Discussion: Arelith’s Getting Too Big?

[Exordius]

I do agree the roads could do with less mobs and there are way too many Rocs in-between old and new gulderand and they are op.

[Aeralad]

I've never had a problem with the size of the tundra maps in Skaljard myself. Irongron is right in that the size can lead itself to more resources, which I've seen in those areas.
I've actually felt really good about the size and the barren feeling of the tundra one time, when I was walking from south to north for what reason I've forgotten, and I saw a level 4 or 5 near the entrance who seemed to need guidance or help.

I quickly walked next to him with my hood up to converse and eventually said something like "No you need to head back! There's massive Wendigos out here!"
After the player went back toward Skal I kept walking with my hood up, and I sincerely felt like I was Obi-Wan on Geonosis with the message for a bit. Like I was an Obi-wan of Skal on patrol with my hood up. Hehe.

There are definitely other ways to walk besides maybe Skal from what I've seen.
I find it interesting though that people want to talk about the new areas near Soulhaven, but people don't like taking the caravan from the other thread?
I could understand the CR of the monsters thing, but Guldorand is generally for people of level 15-20 or something right? That's around the level you depart from Skal.

But if there is a technical reason for the map sizes - looks like there is - I'd support that mostly.

[Sockss]

4. Nwn asset limit.

A couple of months ago Arelith broke down, because we went above a 16,000 asset limit, on each server areas account for 1000 of these. We made some changes to buy us some space, but unless NwN gets updated this will continue to lurk on our horizon.

Can't you just push things into hak's?

[Miaou]

I'm of the opinion (popular or not) that Arelith doesn't have the population to support such vast areas without immediately imparting a sense of scarcity or lack of players abouts if redeveloped this way across the board, only further exaggerated by adding to the number of towns (and sizes thereof) on the module, when players have found issue already for years with Cordor alone being split up across 2 (or 4) areas, making it seem desolate in off-hours.

To quote this, I'm actually of the opposite mindset. I think Arelith's population has expanded so much that there is little wiggle room for people to have space to do what they want.

I'm very much in mind that "hub" locations are good, take the area around Cordor's main board, Andunor's Hub, The Arcane Tower's lobby, The Logging Camp, Around portals, etc etc. These are hubs and if you want to interact with people regularly, you go to these places. But not everyone wants to have constant interactions with every other player on the server. Sometimes I get overwhelmed and just want to walk around. I've always been annoyed by loading screens and how tight things feel. The Arelith Forest is a circle with one or two branching paths, there's no "wandering" room.

But places like Minmir? I lose it each time I go there. Minmir Lake is a wonderful set of maps. It's entirely optional. To the west end of the lake is the Radiant Heart (A hub in it's own right. It has a tavern, a portal, shops, and branching paths elsewhere like to Brog or Myon/Forest).

The Nexus Falls is the pillar of this area because all traffic comes through here. What's funny is that if you're going to somewhere nearby, you never touch the new Minmir maps. Banite Keep? Endless Battlefield? Towards Brog? Towards the forest? All of these options do not take you through those big maps. The only reason you would go through them is to either to take one of three main long walking routes to Guldorand (The other options being north through undead, then through the Reavers or south to Bendir, east to the coast, then north up the foothills. Both of these options are longer and arguably tougher than going by the lake).

I love these maps because I don't need to be two inches from any companion(s) I might have with me. We can space out. It's a lovely place to go get resources that's not just another dungeon. It's rewarding to poke our heads into outcroppings. It's wonderful for long RP walks. I do this often.

And, yes. It's amazing for horses. Riding a horse through these areas is amazing.

