I can only imagine what the veteran community of paladins players are thinking while reading this thread.
Since I very started developing for Arelith the main criticism I have faced is only ever really catering to evil characters. Indeed, until the relatively recent addition of the Order of the Radiant Heart we had done nothing for them, at least for over 5 years since adding in a small Harper Enclave (And I don't personally consider Harpers all that 'good')
While at the same time...
Adding in various pirate ships.
Making Sencliff
Making a vast Underdark City
Assassin Guild & the Shadow Plane
Removing Kill Scripts
Vastly limiting exile. (The impact of this and the one above on enabling evil RP can't be emphasised enough)
Completing a large expansion to the Banite Temple
Adding in a half-orc camp (though far from exclusively evil)
Adding Baator, Zhurkwood Grove
And of course Skaljard, where once again I put evil in a central role.
Time and again I heard the very revese of what is being suggested on this thread; that 'Good' on Arelith has nowhere to go. Even the Radiant Heart addition itself was because I wanted to remove the Triad from Cordor, and put a neutral faith in its place.
I have zero intention of making an 'evil' city, any more than I have intention of adding a 'good' one. From a design perspective I would prefer to have fewer settlements, much rathering seeing two large cities of mixed creeds and competing ideologies than a plethora of smaller empty towns.
And to recap, once again, what happened in the Underdark. Before Andunor it reached the point where there were MORE settlements than player online. I understand everyone wants their own private idaho, but I stongly consider that approach to an anathema to a healthy server.
As for this debate about whether players are 'allowed' to found settlements. Most settlements on Arelith were founded this way, but as the creative behind making Arelith I will absolutely always reserve the right for such choices to ultimately be my own. I have no wish to work to order, and I don't think everyone here is fully aware of how much work this takes. Andunor was, by any reasonable calulcation at least 3 months FULL TIME work to complete. Even the Earthkin Village revamp was close to a month.
Neither have I any intention of accepting area contributions on this scale from the player base. I take the quality control of Arelith extremely seriously, not just in regard to the areas themselves, but also the overriding themes and style of the setting. If something new on this scale were to be made, then I would be the one making it.
MoreThanThree wrote: Tue Feb 19, 2019 3:01 pm
The Orc Camp happened because Irongron wanted it to--he wanted a half-orc "area" for a while, and Mudagog gave him the excuse he needed. DMs and devs alike will strongly discourage you from constructing your own settlement and giving them work.
Both these points are half true. Firstly, yes, I did for a long time feel a half-orc camp would be worthwhile, but if I really wanted to add it I would not have needed an 'excuse' to do so. I liked the idea, sure, as I like many ideas, and felt able to realistically pursue it, but it was most definitely player actions that were the catalyst for my work there, while the very fact the idea had been floating around in my head for so long was due to player actions and feedback (especially having observed some inspiring RP from a few key half-orcs over recent years). Secondly, players are free to contruct their own mini settlements, if they choose to, but it is a simple reality that if this is too ambitious or adverse to the setting itself then it is often not realistic to expect developer to be able to realise it quickly enough for those conducting the RP to make use of it (3 months is a reasonable estimate for a small settlement by which time many will have moved onto new characters and concepts)
And...I am not remotely convinced that after what promises to be a ton of work, I won't then be required to delete it again due to player actions. There is no doubt in my mind that if an evil 'city' was made on Arelith, this would be taken as a greenlight to players to resume all out, interminable war with every other settlement out there, repeating exactly what we saw with Wharftown but on an even larger scale. Such an addition would cement the idea in the minds of many players that Arelith was first and foremost a PVP server focused on two competing teams (good vs evil). DMs would have a flood of reports to deal with, and ultimately, like both Benwick and Wharftown a final resolution would be called for.
I've said many times I dislike this binary approach, and feel that people very often forget that D&D has Law & Chaos also (which I would find far more interesting as a basis for defining the theme of competing settlements)
How would an evil settlement work? There is very little common ground between Lawful and Chaotic evil faiths, and many that are evil don't immediately don their skull masks and consider themselves such.
THere has been a fair amount of work done towards making more of the Blood War on Arelith, but it is one among a great many projects.
I'm also several months into the addition a second large city to Arelith, because I came to feel that many players were right in saying that Cordor required something to balance its obvious stranghold on political might.
