Hello there!
I wanted to drop by and leave a feedback post regarding the title-mentioned areas of the module regarding Myon as a settlement after playing in the city for a while. I’m going to be listing out in no particular order some of these things that have left me simply whelmed by the experience of roleplaying in this portion of the server. The list below is a lot of feedback, some offerings to what I might hope to see in the future, and how I see/feel about the current state of the settlement spoken through nitpicking and true uncertainty to how it ended up as it is.
The Twilight Grove:
The Gallery Oak:
The effective museum of player created fixtures from paintings, sculptures and else, has no placed NPCs/NPC curator within the building. In the short time I have played in the city, four times have I seen some effort of a plot/story thread involving a thief stealing a piece of artwork, where we have been powerless to even attempt an investigation or roleplay anything beyond hoping the thief announces they had done it. The area should have an NPC that can be ‘investigated’ in my opinion, as the expectation to protect fixtures with an actual player/character is a ridiculous thing.
The Great Oak, where Myon houses both the Library and the Council room:
There is a placed ‘Ward’ in the shape of such as one to prevent scrying, that simply does not work. I’d personally wish it fixed, or removed, simply to use the area. It feels like some amount of a visual trap for newer players that might expect it to be a functioning piece of the placeables used to create the area, as it currently exists.
The council chamber found on the third floor of the oak, which in my mind would be something meant for a chance to hold private meetings, does not have a chance or place to lock the doors entering it, and I would prefer something tying it to the faction hall, or another similar chamber created into the faction hall.
Inside the Twilight Grove, there are not enough open spaces or pre-determined places for gatherings or hosting of events. Functionally, Myon has used a ramp leading into the Gallery Oak, and the area inside the Gallery oak, as our primary location where we can fit a crowd of characters. However, this area also overlaps with the mechanical garden areas of the Twilight grove, meaning often characters will simply be standing on top of, or walking directly through mechanical herb plants/bushes – because the area is so limited.
Spacing in the grove is unwell, and the time to access the area mixed with no public or private departure portal, often means the entire area goes ignored, even further because there are no player shops to bring people to the Grove, and no larger estates, guild houses, or else in the Twilight Grove to drive roleplay toward it. As it currently exists, there are smaller ‘apartment’ style quarters, but nothing more and essentially becomes a non-played area outside of festivals/events/gatherings hosted there because of how sad the space is to use.
Regarding areas to roleplay within the Twilight Grove, there are functionally three. The spoken area outside the Gallery Oak, the Great Oak, and the house of Reverie. The rest of the grove is too limited in space, and it feels better to simply use the Elven Quarter, driving people further away from the ‘main’ portion of the elven city.
The Elven Quarter:
A public gathering hall with our shops fails to create any private areas within quick reach. I’m comparing the central gathering hall here to Cordor, the standard in my head for a city- where they can quickly arrive from the square to the faction hall, and then have meetings or conversations characters might wish away from crowds. However, in the Elven Quarter’s High Hall- to find a true privacy, characters would need to leave the hall, walk down the hill that faces away from the barracks, move over the broken walk mesh of the hill that only works in certain areas, move down a set of stairs, into a building, up a set of stairs, into the faction hall. Which leads on to a discussion in the faction hall. Yet, the faction hall:
The Elven Quarter faction hall is a miserable little thing.
- One main room, able to be used for communications in the city, that has no functional meeting space in the main chamber.
- Two rooms wait ahead on the left and right, one with space for storage that can be locked– another with a table and place for meetings/gatherings.
- Neither of the two above listed rooms are functionally private spaces. The tileset used to create the miserable little faction hall, offers doors that are not true doors. As they should in NWN, you would hear nothing outside or not be able to see the conversations written between characters. However, you can simply stand outside and 'hear' what goes on within. Which would mean, if someone was wanting to have a private conversation or meeting, you could accomplish the same thing by warding a space and whispering in a corner like a strange creature, instead of making use of a roleplay area to host a meeting.
- The size of this faction hall is only made worse, when functionally someone needs to own a quarter within the barracks if the city wishes to have a private space to store something probably meant to be kept private, in a specific location. This ‘quarter’ in question is a single tile. A single, one, tile. I’m not certain how this made it through a final draft, unless this specific quarter is adjusted to not be included in the ‘ownership’ of quarters, so the faction leader or someone in the city can ‘own’ this dreadful little quarter within the miserable little faction hall, and still own another quarter they use.
