Why is Guldorand so unpopular?

[Wethrinea]

I have played around Westcliff and Guldorand for most of my time on Arelith, so I'll write a few thoughts as well:

1) New Guldorand is breathtakingly beautiful. I love walking the streets there and simply admire the architecture and layout. Of all the cities I have ever experienced on an NwN server, this feels the most medieval European of them all. I'm tempted to call it Fantasy Antwerp. The interior areas are great too, with the Emporioum and the Eagle being my absolute favourites.

2) It is not a bigger Westcliff. Gutting Westcliff might make a few of the characters there go to Guldorand, but most will not, mine included. The reason for this has less to do with disliking change and more with what Westcliff is and Guldorand is not. Guldorand is a big city, while Westcliff is a small frontier town. Those places cater to very different kinds of characters. It makes no sense for wilderness and frontier themed characters to go to Guldorand other than to trade and visit, which a lot of them currently do.

3) The Founders Charter is both a curse and a blessing. It lays out a very interesting vision for the city, but also restricts the possibilities of what officials in Guldorand can do. My main gripe is the separation of the Watch and the Garrison, which causes neither faction to have enough to do to sustain them. I ran with the Shields of Guldorand both before and after the city opened, and after an initial period of great excitement and a lot of new members, it slowly withered away because the Garrison didn't really have a reason to exist as a player run faction: Patrolling the outskirts? No one was ever there. Patrol the city? Can't do that, that is the job of the Watch. Defend the city against enemies? Nope, no one comes here, and besides the walls are high and the NPC guards many.

We tried many different ideas to keep the Garrison relevant, but in the end it all boiled down to expeditions (which are fun, but not really the point of a Garrison) and trying to keep Myon and Guldorand from going to war, which did get old by the third time.

Merging the Watch and the Garrison would perhaps give characters interested in guard-RP enough to do. The current split does no one any favours.

4) Guldorand has great potential, but needs DM involvement. With the Founder's Council being such a decisive force in the shaping of the city, it's laws and feel, the city would benefit immensely if the various members were more visible, fleshed out and took a more active part in the development of Guld-centered stories. One great event was when the Council stepped in to avert Myon-Guldorand war. The portrayal of the different Council members, from the crafty Iron Throne guy, the disinterested Flaming Fist commander, and the "oh shit, she is here" moment when the Thay boss-lady walked in was truly immersive and entertaining.

5) Guldorand could benefit from more surface settlement conflict that is not player driven. How interesting would it not be if tensions developed between the Founders and Cordor for instance? What if King Edward gets tired of the Freeport acting as a safe haven for pirates and other scum, and decides to embargo the port? Maybe he needs to call on Amn? People associated with Guldorand would face some interesting choices.

6) The Deep Wells need more fleshing out, and those artifacts need to happen. Once you are introduced to the deep wells, there is a lot of talk about how any artifacts found down there "must be handed to the elves, or else!", but I have yet to hear about anyone finding anything. Smuggling out elven artifacts and selling them on the black market is a story that literally begs to be told.

tldr: Guldorand is a wonderful concept with a lot of potential, but it needs fleshing out and more DM involvement. I love the architecture and feel of it. Gutting Westcliff will not make it more populated.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

Erasing Westcliff is not going to (force) me or anyone else to do anything and the fact that people are advocating using force to (make) people do as they wish is sketchy at best.

I think you are taking your role as a paladin of free will a bit over the top here my man. The city was clearly designed to force multiple groups to have to coexist. The way I used forced and make where in the context of achieving that goal, and my post was designed to point out which loopholes caused that goal to fall flat from my perspective. You may not like the design goal, and that is your right, but you still have plenty of free will to go play in another part of this gigantic server or really not play arelith at all. You even have the right to scream your disdain for said changes in design philosophy at the top of your lungs, as I have proven a few times over the years of me playing here. But ultimately where things start to get sour is when you decide that you are above following the layout provided for playing the game and just do what you want because you think you have that right, which ends up not only spitting in the face of the people who put in the time and effort to make the game a certain way, but also makes things miserable for the people who are trying to play the right way. I'm not saying you are that guy by any means, I don't know you from Adam, but the way you worded your post reminded me enough of that type of player enough that I thought it was a good place to make this point.

