Dark Spires Castle.

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Shrouded Wanderer
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Re: Dark Spires Castle.

Post by Shrouded Wanderer » Thu Oct 29, 2020 11:12 pm

Oftentimes what a developer wants and what happens naturally are two seperate things.
The reason people complain that there are no evil settlements on the surface is because with the underdark eventually and naturally the surface becomes "good" place.

The issue with giving more of these goodies to settlements is that there is naturally a narrowing gap of evil surfacers being able to independently operate guildhouses.

Giving settlements who have been good aligned for yeara the ability to oust factions from guildhalls shifts their enemies from being able to own anything.

Having independent strongholds prevents settlements from strong arming new created factions and evil factions from taking root.

Imagine if the church of bane was owned by guldorand as a settlement? Could they not just oust the bane faction if they caused problems for guldorand or guldorands friends? Then that faction has no home to lay their heads, they peter out and people are less inclined to provide that type of roleplay

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Re: Dark Spires Castle.

Post by Lexx » Fri Oct 30, 2020 11:14 am

Not everything has to have a massive RP buildup to an area being updated. You'd be seriously limiting what gets done if the devs were limited behind that. Mayfields update and Dis for instance. Sometimes some handwaving has to occur to old content for the server to move forwards.

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Re: Dark Spires Castle.

Post by theCountofMonteCristo » Fri Oct 30, 2020 12:21 pm

Spyre wrote:
Thu Oct 29, 2020 5:11 pm
I disagree that it should be connected to a settlement. It comes off as very entitled to think content should just be handed to someone because they claim to patrol lands that are not really their territory.

The guildhouse in the base camp used to be home to a lot of different factions long before any Brogendenstein member had a property in it.

I think the addition is good. I can’t wait to see what happens.
Calling players entitled because they expect their in character actions to have an impact on a roleplay world is not appropriate IMO.

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Re: Dark Spires Castle.

Post by the grim yeeter » Fri Oct 30, 2020 1:03 pm

theCountofMonteCristo wrote:
Fri Oct 30, 2020 12:21 pm
Spyre wrote:
Thu Oct 29, 2020 5:11 pm
I disagree that it should be connected to a settlement. It comes off as very entitled to think content should just be handed to someone because they claim to patrol lands that are not really their territory.

The guildhouse in the base camp used to be home to a lot of different factions long before any Brogendenstein member had a property in it.

I think the addition is good. I can’t wait to see what happens.
Calling players entitled because they expect their in character actions to have an impact on a roleplay world is not appropriate IMO.
That is not at all what he said, though. He said it comes off as entitled to think content, which tens of hours have been spent on to create by one or more devs, should be given to those who claim to have more right to have it because their characters frequently patrolled lands that aren't recognized as theirs (even though these players typically tend to love to think it is). And that is, absolutely, entitled behaviour.
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Re: Dark Spires Castle.

Post by The GrumpyCat » Fri Oct 30, 2020 1:59 pm

This is probably already pretty well covered but:

Changes just 'popping up' from nowhere arn't exactly new. It happens all the time. Of course the Team tries to add buildup when it can - but often it simply isn't possible.

As such it's (generally!) up to the player base to come up with whatever lore they want to explain it's appearence, so long as no lore exists In Game that is.

If you want to say that it was built by Brogenstein Dwarves I suppose you could? There are certainly dafter ideas and theories. But don't neccesatly expect DMs or Devs to back up your explenation, or demand that other players believe it. They're just as free to make up their own explenations.
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Re: Dark Spires Castle.

Post by Royal Blood » Fri Oct 30, 2020 2:03 pm

Yeah I do not like when things appear out of nowhere either.

It's like the Tungsten Turret there was like panic that it was replacing the Arcane tower. Suddenly there was 2 towers in the same area. It gets a bit silly to try to comprehend like IC.

Also for recons on areas people have established RP. It's like if you lived in an apartment and you came home one day and it was bulldozed. I don't think that keeps to the spirit of RP real well.

I've not seen the castle yet but I'm sure it looks amazing.
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Re: Dark Spires Castle.

