The Dragons Neck
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Winterhawk99
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Re: The Dragons Neck
Note: Sources tell me that The Dragon's neck admin currently has an understaffing of Dms due to real life obligations of some. This may be the cause of such a simple quarry for help on the factions not being addressed quickly. So, I cannot blame the Dms if they were not there at the time and understaffed to the point that no one could get to my character in time to correct the situation. I tend to try to give the admins and dms of a persistent world the benefit of the doubt until such time as I do a full review. and I try not to do a review these days until I am comfortable about knowing all there is to know about a world so I will keep observing to see if this and other things I put in these notes are true or not. I want to be sure.
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Winterhawk99
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Re: The Dragons Neck
Saw but did not participate the first Dm event i have ever seen on this site.
I opened up the game. and found a huge bunch of people leaving the elven area just as I arrived. Unfortunately, my great grandchildren were about to pay me a visit. After they left, I put on the game again to find everyone back and divvying up treasure.
So wonderful news there are dm events on the server. And 2 there are magical items. The items themselves are what you would expect from such a low magic server. most of the benefits were a +1 to a skill or 2 +1s to a skill.
I opened up the game. and found a huge bunch of people leaving the elven area just as I arrived. Unfortunately, my great grandchildren were about to pay me a visit. After they left, I put on the game again to find everyone back and divvying up treasure.
So wonderful news there are dm events on the server. And 2 there are magical items. The items themselves are what you would expect from such a low magic server. most of the benefits were a +1 to a skill or 2 +1s to a skill.
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Winterhawk99
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Re: The Dragons Neck
Note: After the event mentioned above the dm forgot to clean up the areas that were ventured in. He or she accidently left 4 or 6 shadows in the game. Sort of a rookie mistake that all dms have done including myself.
they have to remember to clean up creatures and scenes they make after an event. I know myself it can be a pain in the ass to go round but you have to make sure of these things especially in this PW where having a +1 sword is almost unheard of.
Much later after the event my group encountered one of the shadows and ended up fighting it in the circle. I believe that my character using totem of the blinding sun was the only one that hurt it, and it started chasing her unrelentingly around several areas ignoring others in the group. (makes for a good story)
She was told to run back to the circle and hide which I did. The Dms are making a story out of it. and I will comment in Eibhlins postings about the incident tonight.
Advice. For new dms especially new ones. remember to do clean up and use the chooser to look for any creatures in the areas your adventures were in and hit them with a destroy wand.
they have to remember to clean up creatures and scenes they make after an event. I know myself it can be a pain in the ass to go round but you have to make sure of these things especially in this PW where having a +1 sword is almost unheard of.
Much later after the event my group encountered one of the shadows and ended up fighting it in the circle. I believe that my character using totem of the blinding sun was the only one that hurt it, and it started chasing her unrelentingly around several areas ignoring others in the group. (makes for a good story)
She was told to run back to the circle and hide which I did. The Dms are making a story out of it. and I will comment in Eibhlins postings about the incident tonight.
Advice. For new dms especially new ones. remember to do clean up and use the chooser to look for any creatures in the areas your adventures were in and hit them with a destroy wand.
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Winterhawk99
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Re: The Dragons Neck
Ok there was an announcement on The Dragon's Neck discord forum.
It seems about the 2nd week of Jun they are raising the max level from 8 to 11. It seems they are taking this in steps 8 to 11 then 11 to the ultimate level of 18 which they say they will stop and max out at.
Thoughts so far. Theres some bumps in the road but overall, they are doing well. Dms are a bit of a mix more good than bad. Understaffing seems to be a bit of a problem. Also, a bit of inexperience which in time will smooth out. (for instance, not knowing what they can do with the dmfi NPC faction wand.) Hint you can use it on pcs too to reset factions.
The biggest problem I see with Dms is events. In all the months I've played There has only been one dm event. Which kind of sucks. they may be timid or unsure of themselves at this point. And although they have only done one event they have helped with various player events. The ritual was one definitely. And I have seen one dm that plays a crazy woodsy guy with antlers around from time to time getting a feel for players. A very good thing for a dm to do.
It seems like its going to take me a very long time to do this review. I am thinking a total of 9-12 months. I need to see how things develop and how the world matures. (both dms and player community) As for now still pretty good.
I need to make some test characters for a few things too that won't last long just to check some build things and player editing things out. For instance, on the build things there are things you can do in the toolset that most people do not know like setting ambient and diffused floor lighting. I can't see if they use putting variables on placeables, items, creatures and other things in the game. I also have to look at encounter trigger timing in the dungeons a little closer. That's a bit of a big deal and often something builders mistime on the fast side.
