What feature would you like implemented first?

[Zoberraz]

I went factions, mainly because quests - especially repeatable ones - are pretty much just ways to gain extra experience points and gold cheaply with less roleplaying. I'm reminded of the quest that the dwarves of Kaladim had for Crushbone belts in Everquest.

No. Please, no.

Factions, all the way. With the experience curve having the growth it currently has, there are two other way a character can grow barring experience gain: reputation through involvement and roleplay in the setting; and gold.

[Belwas]

I voted Factions... although they seem to be forming up on their own.

[Anthropic]

I think Factions will contribute to alot more 'in-depth' role-play than any of the other items on the list.

[treznorx]

factions, auto quests can't be as fun as rp

[Giant Moth]

I never liked automated quests, it's far better to leave them out at all and just let the DM's handle questgiving. A nice and elaborated crafting system would be great! Like the HCR one that existed in NWN.

[Eldran_Haart]

I voted crafting

Getting a player economy running will give more depth to Sundren as a world, because players will be able to create items most likely better than those found in shops.

[RynebowBright]

I voted questing. I admidt, I'm biased as I will be one of the ones creating the quests.

That said, I want to address some issues I see people have with quests in general:

Quests should be role play that just happens to be with an NPC and scripted. When I write conversations, I try to include many options for how to interact with the PC and cover all sorts of personality/alingment types.

Quests can also foster player with player interaction, if done properly. I will, of course, include quests that can be done solo and easy ones for low level PCs to help them built their way up. But, there will also be quests that cannot be done solo, and quests that don't involve any combat at all. One of the best ways to get a group of PCs talking is to send them out looking for help...

And I do not plan on having any quest I write done more then once per PC. There will be some redundency, there is no getting away from that. After all, how many times can the boy lose his chickens and need help finding them before it gets rediculus? But, I can minimize that by ensureing that the same PC can't do it over and over and over.

Last, quests are also a useful way to cater to classes/factions. The DMs can do that, too, of course. But, likely not to the degree and for as many people as scripted quests can. Even with all the DMs we have, can they really cater to every PC that every player has?

[Eldran_Haart]

And I do not plan on having any quest I write done more then once per PC.

That'd be the very best thing I agree
Repeating quests is just powergaming for whatever prizes the quests give, and it's very very unfitting in RP sense to keep doing the same quest for the same person

[Ithildur]

It'd be nice to have certain quests be only once per PC AND once per ingame x amount of time, say once per ingame day.

ie. Joe NPC's dog runs off and gets lost in the forest, has to be rescued, that's fine, but after the dog is found it should not immediately get lost again when the next PC comes along - if the dog gets lost again a day or two later, it's not as bad.

a most unimaginary example, but you get the idea... especially for more involved/difficult quests...

[Sathayorn]

It'd be nice to have certain quests be only once per PC AND once per ingame x amount of time, say once per ingame day.

ie. Joe NPC's dog runs off and gets lost in the forest, has to be rescued, that's fine, but after the dog is found it should not immediately get lost again when the next PC comes along - if the dog gets lost again a day or two later, it's not as bad.

a most unimaginary example, but you get the idea... especially for more involved/difficult quests...

Bah, its fine roleplay, the dogs running away because he abuses it!

[Tassafina]

Tough choices...I would like joinable factions but dont think my idea of factions is on the table. What I think would be neat was if you had racial factions or at least town factions. Then people would feel like they actually had a home and could work together to make it better. Somebody asked me ingame where I lived...I didnt really know how to respond. Of course a halfling home would be even better :P Really any but the arena is fine with me.

[Gurkak]

Joinable factions with DMs who run plots for them? A must.. fosters roleplay and interaction like you wouldn't believe(So long as everyone makes an effort).

[reemixx]

In order of preference:
Quests
Factions
Crafting
Arena

The whole time I was reading through these posts, I couldn't help but mentally disgree with what a lot of people were saying about quests. And then RynebowBright said exactly what I was hoping for Thank you! A bit of diversity and originality in the scripted quests, and it won't be a grindfest. It will add to the realism and the atmosphere of the world (there's so many NPC's around the place, but only so many times you can pretend to have conversations with them). And will actually promote roleplay, as RynebowBright said, making them go off to look for a group.

And what about the conversation type quests that will rely on your intimidate/diplomacy/bluff skills? Having to fake your way out of a situation, or scare someone into giving you a quest. If you're not very intimidating or a smooth talker, you'll need to get together with someone who is, before you can go collect the money off the guy who stole it, or whatever... And chances are, if you're good at talking to get things, you'll need to go find some people who are beefed up a bit to help you finish the quest. Everyone has a role to play. Quests won't be all grinding. I'm sure the DMs and the content providers wouldn't allow that to happen

Oh, and the other thing... I'm one of the few whose regular playing time is when there aren't many people on the server. It can get boring. Really. I love Sundren, but there ARE times when there's no-one around to roleplay with, or the people that are around just don't want to, or are busy. Having scripted quests will help during times when there's no DMs around or you find yourself on your own a lot. Even if you can't do the quests solo, just finding them in the first place would help alleviate some boredom.

Factions would be great also, and I would love to see them implemented soon. But they're secondary to quests in my opinion, simply because you can RP as though they do exist, in some ways. Granted, you can't actually join the city militia, but you can RP as though you're associated with them until the time when factions are implemented. There's ways around it, for now.

Sorry for the long post. Just offering my $1.20's worth.

[b00seven]

arguing for factions

I think that joinable factions are the best thing for an RP server, it gets the players involved with their environment. The guard, merchants guilds, mages guilds, thieves guilds, or local political actors imbed the characters within their environment and let give many opportunities for RP... Just my thoughts.