Shouldn't be an issue now, I think. Ran this after this bug report, though not recently, and didn't have that issue.

Should be fixed already.

@Lord_Acererak Possible with nested quests. Kind of like how the ice caves frost giants one is designed, you could just have a quest within a quest within a quest within a quest that gets progressively harder the deeper you go. Definitely a lot to build though.

@Ethika Agree with that though! The loot needs a bit of a looking at across the board- through all the quests and all the tables and whatnot.

@Ethika Well, those are 7-10s so they should be the challenge haha.

@Zool Should be pretty quick to set up an ox-pulled cart that takes people back and forth for 50g or something, no?

I'll tack on my view as well, as someone who has been on CoA a decent bit off and on, as well as someone a part of the team, have been a part of other DM teams on servers, and is a DM on a current, popular server (when it's not on hiatus that is). Making a new post, because I don't want it to get buried, and it's a bit different from the other transparency topic.

City of Arabel has... issues. Many stated above. I'll reiterate some in offering my viewpoint on what I think isn't working on this server. Some of these are already being worked on, at least partially!

• The mod is... boring. Horribly boring. The server is way, way too large, with too many empty areas that need to be trimmed and cut down, or stuffed with things to make it interesting. This is already being worked on. However.... I think the biggest offender aside the travel time is that the quests are just... really bland, awful, and not really all that thematic. 90% of the quests do not really feel as if they are a part of anything. Just tacked on to give people something to do, except it's boring, grindy, and feels like awful busywork, especially with how much you end up dying on some classes because of HP issues. Seriously. Hop on some other servers, play for an hour or so to see how they have their quests and their gameplay loop.

• HP- It's something many have brought up. And something I think needs to be changed. The comment that there would be a lot of balancing being needed to be redone is just frankly, NOT true. If you simply just bumped hp without tweaking any mobs, the game would just be more fun, and people would die less on the bad quests, so there would be less focus on crunching boring-ass quests and more on actually trying to drive RP. It's frustrating to grind up to six or seven by doing the lowbies, die to a random crit, then have to do it all over again. And you can't say that simply play with others, as that random crits will always find a way. I don't know if returning FULL MAX hp is necessary. But at the very least, for some of the classes HP per level needs to be bumped.

• Loot: one of the current ragey discussions. Probably don't really need to say much here. Right now everything is just faction loot. Crafting loot is slowly being improved, which is nice. Some changes that have been needed since the start of the server version are being finally added. However, for the people that can't stand the crafting system (like myself), as a whole there needs to be better options outside of the factions. Quest loot does not have to be as good. It shouldn't be. But you should be able to get stuff that is at least close. People have been talking about harder dungeons and stuff for people to explore? Add some really nice loot into it! That will also drive trade and stuff...

• Loot, continued: STATS. Right. So, here's a hangup that I don't get. There's a restriction on +AC gear and +AB gear. +AB gear I kind of get because you guys want to have a reason for people to use magic weapon- the only two classes without it now are monk and barbarian, though I'm sure that will be fixed soon? The AC part I don't get. People have been suffering for quite a while of unable to get enough gold to afford supplies but when you're set up you are just flooded with them. This stems from the lack of decent protections without buffs. Which cycles back into some of the previous mentioned changes- the team has stated that you shouldn't need buffs really on quests, but honestly you can't really survive without them. Having done the 4-6 quests on multiple different classes, whether martial or spellcaster, many of them you can't do without a blur, without endurance. A single crit and you're dead. Not enough AC and you just get shredded, and can't survive because you have 30 hp... Yet you cannot get +deflection or +natural AC gear. The reason I'm just so confused here is that IT DOES NOT STACK WITH THE BUFFS. In any semi-tough situation, a person is just going to bark or use a shield. Which means that a +1 ac amulet and cloak have the benefit of helping reduce some of the gold consumption on the lower end. THIS DOES NOT IMBALANCE HOW MUCH PEOPLE SPEND. It just adds some survivability when ROAMING and the like so you can go about and wander the server and not die every 5 seconds to a bear without having to spend 3000g worth of supplies. Seriously. Fix this.

• Backend stuff: As someone who was a builder, and quit the builder team, the restrictions placed on the builders and storytellers are kind of like having someone who is offering their free time to help move things along in a chokehold. It's not fun, it's not enjoyable. Lighten up some of the restrictions on builders (not saying give them free reign. Just ease up slightly). Add in an avenue for a better role as well- it's dumb that as a storyteller you can't build at all, and a builder can't do any sort of storytelling. Create a third role that if you do one of them long enough and want to do more, have the option of doing both. That's not an admin role, that's just a regular actual DM role instead of the weird things we have now.

• More team members: server needs more admins, more storytellers, and waaaay more builders. Look, I get that people have lives. And it feels like you don't get that as well- if you're busy IRL, that means you can't put time into the server. Which means you need someone else to do it, instead of simply just having things go quiet. Prof dropped the team sorta and is super busy with irl, Zool is inactive. Puffy and echo are busy with their jobs and it's draining them. Which means that there's.... not really any admins actually about? This shouldn't really matter as admins are supposed to just be administrators, but they cover so many roles on the server because- we have a single builder, who I don't know if he really does any building. There are two active storytellers. I don't consider someone who logs in once every 1-2 weeks as active (sorry spiffy). Which means that there are... exactly... around three people on the team actually active right now! Look at aaaany other server. They have usually around 10-15. Love you guys, and love the work you've put in, but it's clear there needs to be a LOT more, and you need the manpower for that.

• Class balancing: Many classes have been fixed, but some still suffer and need a boost. Bards and rogues are just too squishy and need an HP boost. Rogues need access to better gear, which can be done by adding some better loot for them and other sneaky types here and there in quests. Monks need a pureclass store (I've made one for you guys, and have it on ready. Just ask, seriously. I spent time making sure it was well balanced).

• Actually adding a faster travel way to tilverton, or a donation box to Arabel for the Ravens: Just simply posting it's being added eventually doesn't really help. This is something that should take like 5 minutes to add into the mod, and should really, really just be added within the day.

For anything else that I may think of, I'll toss in here as well later on down below.

@Lord_Acererak Would be something to behold, that's for sure.

@Zool don't worry I found the loot ribbeting.

It's a real, real long and dangerous way back and forth! Possibly replacing the moonsea ride caravan in the clover market with one that takes you up there for 50g or something similar... Or just a prestige chest for the ravens somewhere in the city (maybe the manticore?) so you don't have to lug everything back and forth.