6. Discussion

Discussion

  • Admin [DM]

    Players chance to ask questions/comment on the latest announcement from this topic: viewtopic.php?t=159629
    The team will do it's best to answer questions, but keep in mind we wont be sharing any spoilers!

    Lots of Love,
    The DM Team

  • D

    Great to see DMs spending more time talking to general playerbase!
    Will the new story arc include the reworked factions?


  • @Puffy:

    New Story Arc
    Based on the polls of players and long DM Discussions, the DM Team has come to an agreement to a new story arc which has been heavily influenced by the voice of the players. We have decided on the basics and general agreements, there will be events introducing this story arc step by step. It will be server wide -of course- and everyone is welcome to get involved as always. We also have general end goals in mind, but will allow players to work towards influencing the end goals with drastic changes to the module.

    Thanks for listening to me. Keep up the good work.
    (of listening to me)

  • Admin [DM]

    @Direfish:

    Will the new story arc include the reworked factions?

    Yes! Currently this is in discussion, but there will be changes to the factions and how they function. A new announcement will reveal a small part of the ideas for renewal of factions, but right now the major details are still being discussed.


  • PC faction sponsorship? HELL YES. I've been calling for this for YEARS. Thank you!

    One of the key problems with this is the Too Many Chefs situation. PC Factions seem to appear en-masse, resulting in 5-6 1-2 man factions rather than 1-2 5-6 man factions. We need a way of encouraging people to work together rather than forming dozens of separate groups.

  • T

    The more members, the more perks?

  • W

    Now this is the innovation that I remember CoA for and that put it ahead of other servers. Keep it up please


  • I personally think that while a strong argument can be made towards having a couple dm factions that are thematic and conseptually relevant to the setting, focusing on empowering pc factions and pc storylines is a far better way to go about things then trying to force players into any number of dm factions.


  • I was curious on the fact if say a number of players let's say 6 active players are taking time to gather up wood ore and other such things and trying to use to resettle east haven in a group effort could something become of it or is the area basically it had it's time and it's dead and beyond saving due to a number of dm events within that area in the past.

    I honestly did enjoy that if players want it go do something and work towards it.

    Some it left a bad taste when they got a good bone to chew on and due to some dm events there little shops were blasted away. but it was a neat idea.

    As far as i know no one currently holds a right to the land of east haven correct?


  • If players are determined to settle some area, and work towards it, I personally would feel bad with telling them they cant do it. I see a key role of being a dm as someone that facilitates fun, not dictates what is fun. With the caveat that server policy, rules, etc. are maintained. As an example, no matter how fun someone might consider griefing to be, its not going to be accepted.

    Its a personal view that for a DM "veto" to occur, there needs to be a very strong reason. One that should be communicated with the players involved.


  • Isnt the point, usually, that rebuilding Easthaven just to rebuild it isnt proper, but "rebuilding the village to control trade influx" or "settles on area on Immersea road as a launcing pad for protecting caravan routes / being a shaundakul shrine, but in reality is a bandit camp" are far more managable?

    IMO: The only thing Id want, is to lessen the time Investment needed to rebuild something, to create a cave etc. Instead of having to control Easthaven for two months before something happens, doing it for a good week should be enough. We are all getting more and more busy, and as such time IG becomes less easy to come by.


  • Also, just gathering ore and wood is kind of low level stuff and doesn't really qualify to rebuild a place.

    Here's why:

    PM to Zool:

    Hi Zool! We just gathered 500 peices of wood and 300 pieces of ore, and are now roleplaying building easthaven! Can you now change the area to represent it and give us a base with storage and things? We also roleplayed making a forge, and a woodcrafting station, and an alchemy bench (one of our players is an alchemist)

    PM back:

    Well That's cool, glad your having fun roleplaying the rebuilding of Easthaven. Might be really good if you tried to perhaps find a way to quell the undead presence right nearby so people might want to settle there. You could use a few different routes like trying to bless the site, or even by trying to appease Clar Banda by increasing her faith in the region and gaining her protection for your new settlement. Or you could perhaps try to impress an NPC of your choosing to have them help you out with the reconstruction or the removal of the undead?

    PM to Zool:

    But we got all the wood and ore and built it in game, cant you just make the area now? Oh yeah, we also just roleplayed creating a shrine to Selune in the middle of the town out of silver ore we gathered, it's 500 foot high and its eyes are made of all the diamonds we bought from the temple of Tyche (we bought 50) Can you add that in too?

    Other PM to Zool:

    Hey Zool, we just made a secret base in the underdark out of the bones of all the goblins we killed. Can you add this hak (link to bone walls tileset hak) and then make the area for us? Cheers dude.

    Other PM to Zool:

    Hey Zool, we just gathered 5000 dead orcs and roleplayed creating a giant effigy of the demon lord XXXXXX in the vast swamp. Can you make a model of that and make a custom hak to add it in and then make it so people with a none evil allignement within a 5 mile radius get level drained unless they say the name of the demon lord three times a minute? nice one man.

    I have made vast exaggerations here, but I think it gets the point across.

    We really. REALLY REALLY want to make players much more able to have their own 'bases', and factions, and even customise them themselves. But the practicality of updating areas manually to the whim of every roleplay session are just a little bit crazy.

    However, we REALLY REALLY want things -like this- to be able to happen, and because of that, we are making large efforts to make it much more possible, and feasible.


  • Handling the undead issue and threats from the Hullack, along with appeasing local deities like Clar Banda (graves/undead), Malar (the hunt) and Chauntea (crops/growth) through quests, plots relics etc, would go a long way to attracting settlers to rebuild. And more fun that gathering a thousand pieces of ore… 😛


  • The answer to the original question though, is basically yes. You could rebuild places in the server.

  • M

    Dialing 555-vikingstevenj…

  • W

    Love the support for player bases and hope to see it expand in the future. For the short term why not make houses in Arabel "rentable" by PCs for a certain gold fee per month? There are already scripts out there which would make this feasible and quite easy such as this one http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=sc ... il&id=2424


  • Making houses rentable has the problem of isolating the player base from each other. With people hanging out in their new cool 4x4 room, as opposed to with other players. I rather have players congregate in hubs, or customizable areas they have claimed, and that others can contest them over. Far more in line with coas values then rentable houses. For players that really want to lock themselves away, they can just get a room in some inn.


  • Also, thanks for trying to help wildcard, but posting up these scripted systems and assuming they are 'easy' to merge into CoA is kind of naive, as is any assumption on feasibility. It would not be any more short term than any other system being developed due to conversions and integration and would probably be less maintainable as it would be hacked together and wedged into our own systems instead of designed around them or with them in mind.

    Again, thanks for trying to help and all, just explaining the reality. What we're working on -is- 'for the short term' as working on anything else would just take more time.


  • Support for Player Factions should extend to Faction Banks, Faction Storage, and eventually Faction HQs. Faction HQS should have Faction Banks and Faction Storage, but smaller Factions should be able to pay X amount of gold to an NPC and be able to store gold and items.

    The fact that CoA does not have a working bank and storage system is one of the largest detracting points about the server. I consider it a "basic" service to the player.


  • It's always been available (apart from banks, we had one but it was barely used to be honest) it's just always been a big perk that you need to do a lot of undefined things to achieve.

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