Escape rocks, no doubts there. Still in Alfa and, in this player's opinion, already among the top 95% NwN servers in existance. Well done everyone who partakes in the creation and shaping of it. :D

But see, this may also cause different factors to set in. Once EfU goes live, I can easily imagine the server being 40/40 24/7.

* Will Escape consider expanding to greater player capacity if a boom in players occur?

* How will the DM team respond to such a dramatic increase in players, if applied?

These questions rise from when I was a regular on a server that was 96/96 just about every hour of the day. And it was a pain in the *** to sit and wait untill some dude logged out, so you could log in. I realise, of course, that my example is from when NwN was relatively new, and the situation today is a different one player-wise. But people always recognise quality, and so I can see them flocking around Escape.

- Ibe

* Will Escape consider expanding to greater player capacity if a boom in players occur?

I don't pay for the server, but I'm going to go with "probably not". We like to keep our DM:Player ratio fairly high, to guarantee involvement in whatever players would like to pursue, and it's tough to guarantee that many DMs on at a time. Seems a bit impractical from a bandwidth and server perspective, too.

* How will the DM team respond to such a dramatic increase in players, if applied?

With a lot of celebratory drinking, and the writing of paeans to Howland. Witness:

Oh vaunted, pot-smoking lover of philosophy From on high, while still high, you made EFU fly! Despite my efforts, it was not a catastrophe... You are a great, if blithely optimistic sort of guy.

And it will be sappy, and terrible. So seriously - don't get the server population up that high. We'll all regret it.

-Cross

Will there be able to set up a portal server into the EFU server, so you can make an auto-join wait list if the server does become full 24/7?

Because honestly I don't think I am willing to try to join a server longer then five minutes before I give up for the day, and if it's really bad I don't think it would be worth playing at all.

Alright, seriously, we've never filled up yet, we're still not even up all the time.

If we have a plan for a portal, I'm not aware of it.

If you're truly desperate for a portal server, send Howland money, and if he doesn't spend it all on marijuana, we might get a portal server?

-Cross

We got up to 39/40 one night. I'll be setting up a paypal account for people to donate eventually, several people have already asked how they could do so. I promise, the money won't go towards anything illicit.

We'll increase as much as is feasible. We may even be able to increase past 40/40 with what we have now.

However, the mood and feel of EfU was intended to be and will remain smaller scale with very heavy DM attention and constant plot/stories going on.

A point I'd like to bring up.

Don't use portals. They are awful methods of making the server seem like it is less empty than it really is. Players Always play on a server with people on it. Portal shows 1 of 50 or something, server Actually has 40 of 40. Less people in portal means less people interested in joining because less people are on the "server" apparently. It's all about appearances.

I've read the information on the website, but I can't seem to find an approximation of the population of Sanctuary.

I would guess it's more than 100 odd (counting roughly 40 PCs and 60 NPCs as a guess), so I don't think it would contradict the setting to have a higher player allowance.

The problems of keeping a good DM to player ratio and funding the bandwidth aside, I think it'd be a great idea to up the server limit.

Its something to really think about honestly.

I can say that I am well aware of what happens to a game world that goes from 20 players and 2 to 4 DMs to a world of 50 players with 5 DMs.

Even if the ration of DM to player stays the same, things "happen".

Especially when that world starts going up 24/7, long stretches of time will see no DM/PC interaction. New troubles start, and the pros and cons may need to be weighed very carefully.

Smaller servers have the problem of being small, the player base is never large, and the loss of a few "key" players is really going to upset the storyline and the world overall. However, the storytelling is much better and its far easier for the DMs to control the shape of the world and the flow of the story. This is a key if you want to tell a story with your world as opposed to just have a huge world that more or less is a background for everyone else to play their stories out on.

A larger server will suffer from a lack of DM attention. Without DMs on 24/7 large amounts of players will be able to run their own way, perhaps disrupting carefully woven plot threads or a power level. Some of the worst "munchkins" seem to thrive in the Australian zones where they can do their worst before coming to the more populated time zones to cause their brand of mischief.

A larger server also tends to have its own "story" lost in the background noise of several dozen players--this can be good or bad depending. A large experienced DM team can still manage to keep the server story going while catering to the individual player stories but it gets much harder to keep any sense of urgency or need behind your World Story.

Just some things to keep in mind. I personally tend to prefer running smaller scales myself. I've found that 20-30 players with one lead Storyteller and an assistant for every 5-10 players is ideal provided you can keep your "team" all on the same page.

im not as expectant of instant success and immediate 40/40 dom. just hire more dm's. you got a good group here to pick from, and hell i finally found out what a plot wizard is, so even the worst of us can be dredged up to serve the cause.

I think EFU can grow a large player base, even with a relativley limited server size. Personally I wouldn't want to see a server larger then 40. I think EFU is going to be pretty popular for reason it is proboably not entirley polite to post here heh.

No lobbeys.... people who want to get in, get in. It may sound a little "elitest", but those who want to put in the effort to play, play. Its long since been established hammering direct connect does not cause any measurable lag.

2 to 4 DMs for 40 players is a huge difference for 2 to 4 DMs for 55 players. I'd even suggest capping it at 35 or 30, but I doubt that would happen.

Server had a max number of players at about 35 - 40 once on alpha, the lag got quite bad. Personally, I think 40 is fine. It's not a large city, and even at 20 players, I don't have problems finding other people to interact. If the server is full, go find other things to do. :wink:

40 players max, is just perfect. You can get in, if you wait patiently for a few minutes. You also need a fast finger 8)

Well, the number-of-players question can be argued both ways I think. I asked to see what the thoughts were on these things.

