It's been exactly a week, and I'm done.
Since you asked, I'll tell you whyâ€"but I am a wordy individual on the best of days, so it'll be long. I'll start by telling you a little bit about myself.
I've been role playing on NWN for over ten years: I started on Aertheca, then found my home on Dragoncoast for three server iterations. I came to EFU:R on the recommendation of some of my DC friends, but I do want to establish clearly that I had almost no IC contact with them (maybe we exchanged nods once). I wanted to judge EFU:R on its own merits.
When it comes to RP, what matters the most to me is the lore and the characters. Because of that, I have no problem reading massive amounts of information before even rolling my character. I am, frankly, not interested in joining a server that DOESN'T require me to read server lore before I start. So I was initially very pleased.
I want to address the concerns of others in this thread as far as elitismâ€"I completely disagree. I had no problems finding interactions with other characters, even though my character (as a druid of Talona) was not the sort of person most characters would want to interact with. I very much enjoyed the interactions with Granny and TheIceQueen's characters, in particular.
Despite all the information that I read, though, and all the searching I did on the forums, there were many things that I could not find, or had far too much trouble locating:
That last point, for me, was the straw that broke the camel's back. It's one thing to say that you want death to be harsh on your server, it's a whole new level (if you'll pardon the pun) to change the way it works from the main game without making that information available for anyone to know before it happens. I work a very demanding job, and the weekends and about three hours on weeknights are all the time I get to myself (not just the time I get to play NWN, but all the time I get to myself AT ALL) and I've spent most of today trying to get to level 5, with the assumption that I would finally have wildshape and I could focus on exploration and meeting people outside the city without having to worry too muchâ€"I could deal with not advancing in level for a long time, which was what I planned to do. But to lose what amounted to basically all of today's free time? No, that's not acceptable.
I want you to understand the argument I'm making here. I wasn't leveling for the sake of leveling. I was leveling because I felt I needed to get that level in order to properly play my character. I'm a DRUID. I needed level 5 in order to be able to travel outside the city. Living in the city and hunting rock worms every day doesn't fit with my character. I feel like I'm being limited mechanically from effective RP.
I feel like I have a pretty good idea of what your response to this is: it's the way the server was designed, and it's supposed to make death meaningful. I shouldn't feel any kind of security in leaving the city, ever. And I hear what you're saying.
But you're trying to be too many things as a server. You're trying to maintain a high level of RP, but you don't want people to act rudely to new players. You're trying to encourage people not to powergame, but you've made a set of rules so harsh that that feels like the only option. You cannot be everything to everyone.
While trying to be somewhat modest, I will say that I think I am a very good roleplayer, and I liked the setting and lore the server had to offer. I think I could have contributed to it significantly, and I was looking forward to playing out many of the interesting psychological problems my character was faced with, such as how to balance druid neutrality in preserving the balance of nature that's been mostly destroyed, while opposing the use of the Machine. The thing is, not everyone has the same strengths when it comes to RP, and while mine lie in character development and dialogue, I'll readily admit that I am not good at leveling, and not good at staying alive, even on an easier server. I have never, ever, reached the level cap on any server I played on.
When Howland talks in his second post about the “right†kind of new players...maybe I'm just not the “right†kind. I would call myself creative, mature, and fun. I think I would add to the world. I'm just bad at the game itself. Maybe the truth is just that EFU's elitism extends to how well its players can play NWN.
Since you asked, I'll tell you whyâ€"but I am a wordy individual on the best of days, so it'll be long. I'll start by telling you a little bit about myself.
I've been role playing on NWN for over ten years: I started on Aertheca, then found my home on Dragoncoast for three server iterations. I came to EFU:R on the recommendation of some of my DC friends, but I do want to establish clearly that I had almost no IC contact with them (maybe we exchanged nods once). I wanted to judge EFU:R on its own merits.