[Richrd]

I think Guldorand is just too big for it's own good with the player population being the way it is.

Would I want to cut down Guldorand's size? Absolutely not. Instead I for one would just force a particular floating settlement to migrate it's population to Guldorand. You know what I mean.

[Amateur Hour]

What I will never understand about the server:

Dwarves have their own settlement, Brogendenstein, run by dwarves for dwarves. The player base seems to believe this is completely fine.

Gnomes have their own area, the Gnome Grotto, run by gnomes for gnomes. The player base seems to believe this is completely fine.

Elves have their own area, the mythal of Myth Myon (note the elven quarter and the High Hall are open to other races). This is apparently an intolerable travesty that needs to be changed.

[-XXX-]

Myon used to be a race exclusive settlement before.
It turned out to be suffering with the same stagnation issues as Benwick and Udos.

I say be glad that the Team has not exploded it like the other two (they should have IMO).

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

What I will never understand about the server:

Dwarves have their own settlement, Brogendenstein, run by dwarves for dwarves. The player base seems to believe this is completely fine.

Gnomes have their own area, the Gnome Grotto, run by gnomes for gnomes. The player base seems to believe this is completely fine.

Elves have their own area, the mythal of Myth Myon (note the elven quarter and the High Hall are open to other races). This is apparently an intolerable travesty that needs to be changed.

I never had a problem with Myon. I even suggested a few years back making a lower city for half elves and only letting pure blooded elves up the mythal, this way the city could interact while still keeping the snobby elf feeling about it. My point is that making guldorand elves and everyone else while still keeping the old elven way as a fall back gave one side a heavy advantage in any kind of interaction, because someone losing an election they wanted to represent them didn't really matter. They could kill bash at will because being an exile only meant you had to enter the elven section through myon instead of the cities front gates. They just didn't have the same stakes as everyone else trying to make guldorand their home, and it was a huge flaw in the design.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

LOL what? Myon stagnant? Are you out of your mind? How can it possibly be more stagnant than Bendir, Brogendenstein, or old Guldorand? You just don't like Myon.

[Nekonecro]

LOL what? Myon stagnant? Are you out of your mind? How can it possibly be more stagnant than Bendir, Brogendenstein, or old Guldorand? You just don't like Myon.

Very much this.
Myon's been pretty active for awhile now.

[Dreams]

LOL what? Myon stagnant? Are you out of your mind? How can it possibly be more stagnant than Bendir, Brogendenstein, or old Guldorand? You just don't like Myon.

I was going to write almost the same thing.

[Zavandar]

simultaneously stagnant but worse than baator

[Edens_Fall]

What I will never understand about the server:

Dwarves have their own settlement, Brogendenstein, run by dwarves for dwarves. The player base seems to believe this is completely fine.

Gnomes have their own area, the Gnome Grotto, run by gnomes for gnomes. The player base seems to believe this is completely fine.

Elves have their own area, the mythal of Myth Myon (note the elven quarter and the High Hall are open to other races). This is apparently an intolerable travesty that needs to be changed.

I never had a problem with Myon. I even suggested a few years back making a lower city for half elves and only letting pure blooded elves up the mythal, this way the city could interact while still keeping the snobby elf feeling about it. My point is that making guldorand elves and everyone else while still keeping the old elven way as a fall back gave one side a heavy advantage in any kind of interaction, because someone losing an election they wanted to represent them didn't really matter. They could kill bash at will because being an exile only meant you had to enter the elven section through myon instead of the cities front gates. They just didn't have the same stakes as everyone else trying to make guldorand their home, and it was a huge flaw in the design.

+1

This issue isn't Myon being only for elves, it's more the fact that the design team wanted Guldorand and Myon to co-exist without giving either side incentive to do so. Myon still acts like Myon and retreats into the Elf city after kicking the hornet's nest. There is literally no reason for them to care about working with Guldorand or being involved in the Fortress City. The same is partly true of Guldorand whose players can get frustrated with the mess and just retreat to Westcliff. Thus the cycle repeats itself and new Guldorand remains empty.

