Does sailing interest you?

[ZeroPointEnergy]

Simple questions with no wrong answer.

Does it interest you?

If so, are you able to participate in it easily?

If not, why not?

If it does interest you, would you consider a settlement vessel or are you holding off for a neutral vessel under any circumstance?

[Killer on the drive home]

Not really. I'm just doing it for a roleplay concept. Feels more like a chore that comes with my concept just because I wanted to sail.

I would never buy a boat. It takes up a quarter slot. So just no. They're not really a 1:1 exchange. You're a homeless person with a boat, or you have a house.

[Duchess Says]

I'm happy it exists for the players who want to use it and it seems very cool. It also seems very complicated though, like a separate strategy game, and I don't really have the time to invest in learning about it.

[cipher9]

I'd like to sail at some point, it's just an incredibly difficult niche to break into outside of joining a boat crew already (or finding one, or a ship for rent?) All of which make it an aspect that while intriguing isn't as easy as.. say hoping on a leyline to go see a new dungeon in the nearby area. And as a method of travel I think that holds it back, like waiting for the EXACT 6, 9, 12, 15, 18 timers for some carts.

[Skarain]

1.) Yes. I made a character for that purpose.

2.) I have not searched too actively yet. Still leveling in the UD. Got invited into one crew today. Will see what it leads to.

3.) Really depends on crew availability on EU timezones.

4.) Personally? No. My playtime is to sporadic to be the "owner". Would not be fair towards others interested.. In crew yes, if it matches with my other timetables.

[ReverentBlade]

Not really. I can see and admire the amount of effort that's gone into the systems, but it isn't for me.

Too much to learn and mechanically invest in, frankly. And the pacing of sailing is generally very, very slow.. If I can't grab one or two people to do a casual but fast-paced murder/pleasure cruise, I'm not really going to dip my toes into it.

[ltlukoziuz]

Not really, too. Don't think I would want to make a sailor char, and otherwise boating is just means to get to overland inaccessible spots (until you get portals). It doesnt help that my timetable only works with EU and only partially with the east NA

[BlueRadish]

It interests me to use casually, but I was SO FRUSTRATED by all the complex new changes that I gave up after trying a few times to use the penny rose to sail to RDD to get the portal. All the new changes mean casuals like me are left outside. I feel it was a mistake to make it so complex.

[Definately Not A Mimic]

Does it interest you? Yes, I've always loved sailing about looking for the random sandbars and atoll and such. Fun seeing the different things out there. Not having a good grasp on the new mechanics I'm not sure how easy that is to do any more.

If so, are you able to participate in it easily? I would have to go with a no here. Even rentable ships need a certain amount of people to be able to sail from my understanding and that isn't even counting trying to find people with the skill.

If not, why? See above basically.

If it does interest you, would you consider a settlement vessel or are you holding off for a neutral vessel under any circumstance?
I think on this, for me, it depends on character concept. Not every character wants to be in a 'navy' or live in a city. And some are willing to join just to get the time and chance on a ship. Sadly though that isn't really workable either over all because you need to hunt and find enough people to man an even larger ship. And though I like standing about talking and rping between each encounter, not everyone does.


Over all I think all the new mechanics look great and are probably very fun. But for someone who learns like I do you practically need to be on the ship moving to learn the way to do things and use things. I'm not one of those capable of reading the update notes and just instinctively figuring things out. Which then means you've got a group, who most times would rather be hitting a dungeon, standing about on a sometimes tiny deck, waiting while you tinker and try to comprehend things.

I think it looks amazing and I really can't wait to learn how it all works and functions. Hopefully there will be more chances to get rp teaching of the mechanics from someone patient as well as access to a fun and non-minute ship that you can fit several on the deck of!

[Aradin]

For context, I have not done "new" sailing yet; that is, the last time I sailed was 8-12 months ago before all these changes started coming.

1) Does it interest you?
- Yes, it looks like some fun new thing to try, at least once or twice. The changes I've read about in announcements make it remind me of when I played Puzzle Pirates years ago.

2) If so, are you able to participate in it easily? If not, why not?
- No. I do not own a ship, though there are rentables. But any activity that requires gathering at least a few interested people together is going to be less accessible than other activities. And that's not to mention the skill requirements.

3) If it does interest you, would you consider a settlement vessel or are you holding off for a neutral vessel under any circumstance?
- Depends on the character concept I would say. If I'm roleplaying a freebooter I probably don't want to work for the government unless I get a good IC reason to do so. If I'm roleplaying a go-by-the-book guard, then I probably don't want to manage an out-of-settlement vessel unless I can ensure it belongs to and is used by my leaders in some way.

A note: this was mentioned in some other forum thread I can't remember, but having a comprehensive tutorial about the new sailing system - either IC or OOC - would be of tremendous help in getting me sailing.

[MRFTW]

I would like to get into sailing but the more I read about it on the forums and the more I ask people in game the more it has started to sound like 'team good vs team evil - now at sea!'.

I really hope this isn't the case and that there is some room out there for pleasure-boating. Perhaps I just haven't found those boats or those people that are into it.

[LovelyLightningWitch]

I really like sailing. It was one of the things that attracted me to Arelith and i am happy to see the expansions. Like... i have far too many hours in the russian Sea Dogs series of games.