- Overall, the entire faction hall is something I’d like to see completely redone in hopes that it becomes something useful, or not terrible to access.
Stepping back into the Elven Quarter:
Myon has no tavern within the quarter, nor a ‘vineyard’ or something that might drive roleplay into the Twilight Grove. It is a simple thing, that might come and go—but it is simply another thing that feels ‘missing’ – of course the residents of the city could venture into Guldorand, but I do not understand why there is only one, compared to a second that would drive ‘competition’ between the two taverns, or create a bit of interesting roleplay between the areas for them.
The design of the Elven Quarter suffers the same exact problem the Twilight grove has. There are no functional public roleplay spaces that are easily accessible. The decision for the rolling hills to make it feel ‘above the Deep Wells’ ruins hopes of using the area specifically to gather, meet, or have open conversations. It makes it even more difficult when the ‘main’ and ‘center’ areas of the Elven Quarter are littered by a stream, a waterfall, a pond, and then a non-separated temple area. This simply prevents the area from being used to host gatherings anywhere other than in the middle of a river, with people sitting on a hill.
In regard to above mentioned temple, it brings me some great sorrow to wish to roleplay out a moment of prayer between two characters inside the place, only when I first approached it realized that this specific 'temple' area was the creation of a map placeable in the tileset, and thus you need to play near completely zoomed in if you have hopes of see what your character is actually looking at inside the 'temple' area.
The fixture limit. Somehow, the Elven Quarter has a fixture limit of 35 for the sprawling space. So, between altars, basic sign postings, and advertisements for shops in the quarter – there can be no additional ‘meeting spaces’ created through fixtures, less Myon decided to forgo all of that in the effort of creating a table and some chairs that would probably be stolen.
The Elven Quarter also goes without any temporary stalls or true ‘outdoor’ or even ‘indoor’ market space. Which, again, the characters of the city could make use of the many in Guldorand- but I question why the Freeport and Republic are given such a great excess of shops, and the Elven Quarter and Twilight grove have none.
Further, the housing within the Elven Quarter and Twilight Grove is also still not locked to Elves, Half-elves, Firbolgs, and Fey – which feels like oversight or something that needs to be addressed by the staff still. Brogendenstein has already locked quarters to Earthkin, and somehow Myon has yet had this implemented into some portion of the player/character housing that exists within the areas. Which, again, simply feels like oversight unless this is intentional which I would question the ‘why’ to this decision as it is an Elven focused settlement. If something happens to lock another focused area, I believe it should be something server wide.
Wrapping up the feedback post, I did also want to mention that it was reported months ago that the taxes for landed nobility in Myon have stopped working, and this continues to be a problem. Which, to this moment, simply adds to some greater amount of nitpicking all that is unwell with this settlement and is on the growing list of things I’d wish to see changed or improved within Myon/The Twilight Grove/Elven Quarter.
Altogether, each of these areas feels ‘whelming’ to participate and create roleplay through. My honest feedback is I simply wish the entire elven quarter was removed and left to Guldorand, and tension between the cities came from Myon as a settlement arriving on political ventures to make safe the treasures and relics of their past found in the Deep Wells, then an expansion was made to truly make use of the Twilight grove as a hub for all things Myon and Elven. However, that will not happen. As it will not, I am hopeful to eventually see a more solid rework done with roleplay and accessibility in mind for the areas of Myon/The Elven Quarter/The Twilight Grove.
The feedback ends with hopes that the faction hall was changed to be a guild house or tavern, and the faction hall was moved to be ‘upstairs’ from the High Halls in the Elven Quarter. The Twilight Grove expanded to have one or two guild houses/estates/or a tavern with spaces for shops, a departure portal private or public, and more space to actively make use of roleplay in this area and some hopes the Elven Quarter as well might become more approachable through changed design.
While Myon was thankfully given a portal to arrive at the Temple beyond in the Arelith Forest, that is still not Surface Only as it was advertised to originally be, the only means to depart without use of a portal lens, or being part of the government of Myon, is to run all the way to Soulhaven to make use of the departure portal. This is simply sad to see in the settlement as it involves running through an entire extra settlement to leave.
Thanks for taking the time to read the nitpickings and ramblings.
