Retaining players/Lower Numbers
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CoA is an imaginary world that allows us players, to “vanish” into it for a time. An imaginary world, with monsters, bravery and none of the Real World Crap we usually have to deal with. I do not wish CoA to feel like work, because my RL job pays far better. I imagine that is a consensus between DMs and players. A second consensus, is that we are telling stories, not “merely playing a game”.
I have rewritten this five times because I do not wish it to sound like a rant, so please read it with the “attempted proactive suggestion” glasses.
1: Focus on bringing the world alive, and upon telling an epic story. Establish a metastory for the server, a story with continued progression, that everyone else can latch on to, take ownership of, and make certain that it is integrated into the server properly. To date, I have no idea in what direction the story is going, and I must admit, I often am in doubt if it exists at all.! Example:
Hardcastle has become a symbol, a martyr even, for the nobles who wanted more power at the expense of the King. The rebellion did not stop by his capture, but his execution riled up the nobles, and Cormyr is now nearing Civil War. Sembia, Thay, Laross and even the city of Westgate smell weakness, and begin to stir the pot as much as possible.
2: With a compelling story arch, reimagine the factions and major NPCs so that they take PART of the story. If the story goes BEYOND the npcs, then they can, similar to Pcs, enter and exit the story, but it is not dependent on any ONE NPC, meaning they can be killed off, outshined, or fucked up depending on actions and decisions made by PCs.! Example:
Lhal and the actions of Telrost, has weakened the rule of Northern Cormyr. She is now forced to depend on the support of nobles and wealthy merchants. Create a list of 6 or so nobles and 6 “Power figures”, some new, some old, give each NPC a specific goal. Hells, you could do a secret matrix in the dm forum, of alliances.
Drop the need for big Faction bases, and instead create rooms for them all in The Court of Arabel. Give each room a chest with retainer loot, and you suddenly have 20 mini factions. Demand any who take part to document what they do in the Player Plot tickets, so you can keep track.
3: Reinvent the “shopping list”, by throwing DM less plots around the server, for pcs to explore and solve. Let the rewards of these be used to further plots.! Example: Like the Goldfeather sword! That plot worked!
4: Remove the ceiling from PCs in terms of power, but do not make anyone IMMUNE to conflict! Example: The Minister faction had TOO much power, and were too impossible to conflict against. It took months and months of IG plotting and storytelling, and the result was 10% of what it should have been. Make NPCs vulnerable, and make PCs in powerful positions equally vulnerable.
5: Remove the focus on PvP for winning / Being lucky to find dms to further plots, and return focus on achievement on storytelling even if a dm is not there to oversee.
6: Limit OOC in Game. Limit server wide shouts, at least OOC. Things like “The sun rises over Arabel, and the streets slowly wake up to greet the new dawn, and a new day” are good. “OMG, funny comments about Spiffy” are not. -
Bounty Creatures -
I haven't seen a single one of these in a year and a half, and that's not because lack of trying. Something I'd love to do in low player timezones is take the 2-3 people who are with me and go out hunting for them. However.. They're either broken or the spawns are so rare that it's frankly pointless, add onto that the bounty board has been practically abandoned when it used to add something very very neat to the server. (Little faction perks, aesthetic or otherwise.)
Increasing the spawn rate of the bounty creatures, making the reward appropriate for their difficulty (these things can destroy an ill-prepared party, like total party wipe, when they should probably only kill about half the party if they're not properly prepared for what they're hunting). Putting information around the server about their weaknesses would be excellent too.
For instance, I have never, in like three years, seen half the bounty creatures, and I have played characters that have wandered the server for dozens of resets looking for them.
I think it would be a very good addition for these to be looked at, because if you're keeping 3-4 people entertained just by going out and hunting a creature that COULD be there, and there actually being a better than 5% chance of it existing, then I'd say that's an afternoon well spent. -
I'm at work, not much time to read all posts. Had to skim a lot.
I saw advertising posted a bunch. I HIGHLY recommend someone making a videos Tons and tons of videos…on things like:
-How to download Neverwinter Nights, Download the Haks, Install the haks and logon to the server. Recently I got around 5 people to install NWN.... And it wasn't until I had to manually take over someones computer and do the work for them that I realized there are a bunch of hoops to jump through.
-Videos for advertise on facebook. (And try to put some effort into it, you're trying to get people to buy and download a game from 2001.)
-Maybe even videos on just the history of the server... Give people a state of reference when starting out.
