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| What's going on with SCoD? | |
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| Topic Started: Jul 27 2012, 11:53 AM (2,977 Views) | |
| Mr_Otyugh | Jul 30 2012, 06:40 PM Post #91 |
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I said take a break or do whatever it is that you need for revitalization silly misinterpreting person, and I might remind that I just WAS on a roadtrip also I could express that I am infact currently playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution so if anything I'm ahead of you there by far already.
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| silinrul357 | Jul 30 2012, 07:51 PM Post #92 |
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So yeah, I'm going to not try to be a jerk, but what I have to say is going to come off as jerkish to some people anyway. If you can not handle a bit of criticism, some even harsh, I suggest stop reading now. Frankly though you can respond to me, but I don't care and will not read your response, so arguing my points (at least with me :P) will go no where. The reason I'm saying anything on this at all is because I'm hoping certain people I know will take it to heart. So here I go. Mr. O already said it. Every time you see a thread like this, people always say the solution is one of three things: events, impact, or content. I will be the first to say that, perhaps to an extent, that's true. All three of those are nice things to have, but I agree with him quite strongly when I say the root of the problem is not in that alone. Now, as some may know I've taken a few breaks in the recent past. What you may not know is that, while yes these were mainly fueled by Real life, the fact is that if I wanted to log on maybe an hour a day during these times, I could've made the time to do that. I didn't. I had no desire to whatsoever, and even now sometimes I simply do not feel the need to. Do I find it boring? Yes. Do I think it's due to lack of events or content? No. Not a chance. Many people have already said this, but I will add to it: people on this server, whether they mean to or not, can be rather unfriendly towards others. They tend to stay in their own small groups and RP in those only, and let's be fair, that's normal. Anyone would want to hang out with friends they know, right? So what's the problem? The problem is that these same people will sometimes log on, stand around in the bazaar, and say there is nothing to do... while, I might add, being surrounded by other RP'ers. Now even ignoring the problem of "standing around the bazaar on the wall," the excuses as to why they do not go and talk to others vary, but the result is the same: "I'm bored" or "I don't want to." Look, I'm sorry, but that is your own fault, and you have no one to blame on that but yourself. If you cannot take the initiative to go and meet new people, and instead want to play a loner, then guess what? You're going to be alone. You get what you want, so congratulations on making yourself bored. Now for the flipside of this: people who do not help or talk to others, even when approached. Now, if this is an IC thing and your character is just that way, then yeah, I understand. Try to send the player a tell though and show them a bit of courtesy, explaining "hey I'm not being a jerk, my character is." One simple tell goes a long way at keeping hard feelings low. If you are ignoring them OOC... what's wrong with you? I have seen this before too, and I have to say it is probably one of the most disheartening things I've ever seen, especially against new players. Make no mistake: it drives them away, and that's sad that people cannot take maybe a few moments to help a new person "Because they don't want to bother to help." Well, you were new to Sigil once too you know. So do them a favor and give a hand, even if it's just a tell or OOC advice. Now if you're still reading my post and not raging over it, but instead taking what I say to heart, then I thank you. And furthermore, I'm going to offer more than just a "it's your fault" thing. I'm going to offer advice how to fix it. Mr. O in fact already stated it a bit, but I'm going to say it further: move out of your comfort zone. Play something new. Open up that character creator and muse over a build, an concept, something you don't normally do. Maybe it'll work out, maybe it wont. It's always worth a try. If you are bored because there's no events? Well, make your own events. It's do-able. You don't need DMs or special abilities to do this, and I've got the track record to prove it. Maybe just throw an IC party even. How about a music contest? Why not? Sometimes, the most fun events are the most simple and do not need anyone to spawn fifty zombies to make you feel special. And I'm saying this ESPECIALLY to epic levels and more established people (myself included): be the event-creators. Help your lower-level players get things done. Introduce them to a new story, a new "guild" or company, a new idea. Those belonging to a faction, get out there and promote it. It is my personal feeling that established PC's of epic level should not sit around, waiting for events. They should be MAKING the events. Heck, why not even work with friends and make some? Yes, there should be some things epic levels should be ble to do to attend too and I'll freely admit I'd like to see a few more of them myself, but remember there's more than just you on this server, and it's likely they're bored too. So I -will- say this myself: if you are bored, then take a break, or do something to make yourself not bored. Is it always easy? Of course not. I have dry streaks of ideas all the time. And if no one else at those times are doing anything, then I just take a break. It is a lot better than sitting around complaining you're bored and brewing up negative feelings against the server and it's people. |
