Kenji wrote: ↑Tue Apr 21, 2020 2:39 am
The whole point of this poll is to let people know that assumptions and statistics are two different things. Same mistake for you to assume that you speak for Irongron himself when things might not be as clear cut as you assume, even if you may be right in this case. (Or wrong, until Irongron clarifies it himself)
How you perceive this poll as an intention to shift any of his decision is something that baffles me. Besides, there are cases where certain dev's artistic decisions have been reverted due to popularity feedback (take the recent stoneskin VFX for a minor example).
To think that a different result from the poll would alienate our staff team is something that is in the realm of ridicule. It shows that perhaps there is a certain concern to be addressed among the playerbase. We can take the old ammo bundle to ammo template change for example, folks did not like it at first shallow glance, but the ammo template system remained in place even with multiple cry-outs for reverting back to the old system at the time. It was through the staff team's patience and some people's investment in time to further delve into the system to help address the change in place.
I imagine the same is being done here with that feedback thread.
First of all, there is a world of difference between reverting a spell change, or something to arrow bundles - which is done in a moment, to areas, which in these cases were months of work. Some, like the new Soulhaven were especially hard to make, and so, sure, reading that some people hate them, or expect me to remake is hard - that's only human.
I was warned about a culture of entitlement from the moment I started doing this. Since then I've remade almost the entire server, including making the overwhelming majority of Andunor and the underdark. The new city, now takes all my free time - and I have very little at the moment due to being locked down looking after my family.
But concern is not the same as entitlement, which is always most visible when a few players fail, or unwilling to recognise the extent of the effort this all takes, and feel comfortable in either asking for more work, or insisting I do it their way.
Still, I'm not fragile, and despite having my motivation to work on anything significantly sapped by this, I will continue, as I always have, to make the server I personally wish to see and ultimately, create.
In regard to the specifics of this topic (once again), I should clarify, for those that may not have noticed, that there are actually a few different critiques going on here, and not necessarily related:
First is simply the size of individual areas. While some new ones have been large I dont think they are the biggest on Arelith (those are in the Ud I think). The criticism here has three parts -
stability, as mentioned by Nitro above, got way worse post EE. Had I known that was going to happen I would never had made Cordor as it currently is. Still, this has got better at least, and isnt actually an issue at all with the newer areas as the tilesets they are built with are just far superior, and generally quick to load given they require so little dressing, compared to, say, the Earthkin Village, which required perhaps a thousand placeables (and about 3 weeks work). Nevertheless when it comes to problematic performance I have a great deal of sympathy with this critique.
The second two criticisms of large areas, I admit, I just plainly dont agree with.
The first, 'I don't meet people to RP with', I simply don't think an issue - because Arelith is still very small, because the routes between major POIs themselves are still very linear, because I still very much have 'hubs' designed and functioning, and, perhaps most of all, because after playing on Arelith for 15 years I've barely ever seen any significant 'on the road' rp - 95% of the time people travelling are on their way somewhere and walk straight past, even if you try to engage them. Want to rp with a stranger? Try a hub. If you're one of the very few who seek to do so in the wild? I'm not going to build the module for that.
The next criticism levelled here is that they are bare of content. Well, as stated elsewhere they leave room for houses/castles etc to be built, but even if not. There are dungeons everywhere, a ton of rare encounters, and a level of visual detail that is mostly absent in older areas. None of these are deserts.
Finally, there is a totally different area of concern some people were pointing at in the original thread, and that concerns just how much wilderness we want to see between towns.
Long journey times and the ability to get lost isn't determined by the size of individual areas; whether it is half a dozen small ones or a single huge, the effect is the same. This really comes down to 'how far am I prepared to walk?', and I get this is a matter of taste. There are many players who aren't remotely interested in admiring the view, or any kind of realistic setting.
For those whose focus is almost entirely upon either grinding for levels in a dungeon, or RPing in a hub, the journey between rp/grind spot is simply 'dead time', breeding both frustration and resentment towards myself for inflicting on them due to my weird, selfish, and weirdly tragic obsession with 'doing pretty things with the toolset', and then having the gall to expect them to walk through it A THOUSAND TIMES.
As I said right at the beginning, if I'm going to spend thousands of hours every year building Arelith; yes, I absolutely do have the gall, not only because I love that aspect of NwN, but because I know many others do also. If you don't like it? Use a portal, but don't for one minute expect me to change how I spend my free time on your say so.
I am very keen to get the new city released, but even so will likely be cutting back my time in the toolset for a while, for now at least. Reading through my above diatribe might give the impression I love these debates - i really don't. In the meantime, by all means vote on the subject.