Where the hells are ya?

Well? Where are you, you dirty scoundrels? Clearly no one is online anymore. Ever.
And that sucks, coz I want to smash things but it isn't as fun when you're on your own!!

Hey Kirsty

Call em all back, John Boy gets a group running around during week. I need to put some loving into world, just been rather distracted of late.

SPor

I know you've been busy Spor. Heck, I'VE been busy. But I figured there'd be some people around! I guess I was just surprised by how few.

I've been busy with work, I think I've logged onto the server once or twice in the last month however everytime I'm free and check there is nobody else online. Will try and jump on Sat at roughly 7:30ish pm AEST. If anyone has anything they want to follow up on or any ideas everyone might enjoy.

Jimmy

Heh, got kids Sat night, so an ideal time for me to put some more energy back into the World. Though from a building point of view.

My broken hand is basically better again so I can finally use a mouse, but frisbee and soccer seasons are currently clashing and wiping out most of my remaining free time. Log ins are a bit hit and miss without a target to aim for currently.

Ok, Sat night it is! I should be nice and grumpy after work, so that's perfect. Grumpy dwarf lookin to bash stuff and be generally grumpy. 7:30pm onwards.


Good to hear your hand is getting better Andy

I thought you used to the PC one handed anyway?

When down for a run at Ultimate last night, was great fun and now thinking I should play Nats again. My poor poor body.

SPor

Wrong hand though - and tried a bit onehanded but trick trying to get to shift and Ctrl hotkey lists .

As for frisbee, regionals are on this weekend and Nats in a month or so (non-mixed). I'm more of a social player (and local league co-ordinator)

still here just keep missing people

My stupid effing computer died. So count me out for sat

I basically quit. No interest in the characters and not enough time to invest what I need into them or try and gain the slow levels needed.

Shucks, WOW is easier I suppose but for me doesn't challenge any part of my mind. Guild Wras is funthough but again, no mind challenges.

I was focusing solely on NWN here, there is no reward for great roleplay. Players log on, form a party. Go kill things, then log off or roleplay for hours. They gain a total of 200xp maybe.

Most cannot stand mindless,pointless killing of the goblins/ants/grandmothers, whatever as the only way to gain levels. RP rewards were rare, you want to be a heavy RP server, it needs to reward it or if not reward through DM, make story line quests and have them reward that way. Something that gives the player a purpose in the game world and to kill X creature.

Don't focus on WoW and just say it is easier, I am pointing out the faults and trying to be nice about it. I still play NWN daily, only I do it on a social server.

Hino

Seriously not really stressed. I do what I can when I can and this is a hobby for me. I am glad you are playing on a social server and getting the mental stimulation that WOW etc can not provide. I have found of late RL very stimulating, hence my lack of ffocus on Aeon. I have started doing more work on the world and trying to alter thigns but a band of one is just that.

Perhaps I should take the world down and be done with it.

No, you are driving yourself crazy, just because of that band of one. Let the reins go, before you burn out and let a potentially wonderful world burn with you. There needs to be more DMs, there needs to be more players and plots and building done. That cannot and should not be done by just one person.

I am not trying to be a jerk, I loved Aeon, just lately it has idled, due to you taking on far too much by yourself instead of kicking others into doing it to help you. It is their world as well, everyone should want to see it grow, especially DMs.

Problem is Hino, when I ask for help I hear noise and well thats about it. I cna let the reins go any day but until people stand up to be counted and deliver it will be a band of one. Current folk have burnt themselves out as well and I can't blame them if they are feelign that way.

I am happily building and adding more things and working out new systems but that is what makes me happy and when I stop being happy, heck thats when I stop.

Baron, bless his soul, said do what makes you happy and I am living to that.

I quit for pretty much the same reason as Hino.

But if you want help then I'm willing to help; I'd hate to see Aeon die out. I can do anything except scripting (except the sit script, my finest moment ). I'm willing to do all the boring stuff like testing (and spellchecking) as well. So let me know if there is something that needs done!

In short, you build you got a job. You write you got a job. Toolset is easy, getting motivated and learning to do it is hard. Heck if I can teach myself how to use the toolset, script, hack haks anyone can.

hmm thinking of Haks, I think I need to add some more.

Spor

As a player who has been on the server since its first incarnation i think i an say that despite the current lack of multitudes of players i still enjoy aeon and i will happily vollunteer to do some building and dming if required.

i think the world does have a few gaps but some times worlds grow slowly, i have played on servers with a build team and no less than seven DM's and still the world grew at a crawl.

ive had many a chat with players new and old about the world and if i may id suggest the following in as constructive a manner as i am able:

1) XP, it has been brought up in various conversations that the xp is quite low on aeon and i have found that at lower levels this is fine, but as the players progress there is little to battle for mid to high level (10 - 20 lvl) chars that will net them more than 4 xp. i think the addition of some mid level monsters might inject that extra level of challenge to cover the mid level xp gap, Spor is this the engine choosing xp lvls or is it a script?

2) RP, its hard to judge the level of rp in any given world without constant monitoring (no dm is willing to monitor a server 24 hrs a day) Ive seen some amazing RP on aeon some wonderfull stories and plots that have had little to no DM input and some DM stories that have fallen flat on thier arses, the point im making here is that its the players that drive the RP on any server and unfortunately some of that is bound to go unrewarded but i do agree that some of the xp handed out by dm's for a good deal of commitment to a story can at times be a little light, but this comes down to waht is an accepted level of RP on a server . for example if a group of players sit and talk for hours on end (and weve all seen it happen) does that mean were all only rewarded for endless talking and not actualy doing anything? or do we all run about slaughtering hordes of goblins tossing in the occasional in character quip and jest and get rewarded more or less? i think the balance is in there somewhere but it is up to good DM's to find it and adapt to the players various styles and reward them ased on wahts actually happening.

