"Why do YOU play?" - The Nep Report

[Nep]

Fantastic replies from everyone. I’m glad that my simple question tickled a few of you in the right way. As expected, no consensus has been reached on the matter but I believe a general “I’m having fun no matter what” spirit is well alive among most.

I was pondering some new ways to introduce some beneficial changes without  losing the integrity of what makes GvM a great place to play. And then it dawned on me: Let’s give the player more xp!... no wait… we’ve discussed this already Nep you idiot…

no wait! hear me out! (Again)

What I am proposing is a XP multiplier that “activates” itself depending on your level.

Here’s a breakdown of what I believe the growing process is for a typical char on GvM:

Lvl 1-10:
How it is: The levelling is somehow painful, not because of the lack of monsters but mainly because we suck… We are newborn in the GvM universe and our 3AB/7AC is barely enough to kill rats…
The Fix: No fix needed, being able to pass thru those first ten levels should be a right of passage into GvM immortality…

Lvl 11-20:
How it is: This one is a bit more ambiguous because by the time we reach our teens, some characters are starting to develop fairly well while some are still left in their “wow-I-suck” stage… Still plenty of places to grind the XP, the PvP battles are becoming frequent…
The Fix: Again, no immediate need for an XP fix there. It would be nice to speed it up a bit but players are usually quite motivated to grind it up because they fast approach the almighty epic levels…

Lvl 21-30:
How it is:  This is currently the prime segment of GvM. I would say that about 60% of all characters in GvM fall in this category. XP is readily accessible for those who seek it and new sources of XP become evident (Quests, PvP). Speaking of PvP, no one will be surprised to learn that this portion of the population is very keen on beating the living hell out of each other… About 80% of all PvP happens between lvl 20 and 30. Some players actually tweak their toons to be very very nasty within that range and refuse to lvl up so they can enjoy an endless supply of pvp/fun.
The Fix: These guys are fine, leave ‘em alone!

Lvl 31-40:
How it is: Maturity. We all have our say in what it means and yet only a few have actually reached it and even less enjoyed it. 30+ are the high school seniors of GvM. We see them doing their thing… we don’t really know where they're going but we know that one day, we’ll do just the same… We try not to mess with them but once in a while some cocky youngster tries to pick ‘em apart… often resulting in an old-fashioned ass whuppin’… The truth is, the “seniors” aren’t prancing in the high-lvl woods cheerfully singing along as they farm their way to invincibility. Most of them are struggling to get by and wish they could catch a break. XP has dropped from “pretty decent” to downright “godawful”… There are indeed plenty of monsters to go around, but they are anything but grind meat… Every monster takes disproportionate effort to slay (Stinger Hive, Lorien, Helms)… Many promising builds are actually left behind in their vault, while their owners play a more exciting and rewarding toon.
The Fix: XP Boost. And I don’t mean kiddie boost. I mean a real boner-inducing boost. My initial thought was to make it x5. Five times the XP when you reach lvl 31. It’s a fairly realistic suggestion in my opinion and here’s my reasoning behind it:
- It kicks off at lvl 31. It’s not a freebie. 1-31 is no walk in the park and requires real determination from serious players.
- Incentive to play 31 to 39. As of right now, this range is underappreciated. Level 1 to 20 has the “cool new feats/spells!” incentive. Level 21-30 bring the “wow Epic!” incentive. What does 31-39 bring? To me it brings the “wow, I killed a monster and I got 25xp!” incentive…
- More level 40 toons. As explained in my previous posts, we plan our chars up to lvl 40. Apart from a few PvP builds, most of our toons are designed to hit 40 and KICK ASS. How sad is it that most of our creations get stuck on the ascension and abandoned… to me, that’s very sad… More lvl 40 would mean more party play and also something that I really really want to see: lvl 40 party PVP (when was the last time you saw some of that?).

So there you have it. I’d like to know what all of you think about this little idea, more importantly I’d like to know what Turril thinks about it…

Until next time...

[Nep]

Dear MasterT,

I’m not sure you realise how hard it is to get to level 31… on second thought, I think you totally do…

What I’m proposing wouldn’t “hurt” the occasional players and wouldn’t even unbalance the server at all. I completely understand that you have limited online game time and that you wouldn’t want to log in one day to realize that you’re lvl 28 and everyone you used to hang out with is now level 40 and having loads of fun while you’re left behind. Everyone gets the xp boost so everyone rises faster. It’s just the initial effort to 31 (which we already do anyway) that will separate the man from the boys.

If you consider the change I am proposing, it wouldn’t even apply to about 70% of the GvM population anyway… Wait a minute, does it mean that I’m suggesting we reward a minority of players while others are left with jack-o?
Yes and no. What I’m trying to do is stimulate everyone to level their toon to 40. I’m sure there is plenty of fun stuff to do from 20 to 30 but the main purpose isn’t to stay there forever. Once you’ve torn down the corsair stronghold about 600 times, I think it’s time to move on… pirates have feelings too you know…
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying everything single level you earn on your way to 40 but I do believe the ultimate goal is to get there.
Take Minas Tirith, Minas Morgul, Barad Dur (sp), Issendor, Isengar for example. All these places and their respective bosses were created to challenge a party of lvl 40. THAT is the main purpose of GvM. Corsair, Corrupted, Wargs, Mayor and the rest are only side-shows… Don’t focus your entire GvM experience around that… You’d be missing out on so much! (Loot AND fun) …
Being 40 is exactly like being 20-30 except you have more PvP enemies (lvls 1 thru 40 lol), you have more great places to visit (in addition to the others which are still here). What I’m trying to say is that you (the players) shouldn’t confine yourself to lower lvls just because you aren’t hardcore players. Pre-wipe, I’ve had some ridiculously awesome raids with peeps that had store bought items and even though I had to rez them every 42 seconds, I’m sure they enjoyed it more than bashing snow giants…

So come on! Give it a chance! I promise it will only hurt at first… by then you’ll be used to it…

[destrug]

