Just Andunor.

[TheManBehindTheMemes]

――――――――――― Just Andunor. ―――――――――――

Welcome to a feedback mega-thread revolving around Andunor, and Underdark in general. This thread is dedicated to complete glorious incarnation of current edition revolving around Underdark, and of course - Andunor.

This thread is created based off on other thread, "What we do in the Shadow" underdark thread, viewtopic.php?f=18&t=28663, which I can't lie, is an actual thing I want to point out.

Yes. Just Andunor. This thread will be a bit weird especially with the title-dropping Just Andunor. Just Andunor is to refer to the fact that there is only one hub for all of Underdark content usually where majority of Underdark roleplayers hang out at. Because of Andunor's reputation, and the fact that it's only one led it to be the only actual place to find loitering roleplays in all of Underdark. Hence Just Andunor.


Irongron finally given green-light to create Andunor.

――――――――――― HISTORY OF JUST ANDUNOR. ―――――――――――

Some of you may have been reading the forum back to a more older days (During 2014s) where there was veteran talking about the olden days. Before Andunor, there was three towns: Pit Town, Grond, and Udos. The full names not given, existed back before Andunor. Three separate villages housing their own settlements, and was only place of refuge for underdarkers. Now surely, this would be decent enough for Underdarkers? Well. No. If we trace to that timeperiod, or taken accounts of several veterans who survived the dark era. We would eventually come to know a few things. One thing I'll famously republish the screenshot I've acquired to this thread which summarizes the entire issue Underdark players had in the duration of 2010s to 2013 before Andunor's release.

Credited to Durvayas, who may not be frequenting the forum anymore. I dedicate this one to your honor.



Now some of you may not understands what Durvayas is saying. I'll go ahead and go more in-depth. Many players struggled, and were suffered underneath the current incarnation of the Underdark back then. One player recounted an event where they were maining a gnoll. Because most of the DMs were on vacation, and away. The DM that favored elves heavily, and hated enemies of elves a lot demoted this particular gnoll PC to 10 RpR. In this gnoll's case, they couldn't play their gnoll because gnolls requires 20 RpR to play. Therefore losing their access to be able to play the gnoll at all. Often reasons to losing their RpR is solely because "running" or "gnolls can't fish" etc-era

On top of this, there were very few contents update given to Underdark. In comparison to Surface, where as surface is getting flushed with new contents, with new toys, and so goes on with all the attentions of the DMs. Underdark on other hand, at the time period, receives none. Griefers ran unchecked, abuses went rampant. As times goes on, as stated in the screenshot above. The community dwindled due to lack of attentions, and love from the staff because they simply do not care.

To summarize:
1. There were ban-waves over specific drow houses, or factions. Justified, or not. I do not make the judgment here.
2. The DMs at the time were not very polite in the wordings you wish to put them in.
3. No incentive to plays in the Underdark due to lack of attentions, and loves given to it at all in first place.

So fast-forward to 2013. How did Andunor came to be? Well. A simple history lesson.



Unfortunately Irongron may be wrong. It could be potentially a whole another reason. Reasons not because Outcasts were playable. But because of what I've stated above. It could be for those reasons. But we've no exact accurate representation of what led the decline other than what veterans there experienced, and recounted.

When Durvayas stated that community were suffering. It was not because of players not getting any players. It was just that there was no injection. No new interests. Nothing that kept the Underdark community invigorated. They were sitting on other side of the wall thorough the window, and saw the surfacers having fun. Does Andunor improves Underdark? Well, by the look of it so far, certainty!

With Andunor's implementation, brought new interests to re-explore the Underdark after all the damage had been done. And seeing as there is more keen to improve the Underdark within recent updates, and that DMs finally pays the Underdarkers their attention.

But now... We've came to a fresh unique issue.


Underdarkers getting told that they'll never truly leave the Hub.

