Amia
Part I
Amia is one of the largest in both population and server size that I have ever been on. I also believe it a very old server as I seem to remember it back in the days when Harvest Moon, Anchorome and Bastions of war were the big servers on the original Bioware boards. Does it really need a review? Probably not with its healthy population but it can always be improved. So, I’ll do this. I’ve been on the server for several months now while Adalee is going from beta to a real server.
Now when a player comes into a game there is usually a sort of honeymoon period where everything is fine as a player plays more on it, they start to figure out things about the population, Dm’s and administration. There have been times when I did past reviews that I missed important things and have been wrong. Hopefully I have past this honeymoon period and have a good grasp on the real deal of Amia. As usual I will start with the build and technical stuff on the server and then go to other matters such as players, Dms, community feel and other things. So, let’s start with the build.
This is a huge server. They use a good number of tilesets including 666’s forest tileset that I helped him with. That brought back a little bit of nostalgia for me. I did not really check hard if they used any of my gentle hills tilesets but they most likely did in some capacity especially my winter tiles. It’s a very clean build area to area and I found no suspension of disbelief moving from one to the other. Hills, mountains, streams, rivers and seashores generally match. Amia builders handle terrain very well in this regard.
They also have tunnels in several areas that connect with other areas to help in move around the server. As far as transportation they also have several means for this. One of your first quests will give you the opportunity to gain a recall stone that can be set to an area you want to call home. They also have a cart and ship system of transport along with a magic lantern system to teleport you to 6 or 7 areas rather far away in different kingdoms. Transportation is definitely not an issue on this server.
So, the way Amia seems to be set up is that there is a huge main island in the western sea. There is one main island and several smaller ones in the north and south. I believe it is supposed to be off the coast of Anchorome and stretch down to the sands of Izcala by my dead reckoning because the southern islands are tropical. The northern islands seem to stretch all the way up to the sub-artic which would put Evermeet close to the main island or its northern chain. It is much like Kozakura in its geography but with a western flavor all of its own. There is also a portal that takes you halfway around the world to the island of Khem in the Alamber sea off the coast of Mulhorand. That’s where you have a more Egyptian flavor.
There are two flaws I see in the building. One is minor and is for the most part ok but can be improved upon. It is the area lighting, ambient lighting and fog. And tile lighting which I will go over here. The other flaw I see is a major flaw in their building that I see over and over again. Its about encounter spawn triggers and spawn points. This is covered everywhere you see a building tutorial including the lexicon and the omnibus. Amia builders really need to clean this one up. I died several times by bad spawn point placement and had great advantage other times by being able to see enemies spawning in rooms. I’ll talk more about encounters later.
The outside areas are for the most part like many pws that I have been to. Most but not all areas tend to be a bit lackluster without full use of enhancements like lighting to set mood. There are few placeables for the most part. Most placeables are in fact resources for their Job system. At least on outside areas I have not seem much full use of lighting, ambient lighting, fog. I have not seen any tile magic, placeable tiles, no use of Gaogeng’s pentagrams and summoning circles and very few Pittsburgh effect ‘Wow!’ areas. I’m not even sure if the builders know there is lighting underneath every tile that you can change too. There are a few exceptions though.
There’s this sort of vacation island with a tiki bar on it you can go to. From there you can take a rowboat to an island where there are yaun-ti. On this island you can go underwater and when you go down to swim with the turtles is where I really got that ‘WOW’ factor Pittsburgh effect that I was looking for. This underwater tileset was fantastic and the builder was exceptional in using every tool he could work with to his advantage. That is a stunning area. There are a few other outside areas that are like this but very few. In fact, there are a few really bad areas too where I think they overdo it especially with fog. Some of the swamps are terribly foggy where it is hard to see. And one dungeon where I had to turn down the gamma just to see what I’m doing. These areas need just a bit more tweaking, and they would be fine. In fact, some areas could be greatly improved and stepped up to carry over that wow factor with just a few adjustments in lighting. Most pws do fall into this problem though so I’m not so surprised.
Inside areas are a different story all together and this is where Amia really shines. Every inn is exceptionally original in its interior design. A lot of thought goes into where everything goes including some custom paintings. Where you really see this is in a place called Trimvir. There is a midnight theater there that is exceptional in all areas. Kudos to the builder. Also, inside areas in cities stick to the motif of their corresponding outside areas. Amia truly did an amazing job with its inside areas. I hope when they see this, they take a look at the outside areas and maybe do some adjusting to them. I have really enjoyed the atmosphere and aesthetics of Amias inside areas. They are much better at building these than I could ever be, however I have always been a better outside than inside builder.
Note: The full review may take me several more weeks due to other writing obligations. Please be patient.
Amia
-
Winterhawk99
- Posts: 2093
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Winterhawk99
- Posts: 2093
- Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2009 12:00 am
- ctp: Yes
- nwnihof: Yes
- Location: Pa.
- Contact:
Re: Amia
Ok, let’s talk about the bad stuff or the one thing Amia is very bad at then get to the good stuff and what Amia is really good at. We will go to encounters.
Encounters. Encounters have 4 main elements. They are.
1. Leveling
2. Reset timing
3. Where the encounter spawns in relation to the player or party
4. Numbers of creatures that spawn.
As far as leveling Amia does rather well. Your low-level quests and areas tend to favor the player slightly to make up for the weakness of support characters. That scale goes up to no favor at mid-levels and at the highest levels Amia heavily favors the monsters. At your highest levels which is 25-30th You need a good group to kill the epic bad guy in a dungeon. Amia nails it here.
Numbers of creatures that spawn tend to be mostly fair in Amia. I never struggled hard with numbers of creatures as long as their level matched my own pc’s. I’ll give Amia a b+ on that.
Reset timing. There have been times where reset timing was somewhat off. The spider dungeon is where it is most prominent. I usually set my reset time to about ½ hour or 45 minutes depending on dungeon. Amia does well in some of these but not so well in others. They need to feel the size of the dungeon a bit more and estimate how fast the players can go through and get back if they don’t have a portal or out at the end. In other words, just a bit of tweaking here would be good for the server.
Lastly spawn points and triggers the heart of the 3rd element. When my character was 8th level, she had just become a shadow dancer and was exploring the world. She went down to a sort of small vacation island looking for coconuts. This little island has a tiki bar and is a nice place to relax. There’s a little tender (dingy there) you can take to an island filled with yaun-ti. I didn’t know what was at the other end at the time, so I took it to the other island.
My character hid in plain sight and was exploring the beach when she hit a trigger. 5 to 6 yaun-ti of somewhere around 15-20th level spawned in surrounding her as if my character was standing at the spawn point. They were completely surrounding her shoulder to shoulder. Basically, my pc had no chance for escape and being that close at that level the yaun-ti were bound to see her. It took less than a round for them to kill her.
After this encounter I started seeing bad set ups for spawn points and triggers all over the place. Now, there is some circumstances putting a spawn point right near a character is ok. Like in Amia’s gibberling dungeon where they come up from the ground surrounding characters. Also, there is no problem with an encounter of creatures like thieves, shadow dancers and assassins spawning right next to or in front of you. However, in Amia it can be anything thing in any dungeon and that’s not so good.
Generally, players should not be able to see where creatures spawn. There are two reasons for this. First if it’s an encounter that there is no way a character can handle it gives them a place to escape to a safe place. Second if it’s not too high it should never players plenty of time to strategize how to take care of the encounter giving them a great advantage.
Amia really needs to go through their encounters area by area and take a look at their encounter triggers and spawn points adjusting when needed. The way I personally do it is I put most encounter triggers across the border of the entire area. When players walk into the area all encounters spawn right after the other so there are no spawn surprises. The builders of Amia might want to consider that technic as an alternative.
Now it's time to get to some things Amia really does well.
Encounters. Encounters have 4 main elements. They are.
1. Leveling
2. Reset timing
3. Where the encounter spawns in relation to the player or party
4. Numbers of creatures that spawn.
As far as leveling Amia does rather well. Your low-level quests and areas tend to favor the player slightly to make up for the weakness of support characters. That scale goes up to no favor at mid-levels and at the highest levels Amia heavily favors the monsters. At your highest levels which is 25-30th You need a good group to kill the epic bad guy in a dungeon. Amia nails it here.
Numbers of creatures that spawn tend to be mostly fair in Amia. I never struggled hard with numbers of creatures as long as their level matched my own pc’s. I’ll give Amia a b+ on that.
Reset timing. There have been times where reset timing was somewhat off. The spider dungeon is where it is most prominent. I usually set my reset time to about ½ hour or 45 minutes depending on dungeon. Amia does well in some of these but not so well in others. They need to feel the size of the dungeon a bit more and estimate how fast the players can go through and get back if they don’t have a portal or out at the end. In other words, just a bit of tweaking here would be good for the server.
Lastly spawn points and triggers the heart of the 3rd element. When my character was 8th level, she had just become a shadow dancer and was exploring the world. She went down to a sort of small vacation island looking for coconuts. This little island has a tiki bar and is a nice place to relax. There’s a little tender (dingy there) you can take to an island filled with yaun-ti. I didn’t know what was at the other end at the time, so I took it to the other island.
My character hid in plain sight and was exploring the beach when she hit a trigger. 5 to 6 yaun-ti of somewhere around 15-20th level spawned in surrounding her as if my character was standing at the spawn point. They were completely surrounding her shoulder to shoulder. Basically, my pc had no chance for escape and being that close at that level the yaun-ti were bound to see her. It took less than a round for them to kill her.
After this encounter I started seeing bad set ups for spawn points and triggers all over the place. Now, there is some circumstances putting a spawn point right near a character is ok. Like in Amia’s gibberling dungeon where they come up from the ground surrounding characters. Also, there is no problem with an encounter of creatures like thieves, shadow dancers and assassins spawning right next to or in front of you. However, in Amia it can be anything thing in any dungeon and that’s not so good.