Post by Irongron » Fri Oct 30, 2020 2:09 pm

Royal Blood wrote:
Fri Oct 30, 2020 2:03 pm
Also for recons on areas people have established RP. It's like if you lived in an apartment and you came home one day and it was bulldozed. I don't think that keeps to the spirit of RP real well.

I've not seen the castle yet but I'm sure it looks amazing.
In this case it is not a major rework of the area, which was mostly empty rooms, but rather a facelift - with new floors, decorations, doorways, windows etc, there is no reason for the RP there to be changed, and I said in another post, it is at least 3RL months away from being in settlement control.

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Re: Dark Spires Castle.

Post by -XXX- » Fri Oct 30, 2020 2:16 pm

the grim yeeter wrote:
Fri Oct 30, 2020 1:03 pm
theCountofMonteCristo wrote:
Fri Oct 30, 2020 12:21 pm
Spyre wrote:
Thu Oct 29, 2020 5:11 pm
I disagree that it should be connected to a settlement. It comes off as very entitled to think content should just be handed to someone because they claim to patrol lands that are not really their territory.

The guildhouse in the base camp used to be home to a lot of different factions long before any Brogendenstein member had a property in it.

I think the addition is good. I can’t wait to see what happens.
Calling players entitled because they expect their in character actions to have an impact on a roleplay world is not appropriate IMO.
That is not at all what he said, though. He said it comes off as entitled to think content, which tens of hours have been spent on to create by one or more devs, should be given to those who claim to have more right to have it because their characters frequently patrolled lands that aren't recognized as theirs (even though these players typically tend to love to think it is). And that is, absolutely, entitled behaviour.
Pretty much this. In the given context Spyre's claim was not only appropriate, but outright spot on.

Furthermore, the claim that the dwarves "patrol the mountain the most" is a fallacy - dark spires contain two dungeons with runic chests (one of which is ridiculously easy to complete on top of that). That pretty much means the area is being constantly grinded by EVERYONE, making the dwarves a ~minority~ in this simply by the virtue of race distribution among active characters.
Why should the flow of RP and IG lore abide by the claims of a minority fraction of the playerbase? Because they've been the most vocal group?

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Re: Dark Spires Castle.

Post by Nitro » Fri Oct 30, 2020 2:22 pm

I think the notion if any settlement "claiming" dangerous wilderness is silly. It obviously can't be enforced and the only reason silly fixture camps stay up is that hostile NPC's don't have the AI to selectively target them.

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Re: Dark Spires Castle.

Post by wulfburk » Fri Oct 30, 2020 5:35 pm

Nitro wrote:
Fri Oct 30, 2020 2:22 pm
I think the notion if any settlement "claiming" dangerous wilderness is silly. It obviously can't be enforced and the only reason silly fixture camps stay up is that hostile NPC's don't have the AI to selectively target them.
"silly" fixture camps arent any different in that regard to any other player fixtures placed in areas with hostile NPCs. Of course it shouldnt be enforced, but that has no bearings on the roleplay (talking from a immersion and realism point of view, you'd imagine an area could be cleared of enemies if an army went there quite often). From this topic i gathered this: it is silly to roleplay when such is unsupported mechanically (from claiming lands to claiming castles). Figures.

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Re: Dark Spires Castle.

Post by The GrumpyCat » Fri Oct 30, 2020 6:18 pm

wulfburk wrote:
Fri Oct 30, 2020 5:35 pm
Nitro wrote:
Fri Oct 30, 2020 2:22 pm
I think the notion if any settlement "claiming" dangerous wilderness is silly. It obviously can't be enforced and the only reason silly fixture camps stay up is that hostile NPC's don't have the AI to selectively target them.
"silly" fixture camps arent any different in that regard to any other player fixtures placed in areas with hostile NPCs. Of course it shouldnt be enforced, but that has no bearings on the roleplay (talking from a immersion and realism point of view, you'd imagine an area could be cleared of enemies if an army went there quite often). From this topic i gathered this: it is silly to roleplay when such is unsupported mechanically (from claiming lands to claiming castles). Figures.
Here's the thing.

Is what you're doing fun?

Yes?

Well then so long as it's not hurting the gameplay of others (which actually is a bit of a sticky question but let's not push into that too much) or the integrity of the game world too much, then go for it! The 'point' of it is to have fun!

