Motivation Killers
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Zaviron, I'm still fixing damage done by a former DM who never should have been a DM here. I'm not going to point out who it was, but many "bugs" we're still fixing with quests aren't actually bugs. They were purposeful efforts by a DM to disrupt people's ability to quest and level on the server that were built into systems in a deliberately dishonest and vindictive manner directed at some of the very core values of our community. Its taken me hundreds of hours to undo most the damage.
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I see that is frustrating. But still isn't there a way to say that only certain dms may touch the scripts? That way some dms won't have to mess with it and they got more time to be ig furthering plots etc.
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I've made some comments on some of these issues before.
Some people mentioned my posts were too long, and didn't read them, so I won't repost them here
(but here is one comment i spent a lot of time editting: viewtopic.php?t=169304&p=966987 )The summary of positive suggestions for the server was essentially:
communication
relationships
focus
persistence/(continuity)One suggestion I'd made with a long background history in real life situations that I will summarize is distributed lower level responsibilities and workload; that is to say, you do not have to have only, either, 'dm' or 'player' levels, but you can have levels in between. The whole idea of factions and dm factions once did some of this, but players can take on roles above and beyond, or even separate, from the roles of their primary characters.
dm time and energy is a 'bottleneck' in the server; to improve 'flow' of 'time and energy', new pathways need to be opened, to deliver those things.
What takes the most work, is the easiest and requires the least skill, that drains the most time from dm's who could be doing other things? One example given in the past, was players working within the toolset, to give item suggestions to dm's, with the basic work already having been done, and just needing review, etc.
those are my suggestions.
i think the negativity is important; to face it head on, and not silence people.
But I think it is also important, after times of conflict, to have a 'healing'/reconciling.The better way may be to frame things in the most positive light possible, but sometimes it is better that things get said, than problems go on ignored or unmentiond because people are afraid of hurting feelings or seeming like the bad guy, or being punished.
I think the server is a good thing, there is a good crew here overall; but I think we can make it better, for more people, by observing the state of things honestly, and being intentional about what we want to create, and how we want to create it.
imo.
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I see that is frustrating. But still isn't there a way to say that only certain dms may touch the scripts? That way some dms won't have to mess with it and they got more time to be ig furthering plots etc.
No.
it is quite literally all or nothing. which is why we have to trust the hell and back out of a player to not utterly destroy the server if DMed.
I've also worked on serious problems (not all of them server tech wise) from former bad DMs. it has happened, and really, moloch is 100% correct on his 1 bad vs 10 inactive.
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as for the wheat king DMless elements this is how I saw it, no, I didnt straight up tell people it could be solved DMless. There is this issue with people just questing, and not really going out to explore, so I felt we should leave some things that can really, really reward the crap out of you for gathering some people and searching the world for secrets, adventuring in the areas available, and not relying on a DM to be around to leave the spire except for a quest you know you can complete with 0 casualties.
I try and do this as much as possible. And I do say, often, in IRC, forums (like now) or in game, that things are out there. But if I straight up tell people that X plot can be completed DMless, then all that will happen is, for the next ten hours, people will scour the server, not roleplaying at all, and just try and find the answer (normally we try to design this behaviour out of DMless plots, but it can only be done to some extent) so no, we probably wont straight up tell you that X plot can be completed in a certain way. Just realise that we add things in all the time, sometimes we put them in quests (and we OFTEN add in clues about DMless elements of the server to quest loot tables) but mostly, it wont be on that quest you ran 7 times this week, it's probly in one of the exploration areas.
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as for the wheat king DMless elements this is how I saw it, no, I didnt straight up tell people it could be solved DMless. There is this issue with people just questing, and not really going out to explore, so I felt we should leave some things that can really, really reward the crap out of you for gathering some people and searching the world for secrets, adventuring in the areas available, and not relying on a DM to be around to leave the spire except for a quest you know you can complete with 0 casualties.