Why do I play? I would say the same as Abimael and Maeglin. PvP, character development, farming/PvM and the people(Mords that is, I still hate anyone that has ever even thought of playing a Gondor). It is also one of the few things to do in a town that has seen 235 inches of snow so far this winter. I also gain a certain amount of satisfaction from knowing that I would never stoop so low as to keep a spellcaster at level 21 and and prey on noobs and lowbies that cant possibly win. I know it is petty, but it makes me feel better about myself. I also play for the challenge.                                                                                                                                                                                                                       I have seen many posts as to what people would change about the mod. xp, leveling rate, difficulty, drop rate, spellcaster and item properties. #1 xp, I like it. #2 leveling rate, got no problem with it. #3 difficulty, love the new AI. #4 drop rate, getting lots of good drops. #5 spellcasters, they are rediculous in this environment and hope to see something done soon.(people with a brain will get bored and quit playing them. the lame-os of the world will keep pvping with them and boast about how awesome they are). and last, item properties, getting better drops the more bosses and tough areas i farm.                                                                                                                                                 I do not want these things changed to any certain way, let the DMs decide how it is done. If everything was changed to the way i want it, it would become instantly boring. I also understand that other people need things to change for reasons of there own. I will deal with those changes as they come. it will add to the challenge. If any lowbie/noob needs help with something, I also like helping, just ask( but dont ask for a res in stingers while I am farming Caras Galadam) I would not like to see any noobs(or vets) leave because they are finding things too daunting. hang in there or ask for help. (i have been experiencing lowbies asking to tag along. giving up xp just to get an item.grrr, how do they always roll a 20?(please, if it is harder for me to keep you alive than it would be without you, please dont ask to keep the best drops in an area you would never be able to farm yourself. be happy with the stuff that i have doubles of and you have never seen))                                                                                                                        Strangely, most of these post are short on why they play/what they like, and long on why they leave/what they dont like and what they would change. i will keep my whining to a minimum, HIDDEN creatures with SNEAK ATTACK. It has become so annoying that i dont even want to play. everywhere i go i cant move through an area without bumping into a hidden beattle or bandit.  And 16 to 20 sneaks per round will make people not want to go to an area.                                                                                                                                                                        ok. thats my 14 dollars and 2 cents worth. I aint got no good speakin skills, so dont focus on one thing i say and put it through the mill. this is what i have been thinking about and i left out alot.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

[notyou1]

Concerning the hide....it seems the AI can do this a lot more than a human can now.....so perhaps that is the crux of the issue in that regard.

[charliebuckett]

Its funny but I completely disagree with Nep.  I think level 1-15 should be a breeze to get thru.  You don't really find anything good and the endless hours of killing skeletons or giants makes me want to poke my eyes out...hince I don't play anymore.  Levels 30-40 SHOULD be hard your toon should be built properly to handle harder stuff.  It is not tough!  I never had a problem leveling here at all in fact I would say it WAS (at least) faster (or maybe it was just more fun) than levels 5-18. 

[Kingofdreams]

I played for some time on GvM and made several chars. I admit most of them are or were between lvl 20 and 25 and only a few made it across the lvl 30 line.
Nevertheless I had much fun playing. It is true that the midleveleling consists of plenty of grinding, but in my opinion its  "fun" grinding compared to the boring grinding of most MMOs that are out (and I tried a lot and quit all).
I remember the "Giant rounds" and "skelleton runs", but the server was always big enough for me to switch between several dungeons and areas. Ok, running the Stinger dungeon again and again just to get XP is pretty boring, but I if ppl really love playing, then play; just add a little RP here and there in your conversation, head to another location and fight on there.
Another thing I really enjoyed was the exploring and testing how far I could go with my char. And you dont have to forget that there are always other players at  your level you could group up with or fight against even on mid levels.

My overall opinion: Once I found GvM (and I tested many other PW) I stayed and told two friends to buy the game just for GvM and they did and also enjoyed it. Hack and Slay, fast action and a very enjoyable and lovely made PW. Thumbs up!

[pinkpuff]

I used to play because of the excellent variety of things to do. Farm, pvp, bs in the pocket...

ALWAYS hated grinding, never saw much point to it. The areas where a person would level from say 1-20 has absolutely nothing to offer other than xp. Some builds could get to 20 in a day, others took 2-3 days. 2-3 days of MINDLESS AGONY isnt needed. If the rules say that you cn't even pvp until lvl 5 or 10 or whatever it is then maybe people should be allowed to start at that level. At least knock off some of hte bs grind time.

And i dont know about xp now since i haven't played since the wipe but before u could lvl a few builds to 40 in a matter of 3-4 days.

For me the server stopped being fun when areas were added in that had impossibly ridiculous puzzles, actions were taken that took much of the fu out of playing. Waaaaay too many things became what the devs called "challenging". Most of it was too challenging and no fun because of it.

Based on what i have read here that trend has continued tenfold.

Nobody liked Shadowdancer NPC's before.

The only people who truly thought bosses shouldn't be soloable were the ones who couldn't do it. Yet they ended up with a ton of boss items anyways, go figure.

And what is with the complete lack of helpfulness ont he part of the vets? I read another thread where a newer player was asking where an area was and the responses he got were nothing but greed and bs. Dont be greedy jerks.

Anyways i suppose i have better things to do then type in the forum but I just thought id throw that out there.

I used to play because it was fun.

I dont play now because the server has been overhauled in a direction that gvm wasn't meant to go and more than a few of the current players are just greedy and rude. Being the first to get things and not helping others to get anything kind of negates a person's right to complain about being bored.

I will be the first to admit that I am NOT always the most pleasant of people. My tolerance for stupidity is NIL. However NOT ONCE did i ever refuse to help anyone out of greed. Only person i ever refused to help was patryck, but thats because he would never help back, he was one of the greedy people.

You want the server to be better dont be rude to players and have a greedy attitude.


Oh, and making a pickpocket toon isnt the answer either. So few people here actually respect the other people who play.

[tonoplast]

Ah.. gd old days..

[Nep]

Well, it appears the thread is winding down and should slowly fall into oblivion fairly soon. As someone mentioned early, these type of threads are dime a dozen and rarely change anything… looks like this one makes no exception.
The initial purpose of this topic was to raise awareness on why we play GvM, where the server stands now and try to discuss potential changes to enhance our experience (I was pushing for more XP if someone’s been sleeping thru the whole thing).

While many had their word in, I think the thread lost its part about discussing what (if anything) to tweak/upgrade/downgrade. That’s all good, I don’t mind it and was expecting it for the most part.