Generally, players should not be able to see where creatures spawn. There are two reasons for this. First if it’s an encounter that there is no way a character can handle it gives them a place to escape to a safe place. Second if it’s not too high it should never players plenty of time to strategize how to take care of the encounter giving them a great advantage.
Amia really needs to go through their encounters area by area and take a look at their encounter triggers and spawn points adjusting when needed. The way I personally do it is I put most encounter triggers across the border of the entire area. When players walk into the area all encounters spawn right after the other so there are no spawn surprises. The builders of Amia might want to consider that technic as an alternative.
Now it's time to get to some things Amia really does well.
-
Winterhawk99
- Posts: 2093
- Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2009 12:00 am
- ctp: Yes
- nwnihof: Yes
- Location: Pa.
- Contact:
Re: Amia
Let’s talk about custom content, Modeling, textures, placeables, creatures and tilesets oh my! I have not been perusing the vault very much in the last decade or so but still I find lots and lots of custom content in Amia. It seems this server has its own crew of modelers. That’s very rare and delightful to someone who once made tilesets and custom content. So, if it is true and this isn’t all packaged stuff from the vault how are they doing? Good question, and the answer is absolutely wonderfully.
I see things from simple color changes of textures like I did for Fester Pot with the butterfly placeables to full placeable and creature models. You see it in your inventory such as bags of holding. On the walls on interiors in the form of paintings you see a lot of it and all it is amazingly good. Not only that the builders use the placeable models quite tastefully in their building. I have not seen much in the way of tilesets (maybe some small addition tiles in a few places) but tilesets are a whole new creature that take a lot more work to get right. You will also see many, many new custom creatures here and some players have some very interesting custom adaptations for race. All of this is worked out very nicely I didn’t even see any major issues with shadows here.
I will say this about the custom content makers on Amia. If the CTP team were still up and running, I would get Dm Mask to heavily recruit Amia’s custom content makers for the team. There may have been even a few q-team or prc members that did some modeling for them from the looks of it. Wonderful job on all the nicely detailed custom content.
Quests is another story all together. The way Amia seems to handle quests is quests are there to get you up to level 30 so you can rp. Now most quests are centered around the neutral starting area. Not all of them but many are. Players have a whole system for going through each one. You start in the Wave do all surrounding quest. That’s where you will find the most. Then up to the Dale to the troll quest and spider quest shoot over to Riverwood and do those quests and wind up in Moonpier to do that quest wa-la your 20th level and can start doing epic quests. It’s a very defined list as one player showed me.
I was kind of upset with that. Amia is a very large and political server. You can start at a good, neutral, evil point or even an elven or halfing city if you like. So, to funnel quests like they do makes it all very mundane and sort of throws you out of the suspension of disbelief. Now a lot of servers do this, but I think with Amia’s talent they can do much better and have 4 or 5 quests in each starting location. Have a couple of good quests in ft Crystana, Gregorys point, The obsidian island for low and mid-level characters. That way not every character is doing every quest like it’s a routine. And each character can have different experiences with quests.
Another drawback is that Amia doesn’t do party quests. Which is kind of sad with their level of scripting ability and its very simple:
//:://////////////////////////////////////////////
//:://////////////////////////////////////////////
//:: Created By: Winterhawk99
//:: Created On: 12/28/2008 1:11 am
//:://////////////////////////////////////////////
#include "aps_include"
void main()
{
object oPC = GetPCSpeaker();
string sQuest = "06_Dwarfquest";
int iState = 1;
object oPal = GetFirstFactionMember(oPC);
while (GetIsObjectValid(oPal))
{
if (GetArea(oPal) == GetArea(oPC) && GetPersistentInt(oPal, sQuest) == 0)
{
SetPersistentInt(oPal, sQuest, iState);
AddJournalQuestEntry(sQuest, iState, oPal, FALSE);
}
oPal = GetNextFactionMember(oPC);
{
{
Or if you do not store integers on pcs do this:
void main()
{
object oPC = GetPCSpeaker();
string sQuest = "06_SpinQuest";
int iState = 25;
object oPal = GetFirstFactionMember(oPC);
while (GetIsObjectValid(oPal))
{
if (GetArea(oPal) == GetArea(oPC) && GetLocalInt(oPal, sQuest) == 0)
{
SetLocalInt(oPal, sQuest, iState);
AddJournalQuestEntry(sQuest, iState, oPal, FALSE);
}
oPal = GetNextFactionMember(oPC);
}
}
There’s no reason not to include all party members on quests on Amia because they really do have a decent number of them to get someone to 20th level. So, the two big things are adding quests to other starting areas and include party members to quests.
The quests are also fairly straight forward singular quests. That’s ok but Amia can do better here too with the talent they have. Put a book or a map in the dungeon that leads to another quest and buried treasure. Have a few branching or interlaced quests where you do all the minor quests to get items to complete a grand quest in the end. I did this for Netheril, the age of discovery back about 3 or 4 years ago for them and they loved it.
Amia does have a saving grace to the usually boring singular quests to get your levels that most servers have. They place people and things in their dungeons so that people can use their skills. Now that is a very neat idea. You’ll be doing a quest in a dungeon and happen on a wounded adventurer. You can use your heal skill and if you make it, he gives you a bag of gold. You find barriers to empty rooms with ancient treasure chests in them you have to find a way through the barrier by pushing, using your spellcraft, or hitting it with the right elemental weapon. There are knowledgeable adventures you have to persuade, and they show you a secret door. Cryptic doors that need a certain lock picking skill.
All these little things do add some fun for the player, and they are really neat ideas I would have never thought of before. In this Amia takes the humdrum quest for leveling to another level. Still, I would suggest the above:
1. Adding quests to other start areas for more flavor and give the world more depth
2. Changing quest scripts to include party
3. Add layered, interlaced and branching quests which will make Amia a top-notch questing server.
Still after you have completed all the quests that can be done with one or two people you should be into the epic levels. Which I think is the goal of Amia’s staff. So, it works, but it could be so, so much better with the space and talent that Amia’s builders and staff have.
I see things from simple color changes of textures like I did for Fester Pot with the butterfly placeables to full placeable and creature models. You see it in your inventory such as bags of holding. On the walls on interiors in the form of paintings you see a lot of it and all it is amazingly good. Not only that the builders use the placeable models quite tastefully in their building. I have not seen much in the way of tilesets (maybe some small addition tiles in a few places) but tilesets are a whole new creature that take a lot more work to get right. You will also see many, many new custom creatures here and some players have some very interesting custom adaptations for race. All of this is worked out very nicely I didn’t even see any major issues with shadows here.
I will say this about the custom content makers on Amia. If the CTP team were still up and running, I would get Dm Mask to heavily recruit Amia’s custom content makers for the team. There may have been even a few q-team or prc members that did some modeling for them from the looks of it. Wonderful job on all the nicely detailed custom content.
Quests is another story all together. The way Amia seems to handle quests is quests are there to get you up to level 30 so you can rp. Now most quests are centered around the neutral starting area. Not all of them but many are. Players have a whole system for going through each one. You start in the Wave do all surrounding quest. That’s where you will find the most. Then up to the Dale to the troll quest and spider quest shoot over to Riverwood and do those quests and wind up in Moonpier to do that quest wa-la your 20th level and can start doing epic quests. It’s a very defined list as one player showed me.
I was kind of upset with that. Amia is a very large and political server. You can start at a good, neutral, evil point or even an elven or halfing city if you like. So, to funnel quests like they do makes it all very mundane and sort of throws you out of the suspension of disbelief. Now a lot of servers do this, but I think with Amia’s talent they can do much better and have 4 or 5 quests in each starting location. Have a couple of good quests in ft Crystana, Gregorys point, The obsidian island for low and mid-level characters. That way not every character is doing every quest like it’s a routine. And each character can have different experiences with quests.
Another drawback is that Amia doesn’t do party quests. Which is kind of sad with their level of scripting ability and its very simple:
//:://////////////////////////////////////////////
//:://////////////////////////////////////////////
//:: Created By: Winterhawk99
//:: Created On: 12/28/2008 1:11 am
//:://////////////////////////////////////////////
#include "aps_include"
void main()
{
object oPC = GetPCSpeaker();
string sQuest = "06_Dwarfquest";
int iState = 1;
object oPal = GetFirstFactionMember(oPC);
while (GetIsObjectValid(oPal))
{
if (GetArea(oPal) == GetArea(oPC) && GetPersistentInt(oPal, sQuest) == 0)
{
SetPersistentInt(oPal, sQuest, iState);
AddJournalQuestEntry(sQuest, iState, oPal, FALSE);
}
oPal = GetNextFactionMember(oPC);
{
{
Or if you do not store integers on pcs do this:
void main()
{
object oPC = GetPCSpeaker();
string sQuest = "06_SpinQuest";
int iState = 25;
object oPal = GetFirstFactionMember(oPC);
while (GetIsObjectValid(oPal))
{
if (GetArea(oPal) == GetArea(oPC) && GetLocalInt(oPal, sQuest) == 0)
{
SetLocalInt(oPal, sQuest, iState);
AddJournalQuestEntry(sQuest, iState, oPal, FALSE);
}
oPal = GetNextFactionMember(oPC);
}
}
There’s no reason not to include all party members on quests on Amia because they really do have a decent number of them to get someone to 20th level. So, the two big things are adding quests to other starting areas and include party members to quests.
The quests are also fairly straight forward singular quests. That’s ok but Amia can do better here too with the talent they have. Put a book or a map in the dungeon that leads to another quest and buried treasure. Have a few branching or interlaced quests where you do all the minor quests to get items to complete a grand quest in the end. I did this for Netheril, the age of discovery back about 3 or 4 years ago for them and they loved it.
