How long should you keep a quarter?

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Aradin
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How long should you keep a quarter?

Post by Aradin » Wed May 05, 2021 11:41 pm

A question (for the DMs, largely) about expectations on player culture.

Is there a certain duration one character should reasonably keep the same quarter, in the spirit of allowing other players to experience owning it? I'm not talking about players who quarterlog, I'm talking about players who are active in the community and use their quarters well. I know some great characters who have kept the same quarter for multiple RL years, and I'm wondering if that's frowned on, encouraged, or if it doesn't matter. Does it get the thumbs up so long as that character continues to be active, or should even the best characters move on after x amount of time?

I have no real opinion myself and no horse in this race beyond curiosity. It's just something that popped into my mind today and I figured I'd ask. Cheers.

Addendum: same question as it pertains to shops.

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Re: How long should you keep a quarter?

Post by The GrumpyCat » Wed May 05, 2021 11:52 pm

I mean - I think the ultimate answer is 'As long as you bloomin' well want to!' -So long as you're about, and roleplaying activly, and idealy using the quarter (and of course following the other quarter rules) we've absolutly no grounds to gripe.

I will say I think it's healthy for the community to see an amount of cycling in terms of quarters- especialy particularly meaningful, ones. Ships are a good example of this. My Personal take on it is, in such cases, it might be nice to let such things pass onto another player if you've owned them for a few RL years- someone else, a new faction to breathe a different life into things!

However that's just a personal take. So long as the owners are active and doing interesting things then the DM team do not encourage or disencourage owning propertys for however long people want to own them for.
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Re: How long should you keep a quarter?

Post by Dreams » Thu May 06, 2021 5:54 am

The GrumpyCat wrote:
Wed May 05, 2021 11:52 pm
it might be nice to let such things pass onto another player if you've owned them for a few RL years
A few RL months, in my opinion. Months are enough for a story. By the time you're making other players wait for RL years in the hopes of experiencing some sort of content in the game, whatever it is, then it has become excessive.

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Re: How long should you keep a quarter?

Post by Alyxnia » Thu May 06, 2021 7:24 am

Dreams wrote:
Thu May 06, 2021 5:54 am
The GrumpyCat wrote:
Wed May 05, 2021 11:52 pm
it might be nice to let such things pass onto another player if you've owned them for a few RL years
A few RL months, in my opinion. Months are enough for a story. By the time you're making other players wait for RL years in the hopes of experiencing some sort of content in the game, whatever it is, then it has become excessive.
Perhaps this could be alleviated by adding more quarters to the server. I fail to see why when we have up to two or three hundred concurrent unique players at peak times, our amount of quarters is a small fraction of that.
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Re: How long should you keep a quarter?

Post by Aelryn Bloodmoon » Thu May 06, 2021 7:52 am

Alyxnia wrote:
Thu May 06, 2021 7:24 am
Dreams wrote:
Thu May 06, 2021 5:54 am
The GrumpyCat wrote:
Wed May 05, 2021 11:52 pm
it might be nice to let such things pass onto another player if you've owned them for a few RL years
A few RL months, in my opinion. Months are enough for a story. By the time you're making other players wait for RL years in the hopes of experiencing some sort of content in the game, whatever it is, then it has become excessive.
Perhaps this could be alleviated by adding more quarters to the server. I fail to see why when we have up to two or three hundred concurrent unique players at peak times, our amount of quarters is a small fraction of that.
I'm not sure exactly how many quarters there are on the module, but I think demand exceeding supply is by design.

If every single player owned a quarter for their character(s), I imagine you'd see an already settlement-fragmented playerbase isolated further. In this case the limitation of home availability forces people to move around in public areas of the world and interact.

Again, I don't know the numbers, and possibly that model could be sustained with more available quarters- but someone has to make them, vet them, and add them to the module, and the team's usually pretty busy with things that affect larger groups of players rather than things that benefit one player at a time.
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Re: How long should you keep a quarter?