Personally, I don't wish to see an expansion in player capacity at the cost of quality and/or story, so, if that would be the case I would rather the server just stayed it's great old self.

But I also believe, to some extend, that more is better and +20 or more players at any given time might actually contribute something to Escape, making the ascend even higher than otherwise possible.

I know this discussion might be a bit early, since these are not issues yet, but I don't see any harm in talking it over, since, regardless of these decisions, I still see Escape becomming very popular among NwN gamers and relevance thereby ensuing.

Ill interject with some Duff Afterthoughts...

Howland Wrote:

However, the mood and feel of EfU was intended to be and will remain smaller scale with very heavy DM attention and constant plot/stories going on.

Oroborous Wrote:

Just some things to keep in mind. I personally tend to prefer running smaller scales myself. I've found that 20-30 players with one lead Storyteller and an assistant for every 5-10 players is ideal provided you can keep your "team" all on the same page.

Vesa Wrote:

No lobbeys.... people who want to get in, get in. It may sound a little "elitest", but those who want to put in the effort to play, play. Its long since been established hammering direct connect does not cause any measurable lag.

Ibeholder Wrote:

Personally, I don't wish to see an expansion in player capacity at the cost of quality and/or story, so, if that would be the case I would rather the server just stayed it's great old self.

Okay. With these, fresh, in your mind allow me to interject. There is one single common thread here that I do believe, we all seem to agree on. That is, we all crave as players RP-some form of it either epic or mundane. We all crave DM intervention-from failing saves 24/7 against every rat that was bred to grand battles, or heroic ventures. We all crave a very good time-which we create ourselves. If you disagree than state your arguement.

Now look, we all want to log on when we are able to. A larger player base is not the "golden wrapper." Sure it allows a smaller percentage of "success rate" but it detracts from the very thing we are all drawn here for; fun. Two things to consider. A larger player base would mean you would be willing to sac the DM intervention from a fly on the wall to drow waves of onslaught(god NOT willing) The other side of this is the DM's would have to make adjustments to their style of plain old fashoned DM play. They have to adjust to the broader base, the constant mud slinging, the constant grief, the constant "I feel neglected" the constant players who wanted a larger base but then when the genie granted the wish, became "all of the sudden" bitter and disgusted with the server due to not getting their way 24/7. A WISE halfling told me once, "A Happy DM is a Happy Player." The former SURE as hell will not make the latter any more true if the previous is installed. Patience is not just a made up word for us to use, we have to practice it. If the server has a lower than average max cap, then exercise your patience and log on. If you don't get in right when your moons are in a row, then deal with it. I know we all want it now, right away, if I cannot have it now then damn the man etc etc, but cmon now, are you really willing to sac what you crave here for an instant log on? I for one am not and based on the above quotes seems the others(above) are not either.

I do not know the entire Alpha/Beta player base now. I won't even make up a number. But I do believe the players we have, coming from both servers known and ones more obscure, with both players and some with a DM history, I do believe this is an excellent group of players as a whole. I do believe there is a very strong sense of RP inside the entire lot of you. I do believe there could be no better Alpha/Beta(pray for no Zeta) group of individuals to tweek or ween the server in its infancy.

What I am asking you to reconsider is to not throw away the thing that you desire for something you "think" you want. I just do not see eye to eye with some on this issue.

Thanks for allowing my DuffDry interjections.............and.......

Howland Wrote:

I'll be setting up a paypal account for people to donate eventually, several people have already asked how they could do so. I promise, the money won't go towards anything illicit.

Send me a PM on this-prefer to remain unknown.....as far as illicit-without drifiting off topic..

DuffMan Wrote:

damn the man

Also two more cents to toss in ;)

The city of avlis server is not a much talked about server.

The community is "moderatley" small compared to "that other server" but it has ALWAYS been a private server(apply, most people accepted within 48 hours).

I am not saying we need a passworded server but you can have a moderate player base with a passworded server. You can also have a succesfull server with a moderate player base.

Really, a large player base can be good, but a large number playing at once is not. New players on "that other server" can go weeks without seeing a single DM interaction due to being lost in the crowd.

On the other hand a minotaur grabbed two half orcs in the bar last week and challenged us to arm wrestle because the *NPC* was bored. We arm wrestled and it ended, no grand plot to come from it, but it was fun.

On a large server a DM is always seemingly too busy to do anything but "big" stuff.

Its the little details that matter, not grand quests.

A small server is a more close knit and FAR more fun server, even if it is fun for less people. I'd be far more satisfied if I could only play EFU 1/4'th as much as "that other server", because the time on would be proportionatley more fun.

Personally, I enjoy small playerbases much more than larger ones. I ran the PW RoM for close to half a year with a smaller player base and both the DMs and players had much more fun than they had on a 55/55 server. As stated above, a small player base sees more frequent DM interaction along with a more intimate PC-DM relationship. This close relationship usually results in loose restrictions on gameplay which generally makes players happy.

I do have one suggestion however:

Hold sign ups or declare more DM quests on the forum. This is already done for the preludes, but perhaps it should be expanded to other quests. Usually with a small playerbase, people in odd time zones log into a near empty server, or a server with everyone already busy with something.

I've always had a vision of a PW where each DM could hold their own campaign in which a few PCs at a time embark. Upon completion of the campaign, the participating PCs would then of course return to the city. During the course of the campaign they wouldn't be allowed to go back to the city(the characters could only be played during the campaign times).