The Harvest Moon Consortium

[Winterhawk99]

Island of Thain

Introduction:


When I first started thinking about going to The Island of Thain I went to the website even before I stepped one foot on the world. I wanted to know their general views on some things being bitten a few times by servers pretending to be inclusive but were not. I got a bit of a surprise. The first thing I read is this.

Thain is designed to be a FUN place for players to ENJOY! The server is roleplay oriented, but as long as you are respectful, all player styles are welcome. The player community is noobie friendly and has attracted many veteran roleplayers. If you share BitRaiser and Handover Phist's (our founders) vision of an open, friendly, low-magic roleplay world, please pop in-game for a visit.

Ok This sounds interesting. Then I read the ‘About’ section. It said this:

The Island of Thain is the inspiration of two Neverwinter Nights enthusiasts from British Columbia, Canada who basically got fed up with the uptight, police-style approach that they had come across on some role-play servers. BitRaiser and Handover Phist had a vision of a laid-back meeting place where friends could get together and play in an environment that would encourage role-players but would tolerate other play-styles without the irrational smack-down they had encountered elsewhere in the Neverwinter Nights persistent world universe. They wanted their world to be open to all--no applications, no hak-paks to download, and no memorization of 385 rules of role-play... just jump in and play. They established one golden rule: "Respect your fellow players, the DMs, and the server." Their gaming friends scoffed, saying an open world without passwords would be ruined within weeks by munchkins and power-gamers. The co-founders took that as a personal challenge to prove their dream. And so it began...
Handover provided oversight and hosting services through his venture, Webster's Internet Café of Vancouver, while BitRaiser launched into the creation of the game world, marketing to establish a player base, and engaging that group of actors with masterful story-telling. Another gaming friend, Core Violate (Vio), took an interest and made major contributions in creating areas, non-player characters, and quests for the growing Island, complete with a deep-rooted plot to be discovered by the players. They launched the world publicly in October of 2002. Today, more than 3000 player accounts have "tried out" Thain and there is a steady player base of about 450, with 15-25 players in-game during peak hours of 10a-2a EST (where the server is currently based). The module itself has been released under the Open Source philosophy as a model for other builders and as a starting point for those that wish to take Thain in new directions, although the staff of "Original Thain" is still going strong with about ten active team members.

Now I’m thinking to myself this is too good to be true especially since it’s an old server. As old as Broodslayers in fact. And as I have stated, usually old servers start out with a very outgoing creative team and over the years the rats take over. So, I went in with my classic samurai Miwa of the Barasume clan not to be confused with my other Miwa, Miwa of house Yuki. The first Miwa is a human modeled after the second so I can play her on all servers being that Miwa of house Yuki is an elder fey’ri (Abishia/Ilithiir cross) to which most servers would not accept.

Here is what I found. You the reader will ultimately decide if this is a place for you to play. As for me. I plan to plant my feet firmly in the ground here if I may. I will say this is a very, very different kind of server than anything I have seen before. It has some pretty crazy custom player benefits. I’m not so sure about some of them such as players being dms for specific little events to which I have not done (at least as a dm), but we’ll go over all that as we go along in the review.

So again, we’ll start with the little stuff and move on to the bigger things. And I would like to start with my favorite part Terrain.

Terrain:

First and foremost, this is a huge server. I think I may have found about ½ of it in the two or three months I have played so far. It’s a bit of a sleeper regarding terrain. They just started using custom content from what I have heard and know that they have CTP Dwarven Halls as a tileset. They also have quite a few larger areas.

I did something I rarely do and that is I spoke to the build/scripting team about some technicalities. Including large areas and why anyone would put a treasure system in game instead of an outside OBDC database so that the engine runs as smoothly as possible. They had some interesting information on questions I’ve had myself about varies tech issues. I will go to that later in the review because I learned a lot from both Kira their main scripter and her assistant Sanguinius. I now believe with 64bit you can drop the 144 tile to an area limit that I have often suggested for pws. Now that doesn’t mean going hog wide with dozens of very large areas. I personally would set a limit just for safety and smooth running. The thing is though you can up the scale to a new limit. I would start with something like 256 tiles or 16x16 that gives you much more leverage without overdoing it.