Amia does have a saving grace to the usually boring singular quests to get your levels that most servers have. They place people and things in their dungeons so that people can use their skills. Now that is a very neat idea. You’ll be doing a quest in a dungeon and happen on a wounded adventurer. You can use your heal skill and if you make it, he gives you a bag of gold. You find barriers to empty rooms with ancient treasure chests in them you have to find a way through the barrier by pushing, using your spellcraft, or hitting it with the right elemental weapon. There are knowledgeable adventures you have to persuade, and they show you a secret door. Cryptic doors that need a certain lock picking skill.
All these little things do add some fun for the player, and they are really neat ideas I would have never thought of before. In this Amia takes the humdrum quest for leveling to another level. Still, I would suggest the above:
1. Adding quests to other start areas for more flavor and give the world more depth
2. Changing quest scripts to include party
3. Add layered, interlaced and branching quests which will make Amia a top-notch questing server.
Still after you have completed all the quests that can be done with one or two people you should be into the epic levels. Which I think is the goal of Amia’s staff. So, it works, but it could be so, so much better with the space and talent that Amia’s builders and staff have.
-
Winterhawk99
- Posts: 2093
- Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2009 12:00 am
- ctp: Yes
- nwnihof: Yes
- Location: Pa.
- Contact:
Re: Amia
The last parts of the technical side I will deal with are Leveling, The money system, Items, scripts and finally the Job system. The easiest of these to deal with is Leveling. And before I do anything else they do say that their quests go party wide and the times I was in a party, I must have been outside the perimeter of the quest giver. That could be I will test it out sometime again but the other things I said about quest I fully stand behind.
Leveling on Amia is not a big deal. Sorry Power gamers, this really isn’t a persistent world for you. You will gain levels fast. In fact, if you’re dedicated you can get to level 30 (the maximum level for this server) in a few weeks. I think that Amia staff set it up this way just to get it over with so players can focus on their role play after they reach maximum level. Once you hit 30th level the real fun starts. I think the staff has the idea to take a look at what you are doing in quests and how you deal with various situations to see how you are as a role player. Once you hit 30th level they seem to be more willing to deal with you as a player. Instead of someone just checking out the server before moving on.
The Money system: The money system is really weird and super inflated but strangely works. You will get all kinds of money for all sorts of things. The shops will buy a coconut from you for 250 gold. But then again you spend a lot of money too. Some shops charge 100,000 for a bag of holding or 250,000 gold for a +4 amulet of protection. It reminds me of the good old days when I was stationed in Europe and traveling around on 3 day passes or even on leave. 2,000 Spanish pesetas were like a buck and 2,000 Italian lira was a buck 50 or something. I was in Amsterdam too but don’t remember it and came out completely broke after doing some window shopping. You can have 2 million in coin and go broke on the same day. I know. I managed to do that, Ha. So, the economy works.
As far as banks go. I have not found one yet. I’m not sure they have them. They might but I’m not so sure. They do have storage, and I imagine you can dump 2 or 3 million in coin there if you like.
Item Smurfs will love Amia. They have lots and lots of custom items. You can also have a bunch of pets too custom made for you. The only downside to items is quest items. There are lots of quests where you pick up an item. A lot of them are marked stolen or unpurchasable and you can’t sell them. I’ve heard of a shop that may buy them, but they seem hard to get too. I have not checked the fences yet to see if they buy them. They might. My pc is a ranger/shadow dancer and as a shadow dancer she does get access to fences even though she isn’t a thief. But currently she has 3 fire king belts that she hasn’t been able to sell yet at any of the regular merchants. You can order special items from the dms. They probably have a standardized form for that. I’ll get to what I call the local DMV later when I do the people phase of the server. But you can also have epic items made by your fellow pcs. Custom and tailored made just for you. You just have to find a person with the right trade and get the right materials. So, you can bypass the dms on your epic stuff.
They have some unique items I’ve never seen before. A lot of them really neat ideas. Theres a potion you can find that if you use it will bring people out of sanctuary around you. There are boxes that give you epic protection against a certain element for a very long time. golem dolls that come to life as little mini-mes. Really neat stuff. Those who adventure for items will have a hey-day playing Amia.
We have come to the Job system. I will say the same thing every time I get to this part. I hate job systems. I’ve been a professional gunsmith working for high end sporting shotgun manufacturers since 1992. At least ½ the jobs in any pw job system I could be doing on any given day for real. Metal work, forging, woodwork, leather work, felt linings for gun cases, alchemy mixing chemicals chemically altering steels in various ways. I can gut and quarter a whitetail or a boar hog inside of 20 minutes and strip any bird inside 10 minutes and make a longbow or crossbow in a few days except for finish drying time. Why the hell would I get off 10 days of work to play a game where I’m freaking doing my job again!
Still, I had to so to do a good review and Amia has a custom job system that isn’t half as bad as the standard system on the vault. The great thing about Amia’s job system is it will not load you down like the standardized system on the vault. You pick two jobs. My character is a ranger, so I picked hunter trapper. And she was trained by elves. So, I picked as a secondary job bowyer/fletcher (range weapons maker). There are no levels. You don’t really advance in your job. You get a strict percentage chance to make something or gather something. 60% outside your chosen field, 75% for your secondary field and 100% for your primary field. That is to gather and to make things. My character has a 75% chance to make a ranged weapon it will never go up or down. She has 100% chance to be successful on a big game hunt.
They have hunting guides and if you don’t have hunter as your primary, you get a percentage chance for them to successfully take you on a big game hunt. So, it’s a simple system that doesn’t bog a character down with leveling and other crap. I like it. My own character has become quiet the successful hunter gatherer and now I have to keep a list of client pcs that need something for me. When I come back from work, I have to fill a long contract for a monastery, gather 100 shadowtop logs and 50 marble stone for another client and deliver a colossal snake skeleton to another client pc. The resources placement for the job system are all placed well too.
I found 1 or 2 resources that were inaccessible due to placement right on the edge of a walkmesh with their access arrow (that’s a builder thing) pointed in the wrong direction so there was no access to that resource. There is another resource (a truffle) between two trees where my pc lives where the trees are too close together and the truffle is hard to access because the trees make the walkable mesh extremely narrow. Being just how large this server is. I don’t consider that a big thing.
The fact that someone who absolutely HATES job systems likes this job system says it all. At minimum it does take you all over the server and at low times when there are few people on it gives you something to do without too many headaches is a good thing. Bravo staff of Amia.
Scripting: I’m not going to say too much about scripting on Amia other than it works really well generally. I always keep an eye on the right-side screen for any errors. Especially To Much Information errors (broken infinite loops). I never say anything. They do not use Tony’s or Jasperre’s Ai. They use Disco Ai.
I always wondered why the bad guys took off their cloaks and swung them above their heads while wiggling their hips before they attacked you on this server. Now I know. The guy that made their Ai must have had the handle of Disco. I have seen no outright errors on any other systems scripting so I’m pretty happy about that. The scripts run smoothy and they work.
Just general notes: I have had a few pathfinding issues here and there. That is normal though. I had another general note on the tech side but……I forgot…. I’m over 50. Sometimes I have memory issues and sometimes a fart isn’t just a fart now days so forgive me.
The next part is about the People, Dm, Staff, the way the server is run, and two morons that meta-gamed me quite consciously and very much on purpose……….I will be calling out those two (place another word here) gentlemen out in front of the whole community because I’m tired of keeping silent over bad players like these two just about every server I’ve been on. These are players whose sole purpose is to stick their pencil in everyone else’s ears to get their kicks and I’m tired of it.
Leveling on Amia is not a big deal. Sorry Power gamers, this really isn’t a persistent world for you. You will gain levels fast. In fact, if you’re dedicated you can get to level 30 (the maximum level for this server) in a few weeks. I think that Amia staff set it up this way just to get it over with so players can focus on their role play after they reach maximum level. Once you hit 30th level the real fun starts. I think the staff has the idea to take a look at what you are doing in quests and how you deal with various situations to see how you are as a role player. Once you hit 30th level they seem to be more willing to deal with you as a player. Instead of someone just checking out the server before moving on.
The Money system: The money system is really weird and super inflated but strangely works. You will get all kinds of money for all sorts of things. The shops will buy a coconut from you for 250 gold. But then again you spend a lot of money too. Some shops charge 100,000 for a bag of holding or 250,000 gold for a +4 amulet of protection. It reminds me of the good old days when I was stationed in Europe and traveling around on 3 day passes or even on leave. 2,000 Spanish pesetas were like a buck and 2,000 Italian lira was a buck 50 or something. I was in Amsterdam too but don’t remember it and came out completely broke after doing some window shopping. You can have 2 million in coin and go broke on the same day. I know. I managed to do that, Ha. So, the economy works.
As far as banks go. I have not found one yet. I’m not sure they have them. They might but I’m not so sure. They do have storage, and I imagine you can dump 2 or 3 million in coin there if you like.
Item Smurfs will love Amia. They have lots and lots of custom items. You can also have a bunch of pets too custom made for you. The only downside to items is quest items. There are lots of quests where you pick up an item. A lot of them are marked stolen or unpurchasable and you can’t sell them. I’ve heard of a shop that may buy them, but they seem hard to get too. I have not checked the fences yet to see if they buy them. They might. My pc is a ranger/shadow dancer and as a shadow dancer she does get access to fences even though she isn’t a thief. But currently she has 3 fire king belts that she hasn’t been able to sell yet at any of the regular merchants. You can order special items from the dms. They probably have a standardized form for that. I’ll get to what I call the local DMV later when I do the people phase of the server. But you can also have epic items made by your fellow pcs. Custom and tailored made just for you. You just have to find a person with the right trade and get the right materials. So, you can bypass the dms on your epic stuff.
They have some unique items I’ve never seen before. A lot of them really neat ideas. Theres a potion you can find that if you use it will bring people out of sanctuary around you. There are boxes that give you epic protection against a certain element for a very long time. golem dolls that come to life as little mini-mes. Really neat stuff. Those who adventure for items will have a hey-day playing Amia.
