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Post by chirality on Dec 7, 2017 22:05:13 GMT
What if you left 1.69 HG as it was, for now, and spooled up a brand new 1.74 HG, hosting both at once. - 1.69 would continue as it is. - 1.74 would be completely fresh. And then, join them together as you suggested - but make it an optional one-way transfer that can only happen at a certain point. For example ... - All character transfers are naked characters. - Somebody on 1.74 gets x tag. Now all characters on 1.69 that have the x tag (but none more difficult than it) can transfer. - Somebody on 1.74 hits level 80. Levels 80s can now transfer over, subject to the above tag requirement. - Chests can be transferred one-way from 1.69 to 1.74 so long as the items within match some criteria, maybe item value, maybe rarity, maybe dropped location, maybe tags. Something to ensure that the items being transferred over don't exceed the average power level of something that is in use on 1.74. After some period of time, all transfers are unlocked and happen automatically, and 1.69 shuts down. tl;dr: Make sure that no vets can bring insane gear into the world until the insane gear is already in the world. just want to mention this is a really interesting concept. fresh brains with fresh ideas is cool.
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Post by buddhamind on Dec 8, 2017 2:10:46 GMT
- I want to be able to find groups for lower level content and actually experience that content without the content being trivialised by being carried through it. Thankfully, since I'm duoing, I have an advantage here over most new players. But the impression I get from the forums is that it's going to be very difficult to find people who want to experience this with me. It's probably not as bad as some are making it sound. Levels 1-40 are pretty much a "shared struggle". In LLs, though, 41-55, there are few level restrictions so it's pretty much guaranteed that someone's going to be carrying the party with something way overpowered for the run. Shallow hell levels can be like that too sometimes, but there's not really many ways to overcome the power gap there due to the nature of how Demi bonuses work.
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Post by darkwaffle on Dec 8, 2017 21:48:57 GMT
I would question how beneficial a wipe would be to the state of the game. Or even how much change a wipe would actually enact long-term. In the short term there would certainly be more activity in 1-40 and LL areas and more partying/engagement simply because people are in the same place at the same time. But I think it would be fleeting - it will temporarily change 'where' people are in the game but I don't think it will affect how they play the game. A few months or a year down the road why would we not just be back where we are now except with a slightly lower top-end?
Further I think that entry to the end-game could be even more difficult for new players following a wipe. Those whom have been there before may have an even starker preference for other experienced players if they're back to progressing without bur races, demi bonuses, artifacts, paragon levels, egos and the like. For a time the margin for error will become significantly thinner and people will usually tend towards behavior that will maximize their reward and/or minimize their risk.
I understand the reasoning for it - to try to create an environment that will integrate old players and new players more effectively. But I think it's a band-aid at best. I think more lasting change could result from instead finding incentives to encourage players to play the game 'the way we/you want them to play' or trying to remove obstacles that might prevent them from doing so currently.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 8, 2017 22:16:39 GMT
I understand the reasoning for it - to try to create an environment that will integrate old players and new players more effectively. But I think it's a band-aid at best. I think more lasting change could result from instead finding incentives to encourage players to play the game 'the way we/you want them to play' or trying to remove obstacles that might prevent them from doing so currently. There's definitely truth this. But the reality is that finding proper incentives is hard. The server is more than 10 years old; many players already have high level, geared-to-the-teeth toons covering many/every role that can stomp through most existing content. What genuine incentive can be offered to make them want to create new toons from scratch in a world where they already own everything? I've read through all the suggestions in the recent threads and none of them are remotely enticing to me.