To continue the discussion on Terrain. I said Thain is a bit of a sleeper. The areas are well built with a keen eye on terrain set on adjacent areas. I really found no big faults or drop in immersion from going area to area. However, most of your start and central areas when it comes to the artistic touch of a good builder isn’t really a hallmark in these areas. It took me a long while to find an area with a Pittsburgh effect (Explained in previous reviews.) When I did it was a monastery with a grand quest within. As you go out to the edges of the server into the high-level areas there is where you find areas that are exciting on a builder level. There are some excellent area builds out on the fringes. The labs at Crater Lake stand out along with the Monastery and a revamped area called the Blacktooth caverns. Again, I’ve only seen about ½ this server with the months that I’ve been playing it, so I am probably missing a lot.

The use of area lighting and fog is good. Again, it’s not the best. I’m not sure that the builders know they can change the color of ground tile lights individually. I do not believe I have seen the effect of that yet. They do use both fog and vfx placeables rather well. Good job on that.

There are also a few areas with a lot of placeables. As you know placeables do not cause general lag to the server, but they do lengthen load times. Thain has a few (not many) and the load times are not anywhere as excessive as some of the areas of my old pw Harvest Moon. So, I would also say very good job on that. You also (as might expect) figured out I have an extremely fast gaming computer at home so I don’t know how a minimum level computer would handle this situation.

Overall magic on the Server:

Now that you have read the above you know there are some discrepancies from what introduction says and what I say about terrain: Especially with custom content. I think that what Thain has posted as an introduction to their world needs a bit of a revamp on these technicalities due to the introduction of custom content and a few other things including overall magic.

I rate this server a medium magic server not a low magic server. I have never really explained my ratings on this yet and here is a good opportunity to do so. I will use your standard 20th level pc to do this. So, let’s make a rating system shall we.

Low magic servers:

There are two parts to rating magic for players on a server. The first and foremost is: What can spellcasters whether divine or arcane cast? The second is what can a player pick up within reason until they are 20th level regarding items?

On a low-level server, I would expect any 20th level pc to have mostly +3 items perhaps 1 or 2 +4 items and no way to get +5 or +6 items until they achieve epic levels. On the caster side I would expect the low magic server to only use original resources for spells except for maybe a few custom spells that they carefully chose to be on the world. Thain does not fit into this category. They have more magic than say the Narfell server, Anchorome or even Dragonlance Chronicles reborn. All three of these examples make for good low level magic servers though two of them no longer exist.

On a medium magic server, you have several PRCs using a new spell repertoire. Usually a good number of custom spells for both arcane and divine casters and most 20th level pcs having mostly +4 or +5 items but no +6 and above until they reach epic levels. Thain sits solidly in this category. I have not seen any custom arcane spells and probably druids and clerics uses the standard affair. However, They do have several custom casting classes that include Favored Soul and Warlock.

My character Miwa is 20th level and has mostly +4 items. She has 1 +5 item a cloak of resistance and 1 special amulet she got at an undead circus that is +8 natural armor class against undead (just against undead) guess what she wears when she goes into a tomb.

My other character Brath is not a main character. He’s just there for rp because he is in fact an undeclared special race that I snuck in to see what would happen. He’s purely rp and I put him in there to help some people, which will be explained later. If anyone has read my ‘Children of Hell’ books they know Brath is Fawn’s son who is an Irda (High Ogre of Krynn) Sorcerer/Mage. He will most likely never cast more than 5th circle spells and is a pacifist so doesn’t even adventure unless someone drags him into it kicking and screaming. He does have a +4 cloak of resistance and a +3 robe but that’s just about all he has. He also doesn’t carry a weapon at all unless you include his ancestral mage staff that does no physical damage.

High magic servers are no holds barred magic everywhere. A 20th level character will usually have +5 or +6 items. There will be whole packs of custom spells and magic pretty much rules there whether divine or arcane. Both ‘Cormyr and the Dalelands’ and ‘Netheril the Age of Discovery’ are good examples of high-level servers.

