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Curious turn of events there. Would say more but don't want to spoill it for people.

I'd do it, but it feels wrong adding more to this thread until LovetheSuit completes his Newbie Survival Guide.
 They're two sides of the same coin.

[believe]

You have to believe!

The one who fell to his doom, clearly did not believe.

That or Happy thoughts.

Ok here's the deal. We started this whole "move everything to the site" initiative because you, the players complained that the info for new players forum was a mess and that you couldn't find anything. To the point where you even tried to start your own wiki briefly.
 We've done that, but EfU has a HELL of a lot of stuff, and organising it is equally hell when it's me and two other guys doing it. Not to mention new stuff is often coming in faster than we can catalogue it.

 Also, half the problem has been the site has been broken for nigh on 2 weeks and no one thought to tell me...

Shit like http://www.escapefromundeath.com/documentation/mechanics/mechanics was a prime example of the site being broke, that page is a placeholder to maintain the menu structure. But it's fixed now.

 I and several other editors are trying to bring the documentation up to a standard where it's considered good. But we're only human.

Probably not a very good idea to post your e-mail address on a public forum.

[Insert Horse Porn Joke Here]

Just so people know, I am currently having my ass handed to me by RL including trying to find somewhere to live, trying to set up my own business, and trying to get some money together to achieve all this.
 I AM around, and I am trying to get back to EfU ASAP.

[Now how do most western RPG games function]

Hold onto your hats, this is a long one, I talk about a lot of shit, but it's all going somewhere, trust me.


The best way to look at this is to look at it in terms of gamers, games and more specifically, the game of Neverwinter Nights.

EfU is Neverwinter Nights, and Neverwinter Nights is a game and is subject to all the other quirks and such that all other games are subject to.

Now how do most western RPG games function(We're  not including JRPGs in this)?
 Hell even the NWN singleplayer espouses the following qualities in the protagonist and therefore the player by proxy.

• Indomitability
• Me (Us) against the world.
• Mercilessness
• Kleptomania

Let us look at these things in detail.

Indomitability
__________________________________________________________________________________
RPGs are usually about a goal, something happens at the beginning of the story, and then the protagonist(s) apply themselves until they can achieve that goal. Sure there are deviances along the way (side quests) but these deviances always return to the main line of progression. And there is no going back! If you die at the boss. You start again just before the boss, and you fight the boss again and again until you kill him. For all the "big world" claims a lot of games make, there is still a very linear undertone. This mentality applied to EfU is of course what can lead to a PvP loser going away buffing up like crazy and coming back for round 2 instantly. This is also what leads to the majority of PvPs hitting FD so early, because people are worried that if they don't kill this person, he'll come back and kill them 10 minutes later. NWN as a game engine even espouses this by letting a player who has just been beat the fuck down get up and run like a champ, or ingest several gallons of potion and being ready to pwn.

 But tantamount to that, it is natural for players to be in the same linear mindset when it comes to their characters, they set their goal and see any deviance from that goal as essentially "game over" if something stands in the path of their goal it is to be knocked over without pausing to acknowledge, appreciate or interact with it. This again is natural as RPGs never give you the option "Would you like to to try and reason with this opponent".

What does this have to do with EfU?: Well instantly here is one of the problems, we are playing a linear genre, on a linear game, in a linear engine. Yet we are trying to play one of the least linear games possible, players that see an obstacle in their path feel that the only option is to butt against it over and over again until that obstacle is gone, maybe you can walk around it, go over it, go under it, or even take a different direction. There is no single goal, there is just the journey. Hell, you may find something cooler.

Me (Us) against the world.
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 You have to remember here, that the NWN engine was never built with the MMORPG construct in mind. In normal RPGs there are usually a healthy number of NPCs dotted around a world, as with such numbers there isn't a chance in hell of developing and understanding full backgrounds and motivations for all those NPCs, so instead they are broken down into 3 types of character you interact with.

• People who exist to further your cause
• People who are just there for the sake of it
• People who exist to hinder your cause[/i]
  

This leads to a very closed mindset and trains players to only define other people in their gaming world in terms of use to the furthering of their own cause. Psychologically it is a very small step to apply exactly the same standards to all the other players in the server. You quickly single out those that are on your side and are to be quested with and supported, and those that are to be destroyed without a consideration as to why they are that way. The shallowness of NPCs in this way causes you to look at all NPCs in the same manner. The antagonist has one purpose, and that purpose is to fuck you over. The farmer has one purpose, and that purpose is to give you a quest. The Yokel has one purpose and that is to provide comic relief when you talk to him.

