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I do not like ooc disclaimers. :( -- Consider any Mort[DM] text has a sign of unpredictability and possible hardship.

That's my disclaimer.

I think that's all you need. Some indication of what's going to happen when it falls outside the "box". NWN is an old game, people have the "box" of what to expect well defined and are thrown when its not.

Not to mention, people always have different expectations. As long as DMs are clear on what they intend through a "Hey guys, this quest may be PvP intensive and lead to permadeath" on those situations where it happens its much better.

That said, I'm a player who enjoys a fair challenge. Meaning, I don't expect to always win--but I don't expect a fight that I can not possibly win unless there's a warning upfront that that's a distinct possibility.

I can honestly say, most my worst experiences with DMs (anywhere) came from situations where I went into a situation expecting a challenge and instead just had my ass handed to me--and there had likely been no way around it no matter what I did. I stopped playing for a solid few months after two events in a row like that.

It'd just be great if every DM gave a clue about what they expect.

To be frank, marking people "Hardcore" or "Non-Hardcore" would be a wretched idea. I could easily see it splitting a small server base, making it extremely easy for the groups to label one another and breeding resentment that some DMs focus exclusively on their favored group.

I don't mean to imply that any DM did this out of spite, or maliciousness.

I think it has been done. That the DMs aren't aware of how pervasive the feeling is through the player base, not even I did until a few people thanked me for my thread (which is a far cry from the flaming I expected).

At base, I think DMs make mistakes. Players mistake DM intentions.

However, not once have I seen a real open effort to address the problems despite threads like this popping up fairly steadily since EfU:A started. I still play EfU, but I'm not wasting time e-mailing a complaint in where I don't think it'll be taken seriously by a DM-team (that well-intentioned and composed mostly of people I really enjoy interacting with) but that remains largely convinced that the problem only exists with certain players who "choose" to see a problem.
 
Even if the problems are just a matter of perception, problems are perceived and I'd like to think the DMs will actually recognize that even *that* is a problem that could use addressing.

I personally choose to log in and have fun with people I enjoy playing NWN with; including DMs and regular players. I plan to continue to do so. When things aren't fun, I plan to log out and do something that is. No big deal.

I'd almost post this anonymously, but figure its not worth the effort since its easy to look someone up--all the same, I doubt it'll be well recieved.

I think the idea of "DM spice" is mostly to try to whack people. The last three times I was involved in a DM event, the players just gave up--not because they don't like challenges, I know I do and I know the players involved thrive on challenges.

The "events" though looked mostly like throwing overwhelming mob after mob at the players until they gave up. No bonus for surviving, loot that honestly seemed mediocore--and this is what I'd stress most:

Absolutely no inkling that the DM cared to hear an ounce of feedback. I didn't make a fuss over it, but I'm hearing the concern around the server that some DM events are growing more and more disproportiantely difficult without real rewards. They feel more aimed at, and I say this with all the experience of a guy whose DM'ed a lot and seen a good deal, killing players than anything else.

When people duck out of DM events half-way through because of stuff like this, I expect there's something to look at.

Some players still won't mind, including myself, ultimately we keep playing despite what looks like heavy-handedness because we do trust the DMs mean well and perhaps had a bad day, or just aren't really paying attention to how far the line between a "challenge" and a "decimation" has been crossed. Its tough to see that.

I do know more than a few players are growing increasingly frustrated though that for the longest time, there was no DM attention.

Then when it arrived, it took the form of total decimations with at least a few deaths every time. On one quest, I died once--another PC died three times--and one PC actually just left the quest entirely. On another quest, between a party of five people, we had six deaths (two guys died twice) in ten minutes.

That's not challenging, and honestly not fun either. I like a challenge, I like to feel like I could survive it and come out rewarded for doing so. I give up now on spiced quests because the rewards aren't there, its just spice that some people are feeling is being used as a way to whiddle down potion stockpiles.

I'm bringing this up here because the DMs asked for feedback. I tried to talk to the DMs about these quests when they were run, and never got response--and I gave up on IRC since I don't get one their either.