Arabel is a very old server with a dedicated playerbase that wants to see it going but we forget that sometimes the server isn't all that noob friendly. A helping hand from a few videos would be a great place to start externally recruiting.
~Lucky
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I apologize for even posting since I haven't logged in in the past 6 months but something I've noticed with aging NWN servers, attempts at NWN2 servers that launched… I will just hit the high points:
It's very hard to keep all the -politics, intrigue, PvP, faction interactions, players making impact on the server- at the level we come to enjoy in CoA when numbers get below 15. It has to do with being able to run into allies/enemies/plot hooks/adventuring party that makes sense for your character in your timezone or when you want to work on something.
If you make the server more casual, you lose the complexity that makes it attractive to a lot of serious players but makes it more fun to hop on and play a couple hours twice a week for the more casual player.
A solution? I'm not sure- the idea that I thought had the most upside was sort of the basis for the Tales of Moonsea NWN2 server (and it didn't work so what do I know):
Create a big bad, long-term, overall plot. It's not really an option for players to side with this big bad. They exist as a danger to both the Cyricist and the Tormite, to gangs of thieves and the law enforcers. Add plot related drops, secret locations accessible to gain plot info whether a DM is on or not (maybe Goldfeather like? was that the name?). Make NPCs 90% worthless- their hands are tied, they see the the big bad as an ally, not a threat, not worth the time. You basically have the setup for a PnP game- the party vs. the big bad- as the heroes not the pawns of NPCs. The party in this case is whoever is online despite their character's personal grievances with the other characters. Your evil guy may go along to help the law enforcers spy on a big bad camp, maybe to see if you can gain power, but because you also need the threat removed. It allows players to be inclusive of anyone, which is more fun than standing around by yourself. It let's people take a break from PvP situations because they have an excuse, although wouldn't complete negate the possibility.
_Dumb example:
The Thayans have a complete change of management, build a giant sprawling fortress just outside the city, bring awesome new goods into the city. NPCs are happy with added security and a new trade partner who seem very generous. DMs drop hooks for players- good players see Thayans kicking orphans, enslaving orc tribes, selling bootleg DVDs. Evil players see them murder bloodstone dealers, kill off thieves tool sellers and begin to roll all the gangs into one force controlled by them. All the players, good and evil, law and chaos, now have reasons to work with each other to get rid of the Thayans. Maybe there's a super secret plan the Thayans have to enslave everyone and now things proceed dungeons and dragons style of randomly killing things until they tell you their plan and you kill the boss NPC._
So this is a really bad example, but I really think with lower numbers you have to give players ways to work together more than against each other. The "my hands are tied" attitude of NPCs forces players to scheme with other players, share information more freely, and quest and play together. It allows DMs to see 4 players on, get them into a 1 hour hack apart Thayans scenario and have a bit of fun and everyone feels like they accomplished something.
Is it a new idea? No. Is it totally one of those lame DMs force another new invading group on us plots? Yes. Will it help any? Dunno. Will this run off the last remaining serious players? Maybe.
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This is just a thought, but it's been on my mind a few years now.
Server consolidation.
Find other low pop servers, try to merge.
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I could elaborate. When numbers dwindle, which is happening to other servers as well, it makes little sense to try and entice players from the same incestuous pool. It would be much wiser to launch a new, or expanded setting, with other servers.
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I'm kind of wary of posting this, since it's mainly about apps, and I have an app in the pipeline right now. So I'm afraid it's going to seem like I'm just talking about something that affects me personally. But here goes.
I've tried to introduce new players to the server a few times. People who've played NWN before, and people who never have. Universally, their main issue with the server (and the reason they don't really want to return to it when I ask them if they're up for it) is how extremely dependent on apps it SEEMS to be to a lot of people, and how arbitrary it can sometimes seem what and when to app for. I'll admit I've had the same issues for a very long time, which has made me be a rather on-and-off players in the past.
Recently I had a friend try out the server, app for something on his newly created character (membership in a canon order, after he felt like he'd earned) only to wait twenty days and then be told that he should have apped for it at character creation - and only after pushing the issue over PMs a few times (he's not a particularly confrontative person, which is kind of another issue, if you're the quiet sort of person who don't really want to bother people unless needed it can easily feel like the DMs won't even notice you and you can't progress).
