Arelith tips

[seethings]

Hi

I have been playing Arelith on and off for 18mnths often with substantial breaks in-between; I really like this server because of all the unique content and systems. I do however have 2 questions if anyone can guide me.


CRAFTING: I am a non crafter but wonder...

I have made it to level 22 over 18mnths. In all that time I have never come across a player picking herbs, mining rock or minerals or even at a workstation crafting and so on...and yet there is an abundance of crafted items players are selling?? I because there are so many places to do this and people have private residences, it happens behind closed doors. But how come i never see anyone gathering resources? (a common sight on other servers)


DM's
In all my time I have never experienced a DM event or encounter: Are these restricted to established factions and so on for ratio of impact efficiency>? Again I haven't even stumbled into one as an outsider.


EVIL ROLEPLAY

Are there any maps or areas/ writs issued by evil factions where you can kill good soldiers and common folk etc. Weird to always be killing evil with evil ...or even just working for the 'good' registry agents who don't seem to care who does there tasks.


Thanks

[Skibbles]

Lots of this sounds like the result of simply playing Arelith, as you say, on and off. Or maybe you're in a European timezone which means you'll miss the US crowd which makes up a substantial part of the population.

It takes about a week or two for players to reach level 30 on a character, so it sounds like you're playing quite casually if you've managed level 22 in a year and a half. That's usually achievable in like.. maybe 3 days of consistent play or something?

There's nothing wrong with casual play, but you will miss a lot of things like what you've mentioned.

Re: Crafting

If you go afk in the Forest of Despair for an hour or two I guarantee you'll see someone tear through blasting all the trees for lumber and ignoring you entirely. Most of the time I see resource gathering not as the primary objective, but something people do as an afterthought.

IE: Walking along the countryside RPing, spots some coal and mines it... continues on.

Re: DM Events

If you're in the Euro-zone it'll be harder to see this, but my understanding is that DM activity is at the highest point its been for quite a while. Hang out. It'll come eventually.

Re: Evil RP

That's a good question, but I'm not sure if you mean actual RP or just writs. As far as I know there aren't any writs/quests that involve killing innocents and being quite nefarious. Even Underdark writs involve dealing with things outside Andunor that, presumably, are a threat or a nuisance to the city itself.

I know there's been DM overseen attacks from the Underdark against cities on the Surface, which can involve killing guards and general evil shenanigans, but this isn't something you're going to see often (for good reason, else it would stop feeling like a special event if it was made a regular thing).

[Ping14]

Re: Evil RP

That's a good question, but I'm not sure if you mean actual RP or just writs. As far as I know there aren't any writs/quests that involve killing innocents and being quite nefarious. Even Underdark writs involve dealing with things outside Andunor that, presumably, are a threat or a nuisance to the city itself.

When you stop seeing writs as simply writs, then you'll see how you can use each to add more depth to your character. Its only a matter of perspective.

IE: Earl Manfried's quest = A paladin goes out for the writ, then sees a warlock (ofcourse he doesn't know he's a warlock) hanging out in Nexus Falls. Paladin invites, the warlock agrees. Paladin wants to smitey smitey, the warlock on the other hand as a different agenda - to have a chance to get the Twisted Rune that the Earl Manfried once had. At the boss fight the warlock can reveal his intention to the paladin, providing conflict RP.

You just have to make up your own reason of doing those writs.

Also, every prisoner in the game have different choices. Reflect your personality by either wanting to free them for coin, or just outright killing them. This is not as discreet as the previous scenario however, so expect to get kicked out of the party or be outright PVPed if you have goody-two-shoes in party. There's also the Cordor Storage area, its not a writ, but its the prime example of a thieving RP place. Grave robbing is also an option, grab a shovel and have good enough spot/search then uncover those "hidden" spots.

[Skibbles]

Right, but my impression is that he was asking specifically about quest-related mechanics involving the killing of good-aligned or neutral entities.

Games like WoW come to mind here, where one can play Horde and run about killing Alliance guards, innocent villagers, and generally being the archetypal villain.

What you've outlined is all well and good, but seems quite different than what they were asking about since they seemed specifically interested in the exact opposite of your example - the warlock being tasked to kill other evil entities instead of cackling while burning down a village and collecting a reward for it from an evil quest giver.

Edit: formatting and clarity.

[Hazard]

WoW come to mind here, where one can play Horde and run about killing Alliance guards, innocent villagers, and generally being the archetypal villain.

