A bit of criticism

[uhwo]

I'm not that much into going straight to perma-death. I just want it to be harsh. It really does break immersion if your character has no reason to be afraid to die. I used to play in a server, where you'd drop 2-3 levels if you were lvl 8 and decided to respawn (raise got it down to around 1 level). Then again, there are only few people who ever made it to level 14 or so, and that's with DM helping them out. And someone asked, where would be the fun in playing a game with such harsh penalties? In the roleplaying! It's not about who gets to lvl 20 first.

I personally hope there's never any scripted quests. The idea of every single character that exists coming through and going on whatever identical rundown of tasks as the other hundreds of characters on the server is just a bad image to me. I'm conflicted, though, because at the same time I'd like to see some way of characters advancing outside of going around killing things or harassing DMs for quests and rewards, but that's just the game's layout I suppose!

And it's somehow better, that there have been millions of zombies everyone has killed and they just keep coming back all the time? Or same with anything else. I think scripted quests are a bit more reasonable way to do it. But that's just my opinion.

Last, don't get me wrong here. I think you've done a hell of a job in the server. There's very much work put into it and I love the areas. It's not all negative, just some points I found out.

I'm not all about whining you know

[uhwo]

As for quests, they are in development. Like most things on the server, we like to have our own system here, and the coder for it likes it to be perfect; and it is. There are, however, many player-based quests, especially at the mid-high levels (Druids asking people to help thin the recent population explosion of dire creatures, Paladins leading or sending people against the undead hordes or after information within the necropolis, thieves and rogues wanting information about a person or treasure). This is known as roleplay. While you stated you are a hardcore roleplayer, it seems your evaluation took into account all the things you could see at a glance, and no roleplay at all.

Don't judge a book by its cover, no matter how pretty or shallow it may seem.

I agree with you, it was just the first glance. I stated it pretty clearly on the first post. And I'm talking about scripted quests here. Of course, the roleplaying environment makes more "quests", that are based on characters interacting with eachother. But that doesn't justify the lack of other kinds of quests. But I understand that this is a beta-stage server, so no doubt there are still some missing things.

And about the roleplaying, the time I play, I find it hard to find any players to roleplay with. Maybe I'll try to play a bit more in the weekend now, as I have my last exam today.

Whinewhinewhine, sorry if you feel like I'm a complete ass by criticising the server on the first glance. Just making my point here about a little bit of this and that. I'm not here to start a flamewar.

Happy RPing!

[Ash]

Quests are an excellent means of expanding Sundren's lore, as well as enhancing the character of certain NPCs. They also provide an automated means of earning XP other than monster-stomping, and if done correctly give PCs a reason to form parties and objectives and goals that can inspire roleplay, all without a DM involved. They can be made non-repeatable, and/or instanced, so they seem more realistic (that's simplifying the quest model I have in mind but then I'm not the one creating the quest system). Finally they add another level of content and depth to the world.

Quests will not replace DM events.

[Skro]

I have to agree with the not perma death thing... A server with perma death tends to bring a certin.. mentalty to the game. There would be alot more power building around beacuse, as said, no one wants to perminately lose their character, and the only way to assure that is hopefuly have a build that can resist the many pitfalls of an adventures life.


PVP death... well I myself would rather see it reduced to 0 exp penelty, but alot more time In the afterlife, perhaps some sort of character agreed IC recongition of the events in mind. Having harsher penelties just discourages that part of the game, making really no IC sense. Ie: I have no problem with wadeing into piles of orks, facing the bloodist of creatures, and braving liches, but that peasent with a pitchfork is a PC who knows if hes really a secret weaponsmaster? Its just..well yeah.. when its reduced to anumber system there are to many abuses and to many ins and outs....


and on a final, bone chilling note... Can you imagin getting perma dead... beacuse the lag beast attacks?! Ohhhhh that would cause me no end to fustration

The permadeath in a persistant world I think is in some maner crappy if the DMs don't aid the character who loses loke giving the XP or 50% of the XP to another character or changing the concept of the death character (*coughs* Aribeth style *coughs*).

Also the death system not help to perma-death, let's see.
In sundren, your soul goes to the Forest of Eternal Night, so, If you die, in any manner, you may raise your body with your entire body present or with any past belonging. The only way to kill permanently a PC is lock his/her soul in a stone/place forever via high Will Save.