――――――――――― THREE CITIES IN ONE: ANDUNOR ―――――――――――

So what's the issue? Obviously, Andunor. You see. There's one city. One actual city, with just 3 districts with settlement attached to it. Which is why I have decided to dub Andunor when referring to it as this:

Three cities in package of one!
So why is this an issue? Because roleplays are extremely concentrated into the Hub. Almost majority of the loitering roleplays are located within a single room. A single room with every merchant accessible, with door that immediately gives you access to nearest scroll vendor. A writ giver right upstairs, and no real reasons to go anywhere outside the Hub other than for writs, or grinds.

While there is evident cases of Underdarkers using section of Andunor, or roleplaying away from Andunor. But most of heavy loitering roleplay is just located within one room, known as the Hub.

Every single Underdarker cannot go to any other cities, because they do not allow monster races. You may argue Sencliff, but even Sencliff restricts MOST underdarkers to an extent, and some exceptions. For most cases, having Just Andunor as only place of underdarkers' roleplay with no actual alternatives, or means to get away from the Andunor lifestyle.

Due to Andunor's current circumstances. It led to chokepoints, and complications in lot of aspect. It's very uncommon sight to find roleplayers using other spots with exception of events.

Thanks to this, it led to Andunor having few issues due to it being Just Andunor. The following being:


Kobolds finding a community to belong to.

――――――――――― STORY-TELLING ―――――――――――

Because an Underdarker PC does not have an alternative get-away location, or any means to actually stash out. And if an Underdarker PC is fresh off the boat (low levels PC), and they accidentally attracted an ire of a higher level PC who may not be pleased with them. There's a good opportunity that the poor low level PC will be hunted down, and forced to suffer because why? There's no other safe places in the Underdark.

The Underdarkers are forced into a begrudged alliance that theoretically forces them to be nice to one another because if they try to "rock" the boat. They're hunted down, and forced out of Andunor. Which in other words, mean an effective game-over. Sure the PVP 24-hours rule applies as they cannot keep ganking you over, and over to keep you out of the Hub. But sure does it get really annoying, and perhaps a bit mean toward you. Because there is no alternatives, or an workaround for Underdarkers to go somewhere else to avoid getting into PvP every time they go back to the Hub. It is quite suffocating.

When this happens. The players have no escapades. They have to suffer the humiliation of losing every time. (While winning all the time does get boring. It also get boring spending 5 minutes in the Fugue, then almost 2 hours sitting in hub waiting for death sickness to wear off. No offense. Remove Death Sickness.)

The players of Andunor have turned into carebear hugboxes.

How did this happen? Well. Just Andunor. Once again Meme boi kept doing the title drop.

――――――――――― Outcast, slavery, and rollcharacters. ―――――――――――

While I rather avoid making a habit of another thread based on revolving around Outcasts, slaves, and Roll-characters. I rather not dedicate it all about them. But they do certainty contribute to an issue of their own. Especially Outcasts in their own respective. While originally implemented Outcast to be able to resolve the dwindling Underdarkers communities. I've a feeling it had an opposite effect in fact. (Which led to them having tags, and getting award-locked in first place.)



Given that Irongron originally implemented outcasts to bolster the population of Underdarkers. But then to see the DM states that Outcasts were roleplayed as person with access on Surface really puts the perspective on the aspect.

When Outcasts became award-locked. The following reply to DM rex were given.



Because of Andunor's extreme centralization as it was designed for the small underdark community in the hope that it would prosper again one day. It did the job of being a home of 8 to 10 underdarkers a day very well for what it was designed for. But in the end, it's also the problem. Due to extreme centralization, and great grind-loops that was taken advantage of. Many characters were simply made to grind the Underdark, then roll the dice for a chance at award instead of creating a meaningful interaction in the Underdark. Rendering any real fix to the community null. Sure, you can argue that people can just make roll-character on a Kobold, or Goblin and it would work just as fine.

But that's the issue here. The issue is that because of how very centralized Andunor is, the players uses Underdark as a grind-loop to 30 to roll for a chance at Major, or a Greater. And then rinse and repeat.

And that just stinks. It really does.