I try and do this as much as possible. And I do say, often, in IRC, forums (like now) or in game, that things are out there. But if I straight up tell people that X plot can be completed DMless, then all that will happen is, for the next ten hours, people will scour the server, not roleplaying at all, and just try and find the answer (normally we try to design this behaviour out of DMless plots, but it can only be done to some extent) so no, we probably wont straight up tell you that X plot can be completed in a certain way. Just realise that we add things in all the time, sometimes we put them in quests (and we OFTEN add in clues about DMless elements of the server to quest loot tables) but mostly, it wont be on that quest you ran 7 times this week, it's probly in one of the exploration areas.
This is what I'm talking about… Propagating the US vs THEM mentality. The DM's acting like the mysterious overlords and the players are just inferior children who need to be tended to like they are always going to do the wrong thing. I've had DMless plots as my main focus before on characters and it created tons of fun, exploration and role play. Always assuming the worst in players and using us for your little experiments and tests is only going to create more negativity. You want to have a sever that doesn't have as much negativity? Start acting like human beings instead of thinking you are some kind of benevolent gods ruling over us! You were all players before and somewhere along the way forgot what it is like to be one of us and started acting like we were lesser beings.
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@latoksinned:
as for the wheat king DMless elements this is how I saw it, no, I didnt straight up tell people it could be solved DMless. There is this issue with people just questing, and not really going out to explore, so I felt we should leave some things that can really, really reward the crap out of you for gathering some people and searching the world for secrets, adventuring in the areas available, and not relying on a DM to be around to leave the spire except for a quest you know you can complete with 0 casualties.
I try and do this as much as possible. And I do say, often, in IRC, forums (like now) or in game, that things are out there. But if I straight up tell people that X plot can be completed DMless, then all that will happen is, for the next ten hours, people will scour the server, not roleplaying at all, and just try and find the answer (normally we try to design this behaviour out of DMless plots, but it can only be done to some extent) so no, we probably wont straight up tell you that X plot can be completed in a certain way. Just realise that we add things in all the time, sometimes we put them in quests (and we OFTEN add in clues about DMless elements of the server to quest loot tables) but mostly, it wont be on that quest you ran 7 times this week, it's probly in one of the exploration areas.
This is what I'm talking about… Propagating the US vs THEM mentality. The DM's acting like the mysterious overlords and the players are just inferior children who need to be tended to like they are always going to do the wrong thing. I've had DMless plots as my main focus before on characters and it created tons of fun, exploration and role play. Always assuming the worst in players and using us for your little experiments and tests is only going to create more negativity. You want to have a sever that doesn't have as much negativity? Start acting like human beings instead of thinking you are some kind of benevolent gods ruling over us! You were all players before and somewhere along the way forgot what it is like to be one of us and started acting like we were lesser beings.
Paranoid much?
I'm spending almost all my ingame time as a player, most the stuff I'm fixing is designed to make it more fun to be in game as a player. Your mentality swings both ways and its pretty clear here we have a pot calling a kettle black!
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As mentionned above, the solution to this is to incentivize Story. I fully agree that a well-done pamphlet on the forum should be worth more XP than a Sahuguan run. The former takes, in fact, more effort and contributes positively to the narration/conflict.
Taken from EFU thread about similar problems I think this idea has something worth considering for us as well. The question would be how it would look?
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I don't see anything positive coming from the continuation of this thread.
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I'm getting tons of answers from why the dms do as they do right now so I wouldn't say that dobby.
What I just haven't got a clear answer of yet is why the dms don't change their structure. We all know the more active dms the more active players there'll be. Right now it's a farcry from what it could be.
So hopefully this will be the last question from me in this topic:
What solutions are the dm-team considering to handle the declining player-base and why do they choose these options? -
Maybe, adding on Zav's idea of certain DM's only touching scripts… Maybe designate specific tasks for certain DM's. It could help to bring in DM's specifically to help run plots, like puffy does with her Book a Puffy.
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Maybe, adding on Zav's idea of certain DM's only touching scripts… Maybe designate specific tasks for certain DM's. It could help to bring in DM's specifically to help run plots, like puffy does with her Book a Puffy.
…doesn't work.
I know sometimes it seems the DMs are moving slow, or not listening, but also keep in mind---I have over 20 years of experience in running games and 15 years experience in NWN specifically. A DM who is brought on for specific tasks like that is a DM who gets burned out rapidly, loses creativity, and leaves.