This is sort of my scale overall for magic and like I said. Thain lies solidly in the middle. That may not be how you rate them, but I do need a system to review.

Quests:

I have found some quests on the server. I’m not sure if it’s a quest heavy world or not. I don’t think so but there are quests in several areas. Most are one shot fetch quests. There is a bounty hunting guild that specifically does bounty quests expressly. When you do a bounty quest you get points. As you accumulate points from multiple bounties you can buy some interesting things. Such as enhancements to armor or weapons, a full 100% weight bag of holding, endless quiver of arrows, and enchantment crystals. I must say that’s a pretty neat idea to keep players occupied.

Some Thain quests are multi-layered. A PC goes to one person to do a quest, they send you to another and another in an overall story arc. You don’t see that in a whole lot of PWs. You do see a whole lot of that in single player modules. Interesting and refreshing. I hope the Thain staff puts a few more of these quests in.

I have not seen any interdependent quests or branch quests as of yet. I did give Netheril an interdependent set of quests for their world and it worked out nicely. I think with the quality of Thain’s staff they could easily come up with one of these two and put them in the game. Something for them to think about.

Overall, on quests I think Thain has good and interesting quests. I also think with the quality and creativeness of their staff they can do much better if they want too.

Housing and Storage:

On housing, Thain really doesn’t have it. There are lots and lots of spots you can tag as home in woods, buildings, and other places but there is no housing where you would have a home with a persistent storage chest a bed and a build placeables around the home to suit your taste like Netheril, Harvest Moon or Tales and Adventures. I have heard that there may be some housing in a place called Iron City (main export: tasteless beer). Jokes aside Iron City is a generally lawful evil city to the northwest of the Crossroad area (One of the major areas that PCs congregate.) I have not confirmed this as of yet.

For a long while I did not think that Thain had persistent storage, but they do. There are stores around the server that offer a persistent storage chest. I tested it out. You get 8 store panels to work with. Quite a few. I like it. You do have to pay the store a small sum of gold each time you look at your chest. I like that idea. Gold should not be too much of a problem to acquire on Thain so it’s not a real big deal.

Overall, I think Thain falls a bit short on housing but very good on persistent storage.

Modeling:

Thain does have an in-house modeler which is great. Sanguinius (Forgiver) works in both blender and max. I’ve seen a few models that he may have made. All of them done well in regard to shadows, alphas, .wok collision areas and other things. From what I’ve seen he’s doing very good work with his modeling for the world. He hasn’t tackled any tilesets yet but if he did, I think he would be good at it. In fact better than I could based on what I’ve seen so far. Having a competent modeler is a rare and great boon for a Pw. I expect to see some wonderful things in the future.

So, on modeling I give Thain an excellent rating. They have their own modeler. He’s very good and I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next. (And no I will not come out of retirement because I have no time looking at pivots, verts, and UVW maps all night with my work/home schedule)

Loot:

LOOT! Everyone loves loot. If you are a low-level pc you may struggle a little bit with loot but once you get up to 15/16th level you should have no problem with gold. It’s a fairly easy world to pick up gold and gold/loot is not the main focus of the server unlike say a hack/slash or power gaming server. One of the really nice things is that Thain does not depend upon common nwn items. You will find them here and there but mostly you find custom built items that the pw builders and scripters make.

I really like this idea. It adds a vast amount of flavor to the pw and helps people with their storylines immensely. Like many PW’s a lot of the items have both bonuses and retractors. So, you may get a suit of armor that’s +3 armor, +5 to heal with /5 cold resistance but with the caveat of being /5 fire vulnerability or a -1 to universal saves. This is a sort of balancing effect that many pws employ. Most of us should be accustomed to this.

Thain also has some very special items you may acquire here and there. I remember them setting up an undead circus with a challenge quest. If your group managed to survive their arena of undead opponents, you got a very special item. It’s where I got my amulet that was +8 ac against undead and a tower shield that made you immune to 1rst and 2nd level spells.