To answer the few stabs at “Vets don’t help out and hog all the info/loot” I will say this: Yep, I was one of the nasty mean dudes that withheld the location of Fallen (the funny part is that it was told to me initially, I didn’t even find it myself but I digress). I don’t divulge this kind of info because I see it as 1) being lazy on the part of the players, it’s so easy to say “I’m a noob lol” and just wait for some handouts… If you have this attitude about life, see where that takes you… and 2) I don’t want more competition on the farming scene, yes sure it’s selfish, arrogant and what-have-you…well if it didn’t take 50 trips to get a mediocre item, maybe I wouldn’t mind sharing the space…

On the other hand, some of you may know that I do in fact share the success of my looting once in a while… I just share it with the people I trust. By ‘trust’ I mean the people that I know are fun/serious/fair players. Incidentally, lots of vets fall in that category, so I end up giving up gear and info to other vets… Not because they are my “friends” (although….) but mainly because I see it as resources not wasted. Giving super rare gear to a dude that might give up on GvM because the levelling is insane is the same as trashing the stuff… And I know I sound patronizing and condescending but that’s how it always turns out. The less successful people wish that the more successful people would share the wealth and stop being dicks… not gonna happen… and again, I’m not here to boast or anything, it would be VERY easy for me to just leave the forums and play without ever worrying about Vet, non-vet, noob, farm and whatnot… By coming here and actually posting, I’m trying to give you guys (by “you guys” I guess I mean the non-a*hole people that share everything) an insight on what’s going on the other side of the coin.

People (like me) are selfish because the payout is really hard to get. Of course the dude that has next to nothing will be the first to say “I always share everything I have!”… really? Let’s wait till you get some actual rare gear you got after 20 hours of gaming and see how willing you are to share it…
The server drop rate and low reward system made us (the dicks) into who we are. I used to play another server called MT3 where a boss would drop all his gear every time it got killed, basically whatever you killed dropped enough loot for 3-4 ppl… and guess what? Great brotherhood amongst players, if some crap was much better and only one dropped, we would arrange another raid later…

GvM is a lot like real life: lots of hard repetitive work and very little rewards. You can’t expect people to be very generous in a world like that. If there’s plenty to go around, no one is left out… If the hardware is scarce, the “Elite” (as some of you so eloquently put it) will have all the stuff and they won’t be sharing it… Just like real life…

Being the first to get things and not helping others to get anything kind of negates a person's right to complain about being bored.

Coming from someone who hasn’t played the server in a long time, mainly because they don’t like the way to the server was being ran, and yet figured they can come in and call people “greedy jerks”… I find that a little bit funny…

As I mentioned time and time again, by taking the time to come on the forums and complain about this and that, I’m actually trying to help the overall situation. You see, MY situation is just fine. I have some decent toons, some decent gear, and some pretty decent fun with other decent people. That’s not the majority however.
But here’s the thing, other people having fun, getting good gear, and building strong toons is not MY responsibility, it’s the Dev Team’s. I’ll pitch in once in a while but I shouldn’t have to share the stuff (gear OR info) I got while playing solo. What I should do however, is share the loot after a successful TEAM raid… but guess what? Those raids are never happening because most people will never make it to 40 or to any of the really fun places…. Why? Because it’s impossible to level without pain, blood and tears and THAT’s what driving people away… I’ve never heard someone say “Hey Nep, you’re a greedy jerk, I’m outta here!”

[pinkpuff]

That's much more like it. Why not just come out and say how bad you really think it is without the need for another player antagonizing you first?

Is that a hypocritical statement on my part? Surely. I say that because I'll play again, always do, why else would I bother to post?

But from a devs point of view it all comes down to one thing in my opinion.

You can't please everyone.

So players that better understand the game, have more resources, more time, more whatever will always end up bored quickly. I found that after a short amount of time it was better for me (im selfish too) to let everyone know where to find things and how to beat bosses just for the simple fact that it got to be EXTREMELY boring when i'd take part in a city raid DM event and kill 20+ people while maybe dying once using my version (pre-mummy god) of your sorc/pally/rog build (btw i REALLY like rog3 for uncanny dodge on a build relying on 20 dodge ac). Being dominant is boring.

Its a tough one for the devs. Do you cater more to the vets or more to the people who come and go after a few weeks? Personally I would think that going the route of the players that stay would be more effective (since the vets actually stay...) but thats not my decision.

Correct about why I left in a way though. I wasn't overly happy with how the mod was being handled. Gets a bit annoying watching crazy uber things added in, just to be nerfed 1 month later, and then to be replaced by something more uber 1 month after that. And then a wipe to top it all off to atone for it.....but all in all I usually play the game for 6 months and play life for 6 months. Transitioning atm.

All in all I would say this topic is far from dead.

So. If Xp was jumped up a bit do you (Neptune) or anyone else think that would make players leave? Or is it fairly safe to assume that the ebb and flow of 4 week players would still be about the same while making current players a little more happy? And would an xp increase, a significant as it sounds xp increase, help to keep future players that find their way here?

I stated my opinion on shadowdancer npc's already. Nobody has ever liked them and never will. IF they are too plentiful these days then that could stand to be looked at.

Everyone is appreciative of the efforts made by the devs to revamp the mod. Even though I dont agree with the way some things were done I fully applaud the effort. But as players I think its important to be able to speak openly about such things without fear of retribution. Not saying thats what would happen or anything, just saying that if you appreciate the effort more than the result, say it. Turril, Olle, and whoever else put time into this are all human. At first one of them might take offense to what is said, but like normal people it eventually gets looked at and any perceived personal attacks are dropped in favor of moving forward.

So I guess all I'm saying is that if 10 people who might be ignorantly blissful say everything is fine and 2 people say things need to be tweaked the 10 ignorantly blissful people will likely still be ignorantly blissful afterwards.

[KrazyKuban]

Alright, so I guess its time that I went ahead and weighed in on this whole shabang.

I have always thought of my GvM experience as relatively unique.  I had never played NWN before GvM.  Quite literally I borrowed it from a friend who was playing the Campaign, and wandered online just to see what was up.  I was taking an English class on LOTR, and was kinda on a LOTR kick, so I checked out GvM.  4 years later, I'm somehow still year.  Wait...4?  Hold on a sec...*does mental math...junior, senior, fresh, soph...* - holy crap, I have been here like 4 years.  Where does the time go?

Anyway, I digress.  And for the record, I'm not pulling anything here, I'm just going to go on with what comes to mind as I type and see where it takes me.