――――――――――― So how do we fix this? ―――――――――――

Currently, in the state of affair. There's Just Andunor. There's all there is it to it.

Maybe Andunor should be nuked, and give us three new separate cities that doesn't rely on a Hub. Or maybe the three districts are merged, and that Andunor is subject to one settlement then gives us two other cities with their own settlement system instead of having multi-districts. Andunor was seemingly to be designed for small community at the time, and it starts to show as more and more Underdarkers join.

Because of how compact, and small Andunor is. It just doesn't seem to be incentive to play an Underdarker. But there's other ways Andunor could be improved. Maybe we can expand another roleplay location for Underdarkers.

So how do you guys think Underdark should be fixed?

Also this thread will be fixed, reworded correctly, and made less messy if I figure out.. how to not make it too awkward.

[Shadowy Reality]

I just want to point that Andunor is not three cities in one.

Udos and Grond existed first. And note that only Drow could access Udos, it worked similarly to the Myon Mythal. Which means the old situations in the Grond for monsters is exactly the same as it is for current UD characters in Andunor.

Pit Town existed only by itself. Udos was still there but it wasn't a settlement, it was basically destroyed. So there were never three active settlements in the Underdark before. (Unless you count with the gnome village, which you shouldn't)

With that aside, I agree we may need something else. At first sight it seemed that the Districts could serve as mini-settlements. You get in trouble in one, you go to the other. But this is flawed due to how Andunor is built. You will still be bumping into the same characters you have problems with.

[Maladus]

I've stated it in the other thread that was highlighted in this post, but I'll reiterate here. I believe that the creation of another city somewhere in the Underdark would help tremendously. But along with that new city, I believe that Outcast should be taken off of it's current reward only status and they be allowed to start in the new city. This new city should have its own portal hub so that access to the portal inside the Andunor hub can be restricted from Outcasts.

I believe that in doing this, it would free up the Outcasts to be able to start in the Underdark while allowing monster races to essentially operate as they do now in Andunor. By allowing the Outcasts to start in the new city, they will most likely be the controlling faction of the settlement in the city allowing them to have the intrigue and RP associated with trying to gain control. This could lead to some interesting back and forth between the two cities as the monster races try to install someone they like in the leadership of that new city and vice versa.

If the new city were established somewhere closer to the surface, it would allow the Outcasts and surface evil characters to have an area where they could mutually meet up. Being close to the surface also allows for the Outcasts to gather resources that are somewhat more scarce in the Underdark which could potentially open up new avenues of trade between the two cities.

Overall I see a second city as a win-win situation. I think that should such a city be created, things in Andunor might need to be monitored because with the three districts, it may be hard to maintain all of them if a second city were established. However, I hope to see positives resulting from this.

[AstralUniverse]

I'd find it cool if one day one of the trade posts would be expanded into a starting location for humans, half orcs and I guess some other UD races but not all. Some quarters, npc merchants, writ agent and a bar, some rats and bats and all that jazz. Doesnt have to be fancy at all. It could return the agency over andunour back to the drow and the conflict between the houses can get the spotlight while offering an alternative for evil humans horcs etc. I'm not much of an UD player so I cant really say if it's a necessity but at some point when the number of the server population in the UD requires it (if it isnt the case already) then it would be cool.

[Tathkar Eisgrim]

A few questions:

Q: Why has roleplay in the Underdark never reached the point where Andunor has been 'accepted' as genuine neutral territory? i.e. A Trade City?

Q: Does Andunor have a representative NPC faction authority equal to King Edward for Cordor?

Again, as an outsider reading in, and playing devil's advocate, it all reads as: "The Underdark Community is repeatedly failing to roleplay within the parameters of the game setting and so wants the setting to meet their style."

Surely the first rule of living in the Underdark is "survival". So -- survive?

[TheManBehindTheMemes]

Q: Why has roleplay in the Underdark never reached the point where Andunor has been 'accepted' as genuine neutral territory? i.e. A Trade City?