Now if it happens that Irongron or someone looks over your project and goes 'wow that's really cool, and a lot of effort has gone into it - and it works well with game balence/setting then maybe your project will become perminent!

And if it doesn't? Who cares it was fun!
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Re: Dark Spires Castle.

Post by Skibbles » Sat Oct 31, 2020 4:04 am

I can't tell if this is a thread against auctions or areas being updated.

If it's areas being updated: what would constitute sufficient RP to make the still sudden change to an area more believable? What's the suggestion?

Are we to expect the devs to make two full areas? One for a 'halfway done' and then another area for the finished piece? That seems like a huge waste of time just to prevent the one-time awkward RP reaction of handwaving the appearance away.

Does a DM need to possess an NPC and spend hours telling everyone about the new upcoming area, answering the same questions over and over and over again, until some quota is met? I'd absolutely not want to be that DM.

Essentially: What are the proposed metrics for the RP you're asking for?

Regarding auctions: yes they're a double edged sword, but a ton of RP does revolve around the auction house (in Andunor anyway - I can't speak to the surface but it can't be *that*different can it?)

To me I'd say, if this area is as important to Brog and its being made to seem, they should have no trouble dedicating all their resources and RP into taking this area and threatening war with anyone who takes it.

Send out spies to see who also wants it and undermine, or start diplomacy, with them, or get the war started early. Take out a loan from other big factions that don't want the area, but want to buddy up with Brog. There's all sorts of options to role play here.

Sounds like three months of RP opportunity just landed in the lap of Brog players, and even more if they still don't get it (something about grudges here). I have trouble seeing how this is all bad.
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Re: Dark Spires Castle.

Post by wulfburk » Sat Oct 31, 2020 7:11 am

I dont mind areas popping out of the nowhere personally. But one idea may be just a heads up for settlements that construction work is starting somewhere? Like a DM popping up in one of the officer npcs and placing a note on the board (Construction work to be started in year 167 etc etc). Then the characters can make of it what they want, like placing pillars and other construction fixtures by themselves, either inside the area to be updated or near the border of the area to be added. Doesnt needs to be a whole half built area by the devs. This kind of roleplay already happens oftenly (check the grotto warden barracks for example), but the lack of results is handwaved of course. So having a heads up will make it even more interesting. This was the case with the Port update in Brog i believe, and the construction roleplay before it was finally added was really cool. Im sure the same roleplay would have been repeated if we knew the halls of legends (amazing btw) update was coming on so short notice too!

Same applies with a heads up to Castle factions when their place is gonna be updated. Though this is a special case where a quarter turned to a brokerage keep i guess.

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Re: Dark Spires Castle.

Post by Royal Blood » Sat Oct 31, 2020 2:32 pm

I don't think there needs to be a big RP build up I guess. But I think it creates more than a one time story flub. Like who is making these castles? Is Arelith owned by a real estate mogul crafting castles then making settlements buy them? Lol! It doesn't even need to be a new area design. Put down wagons and an NPC with a brief dialog to answer questions easy peasy.

I like the auction system sort of. The blind bid is annoying and I hated it before because it's a blind gold sink but I've sort of seen it's merit. It has led to a lot of RP. On the surface when leading a settlement the settlement my character led claimed a castle then used it to threaten another settlement with war. To claim that castle there was a slew of blackmail and roughing up to get extra gold because the settlement couldn't compete with others coin for example.

That being said, I think the like.over all 'issue' is this weird in-between place Arelith is in. A sort of hybrid RP-MMO Sandbox but only to an extent sort of thing. Faction power is all linear based on your pvp builds. No one accounts for the castles you own or the 'NPC' that would be there. So as a player if you're only considering the OOC knowledge of pvp builds and not accounting for the in game perceived rp strength then things are weird. And idk if this makes sense to tie into the main point of like as a player base it's like we're playing with different decks of cards. And there's no house rules that really like clarify what should be used.