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| Agony_Aunt | Jul 30 2012, 09:23 PM Post #93 |
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Get a Life
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Here is an interesting factoid. I made more events before I became DM than since I became DM. Part of it is RL related, part of it is toolset related, but a big part of it was as a player i felt more connected to my characters, they were all i had. Now i can pull NPCs out of my ass, i just don't feel the same urge. On the DM side, I do feel we fail to follow through on our promises though. We do have a server wide event, but its not moving, and its 99% DM fault. However, the mistake there was it was designed for all DMs to be involved to progress the plot, but that is like asking a bunch of monkeys to build a tower of bananas. One DM should have took responsibility and followed through. Its a great plot, but its not mine, i just don't feel connected to it, and on top of other things, i just can't find the energy to get involved with it, which as i said, its awesome... sorry guys and gals. Same with the uber items that is languishing. Ill be honest here, i hate the idea. Half the items seem to be basically customized items for certain characters, and in general, i really don't think the server needs more uber items. We have done enough here with the new crafting options i feel. By the way, this post was brought to you by the letters B, E, E, and R.... so please take my comments with a pinch of salt. |
| Stepped down as admin, but still lurking. | |
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| Juunro | Jul 30 2012, 09:39 PM Post #94 |
Prime
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It's rather a fallacious argument to blame adherence to Planescape Canon for the fact that the server doesn't change much. I'd rather suggest it has more to do with the difficulty in actually changing the server, in adding things using the NWN2 world builder to a system that uses apparently many, many custom scripts that are at best poorly documented. Like I had said before, Planescape Canon is incredibly loose; you can do almost anything you like with it without breaking it. The only hard and fast rules are that one: Nobody who tries to take out the Lady succeeds and Faith can do almost anything. I mean, we may have different views on what's a good, exciting roleplaying experience, but you should be able to at least try almost anything. It may well end with nothing more then a memorial in some alley, covered in graffiti, that says "Here Lays a Guy: He Tried to Stop the Blood War.", but it still possible. The forces within Planescape are so far beyond the scope of most PC's that trying to change something that big is almost certainly bound to fail. I've been DMing tabletop for, oh, fifteen years, and in that time invariably whenever Planescape gets brought up, there's at least one person who gets angry about it. Some people just don't like, or don't understand the impetus for, playing within a world where they can't by default be the big damn heroes, where they will never be the central power for the whole thing, where there are just some things they cannot do. There's nothing explicitly wrong with that; different strokes for different folks, as they say, but it's still a thing. Anyway, that doesn't prevent you or someone else from trying: The Scarn Squad, as we're called, have been talking back and forth about getting someone to run an event involving the Jack of Tears and opening a portal to a section of Scarn; it would be a long term thing and would involve the addition of a new area to explore on the Prime. Details would be yet to be worked out, and it may not wind up happening, but it's a thought. Work out things you can do that require a minimum of interference with the Planes at large but are still interesting; the planes should be a tapestry background within which things happen, not the subject of events themselves. Start and defend a town in Outlands, try and start a sect and attempt to politically align yourself with a faction, make a deal with a celestial arms salesmen while keeping it a secret from the other celestials, try and find a dead god and claim its raw power for your own, get involved in a fight between two merchant companies, the list of things you can do without breaking canon is only limited by your imagination and the difficulty of using the, frankly very basic, NWN2 engine. |
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| Ceremorph | Jul 30 2012, 10:55 PM Post #95 |
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Dark Mistress of the Toolset
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So, going back about twenty posts....