Because it make no sense given the circumstances of most Underdarkers. Andunor have been repeatingly treated as trading city. And it had been, if you just go to the Hub. The districts itself are dangerous zones for surfacers, and are usually free-ranging on surfacers that wandered into district. Which is almost never.

Q: Does Andunor have a representative NPC faction authority equal to King Edward for Cordor?

Yes. But actually no. There is two High Drow Houses, the Duergar's army, and the Mysterious Hubmaster that rules the central Andunor.

[DM Rex]

A few questions:

Q: Why has roleplay in the Underdark never reached the point where Andunor has been 'accepted' as genuine neutral territory? i.e. A Trade City?

Q: Does Andunor have a representative NPC faction authority equal to King Edward for Cordor?

Q1: It could be, but everyone likes shooting surfacers. This is all player driven ideology, methods, and enforcement. It is thought that the upper trading post is more of a suitable 'near but not too near' middle ground.

Q2: It does! The Claddath, the Freth, and Gracklstugh while not individuals function as the NPC factions that can step in if something *utterly catastrophic* happened. And yes the hub master itself.

[Might-N-Magic]

Q: Does Andunor have a representative NPC faction authority equal to King Edward for Cordor?

Would kind of be nice if those of us who still remember the lore of Freth and Claddath being exiled and confined to the Vault for being anti-Lolthite heretics got some sort of answer as to how they escaped, somehow had the assets to build a city, and why everyone just accepts them now, even though any devout drow should be making war on them.

[Red_Wharf]

For Andunor to be accepted as a neutral trade city, it first has to stop trying to burn down everything on the Surface server. Just the other day the Duergar NPC army currently stationed in Andunor attacked Brogendenstein with siege weaponry and everything else, not to mention the endless times factions and characters from Andunor raided the surface's settlements and roads to various degrees of success. This is not criticism at all, just an answer to Tathkar's question.

Andunor as a trade city works, not as a neutral one though, but rather as a trade city where the visitors and customers can suddenly find themselves as the "trade goods" in the slave pits. Buy your cheap rune mats and leave asap. lol

[Tathkar Eisgrim]

Thank you for the answers.

If the PC inhabitants are unhappy with the settlement the NPC authorities have provided, then perhaps they should consider:-

- Proving their faction is better than the other factions by IC getting in the NPC authorities good books - and providing concrete plans on "extending the city" and its surrounding tunnel networks.
- Present the case IC that the various factions are "at each others throats" and need room to breathe.
- Those in danger of being Outcast factions need to secretly roleplay efforts to create new chambers, i.e. Illegally tunneling.

A lot of the surface settlements were created by the ingenuity of players. Perhaps players need to show that same ingenuity in the Underdark? (Forgive me, I don't mean to suggest players never have. I am sure they have. Extra efforts under Irongron's watchful eye is the implication).

I would suggest:

- The Underdark factions need to demonstrate IC ingenuity to DM's and Irongron.
- The Underdark factions need to demonstrate their IC strength, competitively, versus other factions.
- The Underdark factions choose to bend a knee to the NPC authorities of Andunor and beg for a solution.

If, as DM Rex states, this is all player driven idealogy, methods and enforcement, then those idealogies need to be challenged or proven to be effective. Someone needs to break the status quo, IC.

Edit: Also, I meant Andunor as an Underdark-only Trade City. Where the Underdark races are required to curb their excesses to grit their teeth and get along or face pressure from the NPC Authority. i.e. It is my understanding it is still race-territorial?

-- Tath.

[Maladus]

The issue is that most of the time someone attempts to challenge the established IC status quo, they can easily be shut down by the others in control. If you get exiled in one of the districts, the only place you can go to try and reestablish yourself is one of the other districts which will usually shut you down also for the good of Andunor. Then you are basically considered an enemy of the entire city and there is nowhere left for you to go because as the OP mentioned a lot of the RP in the UD takes place in one room.

[TheManBehindTheMemes]

If, as DM Rex states, this is all player driven idealogy, methods and enforcement, then those idealogies need to be challenged or proven to be effective. Someone needs to break the status quo, IC.

[Tathkar Eisgrim]

My honest thinking now is:-

- A singular PC faction should not have the power to exile. It should be by Faction majority.
- The NPC Authority is the host. The benefactor. As such they should have the mechanisms under DM control to make a faction uncomfortable (removing writ access, fining a faction, forcing a diplomatic concession.)
- Andunor should be a competitive Meritocracy. A self-declared PC faction needs to prove itself to the NPC faction by competing with other PC factions. Any "deaths" in one faction that can be traced to another faction lowers their standing that diplomatic season.

Once these "rules" (or something like them is established) then the PC factions can "compete" to have their plans incrementally moved forward for expansion (as agreed with Irongron).

I don't think Underdark players should get another remake for free. Work for it. You have a slave labour force at your disposal.

Edit: Yes, yes - I understand the circular logic trap of the diagram. Hence my suggestion above for attempting to break out of it. It might indeed require assistance from on high.

-- Tath.

[Maladus]

- A singular PC faction should not have the power to exile. It should be by Faction majority.

This is just how the settlement system works as far as I know. It's the same everywhere on the server unless I'm mistaken in my general lack of experience as a settlement leader.

[Kuma]

am i the only one that thinks andunor just needs some tweaks (which i'll write up when i'm not exhausted)

like i don't see this cataclysmic take having much standing.

spoiler alert for what i'll be posting, though: the solution is not re-fracture the underdark to enable poor gamesmanship to be re-normalised in ghettos

[LichBait]

You're not the only one, no.

[Jagel]

My take is Andunor is a good enough solution to the problems with the settlements that came before.

Udos Dro’Xun was on and off (mostly ‘on’) an elitist, cliquey and unaccessible Menzo style drow city. I was part of it and part of the problems for the first couple of years. Grond was a problem not so much in itself but because of the tired Wars with Udos Dro’Xun on and on again. The analysis that led to Pit Town asked the right questions IMO but answered these questions inadequately.

Andunor is better in almost every way as far as I am concerned.

[Anomandaris]

...

I thought this was interesting as I wasn't around back then. I have played almost exclusively in Andunor for the last couple of years however. Recently I'm getting a little bored with it. In part because some of the things you've articulated, in part because I need a change of scenery. A few thoughts:

1) The Hub is great. This centralization, while potentially causing problems, is what attracted me to the UD in the first place. It's something the surface lacks in a big way and enables new players and new PCs to get involved in RP quickly/easily. It makes the server seem more alive to see that many active people. There seems to be a lot of RP that get's "taken out of the Hub" to more private locale like Drow houses, district houses etc to mitigate spying and so on.

2) The Surface has never done much for me (I've had great experiences and spent a lot of time there, but playing a surface based PC has felt more isolated and faction dependent). The environment and playerbase are great, but due to the lack of the above centralization it's suffering, in my opinion, from the inverse problem as you stated Andunor has. And yes, I'm aware there are locations you can go to from Cordor to Brog to Bendir that often have PC's loitering about, but it's supremely localized and racial/faction specific. The Surface feels to me like you make a PC with a fully fleshed out plan in advance and go jump in with a group, because if not you're lonely. And just strolling into a settlement rping with the regulars can be fun (there are so many great, gracious players) you're just an outsider in that settlement and it's pretty superficial. It tends to result in a very clique oriented ecosystem (which is ok and normal, we are all entitled to have ppl/styles/places we like to play around etc). Frankly if the surface had an "Andunor" which Cordor is not, then I'd probably be way more inclined to play a surface PC that didn't ust start in Skal, lvl to 16 then hop to the mainland and join the faction I had planned to from character concept. In fact Skal does this very well for new PC's, create a melting pot for RP and collaboration/conflict that is only enabled through centralization.

TLDR: Andunor it's hop on, go to Hub bump into ppl you know (friendly/unfriendly) rp away. Surface it's hop on, check playerlist, see if you find someone you know, send speedy/illusion, maybe be alone for hours -or- hop into your very race/faction specific network and rp with that group.

I won't speculate on how Outcast policy etc should be run, I just wanted to state that as a player I like the Hub a lot and it's what drew me to Andunor. The lack thereof is what makes the Surface less fun for me. Andunor however is stagnant due to centralization and the trend for anyone rocking the boat to be made "an enemy of the city" due to the establishment not liking it. And if you're a "free agent'' it makes sense to just hop on the bandwagon and go with the mob. It's overly politicized to becoming a bit boring. Elections are just purchased and while it's "possible" for an upstart to make changes, it's kind of like real world politics where you're fighting a massively uphill battle and are likely to fail miserably. Is this a bad thing? Maybe/maybe not. It's very much in line with how politics & power tends to play out in the real world, but for a healthy game ecosystem it can leave some disenfranchised.

Maybe it would be neat to have a more "settlement" style approach instead of "districts" while keeping the Hub as a meeting place/melting pot. That would leave less consolidation across the "districts" but still keep a nice Hub that is traffic and rp heavy. It would create more autonomy within these "settlements" which might encourage more interesting RP and less stagnation across the server. I'm not recommending this, but it would be more in line with what I would do as opposed to just splitting Andunor to multiple cities. I don't want the UD to feel like the surface....

[magistrasa]

Hey Tath, I get that you're coming from a place of genuine and earnest desire to see people's experience improve and that you hope there's an easy solution for everyone that just requires a little nudging in the right direction - that's a nice way of approaching this sort of thing and it usually makes me smile when I see it.

But when generations of players have been having the same problems for years, and saying the same things about how something needs to change on the dev side of things, it can be a little patronizing to see someone who's admitted they've never played in the Underdark tell the players who've been dealing with the same crap for nearly a decade, "Just do the right kind of roleplay!" It's just not feasible - nor is it feasible to expect the DMs to suddenly become full-time puppeteers of the Several different NPC factions in town to enforce punitive measures on faction hostility. Especially when faction hostility is the last interesting thing in the city.

Towards that point, and in spite of my thread having inspired this conversation, I have to admit that faction hostility isn't Bad. The fact that there's so many districts with so many ruling parties makes it so that someone who "gets on the bad side" of one can find refuge in another - and the habitual faction friendliness only makes it more likely that the issue will be dropped once you've embedded yourself in this circle of allies. Most UDers are better behaved than to simply drop KoS orders on anyone they disagree with, and when it's discovered that one's enemy is a lowbie, I've seen a lot of effort put into letting that person off the hook. The portrayal of UDers as unwashed savages in this regard is kinda hard to get behind. The fact of the matter is, a good amount of the time (though of course not always), when someone's getting murderganked on the daily, they usually did something BIG to deserve it. It's not as simple as "someone tried to change the status quo and now we hate them." Everyone WANTS the status quo to change! The people who try to change the status quo are the people who earn 30 and 40 RPR. But in Andunor, the status quo never does change. Things never do improve. Everything stays the same and everyone languishes in their own insignificance.

Another settlement outside of Andunor could make things a lot more interesting. But if we're going to discuss this seriously, we need to acknowledge it's not guaranteed to make things better. We need to acknowledge it might only serve to exacerbate long-standing issues in the Underdark, resulting in that lone settlement making an enemy of all of Andunor. This could lead to a constant state of tension and war that at least is subdued when we have Just Andunor. When your enemy is your roommate, you can't burn their house down without destroying your own.

[Aniel]

I've always intended to write a post very similar to this and I'm kind of blown away to see that someone else did it. I suppose I'll use this opportunity to lay out some of my own thoughts on the matter as someone that's invested a significant amount of time into playing in the UD not that long ago.


Just Andunor is a perfect way to describe it. Or, maybe an even better descriptor which is not at all to discredit Irongron's work as I do immensely love how the city looks and feels, "Just the Hub". One of my biggest issues with playing in the Underdark, while it may look like it's all centered around Andunor's design, it actually isn't. It's centered on the absence of alternatives to Andunor.

As a quick TLDR for the people not interested in blobs of text: Cordor is a fantastic city, the surface is a fantastic place to play and is something I've grown an immense appreciation for over the last year. But you know what would make the surface less fun to play in? If Bendir, Guldorand, Brogendenstein, Sencliff, and Sibayad didn't exist. I guess in this comparison we'd call Greyhammer the Outpost of the surface and maybe the Arcane Tower the Ogre's Fist Trading Post. Except the Arcane Tower is more of a centralized location people go to RP too. Would the server be as fun with just Cordor, Greyhammer, and the Arcane Tower? Almost certainly to people that enjoy a very tight-knit area to maximize player density. However, it's something I've found that I'm not too overly fond of myself, and I think it constricts the means of play by discouraging conflict. The how's on that will be further down in this text, unfortunately!



Firstly, I'd like to deconstruct how the module itself influences roleplay on the surface: with a variety of start locations, some significantly further away from the stock-standard Cordor than others, we have an immediate variety available with a number of characters that vary immensely, from the encouraged piracy of Sencliff all the way to the frigid lawless island of Skaljard. From humans of any alignment to all manner of dwarves, elves, gnomes, and many other oddities that can all vary from blackguards of the darkest powers to saucy sworn paladins of Sune. All of the cities you arrive in or visit are all very geographically far apart from each other and have their own ecosystems, economies, oftentimes even culture and laws. Just walking around the archipelago can feel like you're exploring a vast open and living world.

With this, a lot of freedoms arise. Cordor is tremendously large, it's a city that has elections and one person is chosen to become the settlement leader, someone that holds immense power over the entirety of Cordor and can push it in incredible directions. Katernin Bersk is a great recent example of what the pinnacle of Cordor can be with all of its power, with what it can do.

And that's just the one example of Cordor. There's also natural conflict created between settlements due to this distance and differences. The great city of the dwarves is likely to have many innate differences from the fair city of the elves for example. There's also natural conflict created in the land brokerage as bidding wars and drama occurs over the very massive and special real estate - the castles are a tremendous touch that beautifully ties together these dynamics for prime storytelling opportunities.

Going back to the variety in characters again, it isn't just on a massive faction or settlement-to-settlement level either. With paladins and blackguards often times occupying the same city with vastly different ideologies that likely juxtapose the other, you can see great conflict created that way as well.

And if you're too much of a rebel to hang around those cities, Sencliff and Sibayad lean much more neutrally, oftentimes even evilly so. It's a full toolset that many, many people can enjoy and work with.


On the flip side of the Underdark, there's just Andunor. A city so great and expansive that three entire cities dwell inside of it! And in the center, there lies a neutral hub that anyone can congregate into to perform their shopping needs. All of the cities, while having their own shops, also have to compete with all of the shops located in the hottest traffic point that holds a bank, a portal, and is just one transition away from the writ agent which requires walking by more shops.

All of the settlements hereinafter called districts exist very, very close to each other. They're all within just two transitions of the hub and require transversing through rather short areas, effectively limiting the geographic distance almost entirely. The main central points of the city, the hub, does not belong to any of the districts and lies outside of their reach.

There is an immense amount of difficulty in trying to wage any sort of hostilities or conflict in interactions with any player or faction as a direct result of sharing a supermarket. Whereas someone in Guldorand could not like someone in Bendir, it helps that they aren't bumping into each other at the shop many times a day every day of the week.

The properties are very, very special at the land brokerage, but I fear that to the average person none of them are as inherently obvious as large castles and often the only one I can recall people competing over in the last real-life year is the Dreadnought: easily one of the coolest ownable ships on the entirety of Arelith.

And while I fully understand why it is the way it is and suspect it'd have some disastrous ramifications if it were to be removed wholesale, the limitation inhibiting the creation and play of "good monsters" removes a fundamental part of the alignment axis below, that being good vs. evil. Evil, unless mindless, tends to be selfish as a very broad generalization and it is certainly not self-serving to wage conflicts with any inhabitant of Andunor usually due to how close and local it is.

The districts hold little power I feel. When the entirety of Cordor is held, getting exiled or so much as named pariah in Cordor is a tremendous blow that will reshape how someone experiences the server entirely on their character. A joke I've made that I believe holds true still is that if every single district leader in Andunor decided to one day, without any warning or roleplay exile you from their respective districts, who knows how long it'd take you to notice if someone didn't tell you, as I imagine the average player never touches the districts. It used to be that the only printing press was in the Devil's Table's libraries, but now the public lobby of the Boreal Keep has one as well.

While I hate to "dig" at any of the districts, they often feel like guild houses that happen to have elections rather than any of the great cities of the surface.

I've never really talked about it before because I hate to say something is a problem without offering a solution for it, but the more I've thought about it the less I've come up with I've found. The obvious answer is "just make more cities xd" but that's not a practical solution as cities are a huge undertaking and require a significant deal of work in the toolset. Yet I'm not sure what else there is that'd benefit the module on a smaller level. Still, if there were sufficient manpower to just make something huge happen, my ideal vision of the Underdark is having the entirety of Andunor subject to a single PC settlement leader with the districts just being an expansion of the city like how it is with Cordor. And for there to be 1-2 other big cities that are naturally in direct conflict with Andunor.

This would avoid the age-old problem of someone making a new Underdark character, getting to level 30 and getting gear, and then being bored so they start PvP fishing as there's little else to do.

Big +1 to TheManBehindTheMemes again.

Hopefully, someone enjoyed my illegible ravings, thanks for making this thread a thing, I'm curious what other people think on the subject.

[DM Rex]

Maybe instead of talking about what we don't like, it might be better to play and try to enjoy what is presently the opportunity before us? So far, in depth we've covered everything from slavery, to the outcast system, to just general treatment of monsters.

Cities do occasionally change. Unlike many of the updates this year, it does take time, it can go a bit slower. But change do happen.

[Xerah]

I strongly believe that anyone who calls themselves an "underdark player" or a "surface player" is really doing themselves a disservice which does aid in creating the "Us VS Them" mentality. Maybe try to switch things up from time to time to help see things from the other side!

[Nitro]

Maybe instead of talking about what we don't like, it might be better to play and try to enjoy what is presently the opportunity before us? So far, in depth we've covered everything from slavery, to the outcast system, to just general treatment of monsters.

Cities do occasionally change. Unlike many of the updates this year, it does take time, it can go a bit slower. But change do happen.

It's entirely possible to simultaneously talk about what you don't like while playing what you do like. I don't think anyone on Arelith is here because they hate everything about it, but we all have things we like and things that we think could be better. And without talking about those things, getting attention on them, nothing will ever be done about them.

[Shrouded Wanderer]

Maybe instead of talking about what we don't like, it might be better to play and try to enjoy what is presently the opportunity before us? So far, in depth we've covered everything from slavery, to the outcast system, to just general treatment of monsters.

Cities do occasionally change. Unlike many of the updates this year, it does take time, it can go a bit slower. But change do happen.

It's entirely possible to simultaneously talk about what you don't like while playing what you do like. I don't think anyone on Arelith is here because they hate everything about it, but we all have things we like and things that we think could be better. And without talking about those things, getting attention on them, nothing will ever be done about them.

Gonna have to hard agree with this. Feedback exists so that people can talk about the things that we would like to see different, if we like something we wouldnt talk about it because "if it isnt broke dont fix it"

Having a discussion amongst everyone else on the matter allows this to be refined into a coherant idea.

[DM Rex]

The perception of Andunor being 'broken' is a poor take on it to begin with.
Everyone seems to be seeking mechanical fixes, additional cities, which I cannot say will or won't come.

I will simply monitor the thread as I do with them all. I'm only disappointed.