When it comes to RP, what matters the most to me is the lore and the characters. Because of that, I have no problem reading massive amounts of information before even rolling my character. I am, frankly, not interested in joining a server that DOESN'T require me to read server lore before I start. So I was initially very pleased.
I want to address the concerns of others in this thread as far as elitismâ€"I completely disagree. I had no problems finding interactions with other characters, even though my character (as a druid of Talona) was not the sort of person most characters would want to interact with. I very much enjoyed the interactions with Granny and TheIceQueen's characters, in particular.
Despite all the information that I read, though, and all the searching I did on the forums, there were many things that I could not find, or had far too much trouble locating:
- Instructions on how to use the ingame server-specific crafting systems, such as cooking, herbalism, fishing, etc. I realize that you want the recipes to be discovered ingame, but there was literally no information on how to even start. I had to ask a DM for help to understand how to fish.
- How to use the EFU skill system. The command “/c efuss helpâ€, which is what is recommended on the board, doesn't work. It claims the syntax is invalid.
- How the poison/addicting substances system works mechanically. I took a drink of wine, and my character rolled a poison check. I had no clue if that was related to the wine, or if the person who gave it to me was trying to poison me.
- What the laws of the city are. In the House of Governance, there is a short summary, but it says one of the laws is to follow the Directives, and the Directives are scattered all over the place. It's like a game of hidden object to find laws your character is expected to obey.
- What the level cap is. If it is (as I heard though my friends, and not through any of the posted server information at all) level 10, then that is something everyone rolling a character should know. Multiclassing becomes much less feasible, for one thing, and some class abilities are never attainable.
- And most importantlyâ€"I found NO information in the extensive amount I read that tells you that dying will de-level you if your XP in the current level is low enough.
That last point, for me, was the straw that broke the camel's back. It's one thing to say that you want death to be harsh on your server, it's a whole new level (if you'll pardon the pun) to change the way it works from the main game without making that information available for anyone to know before it happens. I work a very demanding job, and the weekends and about three hours on weeknights are all the time I get to myself (not just the time I get to play NWN, but all the time I get to myself AT ALL) and I've spent most of today trying to get to level 5, with the assumption that I would finally have wildshape and I could focus on exploration and meeting people outside the city without having to worry too muchâ€"I could deal with not advancing in level for a long time, which was what I planned to do. But to lose what amounted to basically all of today's free time? No, that's not acceptable.
I want you to understand the argument I'm making here. I wasn't leveling for the sake of leveling. I was leveling because I felt I needed to get that level in order to properly play my character. I'm a DRUID. I needed level 5 in order to be able to travel outside the city. Living in the city and hunting rock worms every day doesn't fit with my character. I feel like I'm being limited mechanically from effective RP.
I feel like I have a pretty good idea of what your response to this is: it's the way the server was designed, and it's supposed to make death meaningful. I shouldn't feel any kind of security in leaving the city, ever. And I hear what you're saying.
But you're trying to be too many things as a server. You're trying to maintain a high level of RP, but you don't want people to act rudely to new players. You're trying to encourage people not to powergame, but you've made a set of rules so harsh that that feels like the only option. You cannot be everything to everyone.
While trying to be somewhat modest, I will say that I think I am a very good roleplayer, and I liked the setting and lore the server had to offer. I think I could have contributed to it significantly, and I was looking forward to playing out many of the interesting psychological problems my character was faced with, such as how to balance druid neutrality in preserving the balance of nature that's been mostly destroyed, while opposing the use of the Machine. The thing is, not everyone has the same strengths when it comes to RP, and while mine lie in character development and dialogue, I'll readily admit that I am not good at leveling, and not good at staying alive, even on an easier server. I have never, ever, reached the level cap on any server I played on.
When Howland talks in his second post about the “right†kind of new players...maybe I'm just not the “right†kind. I would call myself creative, mature, and fun. I think I would add to the world. I'm just bad at the game itself. Maybe the truth is just that EFU's elitism extends to how well its players can play NWN.