Also, if your party defeats a really hard opponent for their level sometimes you get what’s called a golden chest. If one of these appears you gather round it and open it up. Each person gets 5,000 gold and very special items like a ghost in a jar, a lightning rod, or a reciprocating katana sheath. These types of items can completely turn the tide of a battle in some cases. They are really good custom stuff.

Thain has some excellent and varied loot most custom created with great backgrounds and descriptions.

Stores:

The stores are standard and basic. I’ve seen a few with interesting items but not that many. The best thing about the stores is if you sell loot, it stays there for other people to buy until the next reset. The mark up for some things is bad. The maximum a store will buy items from your pc is 10,000 gold and a lot of stuff you sell at high levels may be worth 50-100 thousand gold. Still, you can acquire gold relatively quickly so that isn’t a major problem.

Stores are adequate and fit the server nicely in my opinion.

This concludes the small stuff on the server or the things that Thain doesn’t specifically concentrate on as much as what is below.

Scripting:

The scripting is phenomenal on the server. The scripting team accomplished many scripts like flooding rooms and climbing up cliffs to which Mermut and I did on Harvest Moon but the thain team has done it 10 times better. Due to the creativeness of the server a lot of their scripting goes off in a tangent, and here is where I will talk about being a player/dm on the world. They have scripted stores that a player can use on their radial menu for placeables, props and crafts. So you can pull up your own store anywhere you want and buy placeables for 5gp a piece or so and set up your own scenes.

Since players don’t have the dm client with the ability to possess npcs, or access to limbo, the creator or pop around to any area they want nor access to dm wands they are a bit limited. However, I have now been on some of their adventures and have found some of them very good. It does have the feel more like a tabletop game.

They have plenty of custom items with spell hooking involved with custom scripts the team has created. They have come up with some items that can completely change the flow and direction of any battle. They also have some not many custom spells for their custom classes. I’m not sure if that is package spells or if they custom made them, but they work well and are balanced well against the other classes spell wise.

I’ve found a few cute puzzles in the game. They are well scripted. There seem to be a few broken quest scripts I have found in multi-layered quests. I do think that quest was either taken out or someone has worked on it since I tried to complete it. I’m not sure.

As far as errors reporting. I have seen a few broken loops and other errors on my right screen readouts. They are few and far between and usually after large updates. The team got on it within 12 hours and as far as I have seen fixed the problems.

So overall scripting is some of the best I’ve seen on any pw I have been on.

Races:

Thain has a lot of custom races and is open to creative ideas. I’ve seen lizard folk pcs, dragonkin, changelings, Wolf born (I sort of equate these with Hengeyokai), fey and half fey, Minotaur even an Erinyes. The list goes on. I even put Fawn’s son Brath in there. So, they are very inviting and open when it comes to races. I even asked one of the admins about Brath being a high ogre of Krynn they told me it was ok since he isn’t a main character to which I’m glad I can continue my Krynn link from way back when I rolled up Fawn decades ago playing on the Anchorome server.

Classes.

Thain has quite a few custom classes Warlock, Knight, and Magistrate being some of them. I haven’t really explored this area. They had no problem with me playing an rp samurai and it worked out really well, So, you have a lot of options here too. I think another one is called Spellthief. There are quite a few custom classes, many Thain made themselves in the Magistrate and Knight area.

Dms/Admins:

I think it takes a while for Dms to warm up to you on this world. I think they want to see if you will stick around to participate in their stories. I was on the server for about a month or month and a half before I ever saw a dm. Granted you must assume too with my work schedule and not being about to play for 5 or 10 days at a time complicates this.

Miwa was somewhere around 10th level and going through goblin caves when A dm came on and set a single monster against her. This is usually a standard dm thing to check and measure creatures against different classes, and levels. She kept getting hit with poison arrows and had no idea where it was coming from. Finally she saw her adversary which was a different type of goblinoid from the rest and asked Who are you? I think the Dm laughed at the reaction. He thanked me for being a good sport and left.