But what of the other maps? There are the Reaver maps, places like the Thief's Bridge (name?) and the Gap of... Something. There's the Orclands map which is one of the very few wide open dungeons. There are the lowerdark maps which are EXPANSIVE but really gives the feeling of openness and difference than the nornal cavey underdark. These places are all optional. Some of them might have dungeons, which the new dungeons are so well made it's amazing to explore them then ask myself "Wait, was I just exploring some old tower or was that a little dungeon?" The best part is it's a bit of both. If I want to skip these places, I can. I can use a portal. There are the caravans. The ships sail the seas. If I wanted to, I would never need to walk the roads. But I do sometimes. and it's nice. Not every road or random rocky crag needs some PC popping out asking me how my day has been, or giving me a *nod*. Let me go into the wilderness. It's wild. It's not civilized. I shouldn't regularly see people and when I do, it's amazing and a cool experience to exchange quick greetings and perhaps why we are both here, exchange what we've seen, and go about our day.

I love how Arelith is structured. Sure, there can be improvements but that's to be expected. I love the hub/wilderness ratio, though I honestly wish there was more wilderness. If the population shrinks, it was already said Arelith's map will shrink with it. But we've done nothing but grow.







As a side bar, and I entirely know this is a possibly unpopular opinion that's already been stated but I do feel the roads should be a little bit more sparse on spawns. The road from Cordor to the Tower is walked so much the goblins should be huddled in the treeline, not standing on the road in groups of six or so to be exploded in a second by anyone over level six. Same with roads like the Tower to Bendir and some of the roads around Bendir before they branch out. More estranged paths like the Skull Crags foothills paths? Hell yeah, give me those ogres and wolves. Nobody is out here, it's wild and dangerous roads. Well traveled trade paths, literally named after the trade that happens on it? Maaaybe less spawns.


tl;dr I like big maps I like wilderness I like hub areas and I want MORE.

[Johnsmith]

Arelith’s too small!! But maybe should be carved up into smaller areas.

[ReverentBlade]

Honestly? Just raise the default movement speed of everyone and everything across the board and make a -lot- of people very happy.

[Nobs]

More large wild zones plz i love them.

[Griefmaker]

Honestly? Just raise the default movement speed of everyone and everything across the board and make a -lot- of people very happy.

Increasing the default walk speed would definitely be a wonderful thing.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

I do wonder if everyone got a 5% speed boost if this would set dangerous precedent or break something.

And yeah, I think some areas need to be flatter. Maneuvering over the inclines/declines not only takes longer, but the pathfinding can be really obtuse. It also makes combat more finnicky, but in a bad way.

Also, there are a bunch of new spots that are basically pseudo-labyrinthes. I understand this is meant to be traversing through mountain passe and rocky areas, but I wish they were 2 characters wide, rather than 1. Also to help with the pathfinding and ease of use (from an actual playing of the game perspective).

[sarithia]

...
am I the only one that loves it?
I legit think the new areas in the Crags are stunning. Sure, they're a pain in the butt, but I kinda like that. There's a load of possibilities I see for it. Evading enemies? Battles? Camping? I'm pulling stuff from the air here, but yeah. I like it!

[Cataclysm of Iron]

...
am I the only one that loves it?
I legit think the new areas in the Crags are stunning. Sure, they're a pain in the butt, but I kinda like that. There's a load of possibilities I see for it. Evading enemies? Battles? Camping? I'm pulling stuff from the air here, but yeah. I like it!

No you're not alone - I'm an old, old player who's come back for the first time in a while in the last few weeks, and in the last two days begun to explore Upper Shyr, and it's stunning. Sure, it lured me to my death because a winding mountain pass looked cool and kept going and everything was fine and suddenly it threw a thematically amazing but very challenging boss on my head - but that's part of the Arelith fun!

I think that part of Arelith, at least, is made of gorgeous areas (can't speak for some of the others being discussed here) and - given how good and accessible fast travel of various types is adding to the distance in real terms is pretty nice.

[Griefmaker]

...
am I the only one that loves it?
I legit think the new areas in the Crags are stunning. Sure, they're a pain in the butt, but I kinda like that. There's a load of possibilities I see for it. Evading enemies? Battles? Camping? I'm pulling stuff from the air here, but yeah. I like it!