My first month of GvM, I had no idea what I was doing.  I looked up some "cool-looking builds" while I basically learned the mechanics of NWN.  I made an RDD-AA looking to have a Dev Crit toon.  I leveled it all the way to 30-ish before realizing Dev Crit had been disabled.  Which I find amusing because I am always one to read EVERYTHING, but I guess I hadn't fully understood the whole disabling of feats thing.  Which is why I always get frustrated when people ask what they're supposed to do.  When I joined, I had read every chat with NPCs, and I knew exactly where to go for the first few levels.  (Outside to goblins, or down to House of Stewards as the Gondor Guard Cap TELLS you...stop being lazy you schlubs)

When I joined, it was more or less just after Issendor had been implemented.  Suddenly, I was getting gifts from people (Max) simply for being an enthusiastic player who asked questions and LEARNED from the answers.  I picked up on things rather quickly (or so I'd like to think) and had a good time palling around with folks (believe it or not, Marcus and I used to be friends on-server. *shocking gasps ensue*)  That's by and large what kept me around - the people.  The players and even the DMs had something about them that despite all the Mordor/Gondor "hatred" (Which has incidentally gotten worse, I think) there was a genuine friendly combat quality to everything.

Back then, we had almost regular events.  Zuck was really good for dishing out events, which is something I wish we could revisit at some point, but more on that later hopefully.  It was post-Zuck(And Matt, and Grooth as a DM, and when the Dastrions more or less shipped off to work on GvM2) that some might say I got in with the "wrong crowd"   I started getting more and more into PvP.  Pinky, Elrond, and Zev were darn good teachers as far as builds and PvP were concerned.  And a few...other tricks.  My thirst for PvP even got to the point that I made a new account with a brand spanking new Cleric/PM PvP monster with a Starblade, and made myself #1 on the list for what was it? 2 months at least, and then in the top 10 for a couple months after.  That was my new motivation for GvM - PvP, and crushing Gondorks(who in my mind had somehow wronged me, I can't quite remember the reasoning).

After that whole mess, there was the CE incident where the entire summer was more or less devoted to the collection of CE with a pair of Risens by Pinky and myself.  We were out to make the point that CE items were overpowered, and with the legal help of Arwen, we created items that finally made the dev staff remove CE altogether(well, there were other factors...but...eh, details).  Incidentally, this gave rise to the SURGE of Risens cross-server.  There were a handful before that duo, but the real rush of them came after ours'.  I'd say my motivation back then was loot-collection.  And I'd argue that pre-wipe I had damn near everything worthwhile on server.  I even had all the Balrog's items for about 60 seconds before a server crash and I lost his bloody sword. (Yea, I'm a tad bitter on that one)

Oh yea, and there was that little bit of time (I guess almost a year?) where I was a deputy.  Those months were...fun?  I am one of those people that will enforce the laws and rules to the letter.  What bothered me was that I had no "real" power other than reporting problems, and talking people down.  For me, that made me feel particularly impotent.  I was essentially just another talking head.  At the same time, for a long time I had no interest in being a full-fledged DM simply because I 1) didn't have that kind of time and 2) have no real "building" skills and wouldn't feel that valuable, 3) didn't want to deal with the headache of people complaining 'cause I had actual powers.  Let's just say if I was actually a DM or had powers to enforce rules, there would be a lot of rule-breaking that would NOT go unpunished.  Hell would potentially be more populated than the server at times.  I'm a tad Draconian in that respect (Just as Dwarven-whatever-his-name-was, *snicker*).  (That's not to say that I wouldn't ask ALL parties involved for their stories while having them all in holding cells before dishing out punishment)

So what motivates the Krazy Kuban these days to play on GvM?  Well, unfortunately...there isn't much left.  Its true that people fear change.  What I find personally amusing is I was a major proponent of wiping the server.  I thought we needed it, and it would ultimately benefit the server.  I was also a proponent of the stronger AI, the powering down of items, and the whole kit and kaboodle(sp?).  But now that it has finally happened, I loathe it.  Every single aspect.  I miss my old gear(go figure), I despise all the Mc-Same builds out there, and the new AI combined with the slightly modified XP just makes everything extremely frustrating and I end up just cursing under my breath and logging off.  And yet, I keep coming back here.  The people (by and large) are great, and there really aren't too many other servers (I've looked) that are so inherently willing to welcome in a new players.

GvM has its faults, as does any place.  But those faults are part of its charm in a strange way.  I'd certainly be hard-pressed to find myself a place so welcoming.

/end lovefestrant

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To talk about some of the things brought up thus far...

I absolutely agree with an XP increase.  That'd be wonderful.  Both for Nep's reasoning and Pinky's.  It would help the retention rate of new players, it would appease the vets, and so long as its not ridiculous, I don't see the issue with increasing the XP for perhaps certain mobs and maybe even for a certain level group entirely. (I like the PvP XP increase a lot, incidentally)

As far as "keeping secrets".  It all depends on the secret being kept.  I'll give two examples and leave it at that.  Pre-wipe, there was a (unfortunately) widely-known quest with the Mimics scattered around GvM.  At first, there were in three fixed locations, but those locations were held secret.  Two of the locations after a short while were found with relative ease, but NO ONE could find the stupid third mimic, to potentially collect whatever the "mysterious quest" would give.  Scrounging around through my toons, I had found myself an old "Train Ticket" from Zuck's old events, which let me teleport ANYWHERE of my choice so long as a DM was online.  I used this ticket to locate the third mimic, and I alone knew the "Secret".  I shared that secret with a few choice people.  I thought nothing of it 'cause I thought I could trust these individuals.  The prize from this quest was major.  It was a selection of certain items that were quite powerful, and really useful.  But if they were widespread, it killed the whole purpose of the quest, and really made the items worthless (in my opinion).  Unfortunately, one of those individuals spread the word and suddenly "everyone" essentially knew the third location and began actively farming the mimics.  So much so that it drove Olle to change the mimic quest so that the third would RANDOMLY(every reset) spawn in one of like a dozen locations.  Good luck hunting for it, jerks.  It was at that point that I realized "knowledge is power", and that it was not always a good idea to share information.  Just because I had the stroke of genius to figure out the mimics didn't mean that it should spread like wildfire so every farmer in a free t-shirt could go ahead and tear the quest a new one.