Post by The GrumpyCat » Thu May 06, 2021 1:22 pm

Dreams wrote:
Thu May 06, 2021 5:54 am
The GrumpyCat wrote:
Wed May 05, 2021 11:52 pm
it might be nice to let such things pass onto another player if you've owned them for a few RL years
A few RL months, in my opinion. Months are enough for a story. By the time you're making other players wait for RL years in the hopes of experiencing some sort of content in the game, whatever it is, then it has become excessive.
I mean.. I'm with you - I tend to finish most of my characters stories (or at least one stage of them) within a few months to a year. But a lot of other people don't and that's fine. I don't think that it's fair to expect people to be done with characters within such a short time frame.

And as I said I don't actually think the problem people complain about in this is 'Quarters' in general. I've never had huge amounts of difficulty getting A.N. 'Quarter'. But it is difficult getting the nicer quarters (We're talking large homes/mansions/unique housing in neutral areas ect).

I think though that there is a lot of frustration and validiation for any sort of set time period comes from the 'unique' and rare things like ships, which are supremly difficult to get a hold of, and even if they're passed on from a character, they tend to move around the same factions.

I sympathise with this I really do, but any sort of action we take on this is probably going to be prolematic in terms of roleplay and highly frustrating for folk.
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Re: How long should you keep a quarter?

Post by Red_Wharf » Thu May 06, 2021 2:37 pm

The GrumpyCat wrote:
Wed May 05, 2021 11:52 pm
I mean - I think the ultimate answer is 'As long as you bloomin' well want to!' -So long as you're about, and roleplaying activly, and idealy using the quarter (and of course following the other quarter rules)
I think that is a very good answer, but I also think a line is crossed when a player keeps their quarter for themselves for several years on end. It doesn't happen much, but there are a few cases. It feels selfish to me.

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Re: How long should you keep a quarter?

Post by Dreams » Thu May 06, 2021 4:28 pm

Well consider these situations:

- Player owned ships: Passed between a very small group of players over many RL years, having never really changed hands substantially during that time.

- Certain settlements: Set up (IC, by characters) in a way that no new person could ever hope to get a foothold in them, let alone run for government or any hope to get somewhere without RL years of effort towards it.

This is stifling to our setting. I think that when we have situations like these, it kills off ideas or opportunities for something new/different to come about. Possible ways to overcome this sort of thing are:
- Time limits on quarters
- Term limits in settlements

These could be generous. The point is that offering a ceiling that marks 'This is the end of this part of your story' will give players the opportunity to look toward ushering in a new generation of players/characters into these parts of the server. It fosters people actively looking to find good people to take over.

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Re: How long should you keep a quarter?

Post by Curve » Thu May 06, 2021 4:40 pm

A grading system that differentiates between simple quarters and guild houses and ships would be cool if we placed expectations on those fancy tier of quarters. I don't really know how to codify it, but having some kind of usage requirement would be cool. Let's say you buy X guild house, you then send an application into the DM team like you do for certain PrC tokens. Your application would want to know what you plan to do with this fancy property.

I can see all the reasons why this would be a bad idea, and how it could be abused or gamed. I would like to see how something like this went over the current system where, as stated above by Dreams, you have players passing property between their friend groups for literal years so that very cool in game things are only able to be used by a tiny segment of the server. There are properties, areas, that have historically been held for such long periods of time that they might as well not exist for 99.99% of the server.

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Re: How long should you keep a quarter?

Post by Anomandaris » Thu May 06, 2021 5:41 pm

I think the issue is more that people tend to only pass along these “valuable” things through ooc means. Not that a single PC is around and active too long.

As far as greater stagnation goes within settlements, I agree. But it’s a fine like between enabling turnover and stifling the rp of those that took that power ic.

That said, I personally am one of those ppl that wish, for example, the earthkin alliance dissolved and went to war with itself. It’s all too consolidated and stagnant. I know there’s politics and drama always in the background but it’s just like this fairly stable, safe place server except ud:surface relations. Would love to see some DM plot that fundamentally challenged the fabric of settlement alliances. Cordor king goes mad in his older years and declares a new state industry, slavery! Radical Bednir NPCs are caught planting explosives below brog in a terrorist plot to cause tensions... ya know something to shake things up a bit.