If the Design team wants the elves to have their own settlement then that's great, but if they wanted the two settlements to be one (Which I think is a great idea for RP and Story creation), then I would like to see everyone go all in. The one leg in, one leg out really doesn't do either side any favors in my opinion.

Heck, even combining Brog and Bendir might be a good idea.

[Distant Relation]

As a freeport degenerate, I love Guldorand and want it to flourish. I don't have enough insight into the animosity between the myon and westcliff crowd to really suggest anything, but I think it might help greatly if both sides of this equation were closer to Guldorand to begin with.

Myon and the High Elven Hall are all in Surface. This means the major elf players are usually in a different server, hidden from view. Luckily the Faction Hall is in the Elven Quarter, so the problem is less pronounced there.

Worse yet though, with Westcliff on the surface and so many players choosing to sequester themselves there like monks, its not uncommon for the most influential people in Guldorand to simply not be there, at all. It's become somewhat of a meme that the High Sheriff of Gudlorand rules in absentia from a desk in an outlying logging camp....

If a reshuffle of server locations is in the cards for the future (to help with surface overpopulation, for example), it might be worth considering moving both the High Elven Hall and Westcliff + surroundings to the Guld server, and maybe even connecting Westcliff to Guldorand more directly with a ferry or similar. This would effectively 'andunorify' Guldorand around a central hub.

[stoneheart-]

+1

This issue isn't Myon being only for elves, it's more the fact that the design team wanted Guldorand and Myon to co-exist without giving either side incentive to do so. Myon still acts like Myon and retreats into the Elf city after kicking the hornet's nest. There is literally no reason for them to care about working with Guldorand or being involved in the Fortress City. The same is partly true of Guldorand whose players can get frustrated with the mess and just retreat to Westcliff. Thus the cycle repeats itself and new Guldorand remains empty.

If the Design team wants the elves to have their own settlement then that's great, but if they wanted the two settlements to be one (Which I think is a great idea for RP and Story creation), then I would like to see everyone go all in. The one leg in, one leg out really doesn't do either side any favors in my opinion.

Heck, even combining Brog and Bendir might be a good idea.

I was not going to post here because this is the same useless argument that is happening time and again, but here goes.

Design wants Myon and Guldorand to mingle, yet there is no system for the extradition of criminals from Guldorand to Myon (or at least the relegating of such people to the Freeport). Guldorand gets to exile its criminals all it wants and be comfy in their space, but if Myon ever goes into Guldorand to socialize/do business they see "known drow lover and spy #7453" who is exiled from their side of the city, and things naturally get spicy. It's easier then to just stay on the elven side of town, because no one is willing to make any efforts whatsoever to make Myon people comfortable on the Guldorand side, preferring instead to just stubbornly continue the cycle that has been going on for years rather than showing any contrition or responsibility.

Anyway, I think this thread should probably be locked since it's getting awfully finger-pointy and pot-kettle in here.

[wulfburk]

Heck, even combining Brog and Bendir might be a good idea.

Given the response to this idea when it is brought up to both Brog and Bendir players... it is not a good idea in their minds, as it doesnt fit the RP. And disregarding long-standing roleplay and the current community in exchange for promoting the server "vision" hasnt worked that well for Guldorand, I think?

Of course, the server shouldnt be at the mercy of a handful of players, but Arelith's strength for me has always been its sandbox feel and the fact that you dont need a DM to take the reins of a settlement or faction's roleplay. Given that tools are offered to do just that (with the election system and all, for example), the server should not be surprised, nor offended, when their vision isnt strickly followed by a group of players. Deleting Westcliff because of Guldorand's (perceived/real?) lack of players just screams reactionary, and probably all it is going to do is push Westcliff characters into the shelf or, at best, into the Heartwood Grove, Bramble watch, Spires Icehold, and the like, and not to Guldorand.

