.

Suggestion:
Create a non-app player faction with a relatively simple "adventuring" theme. In these low-player periods, people can simply log onto their "adventuring" character, head to the faction hall, ring the bell (or make a sending), and gather up a simple quest group.

Discussion:
The goal of EFU has always been deep characters, intrigue, and inter-player conflict, all of which aren't promoted by a single catch-all faction. However, low-player periods are creating a cycle of low player counts: you log in, you wander around a little, don't find anyone else, and then log off to play some other game. This would make it easier to find, at minimum, a simple group to go on a scripted quest. This keeps players in the game; other players see a higher player count in Discord or EFUSL, and they log in, creating a virtuous cycle. Once you have a "baseline" of players, other players can take up antagonistic goals.

Other ideas:

   
• Bonuses for adventuring in larger groups, making quest rewards scale exponentially with more players instead of linearly
• Reduced XP penalty for deaths in large groups on quests

Thanks to DM SantElmo!