About a month later I and one other person became involved with an event centering around a woman who’s blood could heal people. This seemed to be an ongoing small campaign. One other player came into the event, and it was pretty good. We broke open a carriage door to find a potion made with this woman’s blood. We gave it to authorities.

After that there was a big lull in any events for a long time. I tested the dms quiet a bit on administration type doings. They were always outstanding and polite even when I pushed them a bit. They treat the players like customers. That’s impressive in this day and age where many servers think the players serve the dms. Very big kudo’s from me.

They are now having 3 or 4 events every week and its pretty damn good. The dms stories are creative and they are inclusive. Some campaigns get cut off after a few sessions to people who haven’t been in one or two before but I think that’s ok. It will hurt players like me from time to time that cannot get on sometimes due to work but overall at the moment I can find some events every week to attend. I think that’s ok too. Dms cannot be accommodating to everyone’s schedule all the time. There would be no events in that case.

I did have one admin speak to me on discord. It was about my use of graphic violence in my writings. When they talked to me, they were also very polite and mature. They said something like Hey Winter, you know we really want to keep Thain a pg-13 site could you change your few last entries for us to make it that way. We really don’t like the graphic violence in posts. Again, the Admin was very polite and mature and more importantly offered a way for me to change something rather than trying to run me down. Again, very polite, mature and non-threatening. I was also very impressed about how the admin dealt with me. So, I changed it. The graphic version I transferred to my own site Harvest Moon Consortium.

Thain also has designated players that act like new player liaisons. My wife angel did this for many of the worlds we dmed together back in the 00s and early 10s. When I first came to Thain one hooked on to me that had a lot of lore about Japan and the Japanese way of life and really helped me understand better my character Miwa from Kozakura. I did research medieval Japan for my children of hell books but this player worked in Japan and helped me with things you would not find in a whole lot of books unless you really dig. That’s impressive also.

There is one dm I’m kind of keeping my eye on that seems to be playing a bit of favoritism with core players. It’s not something I can pin down yet. It’s just this feeling I get. And it just might be my paranoia. I’ve seen a lot of worlds and a lot of favoritism displayed so I’ve learned to have a spidey sense about it. So, I’m noting when I see this dm come online and who’s all gathered around in one area on the server. If it becomes obvious, I may call them out. So far, it’s not and still may be just my paranoia.

Overall, the admin/dm core does an excellent job with a lot of creative plots and themes in their adventures. Are they the best I have seen………Maybe. They are pretty damn good and give players a pretty good time when they are around and doing events. The Dm core really makes the journey through Thain a fun time and I have enjoyed many of their events.

Players:

The player community is strong, at least currently its strong and getting stronger. On average there are many more players in the world then when I started some 6 or 8 months ago. Players tend to be more creative in this world and it’s a reflection of Thain’s openness to the players ideas.

Players tend to be more advanced in Rp with many obviously coming from a tabletop background. The community at large is very welcoming. They tend to stay away from real life politics. A good thing. They are also very helpful and try to draw you into their character’s story. That’s both wonderful and important for it helps make the server truly inclusive. The are people with characters that specialize in getting people involved. There is one player who has a character that once a week he gathers everyone he can and does a high level bounty. I have Brath that basically does nothing but fish, collect herbs and take down other characters stories to post on the forum for them. And there are many others that will offer to take you exploring at almost any time.

Players’ individual stories tend to be rich and full of different lore from different countries on Toril or on Thain itself. You have access to a custom HUD that brings up a type of character sheet where you can do some fancy customization and resizing of your pc. It’s an excellent community.

Leveling.

It’s fairly easy to level your character to 20th level. Here like a lot of worlds you get stuck. As soon as I realized that I spoke to a dm or admin about it. I pressed him pretty hard to understand it all. They informed me that it does take awhile to get to epic levels and a player really has to work at it. Such as being active on the forums and discord etc. You go up in stages of one or two level increments over a period of time once you are epic. I’m not sure of the exact standards for these increments. They also stated that they give a player a grand and specific quest and a very special item afterward when you turn 21rst level.