[TheFarsight]

On the subject of death... And the effects from dieing. 5% is more then enough from monsters. I have a lvl 13 and I am afraid of dieing. I can solo the entire Necropolis, which means I have the potential to just stay up in the second levels all day. Why don't I? For one that is grinding and is a different issue all together and for second. Some lucky criticals may be rolled on me, something might happen, I could die. And that exp loss at that lvl, makes me want to crawl in a corner and cry. There is fear of death, and I have seen many people be cautious because of it.. And have also seen some that are not. But, *shrugs* Every server has that.

Now with PvP as the DM's have said, and others, it is being hammered out. But when there was alot of PvP, when the Drow were PC's. There was a whole lot of epic complaining, even though there was no loss for dieing in pvp combat. There was still an uproar about it. So, Drow are gone. Now what would it have been like if you actually lost something in PvP during that time?

This is a role play server. RP your character, game wise there might not be HUGE loss from dieing, but.. I am sure your character still does not enjoy getting his head sliced off even if he is going to respawn.

[ThePaganKing]

Scripted Quests

I love Sundren the way it is, actually. I think the level progression makes you take care and develop your character and actually become a part of the world, instead of just making one, leveling to 20, then making another, then another........and the death penalty seems fine to me.

As to scripted quests, I think they have a place if you spread them out and place them carefully. An NWN1 server I was associated with had an Epic quest that ran through many areas of the server, areas that some players may never had visited before. You had to do a series of mini-quests to reach the ultimate battle with the "boss." In fact, there were three large, multi-hour quests that had many tricks, traps, and puzzles that you had to negotiate to succeed, so it wasn't all just hack and slash. You also had to form a party, because they were too difficult to solo.

I am in no way advocating scripted quests, I merely mention it as something that could be included; however, they can be abused, just like anything you place in the world.

I have to give Kudos to the developers of Sundren, the world is very, very well done!

[Saulus]

I would have loved to have scripted quests in months ago, unfortunately it seems some members of the staff wish to endlessly debate if it should be in a roleplay server (which I think they should be a small part of) and also the system was grosely overcomplicated by some requests.

These factors have left it on the cutting room floor for months and I am really at the mercy of GodBeastX with that particular system unless I decide to make one myself (which seems pointless when we have one 90% complete).

[uhwo]

On the subject of death... And the effects from dieing. 5% is more then enough from monsters. I have a lvl 13 and I am afraid of dieing. I can solo the entire Necropolis, which means I have the potential to just stay up in the second levels all day. Why don't I? For one that is grinding and is a different issue all together and for second. Some lucky criticals may be rolled on me, something might happen, I could die. And that exp loss at that lvl, makes me want to crawl in a corner and cry. There is fear of death, and I have seen many people be cautious because of it.. And have also seen some that are not. But, *shrugs* Every server has that.

You lose xp, but your character is just as powerful as before because you can't lose levels. You just need some more grinding to gain the xp back. In the nwn1 server I used to play, I got pkilled when I was around lvl 10, and dropped down to lvl 8 because I was lucky enough to get a raise from my companions. Tough luck, but I wasn't afraid of dying, because it's just a character. It's a TOOL for roleplaying, just as lvl 5 character would be. Even with permadeath, I could've just ended the career of the character.

One thing I really enjoyed in the server, was that there were legendary characters. Characters that have pushed the limits and went on and on, even when they are constantly under threat of being killed either by DM's, or players. If you just lost 5% xp and you'd still be lvl 16 or so, it wouldn't matter. Everybody could get as high as you've been because dying doesn't mean anything.

Now with PvP as the DM's have said, and others, it is being hammered out. But when there was alot of PvP, when the Drow were PC's. There was a whole lot of epic complaining, even though there was no loss for dieing in pvp combat. There was still an uproar about it. So, Drow are gone. Now what would it have been like if you actually lost something in PvP during that time?

First of all, PC drow should need especially good applications, and I doubt they would even be tolerated within the city walls (That's for the DM to decide though).
Without challenge ratings and with severe losses from PvP, I think the amount of PvP clashes would've been a lot less, that is the point you're missing. When people are afraid of getting their characters killed, they just don't get into brawls randomly against other characters. Therefore PvP needs very, very good IC reasoning for character to hate each other so much to get into fight for death against them. Just like in real life.

[Saulus]

The only major thing that might change in the future is possible item/gp loss on death, other than that it's going to stay. This isn't a hardcore server and I've already listened to enough feedback from my many attempts to make it more hardcore, people don't want it, so we're not going to make an effort to add it.