That's true, but what the Revolutionary League (and more precisely, Darkrob's character Phoenix) has done here is to pretend to care about the people in the hive to generate class warfare, kicking off conflict thereby and forcing those who actually care about law and order to deal with this rather than the actual threat to Sigil. Kinda funny, actually... IIRC, he was doing this well before the Occupy movement started doing the same thing. Moving on, to factions: Yes, having "prestige" in the faction does depend upon recognition. On the other hand, if that's something you're looking for, I've seen player groups all together roll up new characters who are all mages, or all orcs, or all drow, or all thieves. Why can't the same be done with a group who are all Ciphers or all Takers? |
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We rode on the winds of the rising storm, We ran to the sounds of the thunder. We danced among the lightning bolts, and tore the world asunder. | |
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| Haze | Jul 30 2012, 11:14 PM Post #96 |
Clueless
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Makes sense, all three of these things lend towards enriching the server's setting and the overall experience given. When a player feels they made a difference and mattered for once in the scope of the multiverse, they are likely to stay interested.
I disagree. Currently to me SCoD seems like one big static environment, which promotes static characters. Sure, you walk around the server and see familiar things like dabus, fiends and other races out in the open, but the server fails to capture the dynamics of Planescape. Faction politics is supposed to be huge, yet remains essentially off limits to players due to the nature of how the power structure is handled, this is just one example. IMO more things should be handed off to the players' hands. Open factions up A LOT more. More content is always better, it doesn't even have to be filled with NPCs, quests, etc. Just husks of areas, buildings for PCs to meddle with or use. Whenever possible hand off DM responsibilities to the players. This creates less work for them, more involvement for the players, and all other sorts of benefits. I've only visited this server a handful of times in the past couple of weeks, but I do enjoy playing here. It just leaves...more to be desired. |
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| xeneize | Jul 31 2012, 12:01 AM Post #97 |
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Blood
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Years ago I mentioned that this server lacked the feeling of being able to shape it and that it was more of a place of never-ending mindless grinding (understandable too due to the setting) and where plots, where they would be created by players they would not really impact the city or the many planes that are accessible through the city. It saddens me to have been proven only right over time, these being the reasons I no longer actively play in Sigil. If players could in some way feel like they actually can drive and shape the setting with what they do, then perhaps it would give them more motivation. |
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| Ceremorph | Jul 31 2012, 12:53 AM Post #98 |
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Dark Mistress of the Toolset
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And as yet, nobody's come up with a way to do so that doesn't involve members of the DM team turning SCoD into a full-time job. And I'll admit, that is the most frustrating part of these sorts of discussions. There's lots of "things would be better if X", but there's no concrete ideas how X should be implemented, especially when almost every good idea has as many drawbacks as positive. I already spoke about how the death of a factol would require quite a bit of DM work to ensure continuity (although didn't one plotline involve Sarin in a coma for a while?). Private areas (whether guildhouses, private faction areas, or businesses) tend to lead to more exclusionary RP. Now I'll admit, I'm not the most active DM on the plot side as late. This is a shame, because I'd be willing to consider plotlines that allow changes, but with one huge codicil: it's going to need to involve more than just a few people (yeah, it's great that you want to kill Factol A, but if only three players are involved, it's a lot of work to appease few), and the people who expect change not only have to risk themselves, but also be willing to put in the work the change requires. It's been said ad nauseum that our design team works on the things they enjoy working on. I personally would have no interest in a shakeup of Taker politics or a rebuild of the Hall of Records, for instance, while Otyugh would likely have far less interest than I in something to do with Mercuria. But again, that's just me. As fall rolls around, I might be able to be more active in-game, but for now, it's up to individual DMs what they're interested in working towards, and of course the entire team is going to have a say on anything that makes a truly canon-changing alteration to the server. |
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We rode on the winds of the rising storm, We ran to the sounds of the thunder. We danced among the lightning bolts, and tore the world asunder. | |
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| cryptc | Jul 31 2012, 06:38 AM Post #99 |
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Advisor
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We already have lots of areas that see very little use, like Hall of Speakers for instance, or the Foundry... and I think we currently have enough neutral locations like houses and planar no-monster zones as well... that said, I am not opposed to more and more variety, but considering modding time is a limited resource, I'd rather have it spent on more important things. |
| "One of the most curious statements I've seen on this list is that PlaneScape is a logical world. I must have erred. I was trying to create a world that defied logic." - David 'Zeb' Cook | |
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| Lucereflame | Jul 31 2012, 07:36 AM Post #100 |
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Namer
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Like Cookies Famous Food tavern one of the most important places in sigil ever! |
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| Reptiller | Jul 31 2012, 02:18 PM Post #101 |
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Mimir
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Regarding the difficulty of adding/creating content perhaps its a good idea to open builder recruitment, if there's none right now. |
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| xeneize | Jul 31 2012, 03:38 PM Post #102 |
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Blood
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I don't think there's any issue at a technical level... Sigil has plenty of areas.