It seems about the 2nd week of Jun they are raising the max level from 8 to 11. It seems they are taking this in steps 8 to 11 then 11 to the ultimate level of 18 which they say they will stop and max out at.
Thoughts so far. Theres some bumps in the road but overall, they are doing well. Dms are a bit of a mix more good than bad. Understaffing seems to be a bit of a problem. Also, a bit of inexperience which in time will smooth out. (for instance, not knowing what they can do with the dmfi NPC faction wand.) Hint you can use it on pcs too to reset factions.
The biggest problem I see with Dms is events. In all the months I've played There has only been one dm event. Which kind of sucks. they may be timid or unsure of themselves at this point. And although they have only done one event they have helped with various player events. The ritual was one definitely. And I have seen one dm that plays a crazy woodsy guy with antlers around from time to time getting a feel for players. A very good thing for a dm to do.
It seems like its going to take me a very long time to do this review. I am thinking a total of 9-12 months. I need to see how things develop and how the world matures. (both dms and player community) As for now still pretty good.
I need to make some test characters for a few things too that won't last long just to check some build things and player editing things out. For instance, on the build things there are things you can do in the toolset that most people do not know like setting ambient and diffused floor lighting. I can't see if they use putting variables on placeables, items, creatures and other things in the game. I also have to look at encounter trigger timing in the dungeons a little closer. That's a bit of a big deal and often something builders mistime on the fast side.
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Winterhawk99
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Re: The Dragons Neck
I have found a way to monitor Dms on this server and from what I see some things do not look pretty.
This is something I will save for the review but it's extremely important in regard to dm events and dm activity on the server.
From my position now you just do not want to be an elf if you like dm events or Dm interaction unfortunately it seems the only way your going to get any consistent attention is to go to Murann the main city on the server for humans and stay far away from the elven enclave of Y'tellerian. I'll reveal my methods once I do the full review.
This is something I will save for the review but it's extremely important in regard to dm events and dm activity on the server.
From my position now you just do not want to be an elf if you like dm events or Dm interaction unfortunately it seems the only way your going to get any consistent attention is to go to Murann the main city on the server for humans and stay far away from the elven enclave of Y'tellerian. I'll reveal my methods once I do the full review.
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Winterhawk99
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Re: The Dragons Neck
I got up this morning and there were 11 people on the server.
Once I got in, I saw some Dm activity and it was centered on two elves and a half elf. Very good news. I like to see all around activity spread between the populations and gives me hope that the Dms are starting to do their main work (creating adventures) instead of doing admin bs.
I will continue to monitor dm activity with the hope I can write some wonderful things about them later. For a very long while I saw all dm activity with the humans and not with the elves. unfortunately, during that time the elven population plummeted. I think with this new development along with the new soon to be level cap of 11 things will change and I can write some good things about the Dms.
Once I got in, I saw some Dm activity and it was centered on two elves and a half elf. Very good news. I like to see all around activity spread between the populations and gives me hope that the Dms are starting to do their main work (creating adventures) instead of doing admin bs.
I will continue to monitor dm activity with the hope I can write some wonderful things about them later. For a very long while I saw all dm activity with the humans and not with the elves. unfortunately, during that time the elven population plummeted. I think with this new development along with the new soon to be level cap of 11 things will change and I can write some good things about the Dms.
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Winterhawk99
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Re: The Dragons Neck
ok had a someone contact me about a dm on TDN. Here is what they said:
Winterhawk99
Hi been reflecting on the Server all weekend as not many people were on. I believe TDN as innovative as it is in building and modeling is slowly depopulating into irrelevance because of some big basic mistakes. It is unfortunate. Though time will tell. I have been thinking about it a lot.
yeah, I understand. I made some friends I'd like to continue spending time with, but so far, they look very unstable in hindsight
I think when I'm on, I'm able to gather people together into interesting conversations? But I also recently got yelled at for having a "too complicated" and "too interesting" character, and in a very heavy-handed way, was told how my character should be played
ie, not often, speaking only about the story as it is presented and not about any other topics, and if I am to have my deity, preferably not log in
I think these messages, rather than representing the server vision, were instead short-sighted and lore driven
but if they are representative of how the DMs expect to interact with players in the future, I'm thinking more experience might be needed.
Winterhawk99
Thats a major sin for a dm to do. If I owned the server and found out a dm said that to a player I would take away all their privileges immediately
If this is true, this DM should be immediately fired. A character is a player's intellectual content. No one should tell a player 'HOW' they should play their character. Sure, if a character is breaking the rules like say they are swearing all the time on a server that doesn't do that a dm should intervein however a Dm should never tell a player how to play their character. That's one of the biggest No, no's a Dm can do. It's not the Dm's character and not THEIR intellectual content. Dm's work for the players. The players are their customers. That has to be understood, and it doesn't seem some of the DM's on The Dragon's Neck get that yet.
