One Week Anniversary: How's it going so far?

[Goblin Butcher]

Got to explore the isle, meet several werewolves get torn apart by two of them. Find exotic quests that nobody else has ever done and pioneer them! Got all giddy over splint mail. Obsessed over collecting a set of items that really only have semi decent stats, simply because I must finish the ~set~. MOAR SETS.

[Oroborous]

I hate to say this, but the major con are the areas. Which well quite aesthetically pleasing are absolutely badly built.

1) The ziggurat itself has a number of rendering issues which has actually caused my NWN to crash several times despite running a fairly powerful system (for NWN standards). Typically, the issue is large placeables set over the grid-lines which forces a machine to render that item between two and four seperate times as you move forward. Multiply that by several items so moving forward an inch causes between 8 to 24 new renderings all at once-coupled with the staggered level of the ziggurat itself and my NWN just shuts off. Took me four crashes to walk up the ziggurat one day when several people were in the area even until I essentially zoomed in really close and turned my settings to the lowest possible settings.

2) The rolling hills rural 2 terrain is wretched. It looks great, but the clipping issues on the main gate area are horrible. The hills themselves cause terrible "freeze" frames of between 1-3 seconds which is going to cause many deaths I think for people. There really is no way around these issues and Bioware has said that honestly, the tileset may not be useful for PW builders because the lag will happen no matter what.

This is all very sad, because it does all look so very good and is really an impressive and fresh setting.

A few less of the "new" trees will help with the 'hiccups' on the rolling terrain. Those trees are terrible frankly and you can't do much about that, especially the willow trees.

Move placeables so they're not across grid lines. Every placeable on a grid line causes overall lag on the client and server side, even if they are set static!, and if they're not static its considerably worse.

Be careful with new 1.69 placeables, some of the animated ones if set to static will cause terrible lag and outright crashes.

If you're having lag issues, consider using this in your nwn.ini
"increase the cache size by opening nwnplayer.ini, and under [Game Options] add the line Max Memory Usage=64".

I've not tried this myself, its on my "to try out" list right now. If it helps with the rolling terrain hiccups though, let me know because I'll do it right away.

[dragonfire9000]

In regard to the issues with the Ziggurat and the rolling terrain:

But they're just so gosh-darned sexy!!!

[Howlando]

The issue of aesthetics vs. playability is definitely key, and we've tried to hit a happy medium. What you see is the result of compromise between members of the DM staff. Believe me I have read all the posts about technical area building in the Bio boards and am familiar with the various (several year old maxims) about no placeables on tile-edges (although I thought that was mostly an issue for NPC AI), and so on... but there's a point where you have to weigh making the areas look good vs. trying to make them fast on a game that's many years old.

I'm surprised the Ziggurat area itself is causing issues though. Certainly some of those placeables will be removed as the area is "built up."

For me, rolling hills does cause a brief pause for my PC to render, but it's not that bad. The Ziggurat area loads super quickly and cleanly for me.

I'm very interested to know if lots of players are having these issues though, so (perhaps in a separate thread) if you are a player who is finding some areas unplayable or extremely crash prone, please let me know.

[wcsherry]

(The only hiccup I've experienced with the Rural tileset is at the main gates beneath the archway that leads outward.)

Things are going great, and the good times have been rolling so far.

Edit:

@ Lorloth's commentary:

It is true. There is a lot of level racing going on right now. While many of us DM's are busy squashing out bugs obsessively, and play testing the quests, areas, and so forth for balance and bugs firsthand, there will be a bit less DM activity while we are still trying to set up. I can promise and assure that will change once we're settled into a more 'Beta'-or call it what you want-phase.

I would like to see some big plots start up soon as well.

[eliff]

Well to answer the oringinal question the first week was awesome.  I made a intelligent sarcastic goblin, did a bunch of quests managed to reach level four.  Played a fun DM quest involving a lot of Kobolds and three bosses, resulting some really cool loot.  Only bad part of the whole time was the glitchy transitions (looking backwards?) and my goblin getting killed.

[illuminaughty]

This first week has been incredible and really revived my love of this server. In this historic week I made a cool fighter and became the military commander of the island! Who knows what the second week will hold? Perhaps, king of the universe?

[MyraTorrens]

I am very pleased with the aesthetic quality of the areas and the abundance of mysteries on the island of Ymph.  The tie-ins with older plots/setting lore are pretty awesome when you discover them, and the generally primitive conditions make for some very involving role-playing.