Now to be a little more current, let's go ahead and talk about the Fallen zone.  I actually had a discussion with Turril about this earlier.  Turril had actually given hints(kinda) of where the Fallen area would be when he re-implemented it.  He made it more or less clear that it wasn't in the Drow Lands, and that it had to be searched for.  Now, when I think about where something could be, I start to think in terms of location location location.  The Fallen are undead.  What areas have undead?  What area is in more or less "neutral" territory?  What areas have potentially higher-level undead?  Maybe I should look there first myself INSTEAD of ASKING people?  Maybe, just maybe I should do the work MYSELF?!  Wow, fancy that idea!  ESPECIALLY if the said area is a "new area".  If we're talking about something old and worn out, like say Isengard or even something a little more "Current" like City of Corsairs, where the location is more or less common knowledge, then by all means tell people where it is.  But I see absolutely no reason to divulge the location of things that are new.  Sure, maybe I/you got lucky finding it in the first place, and maybe didn't really put any work into the finding it, but that's not to say that you DIDN'T actually put some thought into it, and worked to find said location.  And if I put in the work or the ingenuity, or the luck, or what have you, I should be allowed to reap the rewards of that without everyone pitching a fit because I won't share my information.  Get off your lazy rears and do the work yourself.  Apply that brain you allegedly have.

/end rant

[Nep]

I actually find that Pink brings good elaborate points even though he is not an active player (yet). I'm not multi-quoting him to slam but on the contrary, to try to reinforce what he's saying.

That's much more like it. Why not just come out and say how bad you really think it is without the need for another player antagonizing you first?

My initial post was in fact pointing out the areas that I thought needed attention and a few solutions on how to fix them. I didn’t intend to focus on my personal GvM experience per say… I was trying to keep it broad…

my version (pre-mummy god) of your sorc/pally/rog build (btw i REALLY like rog3 for uncanny dodge on a build relying on 20 dodge ac). Being dominant is boring.

From my understanding, Uncanny dodge only lets you keep the DEX AC bonus (and not the whole Dodge as the name might mislead you to believe) so in my mage’s case, we’re talking 1 rogue lvl to keep 2AC.
http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Uncanny_dodge

Its a tough one for the devs. Do you cater more to the vets or more to the people who come and go after a few weeks? Personally I would think that going the route of the players that stay would be more effective (since the vets actually stay...) but thats not my decision.

I like to look at this one a little bit differently. I think the purpose shouldn’t be to cater to one group or another but convert the undecided/come&go/volatile crowd into a serious here-to-stay player base. But like you said, that’s not my decision.

Correct about why I left in a way though. I wasn't overly happy with how the mod was being handled. Gets a bit annoying watching crazy uber things added in, just to be nerfed 1 month later, and then to be replaced by something more uber 1 month after that.

Can’t disagree there. As a player who’s usually in the top tier, it’s really discouraging to see some NPC going on “god mode” out of the blue…

All in all I would say this topic is far from dead.

The general topic of revamping/devamping might be far from dead but I’m fairly certain that all the momentum generated in this particular thread by all the participant is evaporating fast. The reason is very simple: We (the players) can’t come to a agreement on something we’d like changed so it must be very hard for Turril to pick a particular change and implement it.

So. If Xp was jumped up a bit do you (Neptune) or anyone else think that would make players leave? Or is it fairly safe to assume that the ebb and flow of 4 week players would still be about the same while making current players a little more happy? And would an xp increase, a significant as it sounds xp increase, help to keep future players that find their way here?

If XP increased, I believe the usual “play a week and leave” players would actually stick around longer and a small percentage of them would actually become full time players. The “stay’ers” will stay anyway… More xp will defo make them happy. The leavers might stay a bit longer and some might even adopt GvM.

So I guess all I'm saying is that if 10 people who might be ignorantly blissful say everything is fine and 2 people say things need to be tweaked the 10 ignorantly blissful people will likely still be ignorantly blissful afterwards.

That’s why I’m tempted to leave the forums altogether and just mind my own business… I have a little core of about 4-5 ppl I play with regularly and we can adapt fairly well regardless of situations…


Let’s see where it all goes…


*edit* Color for readability & Typos

[Endlessorrow]

I think {and I may be wrong about it} that I am the only player who even new about the harnen river tomb area with its primordial hobbit wraiths and I shared its location freely and instantly with all the mords on line on sevral occasions.
 
  I also know that on the old mimick quest I was the first to discover the first 2 locations and the way to kill the statue guardians info also shared over party chat...

 I discovered the location of the fallen lands by myself and shared its location freely after wards though i admit there were 3 or 4 to beat me to that.

 I regularly kill the king of the dead and get the handy heal potion each time as well as a few other things and freely share the how to over party chat.

 Each time I do these things I worry that it will be made harder to do/find ect.. just as kk spelled out, but it is a vauge worry because I figure if it is changed or made harder then I get a new puzzle to try and crack, and I think I feed some kind of need for recognition or admoration or some such rubbish by sounding the horns upon figuring out a challenge.

  I like the idea of a decent xp increase but I dont know how it will affect newer players, I just like it because I personaly hate grinding.  A new player with poor building and or playing skills  and limited gear still wont be sucessfull pvp or boss killing even with a easier to attain lvl 35+ toon. There would just be a greater number of high lvl lambs for the slaughter pvp and meat sheilds on raids that require raising every 2 minutes and get to roll for the occasional good drop   
 
 I still like the exp increase idea because it took me from wipe till yesterday to hit lvl 40 with a toon!   Even though he has done alot of farming and wand making along the way and therefore I have lots of decent gear for some builds I want to try. I just cant stand the grinding process of slow xp leveling a new build in mindnumbingly dull grind circles. So i havent worked on these new builds.

  I think increased xp helps retain players who have some experience and want to try new ideas on the areas and vs the ai ect. More than it dose encourage new players to stay.

 I think knowlege and gear sharing helps to retain newer players even if I am blowing my own horn when I am sharing build or mod. info I also want to help out when doing so.

[pinkpuff]

  I like the idea of a decent xp increase but I dont know how it will affect newer players, I just like it because I personaly hate grinding.  A new player with poor building and or playing skills  and limited gear still wont be sucessfull pvp or boss killing even with a easier to attain lvl 35+ toon. There would just be a greater number of high lvl lambs for the slaughter pvp and meat sheilds on raids that require raising every 2 minutes and get to roll for the occasional good drop   

  I think increased xp helps retain players who have some experience and want to try new ideas on the areas and vs the ai ect. More than it dose encourage new players to stay.

See, that's THE reason for an xp bump after things were made very difficult(from what ive read)!

I dont think I really know anyone that wants to spend weeks playing nwn just reach lvl 25. This is a fantasy game and whether people want to admit it or not EVERYONE fantasizes about POWER. I dont know about anyone else but I dont fantasize about being a schmuck. I didnt stand up in 3rd grade and say "I wanna man the deep fryers when I grow up"

Give the new players the chance to experiment with builds and they will be more likely to stay for a longer period of time.