This leads to a lot of instances of

a) People with false pretenses pretending to be on your side and never EVER being called on it because all the player sees is someone with an ALLY sticker on their forhead and that is all they need to know.  
b) People who appear evil but have dark secrets that will develop as they develop getting FD'd early because players see "Bad guy. Stomp Bad guy"


What does this have to do with EfU?: In EfU NPCs are everywhere, so are real people. There are purposes to them in terms other than those that relate to you. This Black and White help me or hinder me attitude in EfU leads to people making Nemesis and Blood Brothers at the drop of a hat. They go on one quest and from then on they would die for eachother. You have one showdown and now that person is your friggin' nemesis and they MUST. BE. DESTROYED. Where on reflection that person may be in it for the money the same as you, and that person is just an asshole. One altercation is not a good reason for a blood feud. The school bully gives you a swollen lip, do you go in the next day and shank him?
 Conflict and Teamwork comes in all shapes and sizes, not just HUGE.


Mercilessness
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This sort of follows on from Indomitability, western RPGs are all about peaks and troughs. Building up to a climax, having that climax and then beginning the build up to a bigger one. How often do we see in RPGs (and films for that matter) where our dashing hero lets an antagonist live, and then 5 minutes later, the antagonist comes back and fucks him in the ass for his mercy. But this is because following the two things we have already discussed, the following things are expected about the antagonist.

• His only purpose in any way shape or form is to fuck you over.
• The same indomitability is expected of him as of the player, so if he fails and you let him live, he's coming at you again.

This usually means that the only option expected by the game is one that results in the antagonist being neutralised either now, or later when he tries again (I say neutralised as opposed to killed because it could be through any means, in jail, turned to stone, whatever... he has been removed from the story for the duration of the game). This leads to a lot of FDs in game because an FD is solving your problem forever. But you are cutting down a possibility of real story, you see something green sprouting through the soil. Do you pull it assuming it's a weed, or do you wait to see if it becomes a sweet ass flower?

What does this have to do with EfU?: The ending of the life of another is a pretty fucking big deal. How often do you kill someone? In EfU we have the benefit of having a very solid line drawn between monsters and people. Even the humanoid monsters are definitely monsters. There's no gray area. Now I will argue against myself here and say "what else is there to do?".  Just damaging someone isn't really effective when they're one potion from being able to walk off like it never happened, this is again another effect of playing within an engine focused on the Us Vs the World mentality (See above). But with help, there ARE ways, and until you explore them, you won't know what they are, but you'll be a much more interesting and vibrant roleplayer for it regardless.

Kleptomania
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For those who don't know, Kleptomania is a psychological urge to fucking steal everything.

 It's the ever present joke in game and is here because it is basically the summation of the previous 4 things put together. In Western RPGs it is just the done thing to go into people houses and take all their shit. You go through their chests, you smash their pots, you help yourself to their tablewear you take the shirt off of their back, either for your own use or to sell.
 This is a classic example of the western RPG player who by doing it has made the following assumptions:

• My goal is important and I need this stuff more than they do
• This person exists to make my life easier, therefore their stuff is mine
• I'll take everything, because the more I can sell/use the more I can succeed

This is a reflection of the linear goal orientated application of choice encouraged by the western RPG and the shallow nature of expected of other denziens in the game world.

What does this have to do with EfU?: This rears it's head ingame in the form of "drylooting" a frowned upon practice of taking a fallen foe and taking EVERYTHING he has in his pack. The thought process that leads to dry looting is an acute form of the thought process that leads to Crass PvP.

This fallen person has stuff -> His value for it is irrelevant to the 5 gold I'll be able to sell it for -> I will take everything

The same attitude can lead to gross overreactions to small problems because logically the biggest reaction will solve the problem the quickest, but it also makes for a flat and boring landscape of character emotion that just comes across and melodramatic and immature.


Ok fuck this, bored of writing. Most of it is bullshit, but if someone finds some meaning it it, let me know so I can look like I know what I'm talking about.

Peace Out.

Its not the things they say, or who they say them to, its the idea of racism and how it effects people that gets at me. Even if its a game, I cried during Toy Story 3, and its toys.

You're concered about racism in game as you see reflections of real life racism? It must really upset you when they.. You know... Start stabbing eachother to death with swords.

:(  That's not right though.  Without the risk of death, EfU is nothing more than a meaningless procession up to high levels.  For any success to be worth it, you have to have beaten the odds, and survived situations which were anything BUT a certainty.

The risk of death has to be there, always, or EfU is not as special a game as it can be.

It's like the difference between playing poker for fun and playing Poker for real money.

Shit's just more intense dawg.

You should listen to Porkolt, he knows these things.