We have come to the Job system. I will say the same thing every time I get to this part. I hate job systems. I’ve been a professional gunsmith working for high end sporting shotgun manufacturers since 1992. At least ½ the jobs in any pw job system I could be doing on any given day for real. Metal work, forging, woodwork, leather work, felt linings for gun cases, alchemy mixing chemicals chemically altering steels in various ways. I can gut and quarter a whitetail or a boar hog inside of 20 minutes and strip any bird inside 10 minutes and make a longbow or crossbow in a few days except for finish drying time. Why the hell would I get off 10 days of work to play a game where I’m freaking doing my job again!
Still, I had to so to do a good review and Amia has a custom job system that isn’t half as bad as the standard system on the vault. The great thing about Amia’s job system is it will not load you down like the standardized system on the vault. You pick two jobs. My character is a ranger, so I picked hunter trapper. And she was trained by elves. So, I picked as a secondary job bowyer/fletcher (range weapons maker). There are no levels. You don’t really advance in your job. You get a strict percentage chance to make something or gather something. 60% outside your chosen field, 75% for your secondary field and 100% for your primary field. That is to gather and to make things. My character has a 75% chance to make a ranged weapon it will never go up or down. She has 100% chance to be successful on a big game hunt.
They have hunting guides and if you don’t have hunter as your primary, you get a percentage chance for them to successfully take you on a big game hunt. So, it’s a simple system that doesn’t bog a character down with leveling and other crap. I like it. My own character has become quiet the successful hunter gatherer and now I have to keep a list of client pcs that need something for me. When I come back from work, I have to fill a long contract for a monastery, gather 100 shadowtop logs and 50 marble stone for another client and deliver a colossal snake skeleton to another client pc. The resources placement for the job system are all placed well too.
I found 1 or 2 resources that were inaccessible due to placement right on the edge of a walkmesh with their access arrow (that’s a builder thing) pointed in the wrong direction so there was no access to that resource. There is another resource (a truffle) between two trees where my pc lives where the trees are too close together and the truffle is hard to access because the trees make the walkable mesh extremely narrow. Being just how large this server is. I don’t consider that a big thing.
The fact that someone who absolutely HATES job systems likes this job system says it all. At minimum it does take you all over the server and at low times when there are few people on it gives you something to do without too many headaches is a good thing. Bravo staff of Amia.
Scripting: I’m not going to say too much about scripting on Amia other than it works really well generally. I always keep an eye on the right-side screen for any errors. Especially To Much Information errors (broken infinite loops). I never say anything. They do not use Tony’s or Jasperre’s Ai. They use Disco Ai.
I always wondered why the bad guys took off their cloaks and swung them above their heads while wiggling their hips before they attacked you on this server. Now I know. The guy that made their Ai must have had the handle of Disco. I have seen no outright errors on any other systems scripting so I’m pretty happy about that. The scripts run smoothy and they work.
Just general notes: I have had a few pathfinding issues here and there. That is normal though. I had another general note on the tech side but……I forgot…. I’m over 50. Sometimes I have memory issues and sometimes a fart isn’t just a fart now days so forgive me.
The next part is about the People, Dm, Staff, the way the server is run, and two morons that meta-gamed me quite consciously and very much on purpose……….I will be calling out those two (place another word here) gentlemen out in front of the whole community because I’m tired of keeping silent over bad players like these two just about every server I’ve been on. These are players whose sole purpose is to stick their pencil in everyone else’s ears to get their kicks and I’m tired of it.
-
Winterhawk99
- Posts: 2093
- Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2009 12:00 am
- ctp: Yes
- nwnihof: Yes
- Location: Pa.
- Contact:
Re: Amia
Review of the Amia persistent world Part 2
Now that the Tech stuff is over. I can move on to the people, dms and server stuff. I think I will start with a bit of a story here. The first thing I did when looking at Amia was approach a potential character to a dm. It was Brath. He was my first test for the dms.
Most people know that I have a Torilian world history just like Robert Heinlein did. My characters twist and turn around each other through the centuries so I can eventually write books about them. One of my base characters is Fawn (Sierra) She’s in my first novel. She is an Irda (a high ogre of Krynn born on the astral plane) Her parents put her on Anchorome as a test but died and she was stranded on Toril for a time. She had her valin and got pregnant and thus Brath was born. I played Brath for a while on Island of Thain. His soul purpose in life is to find every fishing hole on Toril and write books about them. He’s also both a wizard and sorcerer so is about worthless as an adventurer. So, I presented him to the dm and they said no way: only races of Toril. That’s fair enough and I was ok with that. I always use Brath as a test though to get an initial feel for dm responses. He rarely gets accepted and should only rarely be accepted. I plan on playing Brath on the Krynn server soon.
So, I made Arelush. Anyone that has read my novel ‘The Life and Times of Lauriella Sithmore’ know who Arelush is. She’s Lauriella’s cabin girl that when into the future with Lauri’s crew. She’s dumb as a rock but wise as an owl. Think uneducated sharecropper with a massive amount common sense. She’s just a regular old Mulhorandi slave girl that Lauri freed and made her cabin girl in Netheril nothing to shock the dms or anything.
After playing her for about 2 weeks someone comes on my discord. He says something like. I see you playing on Amia. You need to get on the forums and on their discord. Now I don’t like to get on others discord or forums unless I absolutely have to. I have my own forums and can write my stories there. He still insisted and said to me something like this. If you don’t get on the forums or discord the dms will never pay attention to you. I thought to myself, ‘Haam, this will have to be tested.’ So, I begrudgingly do it. Mostly because I need to for the review.
I get on their discord and on the forums. When I get on the forums I have a surprise waiting for me. Amia is the most aggressive pw I have ever seen about donations. They have a little colored donation bar on the top of their forums showing Monthly Donation goals and at what percentage they at. And I’m going, “Haam.” I’ve been watching that since I’ve been on and I’m figuring they are raking in between 1300 to 1500 buckeroos every year.
I’ve never seen this before, but immediately figured out that Amia has a donner class of players. So players are worked into 3 tiers.
1. Those that donate to the server will get the most Dm attention
2. Those that are on the forums and discord will get some attention
3. The Lower class that do neither that the dms wont pay any attention to.
No matter how altruistic a staff is, if there are regular donners to any endeavor, they are taken care of first (Every time and in every situation). And we already know that players not donating are divided into two groups. I have tested this, and it has proven true at least for number 2 and 3. That I will get to next.
Now this begs a giant question: Is this a legitimate way to run a NWN server? I say, yes, it is. I’ve been a libertarian since I could vote in 1985 and think that this is indeed a legitimate way to run an Nwn server. I worked for probably over a dozen PWs over the years in some capacity and if I got a few bucks for my work every now and then I would be ecstatic. Now they say its for server hosting fees and that may be true. For my site domain and hosting I pay about 275 a year and when I ran my own pw I had a dedicated computer in my home that ran it so I paid nothing other than the cost of a computer. I do not know how much a server hosting fee costs. But if the builders and admins get a little here and there. I say more power to them.
I just want to make the circumstances clear to my readers (Because it would be irresponsible not to) that this is the situation. If you would like to play on Amia decide beforehand at what level, you want to play at. If you want full attention, you’ll probably want to throw 20 or 30 bucks in the pot. If you want some consideration, you’ll have to get on their discord and forums. If you don’t care about dms at all, hey Amia can be just as fun to play because of the community.
Now you're asking, “How did Winter test this?” Easy enough. I am a proud class 2 citizen of Amia. I am on the forums and on discord but do not donate. (I figured I’ve already given 24 years to NWN that’s enough donation for me.) So, I had to find a member of this lower class. And Ladies and gentlemen I did just that. I found a very nice member of the lower-class player that isn’t on the forums or discord. He plays a monk, and we came up with a cunning plan.
You can request for dms to dm you. So, I did twice. They gave me a standardized form to fill out. A standardized form for a NWN Pw? Am I at the DMV in New York city or playing an NWN persistent world? I’ll get to that later. I filled them out twice and put the first up.
The first one centered on the Mulhorandi temple that in a dilapidated ruin. We came up with lets restore it. That was a quest centered around my character. Now, I already knew that we could just rp something like this, but its always good to put in a request for the dms to let them know what you’re doing or planning and at least get an ok especially in restoring something like a temple. So, we did.
A dm contacted me in discord. They said the temple is already slated to be renovated and the djinn wives are already slated to work on it. The dm said You are perfectly fine to do this without a dm. So that’s what we did. We rped a deal with the wives so that they do the background work and my partner, and I do the painting of the hieroglyphics. That way my character could teach the other character how to speak, read and write in Mulan.
By the way, the Dm was very polite. They did treat me like a customer. I like that, so they passed my politeness and player is a customer test.
So since we were told to just go ahead and rp it we did. It would have been great to have a dm there to get creative and throw a wrench in our plans. If I were a dm I would have the djinn wives introduce guardian mummies into the temple and smile as Arelush and the monk ‘discuss’ the propriety of undead in a temple. Arelush is Mulhorandi its normal for her. the monk is a monk of Ilmater. He would have way different feeling about that. Or maybe a priest of Set had set up at the temple below them and comes up to pee on Horus-re’s statue every morning. Arelush and mr. Monk catch him at his game and there is an rp session around that and maybe a fight. Lots you can do as a dm if you are creative. But it was not to be.
Now it comes down to my partner’s quest. I told the Dm that interviewed me for my quest directly that because we could rp this on our own. I was going to put his quest in for the same time slot so perhaps we could have a dm quest after all.
His quest was about going to a city in Mulhorand, and he wanted to speak to a priest or priestess of Horus-Ra. Very easy quest. It may have needed a temple or city area, but the important part was this quest absolutely needed a dm to be a priest or priestess of Horus-Ra. I put in my standardized dm request form for the same time explaining the adventure. I was met with the sound of silence. Not a whimper came out of the dms on this adventure, and I still have the request form on my inbox to remind me of it.