[Tassafina]

" Tough luck, but I wasn't afraid of dying, because it's just a character. It's a TOOL for roleplaying, just as lvl 5 character would be. Even with permadeath, I could've just ended the career of the character."

Well if anything you just provided the greatest argument against permadeath. You said it yourself...even with extremely harsh penalties for dying it still did not make you afraid. Peoples greatest agrument for it has always been to make players fear death. Its obvious no matter what penalities are in place you are not going to be afraid, so why bother?

Computers are just not advanced enough to make players fear death. When they get to be like in the book Kilobyte by Piers Anthony then maybe players will start to worry, but unfortuantly that is a long way off. For those poor people that havent read it, Kilobyte was a completely immersive VR game. When you died you get sent into a coffin and an electrical charge was sent through your body..the more often you died the longer you were in there and the higher voltage Now if you can come up with a game like this I would support stronger death penalties. But till then its just going to make people grind more and more till they get back to where they were or get frustrated and quit.

[TheFarsight]

Yeah. Sure people grind a bit to get exp they lost back from the 5% current loss... But if players started losing levels... Hells, thats going to be ALOT of grinding to get back up to the level they were. And when asked why they are farming/grinding areas, they will only have a new excuse of "I died and lost 2-3 levels, I need to get them back!"

This server might not ever have such a harsh loss from death, as Tassafina said, games just don't allow players to fear death. A person that lost levels, will just grind the same area again, if not the area below, and if they die again, they will grind some more, maybe die again.. and then what, they are down to lvl 3? Then they are just going to quit and which will lead Sundren to losing player base.

I would'nt go commenting on the Drow conflict, for one. You were not there. And I was simply using it as an example to the current QQing that already goes on in PvP when there is no loss. I was'nt arguing the Drow as a whole.

If you liked the death system so much at your old server... Why did you leave, to only try and change another server to your liking?

The programmers, mappers, DM's, the staff. Have done a great job in making Sundren, unique, and just awesome. And will continue to do so.

[pook]

I have also noticed on servers with harsh death, for any type of online game, players just end up killing the easiest mob than can still get xp for. Even if its 1 xp. Its simply not worth it to most to face any real challenge because death is too risky.

[wangxiuming]

The only major thing that might change in the future is possible item/gp loss on death, other than that it's going to stay. This isn't a hardcore server and I've already listened to enough feedback from my many attempts to make it more hardcore, people don't want it, so we're not going to make an effort to add it.

That is very reassuring. Thank you.

[Saulus]

In many ways NWN2's rulesets can be fairly simple and even "easy" at times. This is the challenge of designing such a game on a PC environment, difficult doesn't always mean fun.

When it comes to rest, death, respawning, bleeding, xp rates etc etc many people have many different opinions, and really what it comes down to is the style of the server and the preference of the playerbase (sometimes). I've been on servers (in NWN1) that in my opinion are just incredibly polished, in fact to such a degree that I want Sundren to eventually reach that level of interactivity. Many of these servers have few players, which is surprising in one way and yet not in another. Do you sacrifice players to meet your vision? After all a degree of the enjoyment in creating something is making what YOU want, not what someone else wants.

Since Sundren first started I've had to settle for systems with rules that I didn't originally intend, many which I found too easy, too simple...

I enjoy the complexity and difficulty as well as the rammifications of some of the more difficult customized rulesets. Sundren isn't mine alone now though, and many talented people have put their hand in it to make it what it is. Sometimes you have to compromise, and appease the fans of your work. Sundren is still fun and there are plenty of other things that are exactly how I invisioned or rather will be (See Port Avanthyr revamped, coming this summer), so it's all just part of the process.

Players will debate til the end of time about just about anything there can be a difference of opinion on because that's human nuture, everyone has a preference. When it comes right down to it, it's just a matter of what everyone likes to see and head in that direction rather than a strict conformity to any one specific set of rules.

[Lanthar]

I realy like the idea of death being a serious thing, id like to see scripts added for raise dead where clerics who use it more then reasonable (allmost never) get a army of things after themself for disturbing the cycle of life and death.

But then again. . . i've died so many times because of lagg and game bugs. . acualy, most times i've died I can blame that. .so its not worth it. . id probobly take out my nwn CD and snap it into peices if I lose alot of lvls or even getting perma dead because of something like lagg.