Now, maybe what we should be asking is, why should Guldorand BE popular, when you have player-led communities all across the server. Why is NPC control a good thing? Why should players not even control a settlement's guard? Why should we favor player-DM interaction, no matter how good the DM's RP with the NPCs are, over a sandbox experience between players? Why should some specific settlement relations be arbitrally fixed by the server (like the Earthkin alliance), instead of completely emergent from player roleplay? Does people (and the server administration) hold so much distaste for other's roleplay that they feel that constant intervention from DMs fixes things? (and by things I dont mean cases where the server rules have been broken or PvP and OOC shenanigans, which obviously need to be dealt with - I mean the political roleplay within settlements AND between settlements and factions)

For me, Arelith's strength is exactly that sandbox experience, and I'd rather have an impromptu meeting with a few player characters than with a bunch of NPCs, and this notwithstanding the issues of DM's availability per time zones/settlements (which seems to have already surfaced in Guldorand) and worse.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

If players stopped banning large groups of character concepts from settlements you wouldn't see it happen. It turns out if you give complete free reign, players will player agency conflict out of the story if they can. And that's not healthy. And some people give a million excuses for it, but ultimately it makes things boring. What I love about Guldorand is watching the Thayans and Banites and whatever else mingle and be sketchy. I like what it offers to the server narrative. The Guldorand Charter is one of the best additions to the server story-wise.

[Ebonstar]

its obvious some posting here didnt attend the meeting Irongron had a few weeks past.

He has already stated that the entire area that surrounds and is part of Guld has been tagged to be moving to the Guld server.

Now personally my thoughts on the new city is this. Its not a place you can walk into and easily find anything. Even when going to the meeting I for one of many had to be ported to the Theatre simply because nothing is marked on the minimaps, and there is no main street of sorts that has everything leading from it. Dont get me wrong, the city shows its time it took to build, its just missing some basic flow when new eyes come to see it., but otherwise is gorgeous..

IMO the boat from Skal should land off Brog and not Guld. Guld is not a mid teen area, and if alone its not a mid Epic area if you dont know where you are or which way to go. And those who appear from Skal already have a learning curve for alot of players since they know nothing about any systems, that there are many of that dont exist on Skal.

For the comment of never seeing low levels in Cordor, just hasnt paid any attention as 99% of the players running about Cordor are low levels.

The open Sencliff lite in the Freeport just doesnt appeal to some characters or players both for a major settlement.

Last thing, alot of players jumped up to Guld simply because their characters had to leave when a certain IG decision was made and the RP demanded them leaving Cordor and its environs. Things have changed and slowly the outflux is shifting back.

Overall its nothing the city lacks that wont be fixed through trial an error that both Cordor and Andunor has in years of experience in fixing.
Its dramatic, its fitting the area, and the rp that led it to be created. Over the next 15 plus years of play it too will have its growing pains and subtle tweaks that make it just like how easy Cordor seems to be.

[-XXX-]

LOL what? Myon stagnant? Are you out of your mind? How can it possibly be more stagnant than Bendir, Brogendenstein, or old Guldorand? You just don't like Myon.

What a deliciously defensive lashout. Touchy subject maybe?

Stagnation and absence of activity aren't the same. Similarly, an active clique does not prevent stagnation.
Both Udos and Benwick had a large and active group of players around them and still they became stagnant.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

Stop putting words in my mouth I didn't say. Calling out blatantly incorrect statements isn't "being defensive." The settlements you are saying are not stagnant definitely have controlling groups in them. I watched the fallout of Lobelia taking Bendir. And when Dreams ran an election in Brog, he got tells from players telling him "we don't do it that way here," that Brog is a monarchy. So what makes them different than what you perceive wrong with Myon?

[Zavandar]

LOL what? Myon stagnant? Are you out of your mind? How can it possibly be more stagnant than Bendir, Brogendenstein, or old Guldorand? You just don't like Myon.

What a deliciously defensive lashout. Touchy subject maybe?

Stagnation and absence of activity aren't the same. Similarly, an active clique does not prevent stagnation.
Both Udos and Benwick had a large and active group of players around them and still they became stagnant.

does this imply you don't think bendir/brog/old guld are stagnant, but are absent of activity?

people are starting to get mean..

[Duchess Says]

For the comment of never seeing low levels in Cordor, just hasnt paid any attention as 99% of the players running about Cordor are low levels.