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Post by woqued on Dec 8, 2017 22:23:08 GMT
I understand the reasoning for it - to try to create an environment that will integrate old players and new players more effectively. But I think it's a band-aid at best. I think more lasting change could result from instead finding incentives to encourage players to play the game 'the way we/you want them to play' or trying to remove obstacles that might prevent them from doing so currently. There's definitely truth this. But the reality is that finding proper incentives is hard. The server is more than 10 years old; many players already have high level, geared-to-the-teeth toons covering many/every role that can stomp through most existing content. What genuine incentive can be offered to make them want to create new toons from scratch in a world where they already own everything? VANITIES! Giff damn tails and wings and ability to butcher those things off my pharlans and I'll run lowbieland. Or the capability to turn into a badass aesthetically without resorting to using an extremely specialized mediocre subrace.
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Post by desocupado on Dec 9, 2017 0:27:23 GMT
It makes morebsense to have new players getting to end zones faster than old players returning to early zones.
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Post by Enius the White on Dec 9, 2017 3:49:33 GMT
What genuine incentive can be offered to make them want to create new toons from scratch in a world where they already own everything? I've read through all the suggestions in the recent threads and none of them are remotely enticing to me. An elephant in the room is reincarnation. Reincarnation was brought in to deal with the impact of balancing, etc, driven mod changes that nerfed builds/toons. Before reincarnation you would enjoy a new class by starting a new toon and leveling it. Often winning a new BUR subby, etc, would instigate this journey. Now, building new end-game ready toons via reincarnation is ubiquitous and some builds are actually posted as "reincarnation only". Swapping to a new subby is trivial, with class changing via multiple reincarnations common. Instead of leveling 20 toons over time, 4 or 5 are now enough to play and enjoy the same 20 builds. Aside from the extreme meta-gaming aspect there may well be nothing wrong with this, but it clearly eliminates the need for low level progression for the bulk of our player base.
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Post by FunkySwerve on Dec 10, 2017 15:00:55 GMT
I understand the reasoning for it - to try to create an environment that will integrate old players and new players more effectively. But I think it's a band-aid at best. I think more lasting change could result from instead finding incentives to encourage players to play the game 'the way we/you want them to play' or trying to remove obstacles that might prevent them from doing so currently. There's definitely truth this. But the reality is that finding proper incentives is hard. The server is more than 10 years old; many players already have high level, geared-to-the-teeth toons covering many/every role that can stomp through most existing content. What genuine incentive can be offered to make them want to create new toons from scratch in a world where they already own everything? I've read through all the suggestions in the recent threads and none of them are remotely enticing to me. It would have to be something of value added to the game, likely either something that boosted power or something that increased convenience. A useful point of discussion is subraces. The new XR races, at least many of them (absent some tweaking) offer a moderate power bump. I would call it a small power bump, but relative to other races it's as large as we deemed prudent. Player vociferously did not want to reinc - hence subby books, only two this time. Based on the little anecdotal evidence I have, they prefer waiting for two XR books to re-leveling for that bonus. So, whatever carrot might suffice has to: 1. Be better than the difference between XR and BUR subs, and, 2. Not through server balance out of whack, and, 3. Not increase the power gap even further if possible. If someone comes up with something that can fit that bill, I'm all ears. Per Enius' post, reincarnation effectively kills a lot of the incentive, and that's not to say we should alter reincarnation. Ditto sub book requirements. Funky
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Post by darkwaffle on Dec 11, 2017 22:48:17 GMT
I agree that it's hard to come up with an incentive that players would actually want without unwarranted power creep or it just becoming another 'tag' of sorts that people chase once to 'complete' a character. Hypothetically if helping new players enough could grant you a further +2 to all stats then I think people would do it - but I think they'd only do it until it's done and feeling obligated to not miss out on that power (or forced to get it) could have negative ripples on the whole experience.
Consider that what a level 60+ character tangibly gets out of its time playing is generally XP, gold, loot and power/progression. In all likelihood granting valued loot or power/progression for 1-40 is probably a can of worms and I don't think gold holds much value for most players. What if XP earned from 1-40 (or maybe into LLs up to a point) could be redeemed onto other characters already 40/50/60+ in exchange for the character itself? Say a 40 with Immo tag is worth a flat 1M XP on another character that's already Immo or something like that. This wouldn't really appeal to people whose whole vault is 80 already and I'm pretty sure the XP/hr wouldn't compete with actually playing at 60+ but I think it might allow more people to reasonably say "I get something useful out of levelling this character despite not needing the character itself".
