Low player counts
-
Hey All,
What are your best ideas for things to do with very low player count times? I often log in by myself or with one or two other people. Sometimes there may be a few people on who I can never find, because they are questing together etc.
Have you found that certain mechanical builds help when you can expect to be by yourself or with one or maybe two other players? Have you found ways to push stories etc without many people around?
Have you found good ways to interact with the other players not in your TZ?
I'm after some tips!
-
Rangers, rogues, or anything else that sneaks or can go invisible for an extended period of time helps explore, I just explore to kill time.
-
Hey Leyoz,
What are your best ideas for things to do with very low player count times? I often log in by myself or with one or two other people. Sometimes there may be a few people on who I can never find, because they are questing together etc.
Still playing a dwarf?
I am back IG with Druid
Have you found that certain mechanical builds help when you can expect to be by yourself or with one or maybe two other players? Have you found ways to push stories etc without many people around?
Some forum work and plot tickets seems to work. Event planning with the DM team helps.
Have you found good ways to interact with the other players not in your TZ?
Lets come up with a goal we can work towards. We can talk IG or on IRC if you want.
RD
-
I would say Exploration or crafting if that is your thing; rangers, druids, and clerics are the types of classes you want for this. Something independent. Keep lots of invis and expeditious retreat on you at all times and be ready to use them.
-
Shoot a tell to the other people and see if you can team up.
Don't log off - Instead, swap into a windowed mode or take out a book and start reading, and wait for more people to log in, then catch them and start doing stuff with them. Logging off creates a loop where everyone logs in to find the server empty and then logs off.
Explore - But that's dangerous to do alone, so take care. Maybe explore the less dangerous areas, Old Town and Citadel, see if there are new merchants, what they sell, etc. If you have a crafting profession (and frankly, everyone should have one), try to find out where you can find that ingredient you've been looking for.
Log in with an alt, and burn time by doing low level quests. Switch back to main when people start logging in. I've got an alt that is constantly at lvl 2-4 just so that I can quest when there's nobody else/just a few low level people IG.
About mechanical builds: When you find yourself alone or in small groups a lot, Anything that can go invisible for extended time is good, as mentioned before - Rogues, Rangers, Monks, and certain casters. Cleric is frankly my favorite, simply because the versatility, and long-term survivability (buffs, healing, restorations save you a great deal of gold when there are no other priests around and help you survive), even if they don't get invis (and they do, with the right domains).
Try to find someone like-minded IG; or roll a concept with a good OOC buddy with whom you can coordinate your playing times. It's a lot easier to push stuff when you have a buddy or two who are also committed to pushing the same plot on an OOC level, instead of just you trying to push it, and get other characters interested in it in IC. This also spreads your playing times a bit, ensuring that people who do get interested are able to find one of you with greater frequency. This also helps a bit with the survivability.
Try to figure out ways to push your plots/stuff you're interested in without DM's around and without much work required from other players - as an example, back when I played my first velshie, we used to follow low level people around when they went questing on low level quests, buff them in exchange for short prayers to velsharoon, and then do a ritual while they were in the quest area. When they came out, we were no longer there, but a ritaul circle of nasty stuff remained there (and at least I hope/feel that it helped create intrigue and get others involved with our characters without requiring the other PC's to risk their lives in long and dangerous exploration missions etc).
You can also abuse the fact that time stops in an area when there are no PC's in there (or at least, used to). If youn cast a spell with a lingering visual effect (like darkness, or glyph of warding) and leave the area before it disappears, it should be "forzen in time" until another PC enters the area, thus leaving a cool clue as to what was going on in there. Apping for official clergy also helps with this because of a nice little tool they get - and I think you're allowed to app for official clergy even if you're not a cleric. These kinds of things can also be recovered and found possibly long time after you've logged off, helping you cross TZ problems slightly.
The last bit obviously only helps if you're playing a faith oriented character/someone who'd do rituals (but that's also the reason why I enjoy clerics/priests/cultists/necromancers so much). -
Shoot a tell to the other people and see if you can team up.
When I log in with few people, I always send Tells to the others to see if they want to quest, explore etc. Often, they would. It's a little bit of OOC yes, but its difficult to find them IC if they are somewhere else in the module. If you're low level, there are several quests that can be 2 or 3 manned. A mix of levels can often explore the Halls or Caves, not terribly hard. Soon enough, more folks should log in.
-
Sendings work, but I do not mind using a little OOC in the form of tells if the alternative is to be alone.
-
Ask people to log in in IRC too. ;) I don't mind any amount of OOC that gets more people having fun and playing.
-
Is it possible for to script sendings so that they show up in IRC? Or even DM dialogue in Shout Mode. That way people log in when they see something happening?
-
The EfU DMs kindly allowed us a copy of their bot for this, but it didn't work in our server due to operating system conflicts. You'd have to ask Zool, though.
-
EFU bot was yes, generously donated to us by the cool dudes over that way.
But yeah, we use a different version of PHP to them for our database, and many of the commands in the bot are depracated, that is, from an old version. I really did not feel like trying to figure out how to replace all that with the up to date commands, so I threw it out and made my own from scratch.
The problem was, I wasn't confident enough with the Linux server to know if my bot was actually running or not, that is, I got it working (locally) but I didn't know if it was running…. ten times, to be 100% honest, it actually might still be running ten times for all I know.
-
That said, if any of you are PHP or Linux gurus, we might be able to work out something. I'm a Windows man myself, I don't know much more than the basics of Linux.
-
I had a system developed for this, some time ago. It could be resurrected easily enough.
-
On the other hand, even now you sometimes need to be on irc to find a questing group. People organize in the chat and go on a quest train often without even IG shout outs.
I personally would not further facilitate this practice. -
On the other hand, even now you sometimes need to be on irc to find a questing group. People organize in the chat and go on a quest train often without even IG shout outs.
I personally would not further facilitate this practice.People make IRC shoutouts because no one comes to the sendings. Be in one or the other and you'll get something.
-
Sorry, but that's not true. Logged in IRC for a few minutes and immediately saw another quest train roll call. You saw it too.
That's just how some people do it lately. Do we need more of that? -
-
Come to think of it, I guess you are right in a way.
-
I'm cool with groups gathering on IRC.
What I'm not cool with is when I sit in the spire trying to gather my last couple XP before leveling and I spend two days finding someone…
I'd encourage people to give a chance for random players to join their quest trains. It costs 20 gold after all.. -
Thing is, having the IC sendigns go into IRC, helps get more people to the IC sendings… so... yeah.