12 réponses à ce sujet

[Narsil of NWN]

Hi all.

 I am considering venturing into the world of PW's for NWN2. (Spent a few years on a unique-setting NWN1 world and loved it.)

 I see that currently 2 of the most popular ones are Baldur's Gate The Sword Coast Chronicles, and, Dalelands Beyond.

Both seem to have great player bases, active forums, and all-around energy at this time.

Could anyone here perhaps offer an opinion or two on one (or better still, BOTH) of these servers ?

They seem somewhat similar in terms of the type of world.   Is that a fair guess?  

What are the "pro's"  and even any "con's"  of either ?   Not looking to start any trouble, just some thoughts from folks who may have tried both, and picked one over the other for some reason(s).

If it helps, I much prefer R-P over action, low to mid magic, and not TOO many restrictive rules  (not a huge fan of enforced roleplay, some nights I just may only feel like grinding out a few XP for awhile before hitting the campfire.)

 Also, the size (number of areas) and amount of custom content may sway my decision, if it's that close.

And finally, I'm abit of a "noob" when it comes to Forgetten Realms knowledge. I pretty much only know what I've learned from playing BG1, NWN1,and NWN2. So, whichever world is slightly more forgiving to a begginer would be helpful,too.

Sorry for the wall of text, but these forums need some activity anyways  !

Thanks very much in advance for ANY opinions and advice !

[Narsil of NWN]

Hmmm..... pretty quiet around here, it seems.  

  Can anyone perhaps share even just their own opinion(s) of  *either*  one of the P-W's I'm interested in ?  
 
 Any active players from either one care to try and pass along some info to a prospective new recruit ?

 Failing that..... is there maybe a more "active"  forum out there on the 'Net where folks are talking about stuff like this?  (No sarcasm intended, I honestly just don't know if there is.)

Thanks again.

[painofdungeoneternal]

I would suggest not focusing on the "mega" PW's entirely. Anything with over 10 players, or just 1 DM is going to be just as much fun. The real question is what sort of roleplay do you want.

The really big ones tend to not be as active here, they have their own forums and don't put as much effort into recruiting players. As for an answer of which is better, i have no idea, as i've not been on either of them, and most likely until someone from those 2 shows up you are not going to get a reply. Even then it's very subjective, as it's like asking which is better vanilla or chocolate when it really depends on your personal preferences.

I would use the list of PW's to try to choose one more related to what you are looking for. That lists the PW's and has links to forums where links are provided. Try to find one which has a theme you want and register/post on their forums.

Other than that i'd describe what you like in quite a bit more depth than roleplay as that describes 99% of all PW's. Do you like Permadeath, fast or slow leveling, lots of DM led stories or the stories mainly run by players. Do you like faerun specific lore or do you like custom settings ( like dark ages british, cthulu, or various custom worlds ). Do you like casual players or do you like hard core roleplayers with everything in character. Or just what PW were you on, as just saying you'd like one similar to that one would help people know what you would like.

Modifié par painofdungeoneternal, 27 juin 2011 - 05:44 .

[Spellfizzle]

Heh, sorry I have played on one of the two server's you have listed but out of a respect for other PW's and being a founder/dev of another I cannot comment on it. Not sure why other's havn't posted thought's on them. You could always just give them both a try. Or check their forums to see if it is the type of PW your looking for.

[Narsil of NWN]

Thanks much for the replies.

I actually have spent abit of time reading on both of their specific forums. There comes a point of "information-overload", and reading is a poor substitute for experience.

I have browsed both the List of PW's, and the GameSpy server lobby. The biggest reason I am leaning towards these 2 "mega" worlds is simply that I don't want to join, get deeply involved, develop my character(s), etc, only to have the server shut down due to lack of players. That happened to my former home in NWN1 (The World of Raathi), and it darn near had me in tears. ( Okay, maybe not, but you know what I mean....)

So, I am hoping to find a place to play for awhile with no threat of that happening in the reasonable future due to only a handful of active players....no matter how wonderful the place may be.

As I said in the first post, I figure it's time to get involved with a Faerun setting, since I have much to learn. A good blend of DM activity, with lots of player-run side threads is my ideal roleplay world. Casual roleplay(ers) is just fine, up to but just short of the extreme hardcore folks... I love a world where the dude who grinds up to Lvl 30 in no time struts into town, and almost nobody notices or cares because he is practically an unknown in terms of developing his character with others. But, at the same time, nobody is gonna get on his case for playing that way. Freedom to play how you like, within the rules, of course.

Slow(er) leveling over fast leveling. Lower- to- mid magic over high.

Hmmm, I may be asking abit too much now that I think about it.

Anyways, thanks again. I appreciate it.

Modifié par Narsil of NWN, 28 juin 2011 - 04:32 .

[painofdungeoneternal]

There is no guarantee for even the Mega PW's. A wiser course would be to be involved in more than one PW to a degree. If a PW shuts down you will have options, and even if it does shut down players can reboot it if needed.

At least go visit every few weeks a new PW and report back to your PW any things they are doing which could actually improve your PW.

I'll let the Pw's pipe up to describe themselves, but it sounds like you really need to just go play on those 2 PW's for a week or so.

Modifié par painofdungeoneternal, 28 juin 2011 - 06:51 .

[painofdungeoneternal]

Narsil if you are looking for some of the best possible gameplay you can find a PW you really should look at joining this group -> Dasaria 2 Starting a PNP group, that is about the closest possible you can get to PNP in this engine and it looks like a solid 6 month of sessions once a week. Sometimes it's hard to know where to fit in and joining a group like that when it starts is the best timing for joining a PW.

