Session Start: Sun Mar 14 00:00:00 2004 Session Ident: #menzoberranzan It's not in any book. FR source book? Fall of Blingdenstone? ok... so we don't actually have to "follow" anystory no that's great it's just a major event that happen but we would still have to model something out of menzo... Was Triel's first major step as Matron over the city. but still... I'd say this for timeline, since PCs will want to make their "own" Menzo historical line. Keep it separate from specific events, but have NPCs from the books inhabit the world. That will make Menzo fanatics rabid, Like meeting Vader in Star wars Galaxies Hmm It happened early to mid 1360DR Face hmmm Well see Lod, we want Menzo to be as true to form as possible Such as events and notable figures this is rizo's call since making it before would require that to happen But the PC's should dictate the direction the city goes in. Lod --> I agree with you, but I would love to follow a "books" chronology of major events... Well what events besdies Blindingstone will the timeline effect? I agree, but there will be a lot of programming for specific events to occur.. I don;t know how much prep you guys are going to dedicate to get the details right. I;m jst trying to see who detialed the nooks and crannies are going to be =) All of us. Blindingstone will fall in our Menzo! Should we have it as our first major event Riz? It may fall before launch, or after, but those damn gnomes have just been too close for too long! I like that idea They must fall to the power of Lolth! Im guessing they returned after they abadon it? They did Nope. Right after the war. Who, the gnomes? But then Triel motioned the city to go and raze the city completely Yeah Riz They returned cool yeah, Id love to see that as the first big event But then most of them were slaughtered when the drow of Menzoberranzan and demons they summoned sacked the city I have no problem supporting book tie ins, god knows i paid 80 bucks for the SWG online program in hopes of becomming an imperial and being Vader's lap dog, but specific event programming can be tedious for a small group. And content may sufffer ( any delay the mods release forever) if too many details are attempted. The main events may be highlighted, but DM interraction will reach epic proportion on mass PC events It is now an outpost of House Duskryn. Oh hell dont tell sorn that hehe :D What is so fragile even saying its name can break it? What? House Duskryn? :P lol I suppose I'm just wondering if you are running "the books", and having players play in the timeline of the books, or if this is original content in the "near timeline" of the books, but basically independent of specific events both nods we can change the timeline completly if we wish Some events are destined to happen. big events described int he book will occur, but there can be otehr timelines adopted... Many will be player driven. yep, like no one will know who the hell is Liriel Baenre... Lolth will become silent, an unded Illithid-lich will try to move the slaves into revolution, etc. or Drizzt... lol I don't think the common drow knows about Drizzt... but they would definitely know about the defeat in Mithral hall What is so fragile even saying its name can break it? (Silence) or the sacking of Bling How possible will it be to make all divine spells unaccesable by priestesses of Lolth, by the way? Because you may be basing the world timeline on the book material, certain happenings will be inevitable then, despite PC interaction. This may cause some unrest to the roleplayers if they feel the world is out of their hands... Though I do understand the Dm controls the events, and PCs roll with punches also hehehe, thought you were making a joke about House Duskryn Nal :P just make them all fallen priestess... (Thinking about it) change alignment... lol so any specific date in-game for our menzo to start? Well, the PCs will be able to do anything they want, but keeping Lolth from leaving won't be one... Let's have the sacking of Blingdenstone as our first server-wide event... How about 1360DR OK We will do that. Will be a good test of massive online combat. and we can use Lod's fabulous tileset to model the city pretty nice... and we don't even need to cross the underdark for it, we can just assume those playing the event would have done it... Loth leaves Menzo.... crappo... and there is a really nice model for her,,, I guess people will only see her butt and her Gucci bags as she sneaks out one Sunday night after church That won't be for a while Lod Heh nods roughly 13 years from the start of our server. Which can be as long as we want ok, so timeline will be followed true to the books Did anyone else play Mourn's first online event? starting in-game date 1360 DR * Sorn nods no, what was it? He had a cool module set up for the PCs to form House Groups, and try to defeat a goblinoid horde that was forming near Tzack. Which begs a simple question... what is game time ( 1 minute RL time to 1 hour Game time... 2 minutes, etc?) We didn't get to go into the city (it wasn't done) but the feeling being at a drow outpost was kind of cool. Moving our farther into the Underdark... Was kind of a small inspiration for the MH mod concept. I'm not sure Lod Lod, good question. I guess we see what others are doing..... If you were to put a coin into an empty bottle and then insert a cork into the neck, how could you remove the coin without taking out the cork or breaking the bottle? Anybody know anybody else's time system? Since you mentioned the 13 year thing, if time apsses too quickly, and the server is live 24/7, time will be eaten away rather quickly we don't have to really worry about the whole year thing Lod we could just fudge it and not advance a year unless we want too. don't know, but since the events are so spaced out in years, we won't run into the problem of "missing" something important What about the speed of Narbondle But for daytime cycles it is good to have worked out. Im anal, so I ask ridiculous questions.. please bear with me at times =) =) what's the basic setup in NWN for days? Like if we set resting to only a certain number of times in 24 hours, etc. dunno 1 min = 1 hour? What about resting? I agree Riz.. i had resting allowed only once every 24 hours, to keep with D&D spell recovery good nods 2 minutes per hour is a better system,, 1 min/hr is too fast that should piss off the powergamers nods nods Ive done extensive testing on that one afk, bathroom break You're the man then. ok we can use those standards Thats one thing that made WoC kinda easy. You could rest anywhere there wernt enemies. and passing of years would be managed by the DMs Since Ive spent so many hours on EQ, I judge day cycles by feel. 2 seemed just about right, while 1 minute/hr seemed to fly by, and 3min/hr made spell recovery nearly impossible to handle med up lol OOM baby hehe MY KEI just faded... Im gating,,, brb... need to go to PoK LOL was just typing that! damnyou gotta love druids If you were to put a coin into an empty bottle and then insert a cork into the neck, how could you remove the coin without taking out the cork or breaking the bottle? (Push in the cork and shake the bottle) sorns in the bathroom Is OC death /life/afterlife on the list of topics tonight ( just wondering) PC that is another topic coming up Nalf -- you put the cork in which neck? the neck of the bottle i can take over, since we have gotten the NPCs and timeline straight PC death is a hard one lemme see which one is next hold on Respawn is unrealistic, but necessary to make the game fun So the answer is to push the cork in all the way? yeah Topic 5 - Alignment Been there. You need bind points I think we discussed that Topic 6 - Custom Content within Menzo I think what he means is how much of Menzo will be created by us? and how much is books books to start with, then up to us and the players afterwards Sorn doesn't want to be here for this one anyways. he doesn't? back Sorn... custom content... Topic 6 what do you mean by it? basically pretty much just what you said Face We have some stuff from the boxed sets and other sources but a lot of Menzo is going ot be coming from our heads and thoughts oh. so what do you want to discuss? Mostly NPC's, Qu'ellars, and other tidbits we want to put into Menzo Just basically get us all on the same wavelength for that. where's that list of noble houses you created for rizo? was online in the other website we can use that list for all noble (upper & lesser) houses to begin with I'm trying to find it. I have on each map a ton of non-noble houses that accordign to the source material are the "future noble" houses in menzo they are not developed but will have a map entry and interior area... we can have as much or as little custom content in it like leave these houses for PC affiliations, etc... My only input is "build in expansion ability". If you want player housing in the future, plan for it now. Make everything you can now and provide for as many options as you can at start to create a variety rich environment for players. What is you idea of "playing"? Is it sitting around talking out the events from the books, or going out and kicking the butts of 400 gobbys. Is the world fight driven, NPC quest driven, or a play http://204.251.182.252/menzoberranzan/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?p=9382#9382 will House faction affiliation be neutral at start, selectable at character creation, or predetermined by player app either well i take it back players will begin commoners, or if they choose, from a mediocre lesser house or non-noble house we'll get into more detail in topic 8 player dynamics... If you need to build faction, simply make all new characters non-affiliated. Make faction easier to get for lesser House, and hader for the Noble houses. It will give players more to work for So we have a listing of 50 Noble houses, I'd say roughly we need at least 5 NPC's per house to start. some will have more, like Baenre, or Dyrr, or whatever so far i have the first 17 houses assigned to our "server" map, they actually exist in game NPC being Nobles, not Commoners of the house, or soldiers Sorn, we'll follow the boxed set on the number of nobles .. and Mose said" Everyone shall be given a mule, a loaf of bread, and a Radeon 9800 pro, 128mb.... to deal with the graphics load" ok hehe Though I recall it being close to 50 houses I believe roll getting sleepy those 17 houses that I have on the map server I call Upper Noble Houses, because they will be there physically... from 18 to 50 we can just use names... ok as to a Lesser Noble House... 