Thus, I have proved the player tier system of at least the divide between those on the forums and discord and those who are not. And like I said. If you have any donners in any endeavor. They are absolutely, every time, taken care of first. That’s reality folks.
Next, I will write about the player's community.
Now that the Tech stuff is over. I can move on to the people, dms and server stuff. I think I will start with a bit of a story here. The first thing I did when looking at Amia was approach a potential character to a dm. It was Brath. He was my first test for the dms.
Most people know that I have a Torilian world history just like Robert Heinlein did. My characters twist and turn around each other through the centuries so I can eventually write books about them. One of my base characters is Fawn (Sierra) She’s in my first novel. She is an Irda (a high ogre of Krynn born on the astral plane) Her parents put her on Anchorome as a test but died and she was stranded on Toril for a time. She had her valin and got pregnant and thus Brath was born. I played Brath for a while on Island of Thain. His soul purpose in life is to find every fishing hole on Toril and write books about them. He’s also both a wizard and sorcerer so is about worthless as an adventurer. So, I presented him to the dm and they said no way: only races of Toril. That’s fair enough and I was ok with that. I always use Brath as a test though to get an initial feel for dm responses. He rarely gets accepted and should only rarely be accepted. I plan on playing Brath on the Krynn server soon.
So, I made Arelush. Anyone that has read my novel ‘The Life and Times of Lauriella Sithmore’ know who Arelush is. She’s Lauriella’s cabin girl that when into the future with Lauri’s crew. She’s dumb as a rock but wise as an owl. Think uneducated sharecropper with a massive amount common sense. She’s just a regular old Mulhorandi slave girl that Lauri freed and made her cabin girl in Netheril nothing to shock the dms or anything.
After playing her for about 2 weeks someone comes on my discord. He says something like. I see you playing on Amia. You need to get on the forums and on their discord. Now I don’t like to get on others discord or forums unless I absolutely have to. I have my own forums and can write my stories there. He still insisted and said to me something like this. If you don’t get on the forums or discord the dms will never pay attention to you. I thought to myself, ‘Haam, this will have to be tested.’ So, I begrudgingly do it. Mostly because I need to for the review.
I get on their discord and on the forums. When I get on the forums I have a surprise waiting for me. Amia is the most aggressive pw I have ever seen about donations. They have a little colored donation bar on the top of their forums showing Monthly Donation goals and at what percentage they at. And I’m going, “Haam.” I’ve been watching that since I’ve been on and I’m figuring they are raking in between 1300 to 1500 buckeroos every year.
I’ve never seen this before, but immediately figured out that Amia has a donner class of players. So players are worked into 3 tiers.
1. Those that donate to the server will get the most Dm attention
2. Those that are on the forums and discord will get some attention
3. The Lower class that do neither that the dms wont pay any attention to.
No matter how altruistic a staff is, if there are regular donners to any endeavor, they are taken care of first (Every time and in every situation). And we already know that players not donating are divided into two groups. I have tested this, and it has proven true at least for number 2 and 3. That I will get to next.
Now this begs a giant question: Is this a legitimate way to run a NWN server? I say, yes, it is. I’ve been a libertarian since I could vote in 1985 and think that this is indeed a legitimate way to run an Nwn server. I worked for probably over a dozen PWs over the years in some capacity and if I got a few bucks for my work every now and then I would be ecstatic. Now they say its for server hosting fees and that may be true. For my site domain and hosting I pay about 275 a year and when I ran my own pw I had a dedicated computer in my home that ran it so I paid nothing other than the cost of a computer. I do not know how much a server hosting fee costs. But if the builders and admins get a little here and there. I say more power to them.
I just want to make the circumstances clear to my readers (Because it would be irresponsible not to) that this is the situation. If you would like to play on Amia decide beforehand at what level, you want to play at. If you want full attention, you’ll probably want to throw 20 or 30 bucks in the pot. If you want some consideration, you’ll have to get on their discord and forums. If you don’t care about dms at all, hey Amia can be just as fun to play because of the community.
Now you're asking, “How did Winter test this?” Easy enough. I am a proud class 2 citizen of Amia. I am on the forums and on discord but do not donate. (I figured I’ve already given 24 years to NWN that’s enough donation for me.) So, I had to find a member of this lower class. And Ladies and gentlemen I did just that. I found a very nice member of the lower-class player that isn’t on the forums or discord. He plays a monk, and we came up with a cunning plan.
You can request for dms to dm you. So, I did twice. They gave me a standardized form to fill out. A standardized form for a NWN Pw? Am I at the DMV in New York city or playing an NWN persistent world? I’ll get to that later. I filled them out twice and put the first up.
The first one centered on the Mulhorandi temple that in a dilapidated ruin. We came up with lets restore it. That was a quest centered around my character. Now, I already knew that we could just rp something like this, but its always good to put in a request for the dms to let them know what you’re doing or planning and at least get an ok especially in restoring something like a temple. So, we did.
A dm contacted me in discord. They said the temple is already slated to be renovated and the djinn wives are already slated to work on it. The dm said You are perfectly fine to do this without a dm. So that’s what we did. We rped a deal with the wives so that they do the background work and my partner, and I do the painting of the hieroglyphics. That way my character could teach the other character how to speak, read and write in Mulan.
By the way, the Dm was very polite. They did treat me like a customer. I like that, so they passed my politeness and player is a customer test.
So since we were told to just go ahead and rp it we did. It would have been great to have a dm there to get creative and throw a wrench in our plans. If I were a dm I would have the djinn wives introduce guardian mummies into the temple and smile as Arelush and the monk ‘discuss’ the propriety of undead in a temple. Arelush is Mulhorandi its normal for her. the monk is a monk of Ilmater. He would have way different feeling about that. Or maybe a priest of Set had set up at the temple below them and comes up to pee on Horus-re’s statue every morning. Arelush and mr. Monk catch him at his game and there is an rp session around that and maybe a fight. Lots you can do as a dm if you are creative. But it was not to be.
Now it comes down to my partner’s quest. I told the Dm that interviewed me for my quest directly that because we could rp this on our own. I was going to put his quest in for the same time slot so perhaps we could have a dm quest after all.
His quest was about going to a city in Mulhorand, and he wanted to speak to a priest or priestess of Horus-Ra. Very easy quest. It may have needed a temple or city area, but the important part was this quest absolutely needed a dm to be a priest or priestess of Horus-Ra. I put in my standardized dm request form for the same time explaining the adventure. I was met with the sound of silence. Not a whimper came out of the dms on this adventure, and I still have the request form on my inbox to remind me of it.
Thus, I have proved the player tier system of at least the divide between those on the forums and discord and those who are not. And like I said. If you have any donners in any endeavor. They are absolutely, every time, taken care of first. That’s reality folks.
Next, I will write about the player's community.
-
Winterhawk99
- Posts: 2093
- Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2009 12:00 am
- ctp: Yes
- nwnihof: Yes
- Location: Pa.
- Contact:
Re: Amia
This section will go over the player community of Amia. First, I would like to say I did see a lot of chat on discord about the last section of my review. I do my best to do honest reviews and try my best to get things right. There are those who disagree with me and that is ok. I do want to go over something though. If I look at a server and think this is how it is then it’s not only me having a certain perception. There’s probably many, many more potential players that perceive it the same way.
Secondly, I am not downing Amia for having a tiered system. I am commending them for being creative. You will see tiered systems everywhere you look. Every health club, every golf club, sporting clay range, every political party, some fast-food restaurants and even the business I’m in has a tiered dealer system. Most dealers buy at green book value and sell at blue book value. However, some dealers sell a lot more guns, so they are exclusive dealers that get further discounts. If you subscribe to amazon prime you are in a tiered customer system. It’s nice to see a server that has the forethought to implement one. It’s not a detraction for me.
I also laid out the facts on why I believe this server has a tiered system. Now, If I see that this is in fact untrue which at this time I don’t. I’m always willing to amend a review and I don’t do that for every server good or bad, but I like Amia, so I am willing to do that. I’m not going to answer all the chatter on discord. I am willing to speak to individuals about it if they would like.
Amia does have an amazing, wonderful player community. They have a lot of groups. These groups are in no way shape or form cliques to the best of my knowledge. The difference being groups are inclusive to new players, cliques are not. Also, when a server has cliques, they generally want to take over the whole server. Groups do not and there are a lot of groups on the server. It is in essence a sort of political rp server being that there are standard city state groups along with multi-national groups (so to speak) like the Beacon alliance. There are also many characters and players that are involved in many groups.
Whether you are good or evil, an elf, halfling, dwarf or human, you can find groups that will welcome you based on race, alignment, profession or general attitude of your character.
When you first arrive on Amia, players generally bend over backward to help you find quests and get started. Usually, alignment really doesn’t really matter either. They are just glad you are part of the community and will help you learn about the server in general. Where are the quests? How do I do this job thing. How do I get custom gear. What are these crystals I keep getting all about. You ask anyone these kinds of questions on the server, and they will generally stop what they are doing and help you with whatever questions or problems you are having unless they are in a very heavy rp session.
Most players on the server are also very well-seasoned role players. Some are downright brilliant. One in particular player I find rather brilliant is a player who plays a Jarl of a city on the server. When my character first met him, he rushed downstairs and called out, “Let’s go murder something.” My character took a little offense to that. And they had some back and forth. Ever since them when the two of them meet something always happens. The player of the Jarl always plays it up to match Arelush. I’m not sure what to call it. They aren’t rivals or enemies. I don’t think either one wants to kill the other. It’s just a difference in outlook and neither one of them takes it from the other.
Last time they met He came in and said something like, “I’m here to do my duty for the Beacon alliance.” She retorted by saying, “You should be here because it’s the right thing to do, Grumpy!” He came back with, “Shut up! Woman!” She coined him Jarl Grumpy. Anyway, he really does a great job of playing up this thing they have. They often sound like a married couple fighting. It’s really cute. I have a ball with it, and I hope the other player does too.