Maybe it's 99 out of 100 in the +sewers+ but if you're going to use numbers to make a point at least try and make them plausible. All the shop owners, guards, politicians, bar workers and patrons, theater folks and people hanging out by the fire aren't low level at all. Or do you mean the folks actually "running" and not standing around RPing? Point is Cordor is all levels and actually not all that newbie friendly since it's very active and doesn't feel like a starting zone at all.

its obvious some posting here didnt attend the meeting Irongron had a few weeks past.

I certainly didn't. Is the transcript posted anywhere? I can't find it if it was but I'd like to read what was said. Regardless you can't blame anyone for commenting on what exists now instead of what Irongron said might eventually happen.

[-XXX-]

does this imply you don't think bendir/brog/old guld are stagnant, but are absent of activity?

No it doesn't.
Unlike Myon, neither Bendir nor Brog are a part of Guldorand - plz check the thread title again.
They've both been mentioned as whataboutisms when attention turned to Myon.

Furthermore, the initial argument that drew attention to Myon was that it should have been a racially exclusive settlement.
I said that we've been down that road before and the attempt crashed and burned spectacularly.

[Zavandar]

does this imply you don't think bendir/brog/old guld are stagnant, but are absent of activity?

No it doesn't.
Unlike Myon, neither Bendir nor Brog are a part of Guldorand - plz check the thread title again.
They've both been mentioned as whataboutisms when attention turned to Myon.

Furthermore, the initial argument that drew attention to Myon was that it should have been a racially exclusive settlement.
I said that we've been down that road before and the attempt crashed and burned spectacularly.

oh i just asked because you felt the need to differentiate when they were compared

idk what really crashed and burned tho

[-XXX-]

When Mythal was still a thing Myon went through multiple prolonged periods of ghost town state.
For me it's the quintessential failed settlement of Arelith when I look back.

Its transition to Guldorand* seemed like a promise of improvement, but in essence it still retained the two major traits that made it not work in the first place - racial exclusivity (less mechanically enforced this time around, but still) and plot armor.

And there's no reason for any comparisons here as I don't see any players asking "why is Bendir/Brog so unpopular", do you?




*by falling from the sky, so I guess the crashing imagery might be taken in a literal sense here too!

[Nintendo Entertainment System]

Bendir Dale, Brogendenstein and their environs aren't on their own servers, so people aren't (consciously or not) seeing the relative activity levels every time they log in. Guldorand is, so its lulls and spikes in population are a lot more obvious (and therefore get more attention).

I can only speak for myself, but it's Guldorand's area architecture that keeps me from visiting the city more frequently. The portal's out-of-the-way location, the city's core being at the end of lengthy walks, and the general peddler being separate and far away from the other merchants make it the last city I'd want to visit to handle post-adventuring errands.

I'd much rather visit, say, Sibayad and its convenience, or Brogendenstein and its one-stop container merchant with a scrap dealer and bounty dispenser just down the hall.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

Myon's critique was never about "activity" - it's stagnation was directly intertwined with being a carry-over of Benwick, and "safety behind the Mythal" that meant it never really had to ... do anything.

In general, creating impenetrable barriers is a bad thing. This is what leads to what I call "status quo Team Good" where player factions rely on in-game mechanics to preserve the status quo because the status quo keeps things Safe. (this is larger problem of good-aligned philosophy being conflict-averse, social-driven, peace-mandated)

Back to the topic, why is Westcliff called Westcliff when it's on the ... east coast? This alludes me greatly.

No one really asked for New Guldorand, I'm not sure why it exists. I think you should've blown up Myon and Old Guldorand properly.

Cities feel alive when you're forced to compete for elbow-room. When you give players an inch, they'll board it up and make it a quarter and "RP by Speedy appointment." Big problem with current server design, imo. In the effort to become more MMO-like, (quarters, gear, inventory inflation, etc.) you've necessitated the unequivocal mechanical need for space, which makes creating melting pots of narrative really harder to facilitate and foster.

Like, imagine if you would, if the entire Surface was just Cordor with different racial/ethnic burrows?

Would be crazy in all the right ways.