Post
by JustMonika » Thu Sep 29, 2022 8:18 am
Hello everyone!
It's me again.
I have a lot to say on this topic, which I've been meaning to say since it first started, but I never seemed to find the time to write it up.
Some up front context to begin;
Three years ago, when I left Arelith after roughly ten years including two stints as a DM, I left specifically because of some concerns in this thread.
To be specific, I disagreed strongly with the long term vision and direction of the server in terms to the way we handled population management.
This was pre-big Guldorand, back when it was just a small mining village, but shortly after Sencliff became a pirate haven (As opposed to a player quarter and mad wizards lair) and Skal began to be opened up. (But after Wharftown was blown up, RIP Meredith Gates)
My point, which has been made in this thread, is not that we were making the overall world to big, but we were spreading out the key hubs and starting zones of players far to much - Particularly for our EU, and AUS players, hugely reducing the chances of new players or low levels organically encountering each other.
We have as starting locations;
Cordor,
Brog,
Guldorand
The Underdark
Sencliff,
Skal,
So even if I join the server at the same time as another new player, there's a 5/6 chance that other new player may start somewhere impossibly far away. This, as already highlighted ties into the strain on manageable population hubs. A city requires a semi-consistant presence of 12 players at all times to feel alive. That's not who 'play there', that's a physically findable presence of players, so excluding those mid dungeon, on a boat, or hiding in their houses. At our peak performance, that's doable for a large number of locations, but when we move into quieter timezones, it's near impossible to keep just our core settlements populatated - Let alone all of the outlying settlement locations not in my above list.
As most of you will know, I've settled in the Underdark at the moment, and there's a good reason for this. The Underdark is a self contained world - With /One/ key hub. There's one singular place you start in the Underdark, one key portal that drives all traffic, and that connects (most) of the core locations together.
The exception is Greyport, whose existance saddens me. Is it beautiful? - Very much so. Is it well designed in and of itself? Completely. Is it completely dead and devoid of finable players? - 100% of the time, as far as I can tell. (Yes, people live their, run shops there, and host events there, but I have /once/ found people casually roleplaying there, and I also ran into someone outside the bank one time - In four weeks of play.)
It's 'dead' for the same reason several surface locations are. There arn't enough players, and it's not super easily accessible/connected to the main hub. The Underdark, for the most part (Is and always has been?) almost a seperate game, with very vague connections to the rest of the server. (Huge Kudos, incidentally to whoever chucked the grand meeting hall underground to replace with temp shops, that was hugely in keeping with it's phenominal design as a central high traffic hub.)
While I've been gone, we seem to have continued with the trend I was concerned over. The introduction of Guldorand is a massive new location requiring a sizeable number of players to make it feel alive, and I'm forced to agree with the majority of players in this thread - It doesn't feel that way. I passed through it several times while looking for a home (not a quarter, but I roleplaying hub I could use use to tell stories) and I found other players once, a heavily warded group of high levels recently back from a successful sailing expedition. (So their roleplay wasn't even 'Guldorand themed' it was just the natural endpoint to stories they had been telling elsewhere.)
I was privilaged enough to have a tour of the settlement while it was still in it's early design phase - And it's as beautiful as it was shaping up to be. But as part of the living breathing world of Arelith, it seems to have little significance.
Now, in defence of the current Administration, they told me quite firmly at the time that 'Our playercount is going up, so we're doing the right things'. (I get told that a lot by server Administrations, it seems) And they're not wrong. Look at the playernumbers, we've expanded hugely since I was last here. Arelith continues to be number 1, Arelith continues to grow, and lots of key areas do feel very alive.
If I were to guess the motivations behind the decision to point Skal to Guldorand, it was to forfill someones vision of putting all that hard work into something that was used and appreciated. It's an attempt to make Guldorand be what it isn't. The problem is, capturing and retaining new players requires existing players to begin with. If the Underdark had been a ghost town, I'd not have given it a second thought. I stayed because it was clear that here was somewhere I'd always find someone, and not have to sit semi afk, hoping for a chance to interact.
My view hasn't changed. If I were a developer, I'd heavily advocate that we need no more than four key settlements, each catoring to a specific style of roleplay. I'd probably suggest there was one underdark settlement, one settlement heavily focused on 'Settlement politics', one settlement heavily focused on easy dungeoning, and probably one designed around the sailing system. These would be my core starting settlements, and I'd stuff billboards and warnings in the entry zone that talked a little bit about my vision and the style of roleplay each had been catered for.
This means I'm still on the 'blow up Myon' train. (Assuming there's still a Myon, I'm a little out of touch with surface elves - And similar settlements.) Which of course, would be hugely unpopular and devestating for their playerbases, as it was when we blew up Wharftown. (Not just Myon, I'm not picking on you.)
This means when you joined the server, you'd be greeted with a choice between sailing, settlement roleplay, get out and dungeon, or go explore the underdark, and different players of different styles would be automatically gravitated towards players of similar interests.
Guldorand would form my politically netural dungeon city, with little emphasis on politics, a heavy emphasis on a hands off approach and racial tolerence, and a web of low to high level dungeons, a central portal and travel that allowed easy access to epic dungeons.
Cordor would be my political capital, perhaps redesigned with multiple district leaders and elections (One candidate might control the city guard, another the merchant quarter, perhaps another the part of the city where everyone lived)
Skal would be the sailing island, with easy access to the boat system, sailing writs, and travel to the other islands.
I'd probably turn Sencliff back into a netural Guildhouse, which you got access to by becoming a pirate. (Rather than by players and keys) and early writ in Skal would give you the choice to 'Become a pirate' and organically point you towards the pirate guild, who'd be the natural antagonists of Skal players.
Anyway, I think I've got carried away, and you've likely all stopped reading.
What I have felt we have lacked is a long term vision for the mechanics of managing population flow, and a system designed to coax players into the places they want to be. When somewhere becomes overcrowded, that's a sign of popularity, and likely that it needs expanding, rather than us generating somewhere far away.
Instead we operate on a system of 'Cool idea's', where we add more, and more, and more (Amazing content) locations and the island of Arelith grows outwards slowly spreading it's playerbase into more and more exclusive themes. (Elves go here. Halflings go here. Dwarves go here. Pirates go here. Drow go here, so on and so forth) deeply hurting the lower population timezones.
And yet,
We have an amazing rich server, with some key heavily populated locations that do server their purposes. Cordor, Skal, the Underdark - These all function as places you can always go and always tell a story - With a world surrounding them that offers almost anything and tell any story. Even if the story you might want to tell is pretty narrow (I want to tell an elf story with elves, in an elf city) you can absoultely go and do that in a place designed just for you.
Arelith's design principle is freedom - A place for everyone and an infinately big world that it's up to you to make come alive, and while it's not the world I'd design, and it will end up with many quiet spots where there arn't that many people that want to do that thing this month, it's still a pretty awesome one and it works. (Works the best out of any NWN server ever, to be specific.)
I hope my thoughts were of interest or value to someone.
tl;dr
The developers have a vision for the server, and it's a vision that works. They're the ones who own it, (In some cases) they're the ones who put in the ungoldly amount of work to create all the content, and we can do anything we want with it - Including making Guldorand popular. On the other hand, we do have to accept with the mega big open world design principles Arelith seems to operate on, the price we pay is not every settlement will be successful /Today/, but they could always be the hubs of tomorrow.
Monika.
Ps (Please point Skal new arrival boat at Cordor, thank you.)
Temporarily back to Arelith and currently Lilliana Snowfire.
If you have unfinished business with Ultrianan, let me know! Arabella has been rolled.