Then there is the issue of people being higher lvl. So what if they are fodder for the lvl 40's that have better gear and more mod experience, they will catch up. Let a newer player hit 40 in 2-3 weeks and take them on a city raid. Success or failure, its that type of GvM experience that creates the Lifers. Not 2-3 weeks of goblins and crypts...

And I know to some it may sound a bit pointless but I like the idea of starting at say lvl 5 or so. You have to wonder how many people have logged onto GvM, created a toon,read all the npc info in the pocket, geared up, asked some questions about where to go.....and then logged off for the last time as they died to a couple goblins after 30 minutes of preparation.

[CARNAGE]

I think i never new where anything was and that i never told any one where anything is lol.

Dont think i ever given an item away either LMAO (even hade my own fighs in arena when players killed me could take a free pick from my mules)

Have i ever helped any players vets and non vets hehe

Or do i have a brainstorm haha.


Post is very good as quite much stuff comes up that needs a look at, personally i would like to change quite some stuff but for now im only feed up with it and will play for a while to see what happens and what have actually been changed. For me its nothing i learn about in making one lvl 40 toon, it needs some extensive playing time and i will try give it although IM DAMN FURYIOUS about have lost ingame chars and items that have taken me so many years of my real life to get, i honestly dont know how long ive played this mod but i was here when pixie still owned it and hosted it. I dont wanna hear once more that a wipe was nesecary, i have done wipes my self on mods and seen em die out, then ive seen wipes being done with trade ins. everything is possible.
Just wanna throw some background out about me that might show something that many of us has in common. That reflect the ideas we are givine like more exp for example.

I really love this game and have played with it, builth with it, dm´d with it well done quite alot. Main reason i disaperd from GvsM about one and a half year ago i think. I started help hfodf and ManiacK with GvsM2. After a while there helping them my real life ended up real hectic as im working on an oilrig then was about to start 2 companys at home so i hade to end my helping hand there to. im not a very big fan of nwn 2 and it will probably stay that way. when it was released i hade put up to buy both the evil and good limited box and they are still laying here in front of me. What pleased me most to day was that a full version of nwn, sou, hou followed each pak so today i have 3 versions lol.
To day i still work offshore and own 1 company, i have 6 children huge house and a bunch of pets, all this making so i cant play as much as i want to lvl up 40 toons. for me the fun starts at lvl 40 in GvsM and it has allways been like that in my oppinion. Most of the changes now has destroyed the fun for me but i will give it a chance to see where it ends. Dont missunderstand me now i think some items before was to uber but not the majority. I hade a Cleric,bard,pm before that run around with over 90 ac, 64 ab, dr 40/- negative, divine and i cant remember what more. was a walking juggernaut. i remember standing at tirith gates and was mostly untouchable. That kind of gear are no fun and destroys the fun of other players to.

Are other things to that has changed to the worse i think but for now i will leave it and go play and see for my self how it feel.

Have fun all

[Terrorble]

After 40 pages of reading (since my last post) I discovered an end to this and look... a reply button.  *click* 

If nothing else, the wipe has allowed overpowered items to be reconsidered.  That was its primary objective and has done that... and a bunch of collateral good and bad stuff we either could, couldn't, or didn't predict. 

GvM really comes alive after level 18-ish.  Before that, most characters are weak, under developed, and unable to venture far or get much of anything exciting.  I support getting there faster.

Once my chars hit level 20-25 they can do so much more, travel more places, potentially get good stuff so the need to grind really fades and I enjoy playing the character more.  Unless I die promptly upon reaching the place I am going.

I have a frustration (and maybe I should keep my mouth shut and think about situations more).  Why does it takes so long to see things change?

I kid you not when I say I have a list of 100+ things that need changing.  Everything from redrawing the transition from Moria foothills to rotating the waypoints as you transition from PF to Lossarnoch and from Lossarnoch to Pelargir Farmlands so you aren't facing backwards when you transition to de-powering half-dragons in the Spirit's Lair (57ab on those freaks makes them impossible anymore) to removing polymorph as a spell from Mordor Raiders and their summon spell so they don't summon 10+ apes, and changing the BG summon fiend to summon something other than an ape (since it's so fiendish) or to see if we can get xp for killing summons to major stuff like revamping or removing junk items in shops to passing out more useful drop items to a number of common spawns like a haste potion or redoing areas and spells to... list a few.

Nep explained why he started this thread.  He sees things he thinks could benefit from change.  I have to sit here and think the reason changes take time or don't happen must be that not everyone agrees with my ideas for change/tweaking.  Combine that with the time it takes to tackle stuff and the time available and I probably have my answer... if left to my druthers maybe I would find I'm the minority and would end up driving off half of who we have left.

[pinkpuff]

All the server needed was an item overhaul. Which could have been handled through scripting much like the current sign says will be done with certain other items.

I haven't played much but I do find some things to be strange and others to be pretty much horrible.

1st is the whole npc stealth thing. I thought people were complaining about npc shadowdancers. I didnt realize that every freaking spawn stealths.

Some things are cool, getting taunted by an npc that you are about to taunt is neat. Getting repeatedly CORNERSNEAKED by an npc is not so neat, especially given the fact that its something you can't do to them. You can do it once, only once. They can do it over and over.

I thought DR items were the big problem before. Allowing people to heal through damage. So what I see now are horridly underpowered weapons capable of doing little to nothing with no DR figured in. But then I see there are still 10 resist items around....nerfing the DR a little is nice....super nerfing the weapons on top of it kind of defeats the purpose.


Is the new AI cool to see? Certainly. Fun to play with? No, not with the weak items and slower than my grandmother in February leveling.

Looks to me like the problems that were have reemerged as the problems that are. The uber will still be uber. I would say that 90% of the players will never see over lvl 30 for the most part. Areas will go untouched and the same "problems" will stick around.

Excellent work on putting all of this together but i just cant help but to think this server will be filled with lvl 20 somethings that never see a faction city unless they pledge to it.

GvM wont run out of players for some time however. The unfortunate part tho is that the new players dont even know what they missed. If they like GvM now then they would have loved it 2 years ago.

Wish someone would have been kind enough to give one of the vets a copy of the old mod before it got scrapped and reshaped into this. I think the people like myself who donated a considerable amount of money over the years should have been given that option.

[Akuma-Demon]

Hmm i feel that re-reading lord of the rings would be quicker than it took to read this tread 

But its interesting none the less. Turril sorry dude but i think your missing the point here, its not about immunities (although they are brought up). I think in the main its about the game its self.