Players generally tend to gravitate towards working with establishments to get IC power by joining established factions. A few disrupt fundamentally, they often end up getting squished, sometimes both ic and oocly.

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Re: How long should you keep a quarter?

Post by Irongron » Thu May 06, 2021 5:52 pm

Jordenk wrote:
Thu May 06, 2021 5:41 pm
I think the issue is more that people tend to only pass along these “valuable” things through ooc means. Not that a single PC is around and active too long.
This is absolutely a major issue, I suspect some choice properties stay within the same group or friends for years. There is a change currently in development that should prevent it.

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Re: How long should you keep a quarter?

Post by Blood on my Lips » Thu May 06, 2021 6:58 pm

The GrumpyCat wrote:
Wed May 05, 2021 11:52 pm
So long as the owners are active and doing interesting things then the DM team do not encourage or disencourage owning propertys for however long people want to own them for.
I think this is a much bigger issue here. There's a lot of housing that is being held by people that log in only to refresh the property and little to no RP is happening in those quarters. The same statement could be applied to shops.

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Re: How long should you keep a quarter?

Post by Ork » Thu May 06, 2021 7:04 pm

Irongron wrote:
Thu May 06, 2021 5:52 pm
Jordenk wrote:
Thu May 06, 2021 5:41 pm
I think the issue is more that people tend to only pass along these “valuable” things through ooc means. Not that a single PC is around and active too long.
This is absolutely a major issue, I suspect some choice properties stay within the same group or friends for years. There is a change currently in development that should prevent it.
I look forward to this. I know that some people do this genuinely out of ignorance, but there are a few properties that have stayed inside the same clique of people for ...years.

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Re: How long should you keep a quarter?

Post by Anomandaris » Thu May 06, 2021 7:11 pm

Ork wrote:
Thu May 06, 2021 7:04 pm
Irongron wrote:
Thu May 06, 2021 5:52 pm
Jordenk wrote:
Thu May 06, 2021 5:41 pm
I think the issue is more that people tend to only pass along these “valuable” things through ooc means. Not that a single PC is around and active too long.
This is absolutely a major issue, I suspect some choice properties stay within the same group or friends for years. There is a change currently in development that should prevent it.
I look forward to this. I know that some people do this genuinely out of ignorance, but there are a few properties that have stayed inside the same clique of people for ...years.
Yah it’s hard to enforce. I wouldn’t want there to be no way to pass quarters to someone. Like a random system where you have to release it and can’t facilitate handing it over to someone would be too much of a heavy handed limitation. But somehow auditing this or just I guess players calling it out to dms when they see it.

I have a nice property right now. I would like to be able to “sell it,” or give it to someone who needs it that my PC knows and likes, someone that my character has a relationship with. That seems like fine rp. But there’s a fine line...and a lot of times it’s super ooc gamey.

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Re: How long should you keep a quarter?

Post by Edens_Fall » Thu May 06, 2021 8:27 pm

Jordenk wrote:
Thu May 06, 2021 5:41 pm
That said, I personally am one of those ppl that wish, for example, the earthkin alliance dissolved and went to war with itself. It’s all too consolidated and stagnant. I know there’s politics and drama always in the background but it’s just like this fairly stable, safe place server except ud:surface relations. Would love to see some DM plot that fundamentally challenged the fabric of settlement alliances. Cordor king goes mad in his older years and declares a new state industry, slavery! Radical Bednir NPCs are caught planting explosives below brog in a terrorist plot to cause tensions... ya know something to shake things up a bit.

Players generally tend to gravitate towards working with establishments to get IC power by joining established factions. A few disrupt fundamentally, they often end up getting squished, sometimes both ic and oocly.
Totally love this idea! Though to be fair I would also like to see the settlement war system return as well.