Sounds like some ALLIANCE PROPAGANDA!

Those are war criminals, their sympathisers and I was being a HERO!

As for some of the questions asked,

Crafting doesn't take long and yes it can happen behind closed doors, but mostly I see it happen in hubs with shops, a bank and crafting stations. You might not see it because people just use the table and go, but you also might not see many harvesting resources because they can be stockpiled in settlement warehouses that you can buy and sell from if you speak to a trade czar. This means that every time adventurers come back with a little something they can dump it off there, and crafters can actually go to the warehouse to get what they need instead of needing to brave the wilds or a dungeon. But if you spend enough time near crafting stations or resource nodes you'll notice people do actually use them.

DM events can be rare especially for certain timezones. I've gone many years without even seeing one first hand, most likely because Australia.

Evil Roleplay, the opporturnity is there but you'll find on the surface most tend to hide it because they're afraid of being discovered as evil too early. Arelith has a small problem of a certain mentality being pretty popular of "the rp doesn't begin until 30" so many villains hide their true nature on the surface until they're strong enough to defend themselves against the swarm of max level BiS geared characters that will inevitably come chasing after them Benny Hill style.

You can make any writ evil depending on how you do it. You raised undead to succeed? You are only motived by the gold? Keep in mind killing evil doesn't make you good, so even in the Underdark when you are sent to dispatch some obviously evil foes, you could do so with your own selfish evil intent. Maybe you kill them in far more painful and horrible ways than you need to or maybe your character just delights in slaughter.

[Skibbles]

Sounds like some ALLIANCE PROPAGANDA!

[Kalos]

I am a casual player myself. I could never imagine hitting level 30 in a week or two...WOW, even with the writ system. Level 30 takes me months (and honestly, I am quite ok with that).

CRAFTING:
- There are many places to get crafting materials so there is no "one spot" you will see people queuing at for resources generally. And now that settlements buy and sell these resources, every adventurer can benefit from farming a few resources on their normal travels.
- many settlements have crafting areas. If you stay in these areas long enough (Brog's trade hall for example) you will see activity on the various stations.

DM's:
- DM Events are run by DM's on their own schedule. I can tell you as a casual player, I have stumbled into (or on the fringe of) three or four in the several years I have been here. So they do happen, you can be part of them, but depending on your play times and lengths you may not.

EVIL:
- Yea, no writs for killing random innocent bystanders. But don't let that stop you from playing an evil character if that's what you want. There are different challenge levels for playing Arelith, and playing Evil on the Surface is a hard one, but that can be the fun. It does require one to be a bit 'subtle'-evil in the beginning to feel people out, but then as you grow in power, so to, can your ego . But like in any good story, don't be upset if the "good guys" win. I look at playing evil as deciding to be the villian in the story. So be prepared for PvP, and be ok if you don't always win. Those Goody-Goodies have a bad habit of teaming up.

Some of the most fun I have had was doing sewer writs at low levels with my low level Palemaster-to-be Necromancer and his undead summons, and battling the inevitable Paladin that stumbled across me. I think I had been in at least 5 PvP encouters before level 9. lol. I managed to defeat I think 3 out of 5, and in one of those encounters it was 2 on 1. good times, even in the ones I lost the RP was fun.

[Amateur Hour]

Are there any maps or areas/ writs issued by evil factions where you can kill good soldiers and common folk etc. Weird to always be killing evil with evil ...or even just working for the 'good' registry agents who don't seem to care who does there tasks.

It's worth noting that, in the context of the Forgotten Realms, the side of Evil doesn't usually see itself united as counterposed against Good. Your average Sharran, for example, doesn't see the Blood Moon Orcs as potential allies just because they're both evil. As an even greater example, infernalists and abyssalists are directly opposed to each other due to the Blood War.

Also, I would encourage you to see the registry agents as neutral. Things have been identified as a nuisance to the settlements, and in order for the settlements to continue functioning normally, they'll pay you to take care of those nuisances. The writ agents don't care about your motivations because they are irrelevant to the agency's interests. Due to the inherent nature of evil, evil's probably going to be the most common cause of nuisance (though it's worth noting a lot of low-level quests are against neutral nuisances, like overpopulated rats and oozes).

[seethings]

Thnaks everyone for taking the time to write long replies

Very useful...I hadnt thought of approaching writes from own perspective/alignment.

Going up 30 levels in 3 -5 days...wowsers...takes me that long to design and hotkey all my clothes 'hood up' 'hood down' etc.