Most seem to agree that leveling has become a nightmare, I myself have only 2 main toons both stuck on lvl 29ish and i'm no newbie if you have people like carnage, pp and nep saying its hard what chance any new players? Its ok saying that partying up might be the answer but unless we retain some new players then theres nobody to party with (theres rarely anymore than 10 on)! The server has just gone back to what it was prewipe (overpowered items aside). Vets either build dragons or team up together to get the best kit (or whats left of it) while the rest just scramble around trying to stay alive and get precious little of anything.

There's basically only 2 types of server out there, either the rping take forever and put a 1000 hours a day in servers or the welcome lvl up to 40 pvp powergaming ones or what for many of us was gvm the nicely balanced inbetween server but its becoming more like the rping job without the rping 

I have to agree with alot of people here and say that a million summons, everything with hips/sneak and dispell is just not FUN (as the slogan says) I mean i have 31 sr and i still get dispelled by effy spawns!! . It appears that not only are we struggling to recruit new players (as has been said) but also a few vets which would like to come back are being put off by alot of the changes. I was in the pocket when Rabbac threw his teddy in the corner about too many changes at the one time would put people off and at the time thought it was a bit ott, but maybe he had a point there.

I think what most people are saying that changes had to be made as too many people where invincible with the items available but the actual game itself pre-wipe just needed that addressed and a few tweaks here and there.

Honestly i think the Dev team try their best and i would never knock their efforts but even i'm loosing the will to live playing, e.g. due to no neg/drain immunity item i get creamed not by the monsters in the dead marshes but by the marshes themselves. Same with the Fallen area, yes i know that in there there are a couple of immunity items but ive spent a week being drained constantly by them trying to get a ring or bracer and annoyingly got nothing. To add insult to injury I cant even restore myself as the greater rest spell doesnt fix the draining. Everything seems to be grinding to a halt with leveling and i dont have the 5million hours it would take to kill things for 20xp to get to lvl 30!!

I think the most important discussion on this thread should be the retention of new players and old or we will be left with an empty server and its pretty clear that if nothing is addressed that it will be that way soon anyway, its heartbreaking to see GVM halfway down the rooms page when it used to be the best around 3 towns and neverwinter summer seem to be creaming us for recruits and retentions

[Turril]

Why do i play?  

At this point, thats a good question.
i used to play because i enjoyed a large %of the people in game. pvp, builds, farming etc was all seconday for me. it was all about the people.

Why did i become a staff member?

Same reason. I have been RPing long than a great deal of you have even been able to tie your own shoes. I had been a DM in several interenational conventions, including GENCON, and had people that would request being in my events and drive/fly 100's to 1000's of miles to be in them. I had been a DM locally for a couple decades and ran an continuous campaign for about 12 players for about 17 years.  I figured i would enjoy running events etc to give back to the comminity.

Why isnt Zuck here running events and why dont we have the events like we used to?

Same reason. The people. For every1 person that would say thanks for running this event. 2 or more would just complain. Makes them a headache to run. Perfect example is last week.  Ran a small ossy battle for 45 mins. had a small misunderstanding about the rules...even after i "cleared up" the missumderstanding...contastan copmapints on shout channel, after it was done got 3 thank yous and 5 compalints.  Now when i say complaints  i dont mean suggestions. I mean bitching. i could have just spent the 45 mins playing with my daughter...complaint free.
Without naming names Zuck isnt here anymore for the same reason. The people. Constant harrassing buy the same small group not only in game, but on messenger to him and other dm's regarding him made him quit. he came here for fun, but left cause it was more like his job (being a lawyer) so he left. in 4 months he ran more events then any dm had run in a year or more and players still bitched him out of here...

Why dont we have more Staff/Dm's

The main reason i dont make any1 else a Dm is ...yep you guessed it...the people.  It can destroy people. I had typed a very long section in here, but i decided that specific details were not needed. Suffice it to say that dealing with the constant negative makes you not want to play anymore, so i am doing you a favour.

Why does every mob seem to have uber abilities now?

They ALWAYS HAD THEM !!!!!!!!!!! prob was old AI was to stupid to use them. neither olle or myself was responsible for all npcs being having most of these abilities. Hell i had no idea that kell had epic warding or epic dragon until the new ai used them against me. Going thru every npc to get rid of that kinda thing is tedious boring and time consuming work. It is being slowly done but not quick enuff for most of ya..sorry  job/wife/kid/life prevent me from working on gvm 24 7. 


Although i knew that neps topic here was not meant to be another "bitchfest" i knew i would become one sooner or later, and to be honest i am done listening. I was going to increase xp a bit more last wekend but then figured, why bother because in a couple days it wouldnt be enough or there would be a new sumthing else for people to start on about again. the phrase "you cant please everyone" in regards to gvm is a huge undertstatement .  I do understant that it isnt perfect, hell it isnt even close to what i want it to be let alone anyone else. Pinks idea for the spell nerfs is good right....except then all dex toons would be basically mage spell immune and mage players would bitch.  str based players woudl bitcht isnt fair to them and it would go on and on and on and on and on and on................
 I dont have an original copy of pre issendor or even close to that. never did but i think know sumbody that does, so  you guys can now discuss who you would like me to get it too. they can then go thru all the headaches and bitching etc. most liklely they wont listen to or take half the crap that comes along and will just tell ya off, bann ya etc.  So decided who you want to have the mod and i will send it because......

WHY DO I PLAY?

cant really think of a good reason anymore....

[dtcooper]

Well, if this is the case then so be it. I just hope everybody is happy now.

To Turril and the staff, thanks for the fun over the last 6 years. Its been a good run. Developing a mod is very difficult and almost impossible to make totally fair. Thats why you guys never saw me bitching bout that stuff. Were things frustrating, heck ya!!!!. But thats part of the adventure. Learning how to beat the mod is the biggest thing for me. There are some places that I still never found and some places, items, and critters were only rumor.

To all the guys and gals who played here well all I ask is this: Are you happy now? Are you?

dtcooper

[pinkpuff]

No, not really. I think thats the reason people posted to begin with.

As was said before things like this that are perceived as attacks eventually blow over in favor of moving forward.

Maybe the AI should be rolled back for a week or 2 to see what people think. Perhaps the vote was a bit too hasty.

[pinkpuff]

http://www.gondorvsmordor.com/gvm2/forum/index.php?topic=623.0

Seriously? We have to go and get all types of 4th grade?

I'll get in contact with the people who wanted to help and I'll see who you can send the old mod to.