When I first returned on Aubrey and had done a lot of stuff, I felt like it was kind of weird that I was not even being considered for Retainership, until another player poked me in tells and told me that I should probably send in an app for it. I'm still unsure what "earn in-game" actually means - it seems like in most cases you're not earning anything organically ingame as much as you're doing tons of stuff and (rather artificially) hyping your own personal ventures and hoping enough people will follow you for a chance at that Sweet Sweet DM loot until you've done enough stuff to feel like you should app for what you want (and then you'll be told whether you were right or wrong in your assumption).
I think it might help a bit if things could actually be smoothly earned in-game in a diaegetic manner. And not just the lowest ranks of factions. Or at least, some sort of easily accessible guideline for when and why to app in which situations. Over 10 years of tangled forums make a rather daunting manual. The comment of quite a few of my friends basically amounted to "man, they really hate something they call 'CoA Sims' on this server, don't they?" and they had no idea how to progress or do anything meaningful.
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Better and clearer documentation.
Finding relevant information regarding server rules, setting, and mechanical changes is alot harder then it should be. This is one of the most common issues new players have voiced to me.
Make it easier to get into the server.
Finding quests, stores, consumables, where to sell stuff, and in generally "learning" the server is a lot harder then it should be without someone taking you in hand and guiding you through the process. Having all the merchants concentrated around a market where people can easily find them, instead of in half dozen different places would go along way towards helping as an example.
Shift away from looking down on solo content.
CoA is a multiplayer game, we all get that. But sometimes there are not enough people online, either allies or in general, to do stuff with. And having solo content can mean the difference between a player logging out and playing another server and/or game, or staying IG long enough for more players to log online. And if it helps them earn gold, potions or xp in the process of staving off boredom all the better.
Grant more attention to pc plots, and focus on empowering players.
The threshold for getting dm attention and support for personal plot lines, or for factional plot lines is at times very high. Its understandable that dms will not be as interested or inspired by all player plots, but the players involved will be. And they will do stuff to support and push it forward. A little support goes along way. Focusing too much on dm plots can lead to situations where players log IG for events but otherwise don't really do much otherwise because while the events themselves are enjoyable the plot as a whole does not grab them, save for a few players trying to use it as a way to gain faction promotion and trying desperately to get others to help them.
On the topic of empowering players, I really think that even in a setting with powerful and established npcs players should feel like they matter. That they are a real driving force. On a basic level its hard to feel that way when most interaction with npcs IG or on the forums is them trolling, mocking, putting down, or otherwise telling you that you are not worth their attention. Its also hard to get players to take initiative if they need to constantly "phone home to mommy" to ask if something is okay before proceeding. I also think npcs are far too eager and quick to shut down player actions and plans only further highlighting that players are subordinates to npcs they server at the whims of.
Less focus on "earning it" at the expense of fun.
I understand the principle behind wanting players to earn the perks they obtain, but the threshold is so high that it essentially rules casual and newer players out. Also things like perma death events to accomplish major progress while enjoyable to a portion of the server are toxic to the rest, and tend to lead to lulls of varying lengths after each mass pc death event where alot of server and story momentum has been sucked out from CoA, and takes time to rebuild itself. This only adds to the threshold present in "earning" stuff.
Is letting fun and cool stuff happen even if they have not been fully "earned" really such a bad thing if it leads to players logging in, and staying IG having fun? Essentially lowering the threshold. Also, the concept of earning something seems to be different depending what dm you talk to. For others its showing high degree of mechanical competance and surviving an event. For others its involving lots of people into a plot. And for others its playing a high energy balls to the walls concept that makes lots of enemies and stirs up conflict, at times for no other reason then the sake of conflict.
Scale down challenge
While not a personal issue for me, something that I hear alot in conversations with other players is that CoA is too hard, the death penalty too harsh and stuff like the xp nerf simply not fun. Balancing server so its challenging for a small handful of top players (that will thrive regardless) only serves to make things sadistically hard for others, especially players new to the server and/or the game. There is a middle ground between Hello Kitty Island Adventures, and Dark/demonsouls that should be found.
Advertise and be active on social media.
Be active on both GoG, and Reddit NwN forums. Post videos about CoA on youtube. Screen shots of key/cool events on twitter. GoG runs sales of nwn a couple times a year and each time new fresh players either find the game for the first time or return to it. Other servers have swelled by being able to reach these players. There is no reason coa should not be able to do the same.
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Things that I find fun/interesting:
1. DM attention while playing a character. Anywhere from pushing a character plot to simply sending me a tell IG. It's nice to know they are around.
