Increased Transparency from Admin Team

[Zool]

I think the eveningstar road is actually fine. There;s other that... need a look though. (off topic sorry)

[Echo]

There is a sign... or at least there used to be signs. I put them there.

This used to say "Arabel, 30 miles" or something like that.
It got changed.

[Acemvi]

@Zool Storm. Horns. Ascent. Stonecliffs is the Eveningstar area I would personally shrink a bit. Two transitions isn't a big deal, really, it's just the size of each.

[Acemvi]

@Echo Yes, that's the point. The signs are already the only real indication of distance anyway since two transitions are nowhere near 30 actual miles even in NWN. Therefore, it's okay if areas are a little smaller for the sake of reducing sprawl. True to scale realism will never be achievable without it being an utter pain in the ass (or adding mounts, which is... fraught with peril and I do not recommend this in the slightest).

[gDarDog]

The maps going from Eveningstar to the Stormhorns is the biggest standout. The most interesting quests on the server are out there Irondrake, Dwarf Rescue, Frozen war. If you don't run up, it can take 30 mins to get out there and another 30 mins back.

The map where the NPC for warm waterfall is for example, its just massive empty paths that you have to run through with an occasional care spawn.

As for the Zool's journal, I think its a great addition. Shows very clearly what is being worked on

[gDarDog]

The server was at 20/55 some nights when the factions were released. For a variety of different reasons, players have left to a point where you often see 0/55. Many of those complaints were voiced.

@Zool Said without compromising the "server vision"... Does the vision matter if nobody is playing?

[O-louth]

Ill add my two cents, since simply “leaving” serves no one. Since I came back, it has seemed as if the DM Admin team have been extremely defensive towards constructive criticism or suggestions for improvement, no matter how well intentioned it was served. And that has been something I have never experienced before, no matter who sat on the team. It has felt like the dm team have put on a mindset of “Everything we have done has been perfect, either shut up or leave”. Which has been extremely off putting, when considering that the server only thrives if the Admin Team and the players work in combination to create the best possible server.
If discussing something about the server, and anyone raised a red flag, the conversation just ends. Period. No explanation, no trying to see it from the player side of things. Just ignoring it until it goes away.

So Ill give my honest feedback, and if it is dismissed as it has been, so be it.

• This server feels like it’s only half finished, as if you did just enough to get it launched, but then departed from it. There is no metastory visible to the player base. The EU timezone is dead in the water, despite a new storyteller. The focus seems to be more on developing cool features, rather than making the server come alive.

• There is being put huge efforts into a crafting system, with 90% of the items so bland or useless, that the only reason they will ever be crafted, is for someone to advance their craft, and then just throw it out. Why focus so much on that, when there are huge loot gaps for non faction personnel.

• The factions have a HUGE potential, but the “content gap” is huge, and there is ZERO help to the many concepts that fall outside of the narrow focus of each faction. The factions ARE awesome, but a lot of concepts have no home. The focus on “go in a faction or go without loot” may sound good on paper, but in practice is kills motivation and creativity. You are severely nerfing yourself if you are not in a faction.

• There is zero advancement or support outside the midnight to 6 am EU time zone. It kills motivation when you log on discord or the forum in the morning, see people advance in factions, advance in stories, but you are left in the dark.

• Without blowing my own horn, I created a lot of awesome stories, which are rippling across the player base still, and I did it with only a single 10 minute encounter with Ace. As whenever I asked for help, support, guidance, I got a distinct feeling that Cormyr seems like a curse word, and all my efforts were just ignored. I felt seriously ignored. Ace did what he could, but he too ran into a wall for progression. And I was still the “rank” I had after 2 days in game.

• You lot told me that progression was a lot easier now. I for one did not see ANY advancement, outside Naresh getting a promotion after his and his groups constant work to push their plots. And that took well over a month.

Honestly, I figured summer was more fun, because beyond LordAce being encouraging, there seemed to be no interest in helping me or help me progress my stories. So why bother trying to make stories that could help entertain or involve the rest of the player base.

[Zool]

@O-louth I don't wanna go through all of the above post, as it might end up sounding like I'm dismissing things! thanks for the feedback from your perspective though, it's useful to see how it feels.

The one thing I might mention though, is the progression being easier part. I -think- you might be missing that progression is much easier, because some of it is -too- easy, so is dismissed as not progression.

You get into a factions via player recomendations - that's a promotion with no app (in your case there was an app, that's actually been discussed since though and is (has been...?) reviewed.

I think your character also got an entire grove to be the guardian of, with NPC "support" to go with it - that's another pretty chonky step that would have taken potentially most of a characters lifetime in the past - it's pretty simple to get those things now, mostly if it's not claimed, grab it, if all are claimed, challenge for it.

That's two pretty big progressions that in the past would have been major efforts to achieve - but, I think, because they are SO easy now, they aren't seen as progression, just the baseline, so in making them easier, we've essentially removed them (psychologically)

Just wanted to make those points (and also that your own horn deserved a bit of tooting as the stuff you last character did was great)

Oh.. one more thing - we did look into an EU timezone DM, but after watching them a tad longer, they didn' work out which I think is a big shame. Hopefully someone will rise up soon who ticks all the normal boxes (creativity, OOC chill dude, sticks around, generally liked by the community) that particular one is real hard for us to resolve though as it depends on entirely external factors.

[O-louth]

@Zool said in Increased Transparency from Admin Team:

I think your character also got an entire grove to be the guardian of, with NPC "support" to go with it - that's another pretty chonky step that would have taken potentially most of a characters lifetime in the past - it's pretty simple to get those things now, mostly if it's not claimed, grab it, if all are claimed, challenge for it.

This shall not turn into a "all me" thing, but this is actually a good example to use to explain my point. Spiffy told me I was not a guardian, as I was not really promoted, so I was not a real guardian (yet). And he got super busy right after, so I never even got actual access to the grove that I was supposed to guard.

It is just one of those experiences, where it seems as if stuff behind the veil of admin stuff is not entirely coordinated. I never knew which DMs were active / inactive, got passed on to another dm whenever I wanted to update my plot ticket, ask for advice, had clarification questions about setting, factions etc.

And I know I am not the only one who feels as if the entire admin team are so stressed by the workload, that pinning one down who will give you another answer than a: this is only my own opinion, or b: we will discuss (which leads to no info returning to the player who asked).

[Zool]

@O-louth Sounds frustrating...

Sounds like a lot of that is, as you say, DM's just not having enough time available to make things work as well as they should. Only so much that can be done about that.

I think most of my points still stand about progression actually being easier though. Even if some things in this particular instance weren't as smooth as we would like.

[O-louth]

I doubt dont it, honestly. And I am neither angry nor bitter, I love this place and have the highest of respect for the work you lot do. And that is actually my final point; you have a hugely loyal player base. 99% of the issues this server has,
comes down to either you lot being pressed on not having enough time, and the communication between Admin team and community. I was not bitter at Spiffy for taking two weeks to make a uniform or never having time to finish my grove entrance, because I knew it was not for lack of wanting to do it. It was because he lacked time. Being honest and transparent in what is being done, what direction Things are going, turns frustrations into understanding.

Example, the HP situation. It seems you guys see the sense in theory, but see a huge issue in the potential rebalancing of monsters. Now everyone are on the same page (if that is the case).

[Puffy]

Suggestions and feedback reviewed, with changes implemented. Much love! :heart_suit: