Here are some suggestions for this promising server

[Kepuli]

I know that some of these suggestions would require big changes to the module, and they may be too difficult to accomplish, but here they are anyway.
I also know that the module is still under development, so ignore any suggestions that are already taken care of.
I've been playing NWN multiplayer for over 2 years now, and I've seen both good and bad servers. Here are some of the main features that I think make a good server:


1. The world should have one starting city (or max 3), and it should be simple and small enough to fit into a single area (map).
This would gather all players into one place, so socializing and selling items would be easier.
(what use is a server with 50 players if you don't meet anyone?)

2. Fully player based economy! This server has nice tradeskills, so NONE of the NPC shops should sell anything but basic items ONLY (not even +1 items).
This would quarantee that players need to buy the better items from other players who craft them.
Also, a craftsman should be able to sell the crafted items to other players ONLY, so that profits couldn't be maid by selling them to NPCs.
Or optionally, NPCs would give VERY small amounts of money for the items.

3. Gold should be relatively hard to get, but still not too hard.
Easy monsters shouldn't have great treasures, and there shouldn't be too many items available as treasures (because nobody would buy the crafted items anymore.
They would hunt the treasure items instead)
I've been on servers where 10 000gp is a truly colossal amount of money,
and that makes things more interesting: the value of gold suddenly claims its place.
In some servers gold is like trash, you get millions of gold pieces in couple of hours and that's really boring on a long run.

Compensation to this can be given by adding a merchant who sells +1 healing kits for a low price, so that basic healing is always available, even if huge amounts of gold isn't. A free healing pool for level 1-3 characters is also an option.

4. There should NOT be a donation box. It makes the game way too easy and boring. Usually people just pick up the items from the box and sell them to NPCs.
If someone wants to donate something hand to hand, well I think that's ok.

5. Items should have level restrictions, so that we don't see level 1 characters running around with a godly sword they just picked up from the donation box...

6. Role play should be encouraged, but not mandatory.
A relaxed atmosphere is the best, and after all, this is PW action...
People could choose the style they like the most. (but intentionally ruining RP for others would be forbidden, of course)
One option would be a token, that players could use to enable a special RP status, "on" or "off", that would be visible to other players.

7. Most of the monsters should be difficult,
so that solo play would be too time consuming (for example in areas for level 5 or higher).
This encourages people to join a party and to be respectful towards others as well.
(You've all seen a player with the "I'm a high level and I do what I want" -attitude...)

8. Item prices in NPC shops should be more realistic.
Why would a NPC sell a dagger for 6gp if you can get a 50gp treasure by killing a goblin with your left hand?
I'm not saying that a dagger should cost 1000gp. It's just that items shouldn't be too cheap.
(40gp for a dagger, and 2500gp for a full plate armor would be a step to the right direction)

There's the issue of player crafted items as well. Learning how to craft is hard work, and it should be too.
So one doesn't want to sell his crafted items for a tiny sum.
If a basic longsword would cost 200gp in a store, a craftsman could sell his own longswords for 150gp, and get more potential buyers.
Buyers would be also happy because they get a discount compared to the NPC prices.



Here are my suggestions for now. I may have more coming later.
Tell me what you think of these, thank you.

[perk31]

Thanks for the great suggestions and please keep them coming.

1.  One Starting city.  We actually did have everyone starting in Churberg but the feed back we were getting recommended having separate starting locations based on race, which we've had in place for about three weeks now.  It worries me that new players will find it more difficult to get started this way but each starting city has some beginning areas now.  I'd love to see some posts on how difficult or easy it is to get started as a new player.

2.  A complete player based economy has been our goal but creating a method for players to sell their items via a broker has proven problematic.  

3.  I'm not sure if you feel like gold is to easy to come by in CA.  You definitely should not find expensive items on easy monsters.  For the most part you should only find high end items starting on monsters/npc that are at least level 10.  The exception to this may be a few merchants walking around with some higher end items to impress the locals.  All npc/monsters, except for the random spawns in the outdoor areas, should drop whatever equipment they are carrying.  It always annoyed me on other servers when I couldn't pick up a fighters longsword after killing him or her.  My new characters find it difficult to stay stocked with heals unless I run missions for the commodity exchange, which should probably have its payments adjusted.

4.  We've talked about having a donation box for the various guilds and creating some type of reward system for member donations but we haven't done anything with the idea and I'm not sure we are going too.  I would much rather have you fight for what you need.

5.  I'm not a big fan of ILR.  I may not be able to effectively use a high end longsword, but I should be able to pick it up and swing it.   We can't use ILR anyway due to our subrace system.  Sorry.

6.  Role playing is not mandatory.  Our goal is to strike a balance between role playing and dungeon crawling.  As such there are a lot of role-playing opportunities with dm run events coming soon, but you wont see RP systems that ruin the game play for hack n slashers, such as not receiving XP unless you are in a party.  

7.  Personally, I develop areas with a specific character level in mind.  Except for beginning areas, most areas are conducive to having a varied party and will be very tough to solo at the appropriate character level without the cheez factor of downing a heal potion every 5 seconds.

8.  We haven't mucked with item prices yet except for heal potions which we maxed out and limited the number in the stores to one every 10 minutes.  I agree that pricing should change though on some of the items.  I'll start a separate post on the subject to discuss the particulars.

[perk31]

If you come up with a player merchant that works well then yes.  In fact I would reconsider a few things and the crafting system would become much more important.  I don't really think it will be that difficult to accomplish we just haven't had time to devote to it.  Basically the merchant would need to receive an item and price from a player, offer the item at that price to other players, and surrender either the collected gold or the unsold item to the seller.  Preferably it would be written to utilize MYSQL database.

Lets start another post dealing specifically with gold in the general forum.

Your first two ILR suggestions might work for us.  I'll have to play around with it and see.

[perk31]

Originally posted by Kepuli:



Just a theoretical thought: if I manage to create a working custom script for a vendor who players can hire to sell his crafted items, will you then reconsider?  I'm not good at making scripts, but I'm willing to give it a try. Or I could give my fundamental idea(s) to a skilled scripter.
I'd like to know more about that broker you mentioned. How would or should it work?

I DO feel like gold comes too easily in CA. (I tried that out, and made 12k in no time). I think that a fully player based economy is worth trying (I'm not saying you didn't try) even if it's hard to carry out.
My biggest concern about having many powerful items on the server, is the fact that it WILL lead to item harvesting, and people will get rich really fast. This happens in every single server. And it's very logical. If you know a cave where you can get an item worth 20k, of course you go back again and again. Ten trips to the cave and you've got 200k. Even if you spend 50k for healing supplies, you've still got 150k. Before you know it, you have million gold pieces in your pocket.

The lifespan of a player is therefore rather short. Here's roughly how it goes:
First you start, and explore.
Then you find a place that is a good source for items.
Then you start gathering those items.
Then you become rich.
Then you buy everything you've ever wanted.
Then you kill all monsters serveral times and collect their items.
Then you get bored.
Then you start donating the items because they are like worthless trash to you.
Then you get even more bored.
Then, at some point, it gets so boring you decide to leave the server...

And that's many times the end of the story. All that can be done in a relatively short time (5 to 15 days in real life time), or even faster if you get item donations from high level characters. There are already dozens, if not even hundreds of servers like that, so it would be very disappointing to see this server join the mass.
I've explored the world a little, and seen that you have great ideas, interesting scripts and an unique atmosphere in many areas, so there's high potential to really make this one of the best PW servers ever.


I have three suggestions for replacing the regular item level restriction:
1. Level restrictions at levels 10, 20 and 30. So that a level 1 character could use an item that would normally require level 9.
2. All regular level restrictions would be lowered by 5 (for example). An item normally requiring level 10 would now require only level 5 to use.
3. A script that would reduce the bonuses gained with the item, if the character's level isn't high enough.

[Podilarius]

The idea behind powerful items is that it takes a long time to get them. Abraxas for instance has some stuff people would want ... but getting to him is difficult and would take a few heals, and killing him is very difficult. We really need to have things to spend money on ... like transportation, player base encon, and other services. Right now, who cares if you get rich, you aren't going to buy anything. Aside from Kolis (which is going to change) there isn't EQ for you to buy. There might be more we can do to balance, and we are working on that ... keep the suggestions rolling ... let us make this the best we can ...

[Kepuli]

I saw a couple of vendor scripts in NWVault. Will those be suitable?

Like this one here:
http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Scripts.Detail&id=871

[perk31]

I'm not sure I looked at that one.  I've looked at so much stuff from the vault its a blur now.  I remember some serious issues with the ones I looked at though and this one only has one post.  I'll download it and see what it looks like.