50 is actually lessening the number Face. like, tehre's a teacher inthe academy from house Despana Are you designing ALL 50 houses. I made a 400 area module before. IT WAS NOT PRETTY. AND GODDAMN it took forever to make. It's supposed to be roughly 60-70 noble houses but it fluctuates no we won't design all those heh, this project gets so complicated on the simple things it's the detail Nal. nods I know it's probably not completely important but it's the effort I guess. the vision we'll include NPCs randomly... we'll probably include all players that are adopted by a noble House in the #9-#17 Houses if you build it, they will play not the Ruling Council ones... hehehe, does Sorn get relatives then? :P Thta's my only concern. Drow specifics are your guys forte, and I have no problem having no input, If I mention anything, it will be about general MMORPG gameplay, and player dynamics. yep, duskryn isn't on the top 8 much needed, Lod. Your input is valuable the Top 8 should remain NPC-driven so ensure book continuity well they are now :P at least in WotSQ Thanks to your friends Dyrr :P from 9-17 we can have players being adopted as nobles... if they want to create their own house, they can start by taking over House 18, so on and so forth... But size x detail = time. And time can equal zippo if it makes everyone so impatient that everyone loses interest. Everyone here is human. And a realistic competion date on the world must be set also, which will dictate content limitation, as detail can be time consuming... and I know detail... personally,,,, =P,,,LOL my one request.... I gotta hit the sack really soon and when they decide to do so (form a guild - Noble House) we will include an additional area for their house. Can we have House Duskryn filled with the NPC's I've created for it? Sorn - yes sure, why not thank you all those 17 houses will have NPCs and places in Menzo from the start well player death is next We can mix PC Death and PC Dynamics together I think Face yep I elect Bind points to affiliated temple structures... but I don;t know how to program leaving your items behind to wrap up tehre's still technicalities regarding player dynamics that will require a whole meeting by itself and Lod will be an exceptional asset for that one nods player death... i have the solution for it You shouldn;t have spot respawning, as it can get insanely expensive in lost exp if you run into a REALLY high level mob that you die 100 times from every time you respawn spot respawing is stupid this is what i think, and the benefits of affiliating yourself with a house, guild, etc... there is no respawn nope, dont like that 1 bit (I was considering simulating a rescue of the corpse in tact, to be taken to a temple and recovered with most of the inventory in place, but there should be a period of being out of commission while they recover.) play the game on a PW and you will find out why really quickly a player can be resurrected under certain circumstances: You must have respawn, or people won't play 1. Player belongs to a guild then player can "buy" respawns from another player or NPC within the guild... resurrection that is Wont work if a player is forced to wait for someone to ressurect them. And a DM will be OVERSTRESSED to have to play NPC clerics rezzing people all day that's why you script resurrect with an item... onDeath. Out on a limb here, but how about this. Unlimited respawn. Only side effect is a permanent loss of 1 con point each time. if you have it, respawn in guildhall... if you don't bye bye Then you are making a respawn script asa ressurect script, and changing the name ...LOL wait until someone res you but the respawn will be expandable and you would have to buy these "contigency" spells for a price that's if you're a commoner or part of a guild... The price should just be exp.... computer ganes are not live roleplaying and people can die fast. It can bankrupt a person if they have to "pay" everytime they die you can be part of a house and then you would be assigned a respawn point... Ressurection should not just be for the power gamers who have the cash to pay for it Lod, true, but I want it to be a "premeditated" thing ratehr than "i'm going around" and then you die and then you'd say yeah, here's my xp, respawn me you affiliate yourself to a guild that sells those things and you can buy one respawn at a time... time for night night XP or gold-wise im outty see ya nalf I like using the concept of: Your character is a Hero; there willl be those in the city who have an interest in keeoing