Goodbye to an Old Friend: A Wake for Campfire

[Peridan]

I just wanted to say, to all campfires out there...... We will miss your companion at the Exigo Trade Post. We can only pray that it goes to campfire-like heaven, and that it burns merrily for the rest of eternity.

I know, I know. We have all had our memorable moments with Campfire. Hearing it crackle and hiss for one was always one of my favorites. When it spawned unearthly demons of the Abyss, for another. Why, I think I have seen almost every kind of critter, demonic presence, angel, and anything in between cushioned in its soft flames.

We can drink and laugh, remembering our old times with Campfire. It will forever be be etched into our very souls the the fun and terror we shared around it. The friends we made, the enemies we spat upon, the lovers that cuddled in its soft light.

Never again can we polish our armor, sharpen our blades, and study our spells in the midst of good friends and company in its pillow-like embrace. Gods above, we shall have to toast every night to its memory.

So, I wish for you all to join me in bidding our long friend a kind farewell to whatever afterlife may await the never ending flame, and to offer a prayer to Kumbaya, God of Campfires.


Campfire.....you shall be missed. May your fire burn bright, and be full of marshmellow.

[vexxen]

*said in a dramatic tone* The camp fire shall be missed, why the very turning point of two of my characters happened there. Buying and selling items of interest! Like the Baccaran a certain per would sell... You shall be missed!

[ZubMessiah]

Amen. With the loss of our dearest campfire, we'l have to spend our time in wind and rain-warded houses, guarded with men who'll instantly recognize a threat and won't be so happy when someone casts wail of the banshee on you.

It will just not be the same.

So Kumbaya, if you hear this... Campfire was our friend, our lighthouse among trade stalls and our noble and true source of cooking goblin meat.
Give Campfire a noble life in Camphalla!

[prismaticcrow]

I bid farewell to a dear friend that got me through the tough times and embraced me when I was cold and lonely (which is near-constant).

--

On a serious note, I have to say I'm not entirely sure why removal of the campfire was especially necessary. I understand completely that it is "The Place" that everyone and their mother goes to, and as such, a lot of places on the server go unnoticed. I also understand that from a DM's perspective, the Exigo camp is a dreadfully difficult place to start events (or so I have been told). But there is safety and security in such a thing.

I was always confident that I could go to the campfire and find somebody to talk to, no matter what time of day it was. To me, this change feels forced. I am of a mind to let players play and RP wherever they damn well want to. Instead it feels like the campfire was removed to force players to spread out, which consequently means it can become more difficult to find people to talk to on a consistent basis.

I understand the idea is get people to RP in taverns, but again, it feels forced. The campfire was also a very centralized location, that everybody knew about, and you could be confident in the fact that if you went there, you would always find somebody to talk to or interact with. I also fail to see how this will stop people from, say, RPing at the tent, or inside the Trading House, which goes back to the problem of the site being on Exigo grounds.

I can dig the change. The campfire is certainly not central to my characters in anyway(beyond nostalgia). Time to move on and find other hotspots to hang out I suppose, though I wonder if that will simply create the very same problem all over again. I suppose we shall see.

---

So goodbye old friend! May Kumbiya keep you in his warm embrace, and may your marshmellows forever be toasty.

[ParadoxicalAnonymity]

I don't think this topic was intended for soapboxing.

On that note, I'd like to lift a beer in honor of the campfire passing. And then we can all lock elbows and bull rush other groups in a facade of manly drinking past times.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, don't worry about.

[Peridan]

Red Rover?

[Phantom Lamb]

Exigo is a merchant company. They finally decided that having heavily-armed adventurers loitering around and not buying anything wasn't great for business.

Try a bar, if you want to stay warm and dry

[gbbishop]

good riddance. not sad one bit to see that hole filled in.

[grant]

No, I do not understand the difficulties involved having only DM'd on PnP so purely from my point of view...

I will miss it too, I crash a lot on transitions so limit them when I can. The camp fire was one transition away from almost every other place. Now for RP my Character has to spend more time in the city areas. Realisticly no one walks from one city to a place as far away as Aquor, Sundren or Sestra to spend a few hours talking in a tavern and then walk home, at night, with vampires and other creepies about it makes no sense. But then... most of the time we ignore what time it is anyway, unless Clive is logged in.

No farmers will run to Sundren Comfort for help, or even the Four Lanterns, thats just odd. The legionnaires on post would intercept them.

Instead of groups of friends and strangers collecting to chat and spread rumours and facts we will have parties who all met in a bar...

As I said to others, it feels like Main St. small town was just bulldozed... or in more modern terms, the food court in the only mall in town, situated between a High school and Seniors housing, just closed its food court and stuck in another department store.

Now, who do I see about a refund on my Exigo licence?

-Edit: Reading it all at once, it feels harsher than I mean it to feel. So, for that I am sorry, I do understand you felt a change was needed.

[Phantom Lamb]

Small potatoes here folks. We made the change for a variety of reasons. Sorry!

[The Fantasian]

I have to say I completely understand the need for it to go. If groups of people were going to meet and chat and so forth the more logical place would be the Crossroads.

Running a number of different games I could see how it would be difficult for the GM's to 'start' things there with the number of soldiers and slicers in close proximity. That being said I hope that Exigo goes ahead and builds a permanent structure in it's place.

[GodBeastX]

Normally I'd make a giant statement of why it was a good idea to rid of the Campfire, but in truth, the removal of the campfire came down to this:

Taken from source control logs.