One of my favorite things about this setting is that we get to watch the economy, the government, the whole civilization evolve, shaped by the characters as they arrive.  The idea that the experience of future players depends on the actions of the current ones is fantastic.

[ZugThaEadBasha]

I have been enjoying the new server immensely! There has been a great volume of interesting and creative pc's that I hadn't expected to see so soon. Keep it up, I say.

[Halfbrood]

I'm really enjoying playing the new server. Despite having trouble sticking with a character for the first few days, due to disinterest, death and other such fickly forces, I've found my niche and am enjoying my current character immensely. The level of roleplay is excellent, the survival feel is brilliant and the ability to, truly, carve your name in the stones of history is definately my favourite thing so far! I can't wait until all the cogs start whirring. I'm especially interested in seeing the new DM factions that I (hope) are in the works!

Much good, aie!

[Sandstorm]

I am having a great deal of fun even away from the city. I can say I have spent only a few hours total inside the Ziggaraut, and the areas are just amazing. I cannot say what Oro is experiencing, as I have brief hiccups in some areas, but not anything that would be to terrible.

[Nihm]

I always get a two-second freeze when passing through the South Gate area.  Other than that, I've experienced no issues with freezes or crashes, and my computer is pretty old.
 
the level racing is a bit dreary yes, but having tried to explore with a character with maxed stealth and three stealth feats, and consistently being seen and pwnt, I think its understandable that people want levels to explore with.

[Meldread]

I'll echo others here and say I've only had issues going outside of the main gate.  There is a two second freeze and that's it.  Other than that, I've had no problems.  I have not had a single crash, and the computer I am playing on is pretty old with settings pushed to the max.

[Jasede]

I did have a few crashes, but I can't really tell if it was because of the areas or not. The Main Gate causes me a 2-second freeze.

Here's some, I hope, constructive, or maybe actually ignorant criticism:

The areas are too 1-way at the moment.


**Possible Spoilers**

Remember how in the Underdark, you could enter Upper in about three different ways without actually walking through a gate? You could go use that hidden entrance somewhere in some area and teleport, or you could go into the Sewers and walk through the doohickey, or you could swim through a nasty, but cool underwater area and then emerge near the ruins, and I am pretty sure there was a few more ways I forgot.

Likewise, you could go to Fort Mur along the High Road, or the Low Road, or by boat. And you could go to the Troglodyte Quest via the nasty Spider Cave, or by means of the Dark Canal, or, if you were a wussy, through the Mines.

There were a lot of these alternate paths one could take. You could get from the Dark Lake to the Low Way eventually through some winding caverns that emerged near the Trolls, or go all the way around through the mines, and so on.

Now take our new server: You go to the Docks; you're stuck, aside of visiting the tower. You go to the East, you're stuck aside of entering the shrines. You go to the goblin town: all you can do is enter places or go back, with the exception of the drain pipes.

Granted, there's lots of ways to go from the Main Gate, but two of them are seemed to be cul-de-sacs. The others, though, led to some nice exploration, but even then I often missed the "open" feel of the Underdark, ironic as that might seem.

** End **

What I am trying to say is that either I am missing many hidden paths and many haven't been implemented or finished yet, or the areas seem a lot more "closed" than back in EfU. I think this isn't actually a good thing; I really miss the abiltiy to go many, many paths to arrive at the same goal and I think it should, as the server develops, be brought back.

Disclaimer: like hinted at, this might be sheer ignorance talking. I haven't even found the Stargazer village or the Scale Hill thing, or any underwater areas, though I know they exist, so I might just have missed a lot alternate exits, but I thought I'd better bring it up just in case.

[Tyrael]

I logged in topside with a new PC for the first time last week, after getting tired of my Underdark PC consistently failing to be online in time to put together a surface party. My new PC ported in to the tower, and encountered an entire gaggle of PCs. I began emoting my disorientation from the teleportation, and the other PCs barely even glanced at me. "Oh, another one. That happens a lot around here." Then they all walked away en masse.

Obviously, I felt very welcomed.

I wandered down the tower into a weird shelter thing, where I was once again summarily ignored by the other PCs upon asking about where I was. I sat around for a few minutes, then logged out in frustration to play Team Fortress 2.

I'm not sure how to feel about the new EfU so far. I'm not too impressed as of yet, though part of it is frustration at having my main PC still stuck underground (effectively permanently, due to timezones and my low level).