I never said I did not love it. I actually really do and part of the reason I made an elven ranger alt was to be able to purposefully explore all of these new areas, especially in stealth, so I could take my time and explore all the new places, nooks and crannies, at my own pace.

But that being said, an increase in walking speeds (not necessarily running speeds) would be a great thing in general.

[Beard Master Flex]

In my opinion Arelith is getting way too large for its mundane areas.

The wilderness is so vacant and empty that I rarely encounter other players. Rarely is too strong a word. Almost never.

The areas themselves are beautiful and well done, but Arelith is an RP server where I want to meet and interact with characters consistently and constantly. So I disagree with this design focus to make it more akin to an epic truly open world where the population density of wildlands is true to life. If I want to relish in landscapes there are plenty of options in single player games that make that exploration more exciting and with unmatched spectacle.

My bias is that I play Ranger characters and a big highlight of RPing a Ranger for me is interacting with people I meet out in the wilderness. Be it other rangers or travelers.

Anecdotally I feel that this style of RP is just not viable any longer. When the server was smaller I would have random encounters on the regular and it was an absolute delight.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

I will echo everything Beard Master Flex said. He probably articulated it better than I.

[Straxus]

What I see here is opportunity... not only for initial exploration, Resources, and rp adventure... but growth of new points of interest.

Maybe I am pulling at a very thin thread here, but as with Arelith being now seemingly more crowded in hub-like areas... you all may be thinking too much inside the "old Arelith box" pun intended!

[Straxus]

I wanted to add, it creates opportunities for both the Dev team, and players alike.

[Cataclysm of Iron]

Definitely agree - the number of characterful fixture instalments and cool little areas of player-led development seems less than it has been in the past, and many of the new areas have some wonderful nooks and crannies which lend themself to a wayside shrine, campsite, ritual circle, etc.

[Straxus]

Definitely agree - the number of characterful fixture instalments and cool little areas of player-led development seems less than it has been in the past, and many of the new areas have some wonderful nooks and crannies which lend themself to a wayside shrine, campsite, ritual circle, etc.

Getting there.

[Wuthering]

I do wonder if everyone got a 5% speed boost if this would set dangerous precedent or break something.

I don't see a downside, what are you thinking when you say that?

I think the default walking speed should be boosted quite a bit and running should be the same. That would make travel more fun and go a long way towards discouraging people from running in or between towns.

[PeterRasta]

I will echo everything Beard Master Flex said. He probably articulated it better than I.

Same.

[Sockss]

I do wonder if everyone got a 5% speed boost if this would set dangerous precedent or break something.

I don't see a downside, what are you thinking when you say that?

I think the default walking speed should be boosted quite a bit and running should be the same. That would make travel more fun and go a long way towards discouraging people from running in or between towns.

Problems with a base MS increase:

• Reduces the reaction period for players, putting unskilled players at a big disadvantage.
• Creates a big problem for ranged/casting characters.
• It also means that environmental factors in combat become very skewed in certain areas, such as LoS breaking.
• 5% isn't 'that' bad, but it's a slippery slope.

Ultimately it's Irongron's decision to build big areas.

While I can propose solutions / alternatives with his raised points (1-4 ), in that you can easily add multiple rare encounters in a limited space, upping resource drops is easy so you don't need to put loads of them everywhere, [I don't quite understand 3, QoL != viability] and the resource limit can be bypassed with haks and the resource manager.

What I can't debate Irongron wanting a feeling of scale.

As a result, any movement speed base increase would reduce that scale so it won't happen (and a good thing too for the above reasons).

'Too big' is bad for RP. 'Too small' is bad for RP. It's definitely a balancing act to get it right.

Though I don't think the current dynamic of huge areas and instant travel to most places actually gives Arelith a sense of scale at all and thinking on it further, it might be an idea to reduce portals anyway.

Hub RP, after all, is always very limited in interaction.

'Wandering' RP has always been better (and is now a rarity), but I don't think that these huge areas are solely to blame for the lack of it.