2. Roleplaying. This is a big one. It helps with the immersion when people emote what they are doing, even if it's something small. Also, I prefer RPing out situations a MILLION times more than a mechanical throw down. If you're a rogue, you sneak up behind me in stealth, and emote holding a dagger to my throat, it's stupid for me to just turn around, .hostile you and start smacking you. I should at the very least emote not moving because there's a freaking blade ready to slice my throat open. Sure, I might be level 12 with 150 HP, and he's wielding a 1d4 dagger, but all of that is 100% OOC information and shouldn't need to play a part in a good story telling.
As far as I'm concerned, the stats on my character sheet are mainly for Co-op PvM scenarios. It's kind of stupid if there's a renowned Knight PC on the server who's got a reputation of being a total bad ass, but died recently so he's only level 3 or w/e, and he gets rekt in like 2 hits in a duel by mr.nobody joe-shmow who's a level 7 barbarian. The way I imagine this -should- play out, is the warrior going "Oh, I've heard of this guy and his badass reputation. Maybe I'll avoid fighting him for now."
3. Interaction with PCs. More so if they stick around, we quest together often, help each other out with plots, and actually take the time to form a relationship outside of a questing buddy. I absolutely loved questing around with the halflings because they were just fun to be around.
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DMs being able to setup one use codes to allow PCs to set themselves up without a DM online, means as a player don't have to sit in limbo for something to happen
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Hello again,
So one thing I've noticed is that DM's will advertise for server wide events. I think that's great, allows a players to plan ahead when to be online.
What if there was an assigned position on the DM team, where someone runs small 1 or 2 week campaigns that have nothing to do with the overarching plot. These open campaigns anyone can join, with sign ups. That DM makes a thread advertising for a small campaign on the forums. This thread would have meet up times and the minimum amount of time a DM expects a player to be there. Then players can then post on the thread to sign up if they meet those requirements.
These Open Campaigns should be run in areas of the server that are not accessible to other players. This isn't to punish the main populace of Arabel, but more to encourage them to use the forums. In between the campaigns meetup the players for these campaigns can quest and run jobs in order to survive the next meetup.
This idea will promote the following:
I under there have been things like this done before, but I believe it should be more regulated. I think there should be an actual spot on the forums for signing up for these things that everyone can access. I also believe that players shouldn't create new characters for these campaigns but that's up to the DM. I would also encourage the DM running the campaign to promote PVM, PVE rather than PVP.
A sample forum sign up could look like this:
Name Of Campaign: Red Eyes in The Dark
Number of players: 2-4 max
DM's Running Campaign: DM Sunshine, DM Feral
Brief Description: Deep within the mountains of Thunderholm, there lies an a small inn called The Waypoint. The innkeeper there is seeking help investigating the disappearance of her clients.
Recommend level: 6
Recommend Alignment: CN, NG, CG
Duration of Campaign: 1 week.
Meet up days: -
Lots of really good ideas in the thread, I like the advertise one, also the collaborate with other servers, but i can see that coming with issues the other sever may want us to join them instead of them migrating to ours (but that being said..how many others servers have as long a actual history as Arabel? It was here well before i started playing online, and i started here in…2003.....wow, that is a long time, longer than a few commercial MMO type games, and that is with volunteers making game content and moderating here)
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This. The game has been balanced to challenge EXPERT players who run through quests with ease, and everyone else is told to "get gud" as if they are unworthy. By catering to optimized builds, the difficulty has gone steadily higher and higher, FORCING everyone to try and build mechanically.
What is laughable is the "frowning" upon of build talk in IRC and in forums, yet the game itself utterly demands it.
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I am fine with making CoA easier. I will do well whether it's hard or easy.
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My suggestion would be to 1: Lower difficulty, and 2: Up reward for PCs that are not entirely optimized.
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I feel that the difficulty within COA is at a good place currently. But i would suggest maybe more exploration areas where you can do some combat and Rp.
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I do not think difficulty as such is a problem. I used to suck at the game mechanically when I returned to playing earlier this year (anyone remember my chainshirt wearing fighter 2 / wizard 5 who died horribly thinking he could face a githyanki sarth if fully buffed?) but I was willing to learn and kept asking good players for advice and help, which all of them were happy to give. Thanks again for that, boys! I encourage others to do the same and invest a bit of effort rather than making virtue out of keeping their gaming skills low.