I played a samurai on the server for a while. He got nixed. I’ll talk about that in the Dm section. No big deal He wasn’t like Brath (a way out there character) He was human, but he was noble and an ambassador. So, I put him in the fuzzy character range. Fuzzy being this character may be alright on the server and may not. Probably about ½ the servers on nwn would accept him and the other have would not. The dms came to me and said to nix him. I did and had no problems with it. I’ll talk a little more about that in the Dm section. But when I played him, I met the same Jarl and he and my samurai got along quite well, and each seemed to have great respect for the other. And that’s while I think of the player so highly is that he does play his character in alignment, and personally 100% of the time.
There are lots of other things going on the sever to so you can meet other players, Weddings, funerals, festivals and the like. I have attended a few. My work schedule is pretty harsh so I get in whatever rp I can on the 8 days a month I’m home. Those are pretty good places to meet and gage other pcs. There was a wedding when I was on and at the time I was playing both characters but neither was told about it so I didn’t attend. I didn’t think it would be right since neither knew about it. I did go to a festival and a funeral after a Beacon meeting, and both were excellent.
I really enjoy the interaction with the other players on the server. They are top notch. The one people problem I did have though was with two players in one instance. I’ve never had a problem with a dm, admin or anyone else. But these two players who didn’t even know I had a problem with them because I roleplayed the situation out are in my opinion a big problem and I’m not the only one.
So, to start with let me explain meta-gaming. Meta-gaming is when you use information your character should not know to role play with and or use. Now everyone now and again honestly slips up. You see a character and they have a name, but they are using a different name, an alias. You see them three weeks later and call them by their real name instead of their alias because you forgot. That’s quite common. Usually, it’s not so big a deal. When I played Sierra on Anchorome I gave her the alias ‘Fawn’ And when people called her Sierra I would look around and ask them who they were talking too. Then they would remember and say sorry to me in tells. I would tell them no big deal, and it’s really not because we all forget from time to time.
There’s another type of meta-gaming that’s very deliberate and it’s usually used by a player to slap their noddle so to speak in another player’s face. It’s one of the more common uses of this type of meta-gaming. And that’s what happened to me.
Another part of this situation is the paper-thin excuse these two had handy that I noted and jotted down while they were talking to me. But that is not going to fly this time because of Amia’s own lore and cannon. The lore is and you can find it in a book at the academy in shadow land: When a shadowdancer calls forth a shadow/shade in my character’s case Epic shade lord, they detach their own shadow from their body and an outsider possesses the shadow.
That means according to Amia lore, that the shadow creature they call looks like their own shadow. And that is important. Now let me get into the situation. I was in a huge group one day. It was an event or something. The party I was in probably had almost 20 people in it. When the event was over, we all broke up, but I forgot to get out of the party. So, there were people on my right-side screen still in party with me.
I took Arelush to collect resources for another player. I go to an area that has a lot of resources this player needs and start to collect. However, when I’m collecting resources, I also like to go on big game hunts. I use my shadow summons to have an ally on hand if its needed. When I get done with my hunt, I just let the shadow stay because I can go on 2 or 3 hunts in between rests and the max time he is summoned.
The area I was in is in the middle of nowhere so to speak. I have never seen any other player there. If players go, there it is only used to collect resources. It as a little mystic grove and a lake and lots of trees and other resources. So, I’m hunting and gathering, and all of the sudden these to bozo’s show up in front of me. They proceed to dress me down because of my shadow minion.
At first, I was like ok, I’ll role play this out then I noticed on my screen these two idiots are still a member of my party and they are here now in an area no one uses. No one I have ever seen, and I’ve been to this area many times before collecting resources. So, what these two did was sit back and watch me. Where I went and what I did with their party information. And when I started to use my shadow to hunt with and come back leaving him up for convenience, they swooped down on me from whatever area they were in to debase my character and get their rocks off on it. That is classic and deliberate meta-gaming.
I could tell by what they were saying that they planned to cover their asses with well Lathernder’s temple saw your shadow minion. So, if my shadow minion looks like my own shadow and I’m just walking around and area collecting resources how is anyone going to know my shadow is actually detached from 100 or 200 meters away?
I was pissed but I roleplayed out of it very nicely and submissively. But these two both in mannerism and typing styles remind me of two morons on Broodslayers. These two were dms and would go on the dm channel find players doing things alone come back with their characters and to the other player and screw with them just like what I said above. Their names were Necrologic, and P1erxOR. And I have a slight suspicion these may be the same two players. Necorlogic, and P1exOr were one of the many reasons Broodslayers went up in flames with these kinds of antics.
So that situation affected me greatly and I wasn’t sure if I should say anything. What I did was I went to a player that I trust that had been on the server for many years. I told them of the whole situation. They kept asking who are these two players? I wouldn’t tell them until I was finished, and they could evaluate the situation themselves in full. When I was done, they asked again. That’s when I told them the names of these two people.
The first thing out of their mouth was, “Why am I not surprised.” That tells me that these two curmudgeons have a history of doing this sort of thing. I personally am going to treat these two like the plague from now on. I have seen people like this on server after server. They are not there to add to the community. They are only there to get their rocks off debasing other players. And that’s why I’m putting their names here because I’m tired of people like them hurting the NWN Pw community.
That is the only bad situation I had on this server. My one rant is over. Everyone else, Players, Dms, Admins and everyone else involved have been phenomenal. And I am greatly honored to play with such classy people that want everyone to have fun with this great game.
Secondly, I am not downing Amia for having a tiered system. I am commending them for being creative. You will see tiered systems everywhere you look. Every health club, every golf club, sporting clay range, every political party, some fast-food restaurants and even the business I’m in has a tiered dealer system. Most dealers buy at green book value and sell at blue book value. However, some dealers sell a lot more guns, so they are exclusive dealers that get further discounts. If you subscribe to amazon prime you are in a tiered customer system. It’s nice to see a server that has the forethought to implement one. It’s not a detraction for me.
I also laid out the facts on why I believe this server has a tiered system. Now, If I see that this is in fact untrue which at this time I don’t. I’m always willing to amend a review and I don’t do that for every server good or bad, but I like Amia, so I am willing to do that. I’m not going to answer all the chatter on discord. I am willing to speak to individuals about it if they would like.
Amia does have an amazing, wonderful player community. They have a lot of groups. These groups are in no way shape or form cliques to the best of my knowledge. The difference being groups are inclusive to new players, cliques are not. Also, when a server has cliques, they generally want to take over the whole server. Groups do not and there are a lot of groups on the server. It is in essence a sort of political rp server being that there are standard city state groups along with multi-national groups (so to speak) like the Beacon alliance. There are also many characters and players that are involved in many groups.
Whether you are good or evil, an elf, halfling, dwarf or human, you can find groups that will welcome you based on race, alignment, profession or general attitude of your character.
When you first arrive on Amia, players generally bend over backward to help you find quests and get started. Usually, alignment really doesn’t really matter either. They are just glad you are part of the community and will help you learn about the server in general. Where are the quests? How do I do this job thing. How do I get custom gear. What are these crystals I keep getting all about. You ask anyone these kinds of questions on the server, and they will generally stop what they are doing and help you with whatever questions or problems you are having unless they are in a very heavy rp session.
Most players on the server are also very well-seasoned role players. Some are downright brilliant. One in particular player I find rather brilliant is a player who plays a Jarl of a city on the server. When my character first met him, he rushed downstairs and called out, “Let’s go murder something.” My character took a little offense to that. And they had some back and forth. Ever since them when the two of them meet something always happens. The player of the Jarl always plays it up to match Arelush. I’m not sure what to call it. They aren’t rivals or enemies. I don’t think either one wants to kill the other. It’s just a difference in outlook and neither one of them takes it from the other.
Last time they met He came in and said something like, “I’m here to do my duty for the Beacon alliance.” She retorted by saying, “You should be here because it’s the right thing to do, Grumpy!” He came back with, “Shut up! Woman!” She coined him Jarl Grumpy. Anyway, he really does a great job of playing up this thing they have. They often sound like a married couple fighting. It’s really cute. I have a ball with it, and I hope the other player does too.
I played a samurai on the server for a while. He got nixed. I’ll talk about that in the Dm section. No big deal He wasn’t like Brath (a way out there character) He was human, but he was noble and an ambassador. So, I put him in the fuzzy character range. Fuzzy being this character may be alright on the server and may not. Probably about ½ the servers on nwn would accept him and the other have would not. The dms came to me and said to nix him. I did and had no problems with it. I’ll talk a little more about that in the Dm section. But when I played him, I met the same Jarl and he and my samurai got along quite well, and each seemed to have great respect for the other. And that’s while I think of the player so highly is that he does play his character in alignment, and personally 100% of the time.
There are lots of other things going on the sever to so you can meet other players, Weddings, funerals, festivals and the like. I have attended a few. My work schedule is pretty harsh so I get in whatever rp I can on the 8 days a month I’m home. Those are pretty good places to meet and gage other pcs. There was a wedding when I was on and at the time I was playing both characters but neither was told about it so I didn’t attend. I didn’t think it would be right since neither knew about it. I did go to a festival and a funeral after a Beacon meeting, and both were excellent.
I really enjoy the interaction with the other players on the server. They are top notch. The one people problem I did have though was with two players in one instance. I’ve never had a problem with a dm, admin or anyone else. But these two players who didn’t even know I had a problem with them because I roleplayed the situation out are in my opinion a big problem and I’m not the only one.
So, to start with let me explain meta-gaming. Meta-gaming is when you use information your character should not know to role play with and or use. Now everyone now and again honestly slips up. You see a character and they have a name, but they are using a different name, an alias. You see them three weeks later and call them by their real name instead of their alias because you forgot. That’s quite common. Usually, it’s not so big a deal. When I played Sierra on Anchorome I gave her the alias ‘Fawn’ And when people called her Sierra I would look around and ask them who they were talking too. Then they would remember and say sorry to me in tells. I would tell them no big deal, and it’s really not because we all forget from time to time.