3) Recurring quests. this i think can be a great tool for players to gain some xp and begin stories for example i met and adventured with alot of players on the server based on the goblin chief head quest and it is a quest i sent many a new player on as a good bonding process for low level chracters. But we have come to the inevitable conclusion of the quest system, waht do you do when youve done them all? it is perhaps a little unreasonble to ask a build team of one to constantly come up with new and excititng quests that are more or less permanent to appease all of thier gamers. there has been an increase of quest based npcs on the server who will happily give you something to do. I do have one comment more than criticism these npcs can be a little difficult to find and i think the fact that only one memeber of the party benefits at a time from alot of the quests can be frustrating, but i think that is an easy fix , also if im not getting confused the current set up is to prevent abuse of the quests to power level? please corerect me if im wrong there spor.

4) This is my final point and please believe that i mean this constructively the loss of a large portion of the player base comes from Dm interaction. DM's have a great deal of power on a server and the use of that power can and often will make or break it for the majority of players DM's set the tone for how RP is handled and how in character desputes are dealt with .overly heavy handed approaches will lead to a loss of players and eventually the DM will find that they are largley ignored as the stories they set up are ignored or players find out that a particular dm is on and simply log off. Im not putting all the blame on dm's here as for the large part they do a great job and players do need to be understanding of the limitations a dm has within the game and engine and the time it takes to set up storylines in the firstplace.


in short i think that all the current issues wi aeon can be fixed with a little application and some understanding from us the aeon community.

im putting my hand up , throwing my hat in the ring and slapping the appropriate faces with my gauntlet Ill do waht i can to build. ive sent spor a number of areas today and ill put my hand up for DM if the job is going wanting and ill write quests as soon as i figure out the damn conversation tool, As it stands im happy to be a helping hand in character as haegen to get people going on stories and adventures.

just my two cents.
john.

hino wrote:

I was focusing solely on NWN here, there is no reward for great roleplay. Players log on, form a party. Go kill things, then log off or roleplay for hours. They gain a total of 200xp maybe.

Most cannot stand mindless,pointless killing of the goblins/ants/grandmothers, whatever as the only way to gain levels. RP rewards were rare, you want to be a heavy RP server, it needs to reward it or if not reward through DM, make story line quests and have them reward that way. Something that gives the player a purpose in the game world and to kill X creature.

Don't focus on WoW and just say it is easier, I am pointing out the faults and trying to be nice about it. I still play NWN daily, only I do it on a social server.

You have to be kidding me that you are complaining about this. In all the years that I played Mysty I go a total of 20xp for RP, I tried to always keep in character, and participate in the intent of the server, I did not grass sit though. How much did you get in the myriad of years and incarnations of mysty? Do some maths for me.

XP gained on Mysty for RP / hours spent playing mysty.

XP gained on Aeon for RP / hours spent playing Aeon.

If they are close to the same I would suggest that you need to re-evalueate your opinion here.

Unfortunately, since getting a new computer I've been catching up on a lot of games never played and I do love my FPS games, so my nwn times has dwindled, lack of interest, new job that requires me to be away from home, burn out, the usual. I dont think Ive been on the server since before xmas.
Im still building stuff and learning the toolset, working on my own small nwn project, but I like shooting things much more.

Just to match the comments made, and I think they are comments that have been made before -

XP level needs to be raised. Lets not worry about powergamers and just reward the players that bother to turn up.

XP level ties in with NPC quests. The Server does need more but Spor and I both know that this is not a five minute job.

RP xp bonuses are hard to script into npc quests etc, so like or hate it, RP xp comes from active DMs. If there arent any, youre not going to get any.

If you have a problem with DMs, speak up. We might be mature enought to handle it as constructive.

if you want to build something and offer it up to Aeon. Just build it. Spors said it before, build it, send it. Google Forgotten Realms and the Moonsea and YOU will find a whole internet full of background information to use. Anything else we can work around, like scripting problems etc.

Also, lets not forget the incredibly small player base (!). Aeon isnt busy, very rarely did I see new players log in, which says to me that NWN is pretty much dead and other servers are busy because they have a strong, long term player base. If Mysty was still alive we'd all still be there. You cant just pop on' to Aeon, because there is **** all to do if theres no other players on. So don't 'pop on'. Make play dates.

Its a shame really, because there are a handfull of players that really want to get together and do stuff, but if we dont talk to each other and arrange stuff, and make stuff, then the server will die. Posts like this can help to get things going again, but action needs to come .. not more posts.

Good points all.

Thanks Hino, John boy and Phae. Input is useful.

John boy got module, so will review and slot in to chaos doors as discussed.

Spor

Hang in there, Spor. I'm still on a fair bit, albeit by myself. Exploring on your own has its own set of thrills. Personally, I don't care a whit if there's an xp award for RP. I just enjoy the RP itself. It really is its own reward.

It would be nice if there were more people on when I play, but I realize that I'm on the other side of the world from most of the Aeon playerbase. Still, I will try to log in on weekend mornings and maybe catch a few of you nightbirds.

In the meantime, have a seat at the fire and enjoy some of Lindy's latest cooking. Have an antidote handy just in case ...

I'm currently struggling to find enough time to sleep ,but hopefully by Easter things will quieten down a bit and I'll probably start trying to organsie some group adventures on Saturdays and maybe midweek. No concentrations of mid level monsters isn't hard to fix if you get a DM to tag along too . Still have a number of unresolved character plots to reveal, but if no DMs are available, I might be able to do something just for these group sessions on the fly (depending on if there are enough other players and Spor is happy).

Stay tuned, but feel free to get your own stuff happening in the meantime.