Removed exigo campfire *Runs for cover*

^ And that's about all the discussion that was had about it. (I'm exagerrating the discussion though. We had a DM discussion on the subject and I think the action jumped the gun a bit on what was decided).

I will give my opinion though.

My opinion? Campfires have a place. They are a very important aspect to an RPG Online World in that it helps people who are looking for people find people. While people go "But GBX, that's metagaming" when I remind them of the purpose of gather points, they should realize part of Online RPGing is in fact metagaming. However, there's a difference between positive metagaming and negative metagaming. It's why we have a search tool to begin with. It helps bring people together because that's when roleplay happens. That's why it's kind of disappointing to me so many players try to hide themselves so readily.

Campfires are a wonderful place to bring faces of people together so they can interact and play off each other. They help new players to work themselves in with veterans of servers. They are a great meeting point for journeys elsewhere.

However...

Campfires themselves tend to be in open and neutral lands for the best effectivity. One mistake of a server I played on for a long time was their "Campfire" (which was actually tables outside of an inn) was sat dead smack in the middle of a city. The city has it's own agenda. The city causes the spirit of the campfire to be lost because the campfire itself becomes biased.

A better place for a "Campfire" would be some location out along a road that might be some tavern or small post. Then the idea is anyone is welcome to attend.

A campfire can also be a place where DMs can pair off groups and lead them off on events or situations away from said campfire by various means a DM can cook up.

Exigo fails on those two fronts. It isn't welcome to all due to heavy policing and DMs can't lead people away without A) USing a lawful individual that abides the rules of said campfire, or B) Causes enough drama so that the day to day life of said lawful place can continue.

So while Exigo's campfire may be gone, that does not mean another much more natural "campfire" location can't take it's place.

Edit: I Couldn't understand my own sentences, so I cleaned them up a tad.

[grant]

I have no objection to the xcross roads being upgraded a little, maybe sit-able logs and rocks for make shift benches etc. If it becomes popular the moving of the Banite teleport anchor to a less frequented place would be needed (or if not already just "down the road" and have them spawn at the regular spawn point). If it were also made a world map point of its own, that would also be ideal. If I do not need to visit Exigo, I do not really want to have to walk through it. Perhaps as suggested to the Exigo by another player, the building of the "Crossroads Inn & Tavern" as opposed to the Exigo Inn and Alehouse.

Increase the speed of the rabbits in the farmers quest and provide entertainment to the watchers as new PC's chase after them.

[Peridan]

All right, look guys. I meant for this thread to be a semi-amusing attempt at reminiscing about the Exigo campfire, which has seen a lot of action in its day. I personally have seen some seriously epic role playing (and some not so epic care-bearing) around it since I have been playing on the server, and it has been a constant source of weary amusement and contention between the staff and the players (and of course amongst the player populace itself).

But if we truly, absolutely, have to start arguing about the positives and negatives of its removal, I would say that I have two main reactions.

First, relief. I have walked in on the campfire to some disgustingly bad care-bearing. I mean, dreadful to the extreme. Banites, vampires, and gods know what other evil characters sat and chatted with paladins and 'good' PC's for hours on end without a thought as to wondering why that man has a symbol of Bane on his arm, or wondering how that fellow managed to sharpen the horns on his head or keep his tail out of his trousers. For that matter, why in the world the Exigo guards do not have slicers, golems, and whatever other powers at their disposal patrolling the campfire 24/7. It's a little sad, but numerous PC's have taken advantage of the lack of DM presence to do all kinds of things that realistically, the guards would never stand for. And by the same token DM's have used that place to stage some amusing, but also incredibly ridiculous events there that would have rated somewhat high on Exigo HQ's priority list with everything from hell hounds to drow appearing around the camp for so long. In short, the campfire was too central a location that allowed too much freedom despite its RP setting.

Second, a little sadness. While said reasons were of course a little extreme, I have seen some amazingly profound and conflicting conversations take place under the cart's awning, or sitting on the benches that so conveniently reappeared after a Balor smashed them in a fit of hell bound rage after a reset. The campfire was of course a meeting point for people to RP, but it also allowed an easy way to meet one another and speak about gossip and happenings in the Realms. The accessibility combined with the outdoors relaxed feel of a fire I think brought many people together to take a break from adventuring and dungeon crawling. You can argue that RP should be taking place within the dungeons and other adventures, but it can easily be responded to by pointing out that there isn't much time to type to one another while fighting ogres. There is only so many things that can run through your head while trudging around a dank cave in search of a ogre head.

Of course, a tavern would have worked as well to discuss higher intellectual pursuits as well as seeking conflicts with others in heated debate. But for some reason, people choose not to go there to speak with others. I cannot explain it, it is only an extra transition that has almost all the same benefits as a campfire like the one Exigo provided, it simply was. I suppose you can point out the same lawful feel is present in any of the taverns, or that some of them are too far out of people's way to go to, but in the end I truly cannot guess as to the subconscious thoughts of players and their need to socialize.

In the end, I can only recommend another meeting point that has a shop with a resting point and is very easily accessible. The Aquor square looks like it has potential, kudos on the nice job rebuilding the place. But the original intent, however not-so-humorous, was to bid farewell to a place that holds quite a bit of history. At least, in my mind.

[GodBeastX]

I Got the joke PEridan I was just pointing out where it went and giving people a little explanation of why.

There's more to come on this front and discussions revolving around how we want to guide players to hang outs.