There’s another type of meta-gaming that’s very deliberate and it’s usually used by a player to slap their noddle so to speak in another player’s face. It’s one of the more common uses of this type of meta-gaming. And that’s what happened to me.
Another part of this situation is the paper-thin excuse these two had handy that I noted and jotted down while they were talking to me. But that is not going to fly this time because of Amia’s own lore and cannon. The lore is and you can find it in a book at the academy in shadow land: When a shadowdancer calls forth a shadow/shade in my character’s case Epic shade lord, they detach their own shadow from their body and an outsider possesses the shadow.
That means according to Amia lore, that the shadow creature they call looks like their own shadow. And that is important. Now let me get into the situation. I was in a huge group one day. It was an event or something. The party I was in probably had almost 20 people in it. When the event was over, we all broke up, but I forgot to get out of the party. So, there were people on my right-side screen still in party with me.
I took Arelush to collect resources for another player. I go to an area that has a lot of resources this player needs and start to collect. However, when I’m collecting resources, I also like to go on big game hunts. I use my shadow summons to have an ally on hand if its needed. When I get done with my hunt, I just let the shadow stay because I can go on 2 or 3 hunts in between rests and the max time he is summoned.
The area I was in is in the middle of nowhere so to speak. I have never seen any other player there. If players go, there it is only used to collect resources. It as a little mystic grove and a lake and lots of trees and other resources. So, I’m hunting and gathering, and all of the sudden these to bozo’s show up in front of me. They proceed to dress me down because of my shadow minion.
At first, I was like ok, I’ll role play this out then I noticed on my screen these two idiots are still a member of my party and they are here now in an area no one uses. No one I have ever seen, and I’ve been to this area many times before collecting resources. So, what these two did was sit back and watch me. Where I went and what I did with their party information. And when I started to use my shadow to hunt with and come back leaving him up for convenience, they swooped down on me from whatever area they were in to debase my character and get their rocks off on it. That is classic and deliberate meta-gaming.
I could tell by what they were saying that they planned to cover their asses with well Lathernder’s temple saw your shadow minion. So, if my shadow minion looks like my own shadow and I’m just walking around and area collecting resources how is anyone going to know my shadow is actually detached from 100 or 200 meters away?
I was pissed but I roleplayed out of it very nicely and submissively. But these two both in mannerism and typing styles remind me of two morons on Broodslayers. These two were dms and would go on the dm channel find players doing things alone come back with their characters and to the other player and screw with them just like what I said above. Their names were Necrologic, and P1erxOR. And I have a slight suspicion these may be the same two players. Necorlogic, and P1exOr were one of the many reasons Broodslayers went up in flames with these kinds of antics.
So that situation affected me greatly and I wasn’t sure if I should say anything. What I did was I went to a player that I trust that had been on the server for many years. I told them of the whole situation. They kept asking who are these two players? I wouldn’t tell them until I was finished, and they could evaluate the situation themselves in full. When I was done, they asked again. That’s when I told them the names of these two people.
The first thing out of their mouth was, “Why am I not surprised.” That tells me that these two curmudgeons have a history of doing this sort of thing. I personally am going to treat these two like the plague from now on. I have seen people like this on server after server. They are not there to add to the community. They are only there to get their rocks off debasing other players. And that’s why I’m putting their names here because I’m tired of people like them hurting the NWN Pw community.
That is the only bad situation I had on this server. My one rant is over. Everyone else, Players, Dms, Admins and everyone else involved have been phenomenal. And I am greatly honored to play with such classy people that want everyone to have fun with this great game.
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Winterhawk99
- Posts: 2093
- Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2009 12:00 am
- ctp: Yes
- nwnihof: Yes
- Location: Pa.
- Contact:
Re: Amia
Ok I took those two gentlemen’s names off the above post. The only reason I did was that a dm/admin pleaded with me to take them down. So, in the name of civility, I did. However, If I hear about these two people pulling a deliberate situation like that again. I will put those names right back up on that post. Those two people know who they are. If they don’t believe me go ahead: eff around and find out.
I’m going to go to the Dms today. When I first came on the server, I did not see any dm action for at least a month. I questioned a few people about it, and they told me Dm’s on the server were mostly administrative. Ummm? I didn’t quite get that, and it turned out to be untrue. I would say that dms are not as proactive in game as in other servers, but they do hold campaigns and occasionally set something up for a single player or group of players.
This is also very hard for me to determine because of my work schedule. I undoubtedly miss some episodes in each campaign. It sucks but that is part of life. So, what are dms doing in the game. Well, they at least run one short campaign a month. I have been to three campaigns at various times however have never completed on start to finish.
The first involved a revenant in search of his killer. That one ended up being a very cute story. I went to the first event and my electric decided to quit on me halfway through that segment. I completely missed the second due to work. I did catch and was able to play in the last event. The event was mostly rp and like I said had a very cute ending. I thought the plot ok and the dm structured it well. He did fairly well with what was set up.
The second one involved some Baneites that had a secret hideout somewhere east of the Amia forest and a group of ruffian liberators. I believe I made the first event but somehow managed to miss all the other events. I can’t really say much about that campaign. I just missed too much of it.
The third campaign involved a pirate cult of Umberlee. I think I came in a bit late for the first event. I missed the second. I did the third. And I missed the final which was today. I kind of got the plot. I’m not sure. But it involved pirates and a cult of Umberlee along with some sahuagin allies. This was a more combat oriented campaign. I mostly fought bad guys when I got there. There were some fun little things for me. I temporarily had a huge golem companion, and Jarl Grumpy and I traded a few words. The Dm did fine here as well. Nothing to complain about and it turned out pretty fun in the end.
I have also seen dms add to a scene occasionally like a cat or a dog walking around Wiltun when the Jarl was chewing my character, His admiral and another lady knight out about…. get this…. talking in his hallway. I love that character.
I also saw a dm being proactive with me. It was a breath of fresh air and was fairly recently. It’s the only time that I noticed a dm being proactive for a group I was in. It in fact did not involve Arelush but my other nixed character Tatsuo.
Tatsuo is a lawful good samurai F/WM/monk. However, he is samurai. So, you have to take account that he is from a Japanese society where Lawful good is a bit different due to culture than most westerners think. He and another player caught a thief red handed. There was a lot of rope play and he ended up trying to turn the thief into the authorities. Well, that did not go to well. The thief tried to attack him while he was trying to turn the man over. So, Tatsuo chopped off his head, put it in a box and sent the box to the thief’s family. After all that would be the honorable thing to do. He found out the thief did have a family, so he threw 5,000 in gold for the children because he’s a nice guy.
He pretty much shocked the hell out of the other character. She said, “Now that’s hard core.”
I thought the dm did wonderfully there because he challenged my character’s morals. Tatsuo did not do too well on that test but he’s all of 19 and tends to react faster than he thinks. So, the Dm aced it there.
It’s a really big server I know with a lot of people. Having monthly small campaigns is really good, but I also think dm’s can be a little more proactive in doing little things like the Tatsuo incident. I’m not sure how many dms Amia has but I know at least 3 or 4. I would like to see them around more doing stuff.
Dm’s have to remember that the players are your customers. No matter how many people are on and how much independent roleplaying there is; players eventually get bored and doing little things like that both keeps the players on their toes and give them something to do other than the same old hum drum of server life with other players. I was delighted to see a dm have something impromptu. The server needs more of that.
Administratively Dms passed all my tests. Helpfulness, politeness, when one came to ask me to nix Tatsuo. He was a little gruff in his opening statement, but I kept an open mind, and we ended up getting along fine. It ended up being quite amusing for me in a sense.
He came on to my discord. I didn’t know him from anyone else. He opened up with something like We at Amia understand that you made this character. Then went into more spiel about why they didn’t like the character. Well, I was a bit perplexed at first and said something like, “Well, If the dms wanted me to delete Tatsuo why did they send you?” And he came back with something like. “I am actually a dm and they sent me because everyone else is scared of you.” I think they drew straws.
The first think through my head was, “I wonder how long my cover was blown. They know who I am.” So, I said Ok I’ll nix Tatsuo. I think there was a visible sigh of relief I heard behind the other computer. We ended up getting into a nice conversation. I found out he was maybe a senior at high school when I was a freshman. We got along wonderfully.
The whole point of this is as long as Dms are polite and consistent most but not all players will nix a character or listen to something they may have made a mistake in. You always have the morons, but you can usually tell who they are after a short time.
I also want to say to Amia dms what I say in all my dming tutorials, or when I use to train dms for nwn. Always remember that players are your customers. You may not get paid, but you do provide a service. Thus, you have customers. You are an outline maker to a story. Your customers (players) fill in the rest. Your job is to make sure they have fun doing it whether it goes well or poorly for the players.
As long as you stick to those values being consistent and treating the players like your customers things will go well. If you become inconsistent and start showing favoritism. Your customers will start packing their bags and go to another server.
This review is pretty much over now. I have a few notes. I make reviews for two reasons. The first is to let players know what a server is like. The second is for the Server to take a look and see from an informed perspective how they can improve their world. You may think that I have it all wrong. Ok then don’t worry about it and throw it out the window. It’s your server and your world. I do try to get it right best that I can, and I have done every job so to speak in NWN from owner of a pw myself to just writing stories for quests. I usually know what the hell I’m doing. So, take what you want from this review. Do what you can with it and improve the server.
One other note I want to make is. I found that on the forums the IC boards seem to be cut off from the outside world. It looks like a member only thing. That’s perfectly fine but for those that write and want to have an audience it’s not that great a place to be because you might have 10 or 12 people that read your stories, most are probably dms. If you want your stories read by more people, I would not only post on Amia’s forums, but also somewhere else.