Reducing portals to hubs, and some select dungeon areas (Burning Shores, RDI etc.) would hopefully provide more field encounters. (Perhaps add a 'home' attunement as well, in areas such as the groves/guildhouses which you can rebind but only have one of, would keep faction RP in its easily organised state.)

Maybe if the instant travel pretty much everywhere features are removed, we won't need huge areas for a sense of scale AND we'll get the stumbling on something cool RP out and about.

[Shrouded Wanderer]

In my opinion we shouls reduce the number of load area transitions by transfering many maps from 3 to 4 transitions to one single transition area.


As well I think the number of portals should be decreased to only major hubs where players ofte. Travel.


Arelith is not too big, player base is spread out over many different loading areas that could be in the same area with a large map.

For example nexus falls, radiant heart area, banite church could all be one seamless area, instead its 4 transitions all within feet of each other

[Void]

In my opinion Arelith is getting way too large for its mundane areas.

The wilderness is so vacant and empty that I rarely encounter other players. Rarely is too strong a word. Almost never.

I wandered in arelith forest before EE switch, and this state of affairs was the usual thing. Most of the time there was nobody to meet. Although you could run into fixture camp or a messageboard.

In my opinion we shouls reduce the number of load area transitions by transfering many maps from 3 to 4 transitions to one single transition area.

This will wreck spawn system and will result in many situations where you hear battle music because someone is fighitng 50 miles away, which will be a great indicator that all monsters are already dead.

I think current organization of old environments is good as it is. Self contained areas that aren't too huge. Huge areas can be added elsewhere if people want them, but it would be better not to touch existing stuff. "Don't fix it if it ain't broken".

[dallion43]

Everything below is IMHO, of course.

I am not sure I see the problem with new areas being big. Players will encounter less players because the areas are huge?
Huge or not, most players in the long run go to places with an end point. Dungeon, resource, any meeting hub on the server.

Seen the area ten times and just going thru alone?
Run hasted. Use boots of extended Retreat*x, if you feel it is expensive otherwise. Yes, it is RP ok. No, not in Andur hub please...IMHO.

Like *random* PC encounters to travel with? Start them in the standard places. Hub(UD) or Cordor. Drop an item with description *Looking to hire an exploration scout to X*, whatever else. It works even for someone like me :p.

The benefits to new areas and PvE locations are huge. It is hard to RP excitement from a new area when you been there countless times with your old PCs. It is hard not to fall asleep on Auto-drive leveling in the the same dungeon yet another time even if you are not alone. Going to a popular dungeon with a group on the weekend? Every relevant dungeon already has a group in it.

Random encounters? Give me more. As long as it is really at least a bit random area, spawn and/or timing wise. New mini-bosses spawns showed that this will add a flavor to the regular run/walk.

Dangerous areas with difficult PvE content close by? Give me more :p. One is my favorites on Arelith is going to fight the Cow from the Cow mountain.
Difficult PvE, in my opinion, forces people to group by, leading to huge jump in RP of all kinds that lasts even after hitting 30.
Close by to towns on the way to a low lvl writ?
I am not sure spawning massive lvl 30 content right near 15 lvl content is good, but if it is near by and one have to *put his nose in a hole* to get hit by it, that not an issue, if anything, it adds in my opinion.

Performance and spawns are an issue to be concerned about. Apparently performance is not.
Spawns mechanic is a problem, and I am sure, will be taken into consideration in development with acceptable solution.

Less loading screens and more map when tilting your camera leads to more immersion in my book.

If you ever managed/worked with a pro designer, you know that designers work best with as less restrictions as possible on their believes and via versa.

P.C
To people behind the new areas and everything else new, thank you! Arelith is better then ever, not to mention better then other Shards I been too.

[monkeywithstick]

I love the large areas. The only thing I'd add is that the load times for some are much higher, which isn't the end of the world but it can make for some awkward experiences scrying as you lose a lot of the scry time to the load screen...