I find it however difficult to engage in it, as i play once or twice a week depending on uneven responsinilities (probably better to look at monthly availability over weekly, where i get a random active week or so to compensate for my once a week log ins otherwise).

Joining an existing crew i find difficult due to race, faith& alignment.

My character's race, alignment & faith means any crew that has an umberlee cleric or otherwise haa followers is a no-go. Compatible human alternatives are Selune and Valkur, non-human Sashelas/Aerdrie/Sehanine.

An elven ship may work for me, as a settlement ship i guess!

On neutrals, an Algarond-style valkur-dedicated slave ship hunting privateer ship would be best. Do we have thayan npc merchant ships to prey on?

[Skibbles]

I haven't been sailing since the original overhaul, but my jaw dropped at seeing what ActionReplay, et al, were able to do with the ancient NWN system.

The talent and creativity that went into things like the map and coordinates, and all that, truly is next level stuff.

However I didn't really enjoy it, because it still felt like a lot of waiting around. Eventually chit-chat runs out pretty quick and soon about most everyone is afk just waiting for something to happen while 20-30 minutes or more passes.

My experience is mostly on the dreadnought though, and I haven't been on one of Sencliff's boats since before Sencliff was actually a pirate haven, so maybe it's different.

I respect the hell out of the system, and wouldn't be telling anyone not to try it, but it isn't for me. Maybe I just don't have enough time these days. In fact now that I think about it, time is probably a huge factor in my opinion of it.

To add: I don't think I'd ask for any changes just to suit my tastes either. I keep hearing about sailing RP in the game so clearly people are enjoying it. Not everything needs to suit everyone.

[ZeroPointEnergy]

It's true a lot of the fun is how much you can get along with your crew and there's no way I can help with that but I'll write up a tutorial to help out. It's in-depth but it's not as complex as it looks if you just want to be functional.

That said, I have a bit of a survivor's bias so I'll see if it translate to text well.

[Miskol]

The new sailing system looks pretty cool. Its the skill investment and time sitting around that turns me off.

[ZeroPointEnergy]

Is there any total noob to sailing that wants to read my rough draft to see if they understand it?

[Morgy]

Never had an interest really, but it sounds fun for those who enjoy it.

[MRFTW]

Is there any total noob to sailing that wants to read my rough draft to see if they understand it?

I'd be happy to.

[BlueRadish]

If I'm renting a ship with a navigator and a boatswain, why do I need to tell them how to set the sails? I'm paying them to know how to do it. There should be noob-friendly options to get from point a to point b, even if it isn't the fastest or best way. Experts should have an advantage, but I shouldn't need to read a dozen announcement posts to get to RDD. Don't you want more players on the sea to pirate or rp with? It's unnecessarily complicated to do the most simple tasks.

[Flower Power]

Is there any total noob to sailing that wants to read my rough draft to see if they understand it?

Yes.

gib pls.

[Marsi]

I actually love sailing mechanics in games and I'm proud that we have our own. But I have almost never gone out of my way to interact with the Arelith sailing system, because the ownership dynamic is so broken.

It's too easy for AFK trophy seekers to hog boats. And settlement navy RP aka "cordor guard culture but on a boat" has never really interested me. I see that the DMs intend to crack down on under-utilized ships but for me it's too little, too late.

One thing that I've never understood is why ships need to be hardcoded entities. As ActionReplay's work has made apparent - ships are instanced, and don't actually exist outside of an entry in a DB. The action takes place on an abstract map of co-ordinates. Is there actually something stopping us from there being as many generic boats as there are players? Certainly we could have more than five.

[ReverentBlade]

One thing that I've never understood is why ships need to be hardcoded entities. As ActionReplay's work has made apparent - ships are instanced, and don't actually exist outside of an entry in a DB. The action takes place on an abstract map of co-ordinates. Is there actually something stopping us from there being as many generic boats as there are players? Certainly we could have more than five.

An NPC boat vending machine at each dock that generates a generic, un-upgraded ship for a fee could be interesting. Presumably an adventurer that goes to a nautical settlement has plenty of passably functional ships for hire to choose from, even if the best choices with the fancy toys aren't available.

[Flower Power]

A few of us have been suggesting instanced player ships for quite awhile now, usually to a lukewarm response every time. Accessibility has always been the biggest problem with Arelith's naval systems, and it hasn't exactly gotten better with time - even with the addition of yet more ships.

[Nobs]

Been playing around with the ship content for a wile and i love it.
The changes made of later are extreemly cool and even fighting npc ships is realy interesting now.

But yes more ships for players not in a faction would be a good thing and they should get some with diving bells aswel for that underwater exploration/material farming fun. (Its realy cool)
And perhaps some npc's with the sail skill close by that can be recruted with leadership skill or for money for the few that would like some help out there.
Perhaps they can have some chat option where they explain how to use the ship commands aswel.

[Wethrinea]

I love the sailing system, especially with the new changes. The challenge for the larger ships is gathering a large enough crew to effectively use them. I think some of the ships perhaps have too large requirements, but then again, they are large vessels.

As for learning how to sail, the best way to go about it is to ask known sailors/captains to sign on as crew. I know that at least my character is more than happy to teach the secrets of piloting a ship to those who have an interest in it.,