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| Agony_Aunt | Jul 31 2012, 08:09 PM Post #103 |
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Get a Life
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We do accept submissions from players if the content is of decent quality and fits the setting. RedMoney made the slags not too long ago before he disappeared. Others outside the core team have contributed and continue to do so. People who want to develop (and have the skills) are probably already contributing here or elsewhere. Its not the issue. And i just brought this up on the DM forums, but you know, I don't remember a single scenario, event, campaign from my PnP days where our actions had a significant or lasting effect or change to the suroundings. Sure, things happens, sometimes big things, but the next day, the heroes were back adventuring, and the local populace soon forgot them.
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| Stepped down as admin, but still lurking. | |
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| Tomekk | Jul 31 2012, 08:21 PM Post #104 |
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Dark Soul
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It's not really a rewarding experience if you can't achieve anything lasting besides the few players from your event vaguely remembering what happened >.> And f*ck the "high level is not good RP" arguments, there's a multitude of ways to make events for large level ranges: a simple reminder of letting the lower levels have some fun would work for me. Or rolling stats. Or kicking the epic character's ass if he/she tries something stupid. Something. Anything is better than just baring them from partaking in events, cause that just pisses people off for not being able to do anything with their characters because they're old and might have achieved a few levels. (and I achieved level 29 on my current main 1.5 years after making her, so yeah...) |
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"From the realms below we ride, And in terror they run and hide, From the shadows of old we rise, Awakened, from the dark! Over the ancient ruins we fly, Where the old kings go to die, And the new kingdoms rising high, Awakened, from the dark, dark slumber!" | |
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| Mabus | Jul 31 2012, 08:50 PM Post #105 |
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Squishy
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That was thanks to Orion...but noone knows that ICly. ![]()
Chirper's!! As for content, for me personally it goes a long way to livening up a server. Even the little things. People who have their weapons drawn in the city approaching a Harmonium, with the NPC guard warning them to put away their weapons is a small but big thing. More content in the planes that gives me a reason to travel there other than fighting would be great... Outlying towns with quests, venders, even other hangout locations (I think people huddle around Khazeet's because poeple don't like to spread out and be away from possible RP possibilities). Faction NPCs added to faction HQs giving out random quests (even little things) that are given only to members of that faction would be awesome. Maybe they can detect the PC's level range and dish out a quest accordingly that may have them doing a simple errand in the city or running through the Abyss, or some other plane that NEEDS PC company. Rewards could be XP. items useful to that PC's lvl, and faction points. I've played on NWN PWs where there was a ton of details in the world, even little things, that just add a lot of flavor. I think that's one of the things that players notice a lack of and adds to the boredom (for lack of a better term, though I hate to use the term 'boredom', as I don't see it as such). There's not much here really. The little things that make people say, "Wow, that was different!" Maybe we can come up with a list of ideas for things that are small, easy, but add more flavor to Sigil and the planes? That's the only problem I see with SCoD, is it's a big bowl of soup that could be delicious if some seasoning was added. So far, I think SCoD's gotten pretty lucky keeping players around mainly because it's the only Planescape-oriented PW PS fans have to go to. If another one opened up, I'd bet SCoD would lose a big portion of its player base to people trying a new PS world. That's just my opinion. |
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(Account Name: Lazzdar) "In the end all things betray you. Honor. Ideals. Heroism. Allies. Comrades. Lovers. Your eyes. Your limbs. Your heart. And in the end, you betray yourself. And that is the greatest betrayal of all." ~Lament of the Cambion Zaxarus, hero of the Blood War. | |
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silly misinterpreting person, and I might remind that I just WAS on a roadtrip also I could express that I am infact currently playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution so if anything I'm ahead of you there by far already.





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8:48 AM Jul 11