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Hate to sound like a jerk but… That's what happened to most the DM's who have joined up since v3. Maybe it's just the people who are getting bumped up. I've DMed and helped run servers in the past. We actually had players who DMed events for others to free up some of our time and it worked out great... but you're the boss I guess.
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So hopefully this will be the last question from me in this topic:
What solutions are the dm-team considering to handle the declining player-base and why do they choose these options? -
Various things we came up with and have been trying to work on.
1). Solo quest for characters up to level 7, its our average level. You should be able to reach this level even if you're in a time zone where everyone else is level 50 and only three of them are every logged in. The Fivestar Delivery was designed for this, but where is that quest now?
a). A 6-10 solo quest has been put in recently.2). Thematic areas should have reasons for return visits. Resources that can be found (like 'rare mud'), unique encounters that yield crafting rewards for the mid-to-high crafting materials, better than normal XP rewards (110%–better than most quests but less guarantee that you'll fight something appropriate to your level for a trade off since you could fight a Lame Goblin one battle and the next is three Cormyrian Mountain Bears).
a). Done this for the Redwood areas, Helmlands, Starwater Gorge, but still many areas to go through. Underdark and Arabel Ruins both need a serious rebuilding.3). Loot rewards, areas should have loot chests that yield low-to-mid level consumable items. Parts of the Haunted Halls could have Bloodstones, Twisted Maze bottle fey, Stormhorn Mountains magical ice crystals, Helmlands magical shards that cast spells, etc etc. So even if no one else is online, I can go there to find some loots. [[We may need a script on our chests to reset them after an hour or two though!]]
a). Done this for several areas, but still, more to go.4). DMless events. I like to log in and hide gold chests around the module, drop a few monsters by the chest, announce the Church of Tyche has hidden it in area X or Y even if I have to log out in ten minutes. Just to give people something to do. Could we automate this kind of mini-event?
5). Scripted means to reward a PC event? No idea how to do this, but if someone runs an arena fight or takes people to the Eye of the Primordial to pee off the cliffs onto the ruins of Eveningstar (whatever) we should have some way to reward that even if a DM isn't on.
6). Build create and set up random dungeons to reward more exploration.
7). Find a new DM.
a). Hopefully next week.The basic idea is to empower players to do more even when DMs aren't present to run quests and events–the goal is to find reasons for people to stay logged in and playing.
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Thank you very much for that peek around the curtain. Those are splendid ideas and I can see it definitely making it a lot easier to focus more on the role play rather then the mechanics and necessity to quest 24/7.
As for number 5. I never got a reply when I asked Zool on IRC. Is it possible/Feasible to script a mailing system? I know another server had Messenger birds that you could send items to players online, but is it possible to be able to send stuff to players offline? If so, then DM's could send PC's rewards from NPC's. Example. Taryn leads a group of adventurers to praise Talos through (Insert fun event here). The priest of Talos, impressed with her initiative, sends her a special reward for it. I understand this isn't gonna help with rewarding a full group but it would be nice for people who do mostly just run PC explorations and stuff. It also gives players more of an incentive to communicate everything they do.
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As for number 5. I never got a reply when I asked Zool on IRC. Is it possible/Feasible to script a mailing system? I know another server had Messenger birds that you could send items to players online, but is it possible to be able to send stuff to players offline? If so, then DM's could send PC's rewards from NPC's. Example. Taryn leads a group of adventurers to praise Talos through (Insert fun event here). The priest of Talos, impressed with her initiative, sends her a special reward for it. I understand this isn't gonna help with rewarding a full group but it would be nice for people who do mostly just run PC explorations and stuff. It also gives players more of an incentive to communicate everything they do.
Really like this. Alot
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We can just login to hand off rewards, that is no big deal. Just stick your event in player plots and let us know what you did.
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I'd be interested to see player responses that that question too, Drip/Zav.
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I saw a really nifty script on NWNvault awhile back ago which essentially gave monster NPCs a life of their own and would have them build lairs out in the world. If left un checked they would expand and create more lairs. Something like this would incentivize adventuring and make the world feel more alive.