What I think is a problem however is the restriction of diversity in the game. This does not increase the difficulty level stricto sensu but considerably narrows down the range of viable playing styles and builds that you can play without the game becoming overly frustrating to you. This is being done by various tweaks and nerfs where a quirky way of playing - if it brings mechanical advantages to the player - is quickly suppressed. Things like lowest AC targeting mobs (now thankfully adjusted), effectively removing spell alterations, increasing cost of particular consumables, or reducing quest loot / hedge magic reagents in the game can result in a very repetitive gaming experience. But the effect of this issue on lower player count and player retention seems marginal at best.
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^^^
I've been an okay-ish player, but after asking for some very basic tips from the CoA big boys, I've improved a lot (or so says Jasede and that lot), so I'll side with Eraamion here. I think effort should be taken away from making the game easier and instead direct it to making it more involved, and mimic what TheChampion said. More exploration that's worth the time sunk into it (maybe those explorable caves Jasede went on about that reset loot or something) and rewarding RP more. -
Lucky Moonshine had an awesome idea I think could go leaps and bounds to increase attendance. I would suggest the DM's prepare short episodic stories. They find a random group of PC's that haven't really been involved with anything much and throw them the curve-ball that leads them into episode one. Then, you keep these small group moving on these short episodes and have a conclusion after 2-3 episodes. Perhaps even secretly keep two groups following different paths and have them meet us as either rivals or allies in the final act. You could keep track of players who have gotten a a short campaign already and try to throw them towards people who don't already have one.
Alternatively/additionally, you can try to figure out what some of the non-faction based PC's motivations or personal goals are. Perhaps while they are going about their business, you can throw them a bone, something small that plays into their desires or personal story, unsolicited, so they feel a bit more motivation to drive it farther and involve more people in the story. Give them a bit more instant gratification, be it a flavor/spice item, a villain involving themselves in an existing plot which marks them as a personal rival and draws them into a bigger story or an NPC noticing them as more than just a pathetic background character. Little things that don't necessarily make someone powerful or imbalanced but that little bit of DM attention and reward might inspire that person to do greater things…. then... as mass amounts of people start seeing how even their smallest input is noticed and rewarded, they involve themselves on greater and greater scales, driving up player numbers, involvement in larger stories and then some.
Also, don't know if the Silence setting prevents this, but maybe having some divine intervention go along with religious players. Make some Banites jump a Paladin of Torm, have some goodly paladins challenge an evil cleric, maybe during a crazy encounter, a paladin or cleric or other religious player gets some aid from a celestial or some spirit of their god's virtue. Maybe a spirit of war jumps in and mercs a hard encounter for a Tempian, who showed extreme courage in the face of insurmountable odds, something along these lines that make players feel like their little efforts and devotion to character are worth it.
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1) DMless stuff.
Let's face it; it has never felt as though you can accomplish anything without a DM on this server, and the traditional answer that "you guys need to find a way around this player side" does not work. Realistically, at any point in time, any character plot that reaches a certain point is going to need a DM. I've devoted a lot of thought to this, and my strategy for successful characters has always revolved around some clever trick to, basically, either garner DM attention, or force DM acknowledgement.
Do you want to save a village? From what? Gonna need a DM for that.
Do you need to forge a sword with dragonfire? Find a dragon. Gonna need a DM for that.
Do you want to plant flowers? DM required.
The mentality of this server has, for many years, focused around one thing: Attracting DM attention. People connive, steal, and base entire characters around what might get the attention of certain DMs because the strutures do not exist, in game, either mechanically or through other players, to accomplish goals without them. Every DM faction has a DM at its head (through NPCs). Everything important is NPCs. Even when the Players were given (limited) reigns in my experience, this has been short lived and transitory, small experiments that failed or were strangled.
The mentality of this server needs to change, and it's not just the player mentality that needs to change it's the DM mentality too. The way that we view value on this server needs to change from "it only has value if a DM saw it" to "It has intrinsic value."
I've taken a break from CoA myself. It was supposed to be a week and it's turned into more than a month, as I trapse about elsewhere, and I think that part of my concern here is actually that the systems aren't in place in CoA to do anything without DM involvement.
But if you point that out? The only answer is "Find things that don't need a DM to do." Okay. Where? Hiding under this digital rock? Nothing meaningful can be accomplished without a DM on CoA.
Let me repeat that: NOTHING MEANINGFUL CAN HAPPEN WITHOUT A DM ON COA.
And that leads me into my next point:
2) Make it easier to affect the game world.