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Re: How long should you keep a quarter?

Post by The GrumpyCat » Thu May 06, 2021 8:28 pm

Blood on my Lips wrote:
Thu May 06, 2021 6:58 pm
The GrumpyCat wrote:
Wed May 05, 2021 11:52 pm
So long as the owners are active and doing interesting things then the DM team do not encourage or disencourage owning propertys for however long people want to own them for.
I think this is a much bigger issue here. There's a lot of housing that is being held by people that log in only to refresh the property and little to no RP is happening in those quarters. The same statement could be applied to shops.
If you get a moment I'd recommend reporting these people, especialy if they are literally just log on to refresh.
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Re: How long should you keep a quarter?

Post by Apothys » Thu May 06, 2021 10:52 pm

Jordenk wrote:
Thu May 06, 2021 5:41 pm
Totally love this idea! Though to be fair I would also like to see the settlement war system return as well.
This I would also like to see return.

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Re: How long should you keep a quarter?

Post by AstralUniverse » Fri May 07, 2021 3:02 am

Jordenk wrote:
Thu May 06, 2021 7:11 pm
I have a nice property right now. I would like to be able to “sell it,” or give it to someone who needs it that my PC knows and likes, someone that my character has a relationship with. That seems like fine rp. But there’s a fine line...and a lot of times it’s super ooc gamey.
This is something I personally have had a personal issue with, one time that I wanted to give someone a quarter because of meaningful RP, but they werent online, but I got them on discord, but they're a friend, so it's not so cool and felt questionable to me, but it was really because of meaningful RP tbh... so what I did is simply not roll the character until I could find them online and do it without any OOC means at all.
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Re: How long should you keep a quarter?

Post by Curve » Fri May 07, 2021 2:16 pm

Hoarding properties by friend groups can be done with the best of intentions. It can be done with oceans of meaningful RP behind it. There are certain players that I gravitate towards without once speaking to them ooc. I like their style of RP, of conflict, I am naturally interested in their character concepts. There are certain players who I have built relationships with many of their characters over many of my characters. We can do negative things on Arelith without intending to do so. Without wanting to do so.

I don't have facts to back this up, but I imagine that most property hoarding that happens between friend groups is done with meaningful RP. It is rare that people nakedly do bad things.

It is awesome that IG and company have some ideas up their sleeves. I would suggest that people look at passing/selling A tier properties on in a more meta-gaming way. Consider if the person you are passing it on to will use the property, if they are a player who always gets the cool properties, if they will likely pass the fancy property on to their friends. This, I think, is positive meta-gaming.

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Re: How long should you keep a quarter?

Post by Irongron » Fri May 07, 2021 4:52 pm

I understand that for many, the transferring of ownership feels legitimate, and in the case of settlement buildings such as guard HQs it most definitely is.

But Arelith, alongside gaming itself has changed. For many the game is played as much on Discord as in NwN; events are arranged, trades negotiated, parties assembled, and communities formed. While I set up settlement areas on our official Discord I'm well aware most continue to operate one outside of it, to be free from the prying eyes of those who aren't even playing there, but of course, also to control who is, or isn't, fully included.

OoC property transfers used to be extremely rare, now, especially with the larger guildhouses, I believe it has become the default.

I know many will be pained to hear me say it, but everyone should have the same opportunity to take control of these locations when the owner is ready to move on, they have already had more then their fair turn without controlling its legacy for years to come.

The details of this change are yet to be finalised, and will be released in an update announcement, but I can say now, that one will NOT be able to sell property outside of the scripted means to do do via the quarter sign, nor confer it on another player. Applications to do so will be possible, but only with extremely good reason, that wont include 'We are all in the same faction'.

A change like this is extreme, but I feel necessary. These 'top tier' locations were made for the entire community, not for a small group of friends to take ownership of in perpetuity. The server stagnates, and new players and factions are left feeling helpless.

Also I will not be reenabling settlement war. It was a cheap excuse for PvP that led us nowhere good.

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