Winterhawk99
Hi been reflecting on the Server all weekend as not many people were on. I believe TDN as innovative as it is in building and modeling is slowly depopulating into irrelevance because of some big basic mistakes. It is unfortunate. Though time will tell. I have been thinking about it a lot.
yeah, I understand. I made some friends I'd like to continue spending time with, but so far, they look very unstable in hindsight
I think when I'm on, I'm able to gather people together into interesting conversations? But I also recently got yelled at for having a "too complicated" and "too interesting" character, and in a very heavy-handed way, was told how my character should be played
ie, not often, speaking only about the story as it is presented and not about any other topics, and if I am to have my deity, preferably not log in
I think these messages, rather than representing the server vision, were instead short-sighted and lore driven
but if they are representative of how the DMs expect to interact with players in the future, I'm thinking more experience might be needed.
Winterhawk99
Thats a major sin for a dm to do. If I owned the server and found out a dm said that to a player I would take away all their privileges immediately
If this is true, this DM should be immediately fired. A character is a player's intellectual content. No one should tell a player 'HOW' they should play their character. Sure, if a character is breaking the rules like say they are swearing all the time on a server that doesn't do that a dm should intervein however a Dm should never tell a player how to play their character. That's one of the biggest No, no's a Dm can do. It's not the Dm's character and not THEIR intellectual content. Dm's work for the players. The players are their customers. That has to be understood, and it doesn't seem some of the DM's on The Dragon's Neck get that yet.
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Winterhawk99
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Re: The Dragons Neck
I spent two days this last weekend on the server May 31 and Jun 1rst.
I saw some dm activity centered on a few elves which is good. I was told it was something of a personal request event for one of the elves. So ok cool. I don't expect anything to happen for me because they made me 10 minutes after I got on the discord forums and have given them some pretty hard advice time to time in these notes so I'm pretty much persona-non-grata. However, that's ok these reviews are not about me but of the players in general and the server itself. Seeing dm activity centered on elves instead of the human cities of Murann and Tradesmeet is a welcomed sight. so what do we have in dm activity so far.
My 2nd day there a dm showed up and gave my group a riddle. (Dm probably looking at us as players at the time.)
Two weeks later same dm showed up gave a large group including myself another riddle then a premonition of events to come. (again a short exploratory thing dms do to familiarize themselves with players and add some mystic, yada, yada yada)
After 2 or 3 more weeks.
The ritual a player event that had a dm support us. (a real event but set up by the players dm was supportive and added several twists. Sometime around April 15th)
No dm activity at all about a month other than attending festivals as guards and stuff.
1 real honest to goodness dm event. (Could not attend being my great grandchildren were visiting. Saw the beginning and when the left caught the end where the players were divvying up treasure. finally found out there are magic items in the game abet small as expected. Sometime around May 12th)
three weeks to a month later monitored a dm doing a personal even for an elven character. (That was on may 31rst.)
I saw some dm activity centered on a few elves which is good. I was told it was something of a personal request event for one of the elves. So ok cool. I don't expect anything to happen for me because they made me 10 minutes after I got on the discord forums and have given them some pretty hard advice time to time in these notes so I'm pretty much persona-non-grata. However, that's ok these reviews are not about me but of the players in general and the server itself. Seeing dm activity centered on elves instead of the human cities of Murann and Tradesmeet is a welcomed sight. so what do we have in dm activity so far.
My 2nd day there a dm showed up and gave my group a riddle. (Dm probably looking at us as players at the time.)
Two weeks later same dm showed up gave a large group including myself another riddle then a premonition of events to come. (again a short exploratory thing dms do to familiarize themselves with players and add some mystic, yada, yada yada)
After 2 or 3 more weeks.
The ritual a player event that had a dm support us. (a real event but set up by the players dm was supportive and added several twists. Sometime around April 15th)
No dm activity at all about a month other than attending festivals as guards and stuff.
1 real honest to goodness dm event. (Could not attend being my great grandchildren were visiting. Saw the beginning and when the left caught the end where the players were divvying up treasure. finally found out there are magic items in the game abet small as expected. Sometime around May 12th)
three weeks to a month later monitored a dm doing a personal even for an elven character. (That was on may 31rst.)
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Winterhawk99
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Re: The Dragons Neck
note:
Something caught me on The Dragons Neck that I have not seen since Beamdog came out with EE. That is the faction bug. In 1.69 and before there was a major bug in NWN.