Hopefully, this is just something to think about. Players, despite the whole you can't win NWN thing, do want to feel like they can 'win' and lately, I've felt like having a DM show up means I'm going to come out worse off than I started.

This isn't just PvM either, but to be frank, almost any experience involving a DM. I've been insulted before on these forums by the DMs for saying this (the DM who insulted me, never even bothered to talk to me about it despite efforts to contact him directly and through other DMs: its one of the reasons I think I've honestly been playing less and less--even more so than the lack of real plots and mysteries to work on solving), but I figure its worth reminding people that we all come here to have fun and I see players growing frustrated and we do talk.

When I see a chance to try to air this openly, I'll take it. I'm sure I'll get flamed, insulted, or mocked for saying it openly--but at least let it be said I'm not part of the group that *only* complains in backchannels and PMs through IRC.

Cruzel, seriously? Isn't this the third or fourth of LetsPlays' pointless posts that you made a pointless rejoinder against?

You must be totally in love with him to take so much time for his attention.

:P

We weren't on gamespy for the past two months (since the server update): meaning we were technically a private server. It's been fixed, but this was a major slow down.

Wow, that'll cause it.

Freedom of Movement does work, yes.

Down lately. Hopefully it will reverse with better DM activity.

I actually see *no* problem with immunity knockdown items for the record.

A good wizard should be prepared for someone who is immune to some of your spells.

A sorcerer is screwed though, and should be. Its part of the balance of that class.

You now get the update and can enter the area. Two new bugs were found though.

1) The object you're sent down to find isn't on the "glittering corpse" even though the description suggests it should be.

2) The sea weed spawned stuff when I tried the quest with one character. I tried it again with a second, and nothing spawned ever. Things spawned in the shells, but never the weeds.

Soo summons (rats, cats, slimes, etc) have diferent origin from zombies and skeletons, but if all they are used for a "good" purpose - save our skins - and return to their planes, isn't it a good action ?

And if they have a brief time in "real" plane, why or how the balance is disturbed ?

Every undead created or brought into the world is disrupting both a natural balance and a cosmic balance though. Druids typically work to help the undead pass on to the realms where they are suppose to go under the natural functioning of the cosmos.

Even the brief appearance of the undead may trouble many druids, but druids all have various beliefs. Some are less troubled by undead than by aberrations, some are more worried about over-hunting or under-hunting or lumbering or the spread of farms.

I'd think all druids are different, and the Realms has a lousy history of explaining how druids function. You get much better explanations from the Eberron source books.

In DnD.

Animals have souls.

Skeletons and zombies [as well as other physical undead] are animated by using their soul as a tether linking them to the negative energy plane (which is an evil act that causes terribly pain and suffering for the spirit).

Spiritual undead are souls actually stuck in the Material Plane or Ethereal Plane and unable to pass on to another. Typically, they require some aid to pass on, but some may be remaining willingly to serve some greater (good or evil) purpose.

On this understanding, druids who deal with dead spirits are often seeking to help them finish their purpose or attempting to force them to move on to the afterlife.

Through every version of DnD, all druids have fought corporeal undead-but their relationship to incorporeal spirits has been reinterpreted several times.

Ah, in 3.5 druids who dealt with spirits became Spirit Shamans, which is the sorcerous equivalent of a druid. Again, they only dealt with incorporeal spirits--which included undead.

Some evil druids are known to call on the undead ancestors bound in totems, typically like baelnorn, these undead are willingly remaining on the Prime to aid their ancestors. The kinds of druids that would engage in this are very rare I'd imagine and typically followers of some of the more unusual deities.

Granted, this was more true in 2nd edition Realms. By third it wasn't mentioned, and I don't know if its cropped up at all in 4th.

More gold isn't useful anyway, unless more items are available in shops.

Things seem pretty good all around though.

Just tried to do the quest, got a blank entry and couldn't go inside the building >_>

Sounds exactly like the bug I just reported! And Mort just said he'd look into!

It actually takes a few days, just fyi, to find and fix bugs and then the DMs have to update, reload, and reboot the server to get the fix in.