you around, and the clerics in the temples will be happy to res anyone who dies in the service of Lolth (for a price) Night that will require certain degree of interaction between player-guild... rizo i disagree Alive without breath. As cold as death. Never thirsty, ever drinking. All in mail, never clinking. What am I? fisheses good Riz see yall night *waves * Nalfien has quit IRC (Quit: Bye bye) i think menzo should treat death as a serious thing definitely. if everyone can be raised, then whats the point in assassinations? There should be a major fear of dying. lloth would reward the killing if done right so the importance of player affiliation with a guild, house, etc... have the player that wants to start a guild worry about raising their characters... or we can script an NPC per guild to handle giving out respawn aka contigency rings My world design had character death happen this way ( mearly as an example). When you started, you were unaffiliated. If you died before you beacme affiliated to a god ( I have 16 gods in my world for affiliation), you would go to a "heavenly zone" to wait for a PC ressurection, or you could go to a "heavenly guide" and pay to be ressurected in exp). If you were affiliated, you would simply respwn at your affiliated temple,a nd that wouldn't happen in a city where the only major godess is CE and all otehr temples are persecuted... no need ofr rings since you do player respawn assignments through a SetLocalString(playername, GetModuleName, HouseRespawnWaypoint) script I think players should affiliate with an existing guild, create their own guild (requires money, xp & dm approval), or join a lesser noble house I also like the HCR system of corpse tokens. for lesser noble houses, the respawn would be easier... if you were member of a noble house then you would be respawned ont he temple (loss of XP)... just a benefit of belonging to a House... What are Corpse Tokens Riz? that's what I wanted to focus... Make it like real PnP playing. If you want to get your buddy to someone to Rez (if you csan't handle it yourselves) you have to make them light enough to carry, and manage to get your items and theirs to a safe place. and even though, you would be at the DM's discretion of being killed, if you were disobeying House rules... DMs would just RP the matron and execute players if they were misbehaving so you would have no respawns unless you were affiliated with a group... nobody can make ti on their own in Menzo kinda thing... Then that body becomes an inventory item that weighs the characters base weight, plus any items not removed from the corpse (container) prior to picking it up. So much for playing a pally in Menzo, lol exaclty! unless there is a pally guild we can have regular temple services for those who are not affiliated... but implementing the said HCR for corpses... i just don't see a priestess of lloth raising an elf though and that's the problme in menzo they wouldn't for any money, spend the time to cast a raise in lesser creatures so you would have to go to street necros or smt... I understand riz,,, I did something similar. When a person died, and they weren't affiliated (bound) for respawning. they went to "heaven". Exactly where they died, I made a shaft of light. In that shaft of light was a crystal that represented the life force of a person that anyone could carry around. When you placed it back on the ground, it turned back into a shaft of light, And cleric could cast rez on the shaft for respawni because all otehr religious groups are "secretive" there woulnd't be a temple of eilistraee for the cg characters to be raised... that's pretty cool... Very similar to that, Lod. sorn, any comments? rizo? how are we ahndling death? I'm not entirely sure Face I was commenting. I think. lol I like the thoughts on having the Corpse Token See the blue words above. I mean, it's more "realistic" than having the PC suddenly respawn. but i think lodrezzon has a point... death will occur, and to depend on otehrs to raise... It of course could be modified for your needs, but it basically is a token based system... like carrying the forefinger of your buddy back to Eveningstar to get a cleric of Lathander to rez ya for 10000 gold,, the dirty bastards it just wouldn't happen... i think we need to emphasize the benefits of adopting a house/guild in erms of death... among other things (discount on equip, etc) I know it may cause concern for our players, but we can sell it as the need we see for having a severe fear of death for our server. i don't think it would work... simply no respawn ppl would be either too afraid or the whole char app process would be wasted if a char dies on the first encounter with a cloaker... and he ahs to think about another char, or start the same one over again I agree. YOu should have bind points assigned by house affiliation, That is a great reward for working to get into houses. BUT, you need a way to get the normal Joe back to town... DO that by having a generic temple ( you know the gods better than I ), far waway from twon