That being when there was a fight and there were other factions nearby. If those other factions other than hostile got hit with a spell and got hurt that faction would turn hostile across the server.
Most servers after the Beamdog update seem to have this fixed. So much so that I had thought that Beamdog itself found a function or changed a DLL to fix it. That seems to be not true now because it turned up on this server. In fact, it hit me.
So, what I did is come up with a conceptual scripting fix for the bug using a semi beat function. Then sent it in as a ticket on TDN. I wasn't going to outright fix it for them. I spend 4 hours of my free time working it out and showed them how they could make a script to do it. I figured if they really wanted to fix it, they would finish out the work themselves.
Well, I sent the ticket, and it was taken down almost immediately. So, either they are hard asses, or they want to take it and get all the credit for making it and coming up with it much like Barry 1066 of the CEP back in 2009 when he outright stole custom content and would not credit the original maker starting the NWN custom content wars of 2009-2011.
So, this is what I'm going to do. When I get home, I'm going to put the conceptual fix on my scripting forums along with pictures so that if any other pw needs it they can follow my breadcrumbs and fix the faction bug.
Another note to this is that TDN has creatures called magic whisps that often appear when someone casts a spell. They attack the caster and suck up their magical shields in such. Due to the unique lore of the server, they are in fact somewhat innovative new creatures. However, and this is a big, however. If they don't have control of factions the creatures turn from a + for the server due to lore to a - or detraction because they just become a pain in the ass for the customer/player.
Something caught me on The Dragons Neck that I have not seen since Beamdog came out with EE. That is the faction bug. In 1.69 and before there was a major bug in NWN.
That being when there was a fight and there were other factions nearby. If those other factions other than hostile got hit with a spell and got hurt that faction would turn hostile across the server.
Most servers after the Beamdog update seem to have this fixed. So much so that I had thought that Beamdog itself found a function or changed a DLL to fix it. That seems to be not true now because it turned up on this server. In fact, it hit me.
So, what I did is come up with a conceptual scripting fix for the bug using a semi beat function. Then sent it in as a ticket on TDN. I wasn't going to outright fix it for them. I spend 4 hours of my free time working it out and showed them how they could make a script to do it. I figured if they really wanted to fix it, they would finish out the work themselves.
Well, I sent the ticket, and it was taken down almost immediately. So, either they are hard asses, or they want to take it and get all the credit for making it and coming up with it much like Barry 1066 of the CEP back in 2009 when he outright stole custom content and would not credit the original maker starting the NWN custom content wars of 2009-2011.
So, this is what I'm going to do. When I get home, I'm going to put the conceptual fix on my scripting forums along with pictures so that if any other pw needs it they can follow my breadcrumbs and fix the faction bug.
Another note to this is that TDN has creatures called magic whisps that often appear when someone casts a spell. They attack the caster and suck up their magical shields in such. Due to the unique lore of the server, they are in fact somewhat innovative new creatures. However, and this is a big, however. If they don't have control of factions the creatures turn from a + for the server due to lore to a - or detraction because they just become a pain in the ass for the customer/player.
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Winterhawk99
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Re: The Dragons Neck
I do these reviews slowly so I can get a really good picture. I've been hasty before with them and mostly I get them right at the time I'm doing them. I've had many people tell me that some of my harshest criticisms in fact didn't go far enough and some of my adorations have gone too far. A man of extremes I guess (chuckle)
I also hold up hope that various Persistent worlds will correct the things I find wrong with their server and many times it comes down to simply customer service problems. That's also why many servers lose their populations they don't truly know how to do customer service or treat their players.
I am hoping though with this server that things do change, and I'll keep a watch for it. At the moment though I see a lot of problems in several areas including the server economy, customer service and various other things that are really driving down participation of players both on the server and discord.
So, I will keep playing several months and see. Maybe they will take up things and change what they need too. maybe they won't. I know I won't be taking any bets. I'll just continue to observe and write my findings until I'm ready to do a full review of Dragon's Neck.
I also hold up hope that various Persistent worlds will correct the things I find wrong with their server and many times it comes down to simply customer service problems. That's also why many servers lose their populations they don't truly know how to do customer service or treat their players.
I am hoping though with this server that things do change, and I'll keep a watch for it. At the moment though I see a lot of problems in several areas including the server economy, customer service and various other things that are really driving down participation of players both on the server and discord.
So, I will keep playing several months and see. Maybe they will take up things and change what they need too. maybe they won't. I know I won't be taking any bets. I'll just continue to observe and write my findings until I'm ready to do a full review of Dragon's Neck.