Thune's not just blathering like a moron when he says that people want a sense of ownership. One of my best characters, one of my very best characters who nearly broke the entire goddarn server, only has a picture with a trunucated description in Shylocks where nearly nobody goes. A character that had three story arcs, rode the heights of power, achieved level 13 and killed a War Wizard and almost revealed the identity of the Citizen to the King of Cormyr, and that's all I got - a "T-Shirt" that someone decided shouldn't even include the (brief) description of my character's friends (all stellar chracters in and of themselves) in a group portrait.
I can already hear the whisper of the wind that's going to stream by me at any time saying "you should be grateful - most characters don't get recognized at all".
WELL, WHY DONT THEY? That's work that went on for months and it only vaguely registered in someone's mind that maybe, somewhere, somehow, someone should remember something vague about the last characters in a dying faction.
Compare this to other servers (I won't name them) where you or I could sit down and straight up write the entire descrption of something as mundane as a chair and then drop it IG, if we wanted and that's worse than laughable, it's straight up embarassingly pathetic by comparison.
There's a reason that those survival MMO's are getting really popular these days. Games like Life is Feudal, Conan Exiles, fucking Minecraft even. Why are these getting popular? Part of it is because they allow you to build crap within them. Cities. Stories. Investment. But the only thing I can get out of CoA in terms of investment return is the temporary feeling of "well, my character might have affected some other characters", and the crem de la crem is maybe, somewhere, having some rock with your name on it planted on some sort of mountain somewhere to mark your passing.
I'm not saying that the DMs need to sit down and mark every character - quite the opposite. Give the power to the players to make their own marks and you'll never have to bother with it again, except perhaps to clear out some of the rampant detritus that they'll likely create in the first few months of trying the system out.
3) Let people customize stuff
We've got hak packs, we're talking about adding hak packs in, but every single time someone comes up with a Suggestion thread saying "can we get some customizable chain shirts please?" they're laughed off or dismissed as having unimportant concerns and then someone decides to overhaul a dungeon to make it harder. Ha ha. (I'm only half joking).
Let me get something out in the clear here; this is a roleplaying game where we invest hours and hours and hours of our time staring at a gathering of pixels that represent an imaginary character that we've come up with to pilot about like the intrepid adventurers we are. Please let us play characters that look decent to our eyes. Cracking open the iron fist of "Only DMs can modify X" needs to be the first step in changing this mentality.
This isn't just a complaint about uneditable gear - let the smith put his mark on his handiwork. Let bards write their own songs. Let paladins and clerics make and decorate shrines. This isn't people playing CoA sims - it's players making meaningful experiences for other players.
One of the best moments I've had on this server was when I convinced a DM to let me add in a custom description to a sword I was going to give another player, for literally killing the 'boss' of an entire invading army. The only magical thing about that sword was a +1d6 fire damage widget, and they got a better one mechanically THE NEXT DAY, but they still had that sword and it meant something to them.
That was one of those rare and saliant moments where I knew I'd made someone's day, with literally two paragraphs worth of text. It's the small things that matter. You can write the biggest most epic plot in the world, but if the reward is just a flavorless +1 longsword, you're not properly rewarding people.
4) Conclusion
The way that we approach stories on this website can be characterized as unforgiving, hardcore, and therefore inaccessable.
A person needs to not just have an almost perfectly roleplayed character, they've got to be hated/loved by the entire server to advance their plot. This is so ingrained into us that when we start making characters, we start planning for it. Where's the conflict going to come from to get us noticed? This is good storytelling in a book, but with server numbers "less than 15" we're not going to be writing Robert Jordan level conflict here, we're going to be writing tongue in cheek Terry Pratchett.
I think there's something wrong with the philosophy behind the server that needs to change with the times and the dwindling player numbers. We really do need to buckle down and address the fact that there's almost nothing meaningful that can be accomplished without a DM. There's no way to change the game world, IG, without a DM - you can't even put up warning posters without someone having to go into the module and physically putting them up.
Contrast that with elsewhere, where in no less than 2 other servers I've seen this become such a basic thing that it's totally unremarkable. But to a CoA player like me I'm all like "wow this is so cool this is so neat" like I'm some sort of cambodian orphan discovering toilet paper.
Basically - my point here is, provide the tools for the players to create their own immersion, and they're going to do it. Give them player housing, faction housing, that's not just hidden in some sewer somewhere and hoarded by people who know how to get that stuff, and they're going to fight over the property in intricate political gambits and meaningful pvp. Give them the ability to customize the server and in the same manner, you give them the ability to make their own stories.