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To this day, the server I came from on NWN1 -- the first place I ever RPed -- maintains a player count in the 50's to 70's depending on the time of day. It's been this popular for many years now, and there are a few key features that I believe have contributed to this, which I'm recommending for Sundren.
1) The first and most important thing in my opinion, is that the server took measures to make all communication able to happen IG, requiring absolutely no forum RP. Players with carpentry skills could craft message boards, and players with artistry skills could craft paper, and with both, a message board and easily accessible supply of paper meant that players could leave messages for one another to make appointments, plan affairs, post slanderous threats... whatever. Normally, people would commission message boards to be made for their faction house for communication, to put outside cities and list bounties or exiles, to advertise their services, etc.
The paper alone was a good feature, as you could actually write letters, contracts, paperwork, and other things conductive of RP. You'd "use" the paper, type a message in the public channel, and it would copy your text onto the paper when you clicked "done". This paper could offer an actual practical use for forgery as a skill, able to sign someone else's name, or something.
More than this, a messenger service was implemented, whereby a player could head on over to the messengers, pay some coin, and have a one-way message delivered to a recipient of their choice. The messages were rather similar to the "Sending" spell Sundren has, though mundane, with a cost, and able to be used by anyone - not just casters. These were useful for alerting people of important affairs on short notice, requesting an audience, or just passing along information. There was also a town crier service, whereby a crier at a populated place could be paid a small fee to repeat a message for a few hours whenever someone walked by.
2) Along with message boards, craftable placeables. Yes, I know NWN2 isn't like NWN1, in that the outdoor terrain isn't flat which screws up how things sit on it, so restrict craftable pleables to the indoors, where most of the placeables are more useful anyways. Alters, pillars, chairs, tables - the list is endless. This gives a functional use for a lot of the crafting skills, outside of combat-related creations. It allows decoration or re-purposing of an area, offers a new thing to do with the endless amounts of money people have on Sundren, and gives another use to what I hear to be underused crafting skills.
3) Suggestion 2 is only marginally useful without the implementation of something I understand to be controversial: player housing, which is my third suggestion. No, I'm not suggesting custom housing - just properties that are premade, simple, and available for purchase. There's an initial cost and then a weekly tax, the tax depending on the area. The types, quality, and cost of housing would distinguish the cities from one another, and give people a reason to love or hate governments and complain or approve of their policies. Sestra might have more farming property than Aquor, which has more merchant property - and Aquor's taxes are higher, giving the areas different feels. "Player Housing" can mean a farm, a little chapel, a living quarter, a social club, or any other thematic building. These properties can be as plentiful or limited as the server can handle, and having them limited isn't bad at all - it makes it competitive. If I want farmland and some douche owns the only available plot of land, there becomes IG conflict. These interiors can be decorated by players who purchase services of crafters who can make furniture and the like.
This opens up a lot of RP. From the day I joined Sundren, even to now, half the evil shit happens in the crossroads barn. Why? Because nobody has anywhere else to drag or lure their victims. If a murderer owned a house, that could be his crime scene. If a drug-dealer needed a place to do business privately, it could be in his own lab or on his own farm. If a cult wanted to worship secretively, it could happen in their own dwelling they fashioned out of a tiny shack for sale near Sestra. The owner of a building can give out as many keys as he wants to his house, and loses the house if he doesn't visit it in a RL week to a month, to keep things circulating. As an optional addition, properties may only be purchased by citizens of a city (requiring registration and maybe a fee) which further distinguishes one city from the other.
4) Have cities and/or factions require resources. Ore, woods, foods... raw materials that can be salvaged with the appropriate skills, such as mining and lumberjacking or whateverthefuck Sundren has that I'm not remembering. This makes people with those skills valuable, and it makes those resources a source of competition. This would require the resources becoming somewhat more plentiful than they are, in order to meet the increased amount of uses and demand there'd be. When a city or faction doesn't get enough resources, maybe it has to raise taxes on the property owners, raise cost on goods in stores, lose access to certain goods (which will hurt faction stores). When a city has a surplus, all those consequences are reversed to benefits. Cities and factions get these resources through citizens or members gathering them and putting them in a community chest or something.
- - -
Now I know this may all be intensive to script or code, but that's a reason for this to take a while - not for it to not happen. That is, if these ideas are accepted as beneficial in the first place, though I think they are. I can give more details and specifics if requested, such as a greater list of craftable placeables for each skill, a list of raw resources to gather, types of properties and their functions and possible locations, whatever.