Alternatively (or maybe also) what about the other side of the reward:time / reward:effort ratios? In terms of making it less time consuming or more convenient to participate I did think the idea of the 'Helper' tagged characters wasn't bad. I think there's a number of ways you could design those so that people could more quickly and easily hop into levelling parties if only just to lend a hand. I'd imagine at this point most player vaults are mostly paragon levelled characters and if someone shouted "Tank and wizard mid 20s looking for more people to level" many players just don't have any character appropriate to join. But instead if a player could "!helper create cleric 25" and then level it quickly or switch characters to a pre-built/geared level 20/25 that it deposited into their vault then maybe they'd be more inclined to take part just for the sake of playing.
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Post by bubsnaga on Dec 15, 2017 23:18:13 GMT
Beamdog recently put out a development roadmap. They do livestream every Friday. Link below.
NWN EE Roadmap
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Post by Deleted on Dec 15, 2017 23:38:58 GMT
I just want to bring up again that if you create the helper toons similar to a test character, I feel like you’d fix a lot of the need. Most people on this server even if not spending everyday will help when it’s needed whether information or tells or tags if able.
Allow helpers to create toons and allow these helper toons to come fully loaded with the quality of life perks and you solve a lot of the lowbie glut I imagine. Because if nothing else players are waiting a day to get something done versus weeks.
We don’t have to reinvent the wheel as much as we need to just make it easier for players to do something they already otherwise would if it wasn’t so taxing to do so.
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Post by redconfusion68 on Dec 18, 2017 1:34:26 GMT
As a new player with relative short time to play, I could get a char to level 35 in something like 3 weeks, which seems ok. The problem is that I can't go to the next level because of tags (even tough I have XP for it), and I can't get some tags because I can't do all by myself (hel for instance), and it is rare to see 2 or 3 people on level 35 logged in. So I had to start another char that hopefully will be able to go farther by himself than a squishy wizard, even if some bosses takes 20 minutes to bring down.
I don't think a full server reset would be attractive for me for what-so-ever, because I couldn't care less about other player items or levels. The concept that really hurts the server for me is multiboxing. While it is possible to do endgame areas with multiboxing, there is little incentive for older players to see newer players actually grow. People that multibox do it because they have more time available than there are runs available, thus those players would be the best ones to actually help new players, which would make a larger player base, which would lead more runs, which would (hopefully) be better for the veteran player.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 19, 2017 4:44:46 GMT
Hence why Helper Tags are the solution. See my above post.
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Post by arek on Dec 19, 2017 16:19:47 GMT
I think there's something everyone's missing with the EE upgrade: compatibility. NWN classic is becoming harder and harder to get running correctly on modern operating systems - Mac users already have had to repurchase their copies and run them in one of boot camp, VMware/virtualbox, or crossover/wine. It's only a matter of time before MS drops support for directx < 10 in new updates to Windows, and SDL 1.x support in Linux may not be maintainable indefinitely either. NWN EE is likely to be the only version of NWN that "just works" in a few years. FunkySwerve, you mentioned not wanting to wipe HG out of respect for the time vets have invested here. I say that's great, but the greater good would be served with a wipe, IMO, simply due to EE being a major breakpoint. Vets could get some some sort of compensation (perhaps one or more subraces that they had already unlocked on classic), but a wipe wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing and could serve to revitalize HG, as indicated by others here. -- arek
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hw
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Post by hw on Dec 20, 2017 2:53:40 GMT
Will Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition run on old systems, like Windows XP and Windows Vista? What about nwserver.exe?
At this time Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition is only available on Windows 7 and up.
Dang I only own a Vista. . .
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