so its a apin in the ass to get back, for casual dying when you are not bound at a guild house We need a middle ground. we need respawn, but only to those that are eitehr on a noble house or a guild hmmm far away from town that is Lod -- i see your point, but i think for the regular town joe there should be a fear of death So, if they're miles from Menzo, and there are no Guildies around, they just appear back at the guild house with a little less XP? hence the need to make alliances, etc yes little or lot... make it a whole level... There is no advantage to being in a house if Joe idiot will respawn in Menzo.. make it far out there,,, so that dying is to be avoided, but respawn can still be achieved for the common man I think the Guildies should get them there, then there is less of a loss. i just think the common man shouldn't be respawned period... or House Members. Rizo... impractical imagine how many bodies todrag every time someone dies and who's going to go after bodies? Listen to what you're saying... the peron DIED. He's in need of being saved from death. yeah I think you have just designed a real reason for peopl to hate not being able to get into a house, unless its fairly easy. You die often in lower levels, and with 2000 people on a server, it was still hard to find a group. With 50, groups will be scarce, and dying will occur often, If people cant achieve house status before they die, then youve destroyed any reason to play in the game i know, but death will occur really a lot and every time a person dies he will have to wait for someone else to login and go all the way there to drag them back? they won't have anything else other than dragging cadavers back It should take a little more work than some repeated act of miraculous wonder that will happen every time you die, no matter where you are, as long as you are part of a group of mortals who form a guild. They should have reliable group members before venturing too far from safety you didn't get my "contigency" plan for respawn The fear of the Underdark (unknown) and lod, there is no level limit to jon a house you could go to tier breche (the academy) and work your way to level 5 pretty much death-free if you would like So the "idea" behind the world is to ONLY play with your friends. That makes a 24/7 open world difficult, but doable.... and it may be server death too ... a big gamble for all the work you on doing for Menzo and then be adopted by a house play with your friends... i don't think os since most of the houses will be mainly npcs If joining a house is easy ( resonably), then I say its great... But, if you may die before you get a bind point, the world is doomed,. hehe i want players to adopt a faction right away, be part of a guild or go to tier breche to "learn" no, the Academy would be quests death-free meaning, if you died, you would just consider incomplete quest, and be respawned back inthe academy... the only death-enabled quest inthe academy would be gradaution, which the player could take on 5th level or 15th... ... or basically "earn" a bind point as your first goal. Thats easy. But it must be made clear to people who are staring from the beginning. It cannot take 5 hours playing to understand how to get a bind point. That is bad world design This topic is hard to discuss at 2:30 AM. ok i guess rizogue has a point we still don't know how to handle death and sorn's asleep This should have come before some of those other topics. well... it should I want it to be resolved, but we all have different opinions on it. but we can catch up on that, maybe have each one of us design a "player-death" situation and see who has some valid points, and start form there THink about placing a character in a stasis zone, while their "soul: can be transported around for rezzing, or can be rezzed by any cleric. It would still require a concerted PC effort to get their friend rezzed, but it beats staring at a screen for 1 hour while you wait for a passing cleric to save yer dead butt basically a tokem system let's leave it for now... the important thing is that we'll have player apps going on whenever you feel like writing the rules, etc good point, lod... I like that system better than isaculous respawn at some predetermined location from anywhere on the server. but rizo it's just impractical to have everyone in a "dead zone" waiting to be dragged And remember, it is a video game, As you attempt to recreate reality, you may fail to realize a game is not about feeeding the babies, earing food for mama and paying taxes... its about "becoming" the hero inside you. and the world must facilitate that end over all else there will be ppl loggin in just to drag bodies back nods they want to have their lives... not just login to get your buddy who died last night, and even die inthe process But it's a role playing game at the same time. hehe, there will only be 50 ppl on at a time, the chances of mass extinction would be VERY slim, lol yeah, but what if most of those players are rescuing otehr player bodies, it owuld be tedious...