[BLAAAAARGH.]

Ok, so. Interesting posts.

We've had threads like this is the past and the mantra is roughly the same and it's something that I have always had trouble appreciating a lot of the mindsets that lead to these trains of thought. I won't repeat a lot of what has been said already, but I do feel that I need to say something, so I have focused instead on certain paragraphs that have... stood out to me in particular. Please note replies are not to the specific poster in general they are just examples of certain things that twigged in my mind.

I'm fine with having to fight intelligently when a DM is around. I love the extra flare of fighting off kamakaze goblins and assassins when I just expected your standard granary run. However, there is absolutely nothing intelligent in a battle resting on the difference between a DM's endless supply of potions with the players' relatively limited supply....

You talk as if the DMs are your opponents, like people on opposite ends of a table playing Chess or Yu-gi-Oh or whatever you kids play today.  We're not out to "win" or "beat the other side"We're out to make the quest as exciting as possible, sometimes that means intrigue, sometimes that means white knuckle OH GOD I AM GOING TO DIE. To me, personally it feels like the DMs are just another mob. Those stone lizards were hard as fuck, but they didn't drop enough loot. Blaaaaargh.
 Those DMs were hard as fuck, but they didn't drop enought loot BLAAAAARGH.

especially when the reward is an extra potion or two, a pat on the back, and the boredom of having to reorganize your pack.

What about the part where you just got a white knuckle OH GOD I AM GOING TO DIE rush and a break from the standard quest that you may have done 20 times over. If you can only look at rewards in terms of the loot, XP, gold triangle, IMO that's actually quite a shame. Of course, maybe you WANTED the same quest as you did last time, maybe the fact that it was a break from the norm was what pissed you off in such a manner. What always drew me to NWN in the first place was the uncertainty in the quests, the fact that there were human beings behind the steering wheel instead of mindless computers who would tailor the reward to the risk. Of course, for those that DON'T want that, there are systems that do a much better job of it that us

The main reason that I get disappointed with a death/no reward situation is that it often times pushes me back to the same stage that I was at days ago.

It does? It does if you only consider your character in terms of his loot and XP and nothing else, ignoring how your character will have developed over the hardships they have faced over the last few days and relationships they will have forged with other characters on the server to boot.
 If all that is irrelevant to you and the only thing showing up on your radar is your ability to fuck shit up. You should really consider what you're doing on a Self proclaimed Hardcore PW Story Server when there are plenty of Action servers where you can level faster, level higher and there's no risk of shit like this happening at all.

Thing to remember is, it's still just a game.  No one wins all the time, just have fun.

My final question is this. What IS winning? How do you WIN EfU? Is it by having the most gold? Having the best Loot? Being the Highest Level? Is it by having the most PvP kills?

Can you really WIN EfU? No.

And so if you can't WIN, how can you LOSE?

There is no Winning or Losing, there is only the story that your character writes as you play him/her. If that story includes bitter defeat from time to time? Fuck it, it's just another chapter. If you planned for your character to become a bad ass paladin and he fell, and ended up being some fucked up crime lord. would you consider that losing? Or, is it just characters progressing as they will always progress?

Ok I'm ranting now. Peace out,

The content will be changed in a pending update, is the animal companions bug fixed?

Fold up the red carpet folks. this is a banned user returning under a pseudonym.

Hi there and welcome to the server.

If you want a little more information about what to expect from out server I suggest you read through our Welcome Section it should give you a good idea of what you'll get out of this server, and what we expect of players, as well as a brief explanation of what the hell has happened to this server of the last few years.
 This server is pretty tough, but our players find that if they persevere you can have a really fun experience here.

Again Welcome to Mistlocke!

[tface=callig]Hammer 17th, 1381[/tface]

Blood and fire besmirches the Crystal Shrine on the outskirts of Mistlocke, originally dedicated to Sharess, a soirée held in her name quickly turned sour as two beggars who all night had been dressed in the finest clothes and plied with liqour and food were coerced into standing by the shrine altar and imbibing a bottle of something.

 Upon drinking, they both died instantly and a foul air filled the shrine. Laughing gas incapacitated most of those there and the man who had organised the whole degenerated affair was long gone.

He was later caught sneaking back into the shrine and was briefly thought trapped, when a rumbling came from within the shrine, dark fires sprung up all around and demons of every unholy form and horrible magics sprang forth causing pandemonium. Those present were driven back and waited outside. Once the sounds from the shrine were quiet, the group returned to the shrine to find it empty, still aflame, still foul of air. The sign that had originally declared it a place of Sharess now defaced and rewritten.

[tface=fraktur]Shrine Of Graz'zt[/tface]