I prefer alignment based guilds and organisations on the surface to be OUTSIDE settlements, which should be open and enjoyable to everyone, and over the years have done much to ensure the most impressive strongholds are outside those borders.
Two final points then, before I finally withdraw from this thread and give what I consider a final summary of what I consider the essence of this problem.
First off, Wharftown. This fell, largely, because the players there were determined to be in constant war in Cordor, with many entirely refusing to accept the reality of the setting; Cordor is a City State, Wharftown a small village. PvP attacks on characters, often new to the server and merely walking to the nearest town were commonplace, as were the reports we had to deal with. I decided that for Edward Cordor and the powers of Cordor enough was enough. A decree was made that their leader must be brought to justice or the town would face the consequences.
It was my hope that this would foster some roleplay, I made extensive posts on the DM forums of all the ways I felt that the players of Wharftown could avoid Cordor's wrath. The decree was invitation to do something with this story beyond pointless PVP, and the response? Well aside from a few wonderful players what happened was this - The antagonists largely stopped logging in, and the forums and my PM box were inundated with endless walls of texts about how unfair this all was, and that Cordor should not have that kind of power.
At the end of the final event the server was restarted and Wharftown was in ruins. Sadly I wasn't there for the event itself. Why? Because I was in the toolset making the ruins as the events unfolded, because right until the very last moment I was hoping the bombardment of the city would be averted by the actions of the players.
Ultimately Arelith is not here to be 'fair' for either side in this struggle. When we roleplay we do so within the confines of the setting, and that should be part of the fun. The notion that we have an obligation to create a sandbox of absolute balance is simply not the case, and is not the server I wish to be working on. When you play on the isle of Arelith, Cordor (and to some extent Brogendenstein) IS THE POWER. That's the story of Arelith (thus far) and on a roleplay server you are all expected to recognise that fact rather than wilfully ignoring it.
Second of my final two points is this repeated line of 'We're left with only the Underdark!'
That's a pretty bold use of the word 'only'.
The Arelith Underdark is huge, and one of the major draws to the server. A huge city and region that matches the surface in terms of scale is, I suspect, unrivalled in the world of NWN servers when it comes to giving traction to evil roleplay. I get that players want to feel the sun on their back and not be limited to living with monsters in an underground hole, but as my grandparents would say 'You have a lot more than we ever did...' (When I started on Arelith there was NOTHING for evil players, Underdark was less than 6 areas I think - and the only settlement was entirely closed off to non-drow, while on the surface Cordor was dominated by the church of Torm, Wharftown was founded and run by a paladin and there wasn't even a Guldorand)
When it comes to merchants, housing, crafting stations in neutral territory outside of the control of good aligned factions and powers I think Arelith has more than enough. I don't feel evil lacks (or needs) a settlement.
I think the problem is that villains simply don't have an 'outside the Nomad' or 'Arcane Tower' area, a place guaranteed of traffic, where they can just hang out, meet and interact without being moved on, imprisoned, exiled, enslaved or facing demands to repeatedly bow to passing drow matrons (THIS, above everything is what Wharftown offered). Sure there might be places like Sencliff or the Crow's Nest where their 'evil' is generally okay, but that's often only enjoyable if your idea of fun is standing on your own emoting at an NPC. As I said above; for much of the last 6 months I've been working on a second large city for Arelith (again with a neutrally aligned temple), but this will only help if players find a way to start accomodating differing alignments within a single city (which I would love to see happen to the extent I'm half inclined to start putting evil temples in some of them)
I'm also really concerned by this increasing tendency to use lame meta methods to out them. Glowing eyes, hide in plain sight, are NOT ground to insist someone is evil, in a world of endless wonder and magic there can be any number of reasons why this could happen. the world itself is not limited by the class restrictions and abilities of NWN or 3e D&D player rules.
As I've stated a few times here already I am currently engaged with a NWN project outside of Arelith, so area development promises to be slow for some time yet. I make no apologies for that; the pace of development over the last few years has been rapid, with me pulling in 40 hour weeks on creating content, but it is something I will always do for fun, and nothing is more certain to put me off doing it than a feeling that the community feels entitled to my time.
That being said I've read and considered the points made here, and I expect they will be gestating in my head for much of 2019 as I formulate a strategy for the next stages of Arelith development.