Edit: what I am getting at is I don't think that Arelith is managed as a Role Play server first. It's an MMO first, RP second. but I think there is a lot of missed opportunity to make that MMO style content richer by having a more complete marriage with the role play atmosphere of the server. It will delay content, yeah, but I guess in my opinion the content is richer and the effort is worthwhile

Or if isn't and people will gripe anyways : )

Either way that's my opinion. I appreciate the content and especially how much of it is out. And like debate about how future content is released isn't a critique per se so I don't want to give off the impression that I'm not grateful or unhappy with what's released. It's just a conversation about what might be better
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Re: Dark Spires Castle.

Post by Borin Drakkmurl » Sat Oct 31, 2020 5:49 pm

Royal Blood wrote:
Sat Oct 31, 2020 2:32 pm
Edit: what I am getting at is I don't think that Arelith is managed as a Role Play server first. It's an MMO first, RP second.
I hope so much that you are wrong about this, yet am also sad and afraid that it is true.


To stay on topic, though, and on a lighter note:


There's a real point to be made about not overthinking things. Sure, these castles just popped up, but the whole island's shape and size has changed drasticaly over the years without so much as a peep, either. Mountain ranges, hills, meadows, and coast lines are all vastly different than what they were five years ago.

At a certain point, we all do need to realize the "game" part of it all will always feel clunky, no matter how hard the devs would try to smooth it out through events or stuff like that.
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Re: Dark Spires Castle.

Post by TooManyPotatoes » Sat Oct 31, 2020 6:30 pm

Great post, Royal Blood.

In my view, Arelith is an RP lite world in which exceptional RP sometimes happens. I don't mean this as a criticism - in fact this is why the server is so popular!

I don't think anyone wants to come across as ungrateful or entitled. I think it's an unfair assessment, but I understand where the defensiveness is coming from. Being a dev/dm must feel like a thankless task much of the time - but I hope it's understood that most of this comes from a place of love for the world that has been crafted.

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Re: Dark Spires Castle.

Post by Xantor_Stromgate » Sat Oct 31, 2020 7:28 pm

Well, from my completely subjective point of view: This is what our characters do when we're not playing them. Ol' Qeelak came to me in a dream one night and called me a "biznitch" for sleeping while others were out working. Then I was like, "Sleep is necessary for a healthy life!". I started to turn around and there Xantor was with his war hammer mid-swing at my head ... I woke up with a headache for two days in a row!!! Just sayin': Video games are real!
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Re: Dark Spires Castle.

Post by Nitro » Sat Oct 31, 2020 9:17 pm

What?

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Re: Dark Spires Castle.

Post by TooManyPotatoes » Sat Oct 31, 2020 9:32 pm

You heard him.

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Re: Dark Spires Castle.

Post by Drowboy » Sat Oct 31, 2020 11:31 pm

They could not have been more clear.
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Re: Dark Spires Castle.

Post by Kuma » Sun Nov 01, 2020 1:01 am

Finally, someone said it.

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Re: Dark Spires Castle.

Post by Party in the forest at midnight » Sun Nov 01, 2020 1:07 am

Image

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Re: Dark Spires Castle.

Post by Diegovog » Sun Nov 01, 2020 6:07 am

Before this gets locked for too much out of topic, I just want to say that it feels a bit too drastic and weird when things pop out nowhere.

I understand sometimes a degree of secrecy is important to avoid property snatching, but as someone else suggested, just put a NPC with a bit of dialogue and some props to show the work being done, give the player some hints on who is building (and it doesn't have to be an unreachable power group from the mainland). It would give the impression of a world developing and to what direction.

I'd suggest the same for future emerging NPC groups. Start small, the next month add a couple more NPCs and some crates/tents, more NPCs the following and then release the content.

And I don't think anyone is requesting too much work from we devs, we all appreciate their work. Just a progression and direction with minimal aurora toolset work.

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Re: Dark Spires Castle.

Post by Kuma » Sun Nov 01, 2020 6:22 am

Diegovog wrote:
Sun Nov 01, 2020 6:07 am
Before this gets locked for too much out of topic, I just want to say that it feels a bit too drastic and weird when things pop out nowhere.

I understand sometimes a degree of secrecy is important to avoid property snatching, but as someone else suggested, just put a NPC with a bit of dialogue and some props to show the work being done, give the player some hints on who is building (and it doesn't have to be an unreachable power group from the mainland). It would give the impression of a world developing and to what direction.