I asked him, You mean to tell me you run epic quests and get an epic reward to reach 21rst level, because I did that for my first three servers and it didn’t work out well in the end because of the backlog of epic quests. They said something No, No, We don’t DO epic quests to get to epic level. It just happens when the staff decides you can go up to epic levels that you get a very special quest. The dm who does it digs deep into your character and does a very special quest just for them. And afterward they get one hell of an item specifically made just for them.

I then said like and epic quest and reward. They responded again. Oh No we would never do that.

By this time, I’m laughing behind my keyboard. Thinking ‘Ah-ha. You’re not going to pull the wool over my eyes. I’ve been doing this too long.’ It’s not a big deal. It is a system used by many pws. The only problem with it is you really, really have to be aware not to play favorites with a system like this because it’s hard not to. I know it’s one of the reasons my own server went down after 6 years.

Officially you can make 30th level but it will probably take quite a few years to do that, and I have not seen any 30th level yet. The highest level I have seen is the 23rd. Does it matter that much? For me, no. I’m all about the story and if I can play a character good enough to make a book from their adventures. It doesn’t matter at all. For power gamers or some others, it’s the whole world. So, if you are a power gamer this might not be the world for you.

Players as Dms:

Ok, ever since I started teaching players to use the dm client and dmfi wands: the first thing I have always said to them is never use your own pc in your adventures. The only reason to do this is if you are going to kill them off shortly or turn them into an NPC for the world. I’m pretty strong on that idea. Using your own pc to advance them while you dm is a huge no, no in my sort of philosophy on dming.

Thain sort of encourages this. I’ve been to quite a few of these events. They tend to be rather good, but again does it give some advantage to the dm/pc that’s running it in story or other thing. I’m not sure. I just recently ran an event for my own character just to experiment with this idea. I have to be somewhat open by trying this myself and experiencing it. Miwa threw a party and made some proclamations to help the big city there. It put her into a disadvantage because I knew her proclamations would have a backlash effect for her. However, I played her true with her sticking to her principles and world concepts.

I’m still not sure about the whole player being a dm thing. I have to say it’s ok if a player creates a character specifically to be a npc then take them off the server when the adventure is done. I think that s ok. I may try that in the future working with a dm. I even have a story. I still don’t think it’s a good idea to advance your own character’s story through your own dming. However, Thain is not your average server, and you have to be open to new ideas. I will go to many of these events and really look at what’s going on and the general effect of the events afterward.

Last overall perception.

Thain has been around forever and has stuck ‘in my opinion’ to its foundational roots and ideas. I have never seen this happen before on an old server, especially one as old as this one. I think it’s one of the best rp servers out there. They cater to all types of play and have plenty of hack and slash dungeons. Is it for everyone? I would have to say No. Power gamers especially will be frustrated by the server eventually with all the things you need to do to make epic levels. Admins and Dms are easy going and creative ( huge, huge bonus) Players are also very easy going. You won’t find any WOKE Karens here like you would in Narfell. There are no lore police. They do not play favorites for the most part.

Yes. One of the best servers overall that I have found. Can it improve. Technically yes especially with tilesets and building. I am greatly enthused to continue my journey here. It’s a great server with some wonderful people.

[Winterhawk99]

I'm adding something about housing. This must be brand new, and I have not seen it yet so do not know if it is true or not. However, in fairness and good faith the player sent me this update to Thain's housing. So I'm adding it as an addendum:

A long-awaited feature, players who have earned over 300 faction points with their allied faction (as well as epic characters) can now go to their faction representative and request to be granted land. This will provide the player with a single TFS House Key.

The TFS House Key can be used anywhere within your faction’s lands to create an instance portal to a custom area you choose, based on a set of possible templates.

You can put up to a maximum number of placeables within your house. Using the key and selecting the Save option will save these placeables persistently. You can then re-create the entrance after a restart to get a persistent instanced house build for your character. The house can be reloaded each restart, or deleted and re-created as the player chooses.

Of course, these house-instances can be used in a variety of ways - houses, shops, player events. The system is designed to encourage creativity within your faction, so we’re looking forward to seeing what players may decide to do with them.