[Nep]

I figured the breaking point would be reached at some point. I didn't realize it would happen that way but something was gonna happen. When I mentioned that this thread was going to die out, this is what I was talking about.
It really saddens me to see that Turril feels assaulted on all fronts. All of us put a little "although the Dev have been doing a great job..." paragraph in our posts but unfortunately, it's been greatly undermined by the humongous requests and things-that-are-wrong novels we wrote.

What I would say to you Turril is this: Don't take it a personal attack but as a cry for help. I am not writing elaborate 500 words posts just for the pleasure of ranting, and I'm fairly sure the others aren't either. Although parts of the thread sounds aggressive and bitter, it mainly comes from our fear that we're losing GvM. We don't wanna lose this place. A person with little to no interested in the server will just leave, we are trying to bring you the news and some ideas.

What we are doing is putting ourselves at your mercy. There's is little to no "exchange" here. We don't have much to "give" or "take back" in exchange for what we ask. What I'm trying to say is that you are in a position of great power. Not because you are the almighty Dev God, but because we need you much more than you need us. So by putting together this mob thread, we aren't in fact "threatening" you but begging you. It definitely sounds at times like an aimless bitchfest but the bottom line is that we need you.

What I was hoping to get out of this was a "you get one thing guys. Chose it well" kind of deal.

Of course I understand that no one can snap their fingers and everything will be Utopiath Tirith...

What I would've like to see on the other hand is a dialogue between us and the Devs. Even an abusive dialogue or a crushing dialogue. Something that shows us that we would be heard (or not head for that matter)... simply knowing that my idea(s) were good/bad/great/awful/unrealistic/retarded... anything really.

For example, I'm a bit surprised (and disappointed) that Olle didn't post. I'm guessing she took the "I'm staying outta this one" attitude and that is what I find hurtful. On the one hand there are the Dev who tell us "we've been putting all this time to fix items/classes/feats..." and on the other hand, when we bust our butts to come up with a constructive thread, it gets mostly ignored. That leads to the thread growing more bitter day after day until it reaches the point where it's just a bunch of people crying and waving their fist talking about "before was much better!"

If after 3 posts, someone from the Dev squad had come and said: "There won't be any changes for now so STFU"... that would've settled it there and then... Letting us in the dark (maybe there will be maybe there won't) only gave us more fuel to power our idea-trips and it spun out of control...

What I realize overall about the server is that changes are mainly people driven. By that I mean that you (the Devs) listen to player's request here and there and adapt them into the server. That brings a HUGE problem in that this process is done unofficially. There's nowhere I can go to track down why it was decided that this or that would be changed.
It's either a democracy or it's not. I personally see the two main DMs as opposite on that matter:
Turril is a "for the people" kinda guy, listens and tries to make everyone happy. We all see how that worked out lol... (hint: We, the people, suck)
Olle is a dictator. "Oh the server is hard and painful you say? Good."
There is no right or wrong attitude about it, but GvM needs to be clear which one it is...

So where the hell do we go from here? With a pissed off (discouraged?) Turril, a bunch of whiny vets who want a million changes and a server yo-yo'ing between 25+ and 3 players on?

That's how:
The Dev team (Dev team sounds kinda lame... let's call them the Fantastic 2 (or is it 3?)) needs to simply come out and set the tone. It'll take a tiny bit of work, but come up with a action plan. This is what I mean:
Example1: "The Fantastic 2 will decide all changes and nerfs, so you might as well stfu."
Example2: "Every 15th of the month, the Fantastic 2 will implement a small change voted by the players."
Example3: "All changes will be considered but only one player will be the players' spokesperson."
etc...

The Fantastic 2 should come up with a basis for discussion. This Nep Report started as a hybrid poll/why-you-play/request thread and morphed into an orgy of tears because the Fantastic 2 didn't beat it into discipline...


So that's my 2 cent, i'm always up for discussing what's going on...but maybe that's the problem...

PS: I can't even tie my own shoes now... velcro baby!

[CARNAGE]

Hmm well that was one way of doing it, maybe not the best but surely the most effective lol

The text in yellow below is something i said i my first reply in this post

Think i should stop here as i know this post nep started will be a hot one, allways does. sometimes you get the dms to get angry, they have after all spent conciderble time in building. Well i have been there done that and this posts will never disaper no mather what you make in the mod:)

Do any more of you now understand what Brian/Chronos meant when he said he didnt wanna have a forum lol

Well back to the mod. Pinkpuff! Brian gave me the mod from when issendor just got added to make what ever i want with BUT the solution isnt that we just start more mods, solution is to work on the existing one in my oppinion anyway. I do understand though that there we have a huge problem in the meaning that we all have different oppinions. I mean i have one way as i would like t to be and then we probably have 30 more meanings about it.
Appart from the GvsM mod i have another one that was called Trimmes extreme lotr or extreme lotr, its builth on the biggest lotr mod ever made on nwn vault with subraces and legendary lvls along with uber high magic (NO FUN)
When i started there helping trimme me and Kalu Khan started to nerfe every item/npc ingame and it was a huge job.
Here Turril and his staff have a smaller mod but i would say even bigger job as they have added higher AI. Meaning that every damn npc ingame that was made from the start by pixie and then chronos comes to live in a way that wasent even possible before. like goblins in shagluk for example with their damn hiding skills.
They have started a change in the mod in what way they seemed best possible. they have changed stuff now that maybe later changes back as it comes up it was a bad idea, they/we dont know as it has to be seen over time.
The changes though can be done in many different ways, for example Turril says that its going to be like this and thats final or he says, well lets make some polls and see what our players want or well its my dms who decides whats the best.
At the end its totally IMPOSSIBLE to please every one, belive me i know.

[pinkpuff]

Sorry Carnage but everyone that wanted to branch off last year wanted a version of the mod where the Issendor bosses were upgraded already. Not that they couldnt be changed afterwards but w/e.

Pretty sure I know someone who has a copy circa july07 which would be more than current enough.

Anything added after that players would want would be easy to throw in. Scripting spells is rather easy and building areas takes a little time but minimal thought.

I have have always had a slew of pre-made npc's in a test mod of mine, along with a few modded spells, and some premade encounters. Hell I even made a few for the post-wipe setting with weaker items.

Item strip/replace scripts are easy enough to make. Any of the dr items or anything that needs to be toned down can be done easily. Any of the leftover items that are there would eventually be caught by dms anyways...

wow, I'm kind of getting excited