I'd suggest the same for future emerging NPC groups. Start small, the next month add a couple more NPCs and some crates/tents, more NPCs the following and then release the content.

And I don't think anyone is requesting too much work from we devs, we all appreciate their work. Just a progression and direction with minimal aurora toolset work.
The way the Outpost upgrades are being handled is, I think, an amazing depiction of this. Though it does require more ongoing work, it also allows the players to be a bit more involved, or at least feel like they are, and that the world is more "living".

Particularly since some of the more recent updates feel rather inimical to PCs even existing (multiple NPCs openly disparaging players and fixtures, vast amounts of housing for NPCs), though this is just a personal observation.

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Re: Dark Spires Castle.

Post by Hinty » Sun Nov 01, 2020 8:01 am

Have no issue with the castle popping up from nowhere. Its a limitation of the way we run the game. I do, however have some issue with the auction system here.

Whether Brog have actual claim to the land or not, they are the only settlement remotely close to it. They are the only settlement that is able to set up a reliable logistics chain to reach the castle. Cordor aren't exactly going to be able to ship supplies and soldiers across the whole island right past Brog, and what city is going to sit back and let someone else claim a castle right on their doorstep?

I had similar issues when Brog were claiming Darrowdeep.

Personally I would like to see a system where each settlement owns a castle that factions WITHIN that settlement can bid upon. One close enough to make sense for them to own.

Gloom is close enough to Cordor and in territory that no one else is likely to claim so it could belong to Cordor.

Dark Spires could be given to Brog.

Guld would need a new one built at some point, strategically it would make sense to place it either on the south slopes near the current village, or perhaps on the coast watching the naval approach, the latter would certainly make it more visually unique.


It makes no real sense for Bendir to own a castle, its just not much of a halfling thing really to my mind.

Darrowdeep could be kept as a truly independent castle for all factions on the island to bid upon. Perhaps the "Lord" of Darrowdeep and Mayfields, is concerned by the growing power of the other cities and thinks it is only a matter of time before one of them attempts to annex his lands, so in order to boost the power of the castle and deter any such ideas from his neighbors he rents out the castle to factions rich enough, and thus powerful enough, to give the cities reason to think twice.

A castle is not easy to run, it needs a close and well connected settlement to provide supplies, workers, guards and so on. Sure, we can "suspend disbelief" pretend that the settlement is not represented, or "oh they portal in all the stuff they need" but that has heavy impact upon the immersion of the players and really should be avoided if it can.


Sure, it makes sense for a city to claim a castle close to another, it gives them an advantage strategically, politically its a major powermove. But that sort of thing is a BIG flex. "Look, we are so much more powerful we can extend our reach well into your territory and there is nothing you can do about it." and the truth is, there will be nothing they can do, because limitations of the game mean that there are no supply chains to ambush, castles can't be besieged, the other city just has to sit there, wait for the castle to come up for bid again and hope they win. It ends up just drawing attention to the limitations of the game, leaving players feeling powerless.

Frankly it could be something of a dick move, it is a major PvP action faction vs faction to claim a castle like that, and the other side are left with no countermove. Almost like logging in to ambush an enemy and then making sure to never again log in during that players play time so they can't retaliate.
Alternatively, I suppose you could change the rental system. Rather than bidding one huge lump sum, the settlements bid a biannual rent payment. They get the castle for 5 years, so long as they can keep up the 9 payments, if they fail to pay, the castle goes up for bid again. Using this you could force factions further away to bid larger sums, to represent the increased logistical nightmare that would come and the increased costs of running a place so remote. That way it becomes a true flex. "Hey look Brog. Not only can Cordor buy this castle but we can afford to run it at a far higher price than you could have. We are the more powerful faction."
Sure charging Cordor more money to own Darkspire still leaves Brog with no counter action but at least the knowledge that it is costing Cordor so much more means it makes some measure of sense. Brog aren't stopping Cordor because, as much as they want to, they know Cordor are too strong.
Perhaps systems could be put in for rival factions to attempt sabotage to increase costs and force owners to end contracts early, this would need careful consideration tho.

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