( Dasari 2 is where DM Wired hangs out, and he's an old timer who makes us old timers look old, and one of the ones who i go to when i got a really difficult problem to solve that is over my head )

[Narsil of NWN]

Thanks, I will check that out. As much as I love the concept, the fixed playtimes would be my biggest obstacle, hence why I'm looking for an "active" PW. Like most folks, my overly-busy schedule probably won't let me be more than a casual (that is : unreliable) player. But, I'll give it all I got when I AM logged in ! LOL!
I appreciate all the ideas you've put forth. Pretty much confirms what I was thinking all along...... guess I just gotta jump in and test them out !
Thanks again .

[Darth Kirin]

As a former Raathi player myself, I think you would enjoy the roleplaying philosophies of Duranin: http://duranin.com

Ultimately the population of a server is not always a good metric of it's longevity.  Server running costs and administrator burnout can topple even servers with dozens of people log into it every night.  Though I do not know the exact reasons, this happened recently in NWN2's community with the "Dragon's Coast" server.  The PW returned a few months later with a different map, different story, and new team, but essentially, that made it a new PW.

All servers shut down eventually.   What's important is to find one that suits you as a player.  The most popular servers tend to be fast-xp servers where you can reach level 30 within a month.  While that may suit some players (a lot, judging from their population), it does not suit many others such as myself.

Being the owner and server host of Duranin, however, I can assure you that a shutdown is not going for a long while.  Our playerbase is small as we're still rather new to the PW scene, but growing.  We offer PnP-style quests, a leveling system that allows casual players to keep pace with hardcore, and gorgeous hand-crafted areas that you will not find on any other PW. (no premades).

We have a lot of DM activity scheduled for this holiday weekend if you're interested in checking us out.

Modifié par Darth Kirin, 30 juin 2011 - 11:32 .

[MustangSVT]

As one of the administrators of Dalelands Beyond, I'll offer my comment.

If it helps, I much prefer R-P over action, low to mid magic, and not TOO many restrictive rules (not a huge fan of enforced roleplay, some nights I just may only feel like grinding out a few XP for awhile before hitting the campfire.)

Our server is what I would call low to mid magic. We do have a pretty extensive list of rules, but for the most part, the main rule is be responsible and be mature. We're what I would consider a medium to high Role-Play world. We don't have strict rules against grinding, though we do ask that you role-play with other players. i.e. If you are in a dungeon and someone comes to interact with you, it would be considered bad form to flat out ignore them.

As far as leveling goes, you can only advance through role-play, quests and events from level 20 to 30 on Dalelands.

I would suggest looking at both our server setting and Baldur's Gate's server setting, and maybe go from there in deciding, or perhaps try both servers and see where that takes you. Hard for me to accurately say a list of pro's and con's of our server and others because I'd be biased. I can say that myself and our staff do our best effort to ensure that all of our players have an enjoyable role-playing experience, and myself and the other administrator are comitted to keeping the server running for a long time.  We also promise that we try to change the scope of the PW (as resources allows us) to reflect players' role-play.  Lastly, we also promise that members our staff do not receive any advantages over the rest of the players.

As far as features, here's what we offer:

- a medium pace leveling system (I wouldn't call it slow, but I wouldn't call it extremely fast either).
- active and friendly DM staff
- regular content updates
- active guild factions
- several updates and fixes made by Kaedrin
- several classes & feats made by Kaedrin
- several other custom changes (There's no point in listing all of them here)

I'm not sure how that compares to other PWs since I haven't really played on that many, so that's up to you to judge.

Modifié par MustangSVT, 04 juillet 2011 - 10:40 .

[PeeTeeEm]

painofdungeoneternal wrote...

I would suggest not focusing on the "mega" PW's entirely. Anything with over 10 players, or just 1 DM is going to be just as much fun. The real question is what sort of roleplay do you want.

The really big ones tend to not be as active here, they have their own forums and don't put as much effort into recruiting players. As for an answer of which is better, i have no idea, as i've not been on either of them, and most likely until someone from those 2 shows up you are not going to get a reply. Even then it's very subjective, as it's like asking which is better vanilla or chocolate when it really depends on your personal preferences.

I would use the list of PW's to try to choose one more related to what you are looking for. That lists the PW's and has links to forums where links are provided. Try to find one which has a theme you want and register/post on their forums.

Other than that i'd describe what you like in quite a bit more depth than roleplay as that describes 99% of all PW's. Do you like Permadeath, fast or slow leveling, lots of DM led stories or the stories mainly run by players. Do you like faerun specific lore or do you like custom settings ( like dark ages british, cthulu, or various custom worlds ). Do you like casual players or do you like hard core roleplayers with everything in character. Or just what PW were you on, as just saying you'd like one similar to that one would help people know what you would like.

Seconding everything written here. It's not about large playerbases--really, that has always been a personal Con for me--but the kind of game you want.

[Narsil of NWN]

Thanks very much for the info and the interest, folks. It really has given me some good ideas as to where to check into further.
The only problem I currently face at the moment is an apparent computer re-(or maybe new) build. But as soon as I get that mess sorted out, I just may be stopping in at a sever near you !
Thanks again !

[Dave Fritz]

Hi, Narsil,
Hope this catches you while you're still looking around. I can't speak to the PWs you listed above, and I'm no expert, being new to PWs myself. I play on Sundren, and it seems to fit all of the criteria you listed in earlier posts. The only downside I can mention is low server population at the moment, but I'm told that goes in cycles. I've found the players and DMs friendly and accommodating (OOCly, there are some real nasty characters ICly, but that's all part of RP ;-) ) for the most part.

I would invite you to give Sundren a try. Look for me in-game if you like. My Handle is the same as here and my character's name is Tery Mard. Hope to see you.

Cheers,
Dave