1) The first and most important thing in my opinion, is that the server took measures to make all communication able to happen IG, requiring absolutely no forum RP. Players with carpentry skills could craft message boards, and players with artistry skills could craft paper, and with both, a message board and easily accessible supply of paper meant that players could leave messages for one another to make appointments, plan affairs, post slanderous threats... whatever. Normally, people would commission message boards to be made for their faction house for communication, to put outside cities and list bounties or exiles, to advertise their services, etc.
The paper alone was a good feature, as you could actually write letters, contracts, paperwork, and other things conductive of RP. You'd "use" the paper, type a message in the public channel, and it would copy your text onto the paper when you clicked "done". This paper could offer an actual practical use for forgery as a skill, able to sign someone else's name, or something.
More than this, a messenger service was implemented, whereby a player could head on over to the messengers, pay some coin, and have a one-way message delivered to a recipient of their choice. The messages were rather similar to the "Sending" spell Sundren has, though mundane, with a cost, and able to be used by anyone - not just casters. These were useful for alerting people of important affairs on short notice, requesting an audience, or just passing along information. There was also a town crier service, whereby a crier at a populated place could be paid a small fee to repeat a message for a few hours whenever someone walked by.
2) Along with message boards, craftable placeables. Yes, I know NWN2 isn't like NWN1, in that the outdoor terrain isn't flat which screws up how things sit on it, so restrict craftable pleables to the indoors, where most of the placeables are more useful anyways. Alters, pillars, chairs, tables - the list is endless. This gives a functional use for a lot of the crafting skills, outside of combat-related creations. It allows decoration or re-purposing of an area, offers a new thing to do with the endless amounts of money people have on Sundren, and gives another use to what I hear to be underused crafting skills.
3) Suggestion 2 is only marginally useful without the implementation of something I understand to be controversial: player housing, which is my third suggestion. No, I'm not suggesting custom housing - just properties that are premade, simple, and available for purchase. There's an initial cost and then a weekly tax, the tax depending on the area. The types, quality, and cost of housing would distinguish the cities from one another, and give people a reason to love or hate governments and complain or approve of their policies. Sestra might have more farming property than Aquor, which has more merchant property - and Aquor's taxes are higher, giving the areas different feels. "Player Housing" can mean a farm, a little chapel, a living quarter, a social club, or any other thematic building. These properties can be as plentiful or limited as the server can handle, and having them limited isn't bad at all - it makes it competitive. If I want farmland and some douche owns the only available plot of land, there becomes IG conflict. These interiors can be decorated by players who purchase services of crafters who can make furniture and the like.
This opens up a lot of RP. From the day I joined Sundren, even to now, half the evil shit happens in the crossroads barn. Why? Because nobody has anywhere else to drag or lure their victims. If a murderer owned a house, that could be his crime scene. If a drug-dealer needed a place to do business privately, it could be in his own lab or on his own farm. If a cult wanted to worship secretively, it could happen in their own dwelling they fashioned out of a tiny shack for sale near Sestra. The owner of a building can give out as many keys as he wants to his house, and loses the house if he doesn't visit it in a RL week to a month, to keep things circulating. As an optional addition, properties may only be purchased by citizens of a city (requiring registration and maybe a fee) which further distinguishes one city from the other.
4) Have cities and/or factions require resources. Ore, woods, foods... raw materials that can be salvaged with the appropriate skills, such as mining and lumberjacking or whateverthefuck Sundren has that I'm not remembering. This makes people with those skills valuable, and it makes those resources a source of competition. This would require the resources becoming somewhat more plentiful than they are, in order to meet the increased amount of uses and demand there'd be. When a city or faction doesn't get enough resources, maybe it has to raise taxes on the property owners, raise cost on goods in stores, lose access to certain goods (which will hurt faction stores). When a city has a surplus, all those consequences are reversed to benefits. Cities and factions get these resources through citizens or members gathering them and putting them in a community chest or something.
- - -
Now I know this may all be intensive to script or code, but that's a reason for this to take a while - not for it to not happen. That is, if these ideas are accepted as beneficial in the first place, though I think they are. I can give more details and specifics if requested, such as a greater list of craftable placeables for each skill, a list of raw resources to gather, types of properties and their functions and possible locations, whatever.
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