I’ll give you the stats for me on both Amia and my NWN website. Anyone can join my website and post there. I would like more authors of stories and people that want their character’s story read by more viewers. However, you have to contact me on discord first then I’ll catch you on my acp board and let you in.
Arelush: 38 posts……………...views on Amia 306……………...views on Harvest Moon 11,342
Tatsuo: 15 posts……………… views on Amia 228……………… views on Harvest Moon 1,581
I’m going to go to the Dms today. When I first came on the server, I did not see any dm action for at least a month. I questioned a few people about it, and they told me Dm’s on the server were mostly administrative. Ummm? I didn’t quite get that, and it turned out to be untrue. I would say that dms are not as proactive in game as in other servers, but they do hold campaigns and occasionally set something up for a single player or group of players.
This is also very hard for me to determine because of my work schedule. I undoubtedly miss some episodes in each campaign. It sucks but that is part of life. So, what are dms doing in the game. Well, they at least run one short campaign a month. I have been to three campaigns at various times however have never completed on start to finish.
The first involved a revenant in search of his killer. That one ended up being a very cute story. I went to the first event and my electric decided to quit on me halfway through that segment. I completely missed the second due to work. I did catch and was able to play in the last event. The event was mostly rp and like I said had a very cute ending. I thought the plot ok and the dm structured it well. He did fairly well with what was set up.
The second one involved some Baneites that had a secret hideout somewhere east of the Amia forest and a group of ruffian liberators. I believe I made the first event but somehow managed to miss all the other events. I can’t really say much about that campaign. I just missed too much of it.
The third campaign involved a pirate cult of Umberlee. I think I came in a bit late for the first event. I missed the second. I did the third. And I missed the final which was today. I kind of got the plot. I’m not sure. But it involved pirates and a cult of Umberlee along with some sahuagin allies. This was a more combat oriented campaign. I mostly fought bad guys when I got there. There were some fun little things for me. I temporarily had a huge golem companion, and Jarl Grumpy and I traded a few words. The Dm did fine here as well. Nothing to complain about and it turned out pretty fun in the end.
I have also seen dms add to a scene occasionally like a cat or a dog walking around Wiltun when the Jarl was chewing my character, His admiral and another lady knight out about…. get this…. talking in his hallway. I love that character.
I also saw a dm being proactive with me. It was a breath of fresh air and was fairly recently. It’s the only time that I noticed a dm being proactive for a group I was in. It in fact did not involve Arelush but my other nixed character Tatsuo.
Tatsuo is a lawful good samurai F/WM/monk. However, he is samurai. So, you have to take account that he is from a Japanese society where Lawful good is a bit different due to culture than most westerners think. He and another player caught a thief red handed. There was a lot of rope play and he ended up trying to turn the thief into the authorities. Well, that did not go to well. The thief tried to attack him while he was trying to turn the man over. So, Tatsuo chopped off his head, put it in a box and sent the box to the thief’s family. After all that would be the honorable thing to do. He found out the thief did have a family, so he threw 5,000 in gold for the children because he’s a nice guy.
He pretty much shocked the hell out of the other character. She said, “Now that’s hard core.”
I thought the dm did wonderfully there because he challenged my character’s morals. Tatsuo did not do too well on that test but he’s all of 19 and tends to react faster than he thinks. So, the Dm aced it there.
It’s a really big server I know with a lot of people. Having monthly small campaigns is really good, but I also think dm’s can be a little more proactive in doing little things like the Tatsuo incident. I’m not sure how many dms Amia has but I know at least 3 or 4. I would like to see them around more doing stuff.
Dm’s have to remember that the players are your customers. No matter how many people are on and how much independent roleplaying there is; players eventually get bored and doing little things like that both keeps the players on their toes and give them something to do other than the same old hum drum of server life with other players. I was delighted to see a dm have something impromptu. The server needs more of that.
Administratively Dms passed all my tests. Helpfulness, politeness, when one came to ask me to nix Tatsuo. He was a little gruff in his opening statement, but I kept an open mind, and we ended up getting along fine. It ended up being quite amusing for me in a sense.
He came on to my discord. I didn’t know him from anyone else. He opened up with something like We at Amia understand that you made this character. Then went into more spiel about why they didn’t like the character. Well, I was a bit perplexed at first and said something like, “Well, If the dms wanted me to delete Tatsuo why did they send you?” And he came back with something like. “I am actually a dm and they sent me because everyone else is scared of you.” I think they drew straws.
The first think through my head was, “I wonder how long my cover was blown. They know who I am.” So, I said Ok I’ll nix Tatsuo. I think there was a visible sigh of relief I heard behind the other computer. We ended up getting into a nice conversation. I found out he was maybe a senior at high school when I was a freshman. We got along wonderfully.
The whole point of this is as long as Dms are polite and consistent most but not all players will nix a character or listen to something they may have made a mistake in. You always have the morons, but you can usually tell who they are after a short time.
I also want to say to Amia dms what I say in all my dming tutorials, or when I use to train dms for nwn. Always remember that players are your customers. You may not get paid, but you do provide a service. Thus, you have customers. You are an outline maker to a story. Your customers (players) fill in the rest. Your job is to make sure they have fun doing it whether it goes well or poorly for the players.
As long as you stick to those values being consistent and treating the players like your customers things will go well. If you become inconsistent and start showing favoritism. Your customers will start packing their bags and go to another server.
This review is pretty much over now. I have a few notes. I make reviews for two reasons. The first is to let players know what a server is like. The second is for the Server to take a look and see from an informed perspective how they can improve their world. You may think that I have it all wrong. Ok then don’t worry about it and throw it out the window. It’s your server and your world. I do try to get it right best that I can, and I have done every job so to speak in NWN from owner of a pw myself to just writing stories for quests. I usually know what the hell I’m doing. So, take what you want from this review. Do what you can with it and improve the server.
One other note I want to make is. I found that on the forums the IC boards seem to be cut off from the outside world. It looks like a member only thing. That’s perfectly fine but for those that write and want to have an audience it’s not that great a place to be because you might have 10 or 12 people that read your stories, most are probably dms. If you want your stories read by more people, I would not only post on Amia’s forums, but also somewhere else.
I’ll give you the stats for me on both Amia and my NWN website. Anyone can join my website and post there. I would like more authors of stories and people that want their character’s story read by more viewers. However, you have to contact me on discord first then I’ll catch you on my acp board and let you in.
Arelush: 38 posts……………...views on Amia 306……………...views on Harvest Moon 11,342
Tatsuo: 15 posts……………… views on Amia 228……………… views on Harvest Moon 1,581
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Winterhawk99
- Posts: 2093
- Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2009 12:00 am
- ctp: Yes
- nwnihof: Yes
- Location: Pa.
- Contact:
Re: Amia
I did some small edits on the advice of a friend Eowin to make the review a touch classier. Sometimes a writer can go a little overboard when they want a reaction from the reader, and I did just that. Thanks, Eowin I fixed the problem and the piece is better for it.
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Winterhawk99
- Posts: 2093
- Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2009 12:00 am
- ctp: Yes
- nwnihof: Yes
- Location: Pa.
- Contact:
Re: Amia
My Time on Amia has ended. I made many friends there and had a lot of fun but it's time to move on to the next server. I had thought to keep Arelush there. As you know the review the Dm's nixed Tatsuo. I took him off right away. Yesterday One came to me and told me to either change Arelush and nix her too because of background history.
So, I created two human pcs with very different backgrounds. One born a slave and one a nobleman. And both got nixed. That's ok. I figured when I created Tatsuo that he may be nixed by dms. He was in fact a test for that very reason. I am somewhat surprised about Arelush. Her history has been on their forums since April 22, and they decide to nix her on Sept 17th. The dm was quite polite. I think there was much more too it. More an OOC political reason than anything else but the truth of the matter was it is a boon for me personally. I welcomed it.
I have made many a great friend on the server however, Amia had gotten a bit stale for me after playing for 6 months or so. It was definitely time to move on. The dms were decent in their monthly campaign and the one time one of them focused on Tatsuo I had a ball because the Dm really challenged Tatsuo's morality. big Kudos there. He was a 3- or 4-week character before being nixed
Arelush however had been there for some 6 months or so and not a dm worked with her once. Which was a disappointment for me personally. The good news is that all the players that she met shaped Arelush's views greatly. they changed and remolded her. I really thank all of them for that.
I would still like to thank everyone on Amia for the wonderful time. Arelush will continue her journey on another server probably as I review it, but I think I'll bring out our favorite fisherman first and try to get him on a Krynn server. That will be a blast if that happens. So, this ends my visit to Amia. Good luck to you all and most of all have fun.
So, I created two human pcs with very different backgrounds. One born a slave and one a nobleman. And both got nixed. That's ok. I figured when I created Tatsuo that he may be nixed by dms. He was in fact a test for that very reason. I am somewhat surprised about Arelush. Her history has been on their forums since April 22, and they decide to nix her on Sept 17th. The dm was quite polite. I think there was much more too it. More an OOC political reason than anything else but the truth of the matter was it is a boon for me personally. I welcomed it.
I have made many a great friend on the server however, Amia had gotten a bit stale for me after playing for 6 months or so. It was definitely time to move on. The dms were decent in their monthly campaign and the one time one of them focused on Tatsuo I had a ball because the Dm really challenged Tatsuo's morality. big Kudos there. He was a 3- or 4-week character before being nixed
Arelush however had been there for some 6 months or so and not a dm worked with her once. Which was a disappointment for me personally. The good news is that all the players that she met shaped Arelush's views greatly. they changed and remolded her. I really thank all of them for that.
I would still like to thank everyone on Amia for the wonderful time. Arelush will continue her journey on another server probably as I review it, but I think I'll bring out our favorite fisherman first and try to get him on a Krynn server. That will be a blast if that happens. So, this ends my visit